nina, the dragon slayer :)(thanks nick and rosemary for the costume)
.biscuits.très.chocolat.
Today I made my first recipe from Clotilde's cookbook, the very chocolate cookies.
And they are just that: like eating three bars of chocolate at the same time. Delicious! Arpi approves! (I made my cookies a bit bigger than the recipe suggests, so they are not as chubby as the original ones, but they are still very, very good.)
If you'd like to try them, come and see us in Vajta! :)
If you'd like to try them, come and see us in Vajta! :)
.amen.
we belive nina uttered her very first conscious full word last night. it was an amen after andi finished praying for dinner.
the funny thing was that after saying amen she started repeating other words as well, pupak for example (which is belly button in serbian/croatian), while pointing at her stomach.
maybe we should have started to teach her croatian/serbian in the first place, since she seems to be so good at it. last night was sort of a balkan night (we had a dinner with a serbian girl from bosnia who lives in austria now, a croat/slovene girl from croatia, and the two of us, hungarians from serbia with a bit of croatian background) and we spoke this mix of balkan languages during the entire dinner. it was fun!
the funny thing was that after saying amen she started repeating other words as well, pupak for example (which is belly button in serbian/croatian), while pointing at her stomach.
maybe we should have started to teach her croatian/serbian in the first place, since she seems to be so good at it. last night was sort of a balkan night (we had a dinner with a serbian girl from bosnia who lives in austria now, a croat/slovene girl from croatia, and the two of us, hungarians from serbia with a bit of croatian background) and we spoke this mix of balkan languages during the entire dinner. it was fun!
.meet.clotilde.
I love cooking and baking. I love collecting recipes. I could spend hours searching for and reading new recipes. I could spend hours in the cookbook section of bookstores. Part of me wishes that I could spend days on end just testing recipes, feeding them to large crowds (hopefully, appreciative ones), and then do some more cooking and baking.
Years ago I discovered that some recipe-sharing websites allow you to search by ingredient. So, since I had a bunch of zucchini on hand (it was their season) and was getting tired of sauteing them, I decided to do a search for that ingredient. And out came the recipe for zucchini chocolate cake. Intrigued by the name? So was I. So I gave it a shot. It has since become a family favorite, and I have become a pretty regular visitor of some of these websites, along with the one where this recipe came from. It was a link to a link to a link to here.
The writer of the blog is a young French woman, Clotilde Dusolier, whom I wish I could spend a week-end with, cooking and having gourmet fun. And then recently, my wonderful husband decided to buy me her book.
This book is amazing, and wonderful, and exactly how I think a cookbook should be, and exactly how I like cookbooks to be and the recipes, are - of course - oh, so interesting, and unusual but still doable and mouth-watering. I guess you could say that it's a cookbook after my own heart. If I were a kid, I would put it under my pillow at night for the next week or month or so. But I am not anymore, so I will instead soon try to make the Biscuits Trés Chocolat (Very Chocolate Cookies), or the Tarte Chocolat Caramel (Chocolate Caramel Tart), or the Cake Tomate Pistache et Chorizo (Tomato, Pistacho and Chorizo Loaf), or the ...
Years ago I discovered that some recipe-sharing websites allow you to search by ingredient. So, since I had a bunch of zucchini on hand (it was their season) and was getting tired of sauteing them, I decided to do a search for that ingredient. And out came the recipe for zucchini chocolate cake. Intrigued by the name? So was I. So I gave it a shot. It has since become a family favorite, and I have become a pretty regular visitor of some of these websites, along with the one where this recipe came from. It was a link to a link to a link to here.
The writer of the blog is a young French woman, Clotilde Dusolier, whom I wish I could spend a week-end with, cooking and having gourmet fun. And then recently, my wonderful husband decided to buy me her book.
This book is amazing, and wonderful, and exactly how I think a cookbook should be, and exactly how I like cookbooks to be and the recipes, are - of course - oh, so interesting, and unusual but still doable and mouth-watering. I guess you could say that it's a cookbook after my own heart. If I were a kid, I would put it under my pillow at night for the next week or month or so. But I am not anymore, so I will instead soon try to make the Biscuits Trés Chocolat (Very Chocolate Cookies), or the Tarte Chocolat Caramel (Chocolate Caramel Tart), or the Cake Tomate Pistache et Chorizo (Tomato, Pistacho and Chorizo Loaf), or the ...
.commitment.
i am so blessed to know that andi is committed to me and to replanting cacti. you see, we are trying to have at least one cactus (or any other kind of potted plant for that matter) survive at least one season in our home, but no such luck so far.i guess, what i have described with so many words here would be called love, or commitment in plain language :)
.mojo.
if i believed in mojo, or any other kind of magic charm, i would tell you that i have a very bad geek mojo going on right now. most of the things i touched during the last day acted funky or stopped working altogether. i am in desperate need of displaying some glorious geek bravado.
it all started with my laptop battery charger in the office. it only worked for a second, then it did not work for a second, so my laptop screen was flickering like a christmas display. the good thing is that when i tried a day later, it worked fine.after that came the brand new (and very brand fake) 16gb pen drive i purchased on ebay for dirt cheap from a very reliable (i am naïve, you can laugh at me) seller in hong kong. my precious posession started corrupting files (not quite what you want from a pen drive) and stopped working altogether after owning it for less than a day.
thirdly, it was time for the internet to mess up my life. i am not going to go into details, but let me just tell you that i wasn't able to complete any of the tasks planned for yesterday. my to-do list now is longer than it was yesterday morning - always a bad sign.then it was time for a very reliable product marketed by steve jobs (namely the ipod nano we own) to just stop working altogether. no signs of life, no flickering, not even a half-eaten silver apple to reassure me that there is still a chance to enjoy this ridiculously overpriced product.
i really hope this is it for today. if not, i will make sure to give you further updates for your entertainment - if my laptop will be working, that is...
.outreach.
One of the last things Jesus told his disciples before leaving this earth, was:
Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. (Gospel of Mark 16:15)
One of the coolest (among many) things about the Bible College we live and serve at, is that each semester, the students go out for a 10-day outreach to do exactly that: preach the Gospel. This semester's departure day is today, October 17th, and they are going to the following countries:
Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. (Gospel of Mark 16:15)
One of the coolest (among many) things about the Bible College we live and serve at, is that each semester, the students go out for a 10-day outreach to do exactly that: preach the Gospel. This semester's departure day is today, October 17th, and they are going to the following countries:
- India
- Kosovo
- England
- Ukraine
- Romania
- Hungary
- Moldova
.multicultural.experience.in.the.hospital.
If you speak Hungarian, and would like to have a good laugh, read this post by our good friend, Trudy. She and her husband are Americans, living in Hungary. Her husband, Russ was hospitalized for a few days recently, and Trudy wrote a great post on Russ's experience as a foreigner in the Hungarian medical system. We enjoyed it tremendously, and we know you will too!
.picasso.dali.klimt....here.i.come.
during the last few weeks nina has shown an increasing interest in pens and paper, so crayons were purchased, much to her delight. she was amazed when discovering her box of crayons this afternoon and immeditately went to work.
you may think this is foolish of us to publish this, but i guess parenthood makes you do all the clichés you smiled at before becoming a parent.
you may think this is foolish of us to publish this, but i guess parenthood makes you do all the clichés you smiled at before becoming a parent.
hard at work
anyone got an appropriate frame for this?.summer.in.pictures.
it is very cold in the mornings. well, it is october, you may say, and you are right. it is october, and october is a fall month.
anyway, i was looking at summer pictures to warm me up, and decided to share some that haven't been shared so far.
anyway, i was looking at summer pictures to warm me up, and decided to share some that haven't been shared so far.
.what.the...
Nowadays, more and more things that we use are manufactured in China. I really have nothing against that fact, or against the Chinese people as a whole. I just wish that the companies that make some of these products would hire someone who speaks proper English, in order to double-check all the things they write on these products.
Until they do, Arpi and I will continue to have a good laugh every once in a while - upon discovering the latest weird "English" word.
Here's the object of our latest cheerful moment:
Until they do, Arpi and I will continue to have a good laugh every once in a while - upon discovering the latest weird "English" word.
Here's the object of our latest cheerful moment:
What is the problem here? Take a closer look!
Although this was only a miniature box of washing powder from a toy kitchen set, the questions still remain:
Or, if you have any similarly weird texts from a product, we would love to have you share.
Let's all have a good laugh!
- What on earth is senior washing powder? (Is it perhaps to be used only by the elderly?)
- What does forever whiteness mean? 'Cause if it means that once I have washed my clothes with this powder, they will never get soiled again, then bring it on! I want this powder in my house!
- The absolute favourite is do-it-yourselfery. What ?!?!?!
Or, if you have any similarly weird texts from a product, we would love to have you share.
Let's all have a good laugh!
.beautiful.slovenia.
This past week-end, we were blessed to go to Celje (Slovenia) to attend the wedding of our friends, Justin and Erin. The wedding was beautiful, held in a picturesque setting on a mountaintop.
Here are some pictures to show you the reason why we are now in love with Slovenia, and wish we could spend every week-end there...
Here are some pictures to show you the reason why we are now in love with Slovenia, and wish we could spend every week-end there...
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