Exploring the German Heritage of Romania

"Summer is awful...there's too much pressure to enjoy yourself..."

A friend of ours recently posted a cartoon with that line and my immediate thought was "I know...right?" Because seriously, who wants to spend a beautiful, warm sunny day inside on a computer writing silly blog entries that about 4 people might read. But I suppose someone's gotta appease the masses, so here it is.

Summer in Moldova is a delightful time of year; the markets are full of seasonal fruit that is bursting with bright colors and flavors, and it appears it is perfectly acceptable to steal cherries/nectarines/any other random fruit off your neighbor's trees if they happen to extend into the street or your yard. Moreover, your neighbors might just give you an entire giant bucket of cherries "with meat" {aka worms} with a giant grin on their faces and wish you "to be healthy". Last month we were invited {or we may have invited ourselves} to our friend's village and his parents have the most glorious raspberry patch I have ever set foot in: golden raspberries and plump juicy red ones for yards and yards. They let us raid it and I was like a kid in a candy store.

This was from a few years ago with my friend Anna...you see what I mean;
I just get excited about raspberries...I can't help it!

You start eating unreasonable things for breakfast...

...and dessert.

At the local lake a few weeks ago where I take Ronald for walks, I noticed an increasing number of sweet old men fishing, and an alarming number of scantily clad people at the little "beach" they have there...think old fat dudes wearing thongs. Yeah. Or hilarious women {of all shapes & sizes} tanning standing up or in any one of many unusual positions...which is a new technique to me. It was duly noted.

I was struck, once again, by the seasonality of life here. There is a time for everything, and when the time comes for something in particular, like during cherry season, Moldovan's fully take it in. They make compote {a sweetened and canned fruit drink} and cherry placinte {which are like cherry pies}. Slightly before the cherries were fully ripe on the trees, we had some Moldovan friends over and they asked me, excitedly, if I knew my neighbors, and that if I didn't I better get to know them quick {!} because they had a cherry tree! They've got a radar for these sorts of things. The passing of time is marked by nature more so than by calendars or schedules, and I find it refreshing.

My in-laws came to visit us last month and when we were planning their visit and had to come up with what we would show them around Moldova, naturally, our first thought was to get the heck outta here go to Romania! Just kidding, there are many lovely things to do in Moldova {and we did do them all} but given Michael's Mother's German background we thought it would be cool to explore the region in Romania that was historically settled by Germans. And cool it was.

We stayed in a lovely log cabin in Bran {a few minutes from amazing hiking trails and Dracula's Castle}, then took day trips to both Sibiu & Brasov. Here are some shots from our travels...

View from the Log Cabin we rented...

Just lounging by the fireplace...

Hey.

The most dreamy little mountain village ever.

Notice the Hollywood-like "Brasov" sign in the hills...

The Black Church...

Sheep dog, literally.

The Door to Bran Castle...

Passion Fruit Cheesecake

Some Embassies around the world are able to place collective orders for food & groceries from Military Bases within a reasonable distance and have them delivered via refrigerated truck; Moldova is one of those magical places. Last fall I placed an order and even though I was warned about the fact that one had to purchase all the goods in bulk, I foolishly decided to order an entire case of cream cheese. It's not that they don't have cream cheese here, it's just that it comes in tiny tubs and is quite pricey and I was going through {what at the time I thought was} a lot of it by making frosting for my cupcakes & blending some in soups, dips, etc. Well, once I received my freakish amount of cream cheese I realized I better figure out what the heck to do with it before it expired. I had read about how it doesn't really freeze very well, so among other things, I decided to throw together a few cheesecakes to use them up. But alas, no "sneakily try to use up good ingredients before they go bad" plan of mine ever goes unthwarted: how was I going to make a cheesecake if I didn't have graham crackers and refused to substitute them for some kind of mystery crackers from the local grocery store? If you're me and you're crazy, you immediately think, "I wonder if I can make my own graham crackers..." and look up recipes on the internet. Most reasonable people would stop there and realize that their time & effort is much more valuable than the allure of home-made laborious baked goods {that would eventually be crushed into another recipe as one (!) ingredient among many others}, however, I appear to be rather unreasonable and proceeded willy-nilly without thinking it through.
My mom came up with the brilliant idea once to make a cheesecake with maracuja, or Passion Fruit. It is probably my favorite fruit of all time, to the extent that all my cousins in Brazil are constantly giving me maracuja themed gifts like soaps and chewing gum. Unfortunately, even though they sell fresh passion fruit here {shockingly} it is prohibitively expensive {who is buying that stuff here boggles my mind, much like all of the products in the extensive asian food aisle} and I was all out of my little magic bottle of passion fruit concentrate that I had brought with me. So I decided to substitute the passion fruit for frozen berries {yet another ill-conceived bulk purchase}. After countless hours in the kitchen, I froze those suckers for some far-off dinner party and practically forgot about them. Until last week; when I needed something for a game-night we were having with some Moldovan friends and let me tell ya, they were a bigger hit than I could have even imagined. I was getting all kinds of texts the next day about it, including things like "You are an awesome master!" and "Enjoying an unbeliveable good cake..." and even this past weekend those same friends were still reminiscing about the cheesecake-who knew?

Berry-Lemon Cheesecakes

A few years ago I submitted a recipe for my Mom's Passion Fruit Cheesecake to a magazine: they had a contest for subscribers which included several guidelines, one of them being that the recipe had to include "honey" as a main ingredient. Well, I figured I had a shot with this cheesecake recipe even though honey is only in the topping because it is soooooo good. I should admit that I am extremely indebted to Anna Davidson {the owner and genius behind Blackberry Market to whom I owe most of my culinary success and talent} for helping tweak this recipe. This is from the original submission to the magazine, and if you want to make the berry variation, just substitute the passion fruit for the same amount of berries and the zest & juice of a lemon.

My mom is this sweet little Brazilian woman who rarely ventures near the oven but when she does—it’s magical. In fact, because she hates baking so much, she would make me bake cookies and brownies growing up because she still liked eating all the baked goods! So I can thank her for propelling me into the world of baking. She created the original version of this cheesecake by adding maracuja (passion fruit), a very common ingredient in Brazilian cuisine, to a regular cheesecake recipe. I have since tweaked that original a little bit.

The key for me is actually the topping: I could eat the topping by itself all day. I was inspired to create it after eating a delicious French Toast dish at a local restaurant that was topped with a passion fruit sauce of some sort. There is something about the tartness of the passion fruit mixed with the sweetness of the honey that is intoxicating. While adding passion fruit to the batter enhances the flavor of the cheesecake and its light and airy consistency, the real flavor is infused through the honey glaze.

I love this cheesecake so much that I, personally and crazily, made mini passion fruit cheesecakes for my own wedding! Here is a photo below taken by our wedding photographer:

Photo Courtesy of Tony Hoffer from Hoffer Photography

Ingredients

For the crust:

1 ¼ cup graham cracker crumbs

1 ½ T sugar

2 ½ oz butter, melted

For the filling:

16 oz softened cream cheese

1 cup sugar

½ cup passion fruit concentrate (can be found in Brazilian stores as Maracuja or ordered online—comes frozen and can be called passion fruit puree)

¼ cup sour cream

¼ t vanilla

1 T all-purpose flour

3 eggs, lightly beaten

For the topping:

Fresh berries (raspberries, strawberries, blueberries)

¼ cup Passion Fruit Concentrate

¼ cup Honey

Fresh mint leaves, for decoration.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 300º

Mix the melted butter, sugar and graham cracker crumbs to make the crust. Place mixture in an 8-inch spring form pan and pack down, evenly, to create the crust. Bake for 10-15 minutes until it sets.

In a mixer fitted with a paddle, beat the cream cheese with the sugar until fluffy. Add the passion fruit concentrate, sour cream, vanilla and flour and mix until smooth and well incorporated. Add the eggs and mix just until incorporated—DO NOT OVERBEAT THE EGGS! You might even want to fold them in by hand.

Pour batter into the pan, and bake (low and slow) for at least 1 hour, until the top is a little golden and the cheesecake is firm. Let cool, and then place either in the freezer or refrigerator to cool. For clean-cut slices of cheesecake it is best to freeze it, cut it while frozen, and defrost before eating.

For the topping, mix the passion fruit concentrate with the honey, adjusting for sweetness as desired. Top the cooled cheesecake with the berries, mint, and the honey mixture.

Enjoy! 

Turkey

Today marks our seventh month at post, although I'm not sure I should really count it as seven months in Moldova because I sort of spent a month of that out of the country; first in the US and most recently in Turkey. I was just telling Michael Ball the other day while I drove him to work how before we got here, I kept imagining how different life would be in Moldova for us. How the boulevards and plazas, the people & society seemed so foreign at that time, but now, I don't even give a second glance when I drive past them. I guess part of feeling "at home" involves being able to ignore your surroundings.

Every year Turkish Airlines decides to come out with a crazy deal on fares to all sorts of interesting places from Chisinau, including Istanbul. So, back in January we decided to book a few flights and plan a spring getaway with some friends.

To be perfectly honest, I wasn't particularly excited about going. I don't know if I had just been watching too many documentaries about poor Moldovan women who had been trafficked there or if the recent bombing of our Embassy in the capital was tainting my opinions. After all, it was a sober reminder that we are not as openly embraced in many parts of the world as we are here in Moldova.

I was aware that the Ottomans ruled a shockingly large portion of this part of the world back in the day, but I must admit that I didn't know much else about Turkey. I knew a few factoids here and there...like the fact that in the Romanian language the majority of the words {yes, plural & very telling} they have for "bribe" have Turkish roots. Therefore, I began researching the place and created a Pinterest Board {naturally} with some ideas. Our friends also did some research and planning {most of it I might add} and the result was delightful.

We absolutely loved Turkey. It helped that it was significantly warmer than Moldova, but in general it was just lovely. The people were warm & hospitable, they love children {which is a plus when traveling with three of them}, the food was great, the terrain plush & mountainous, and they have more ruins & historical sites than they know what to do with. We spent a few days along the coast and visited a Crusader Fortress, then spent a day road-tripping from ruin to ruin including Pammukale, where there are thermal pools famous for being the same ones Cleopatra swam in, a few days near Ephesus in a little town in the mountains called "Pleasantness" and the remainder of our time in Istanbul, visiting the Spice Market, the Hagia Sophia & Blue Mosque, and on Easter Sunday took a boat ride on the Bosphorus River.

Traveling with kids also brought back many memories of my own childhood, where my parents took me when I was that age and how I viewed the world at that time. I have vague recollections of them taking me to the ruins of Teotihuacan right outside Mexico City and to museums with Diego Rivera's famous murals whenever we had visitors. I also remember the many road trips we went on as a family, within the US and back and forth between the US & Mexico.

Personally, I welcome anything that prompts me to stop for a moment and reflect on my life, on the wonderful people who have surrounded me and on the many rich experiences I have been blessed to have had, however little they were probably appreciated at the time. This trip was just that, and I am grateful for the opportunity. I might even have to go back there before we leave Moldova if Turkish Airlines has a crazy sale again!

Oh, and I took a ridiculous amount of pictures, which I have {graciously} curated down to a handful for this blog entry.

Crusader Fortress

Windmills along the Coast

Painted Bird in a Terraced House | Textile Market | Library

Library in Ephesus

Thermal Pool | Pammukale

In the little town of "pleasantness".  Couldn't agree more...

There is a story that the village was settled by freed Greek slaves who named the village Cirkince (meaning "Ugly" in Turkish) to deter others from following them. The village's name was changed to Sirince (meaning "Pleasant") in 1926 by the governor of Izmir Province. 

Temple to Artemis

View from our Hotel Window on Easter Sunday | Istanbul

Hagia Sophia

Boat ride on the Bosphorus

Did you hear about the race between the lettuce and the tomato?

The lettuce was a "head" and the tomato was trying to "ketchup"!

Well, that's the best vegetable joke I could come up with after scouring the internet for some clever way of introducing this blog entry. I signed up for this quasi-CSA program started by a former Peace Corps Volunteer here in Moldova who married a Moldovan and stayed here to work on their farm, Eco Valley. Every week I get a magic mystery bag full of fresh veggies.

As delightful as this sounds, it does create a unique set of challenges, as I don't want any of it to go to waste. Some things have a longer shelf life than others and some can be frozen to preserve them, although this is not the case with all. Lettuce happens to be one that doesn't freeze very well. And the first couple of bags from Eco Valley that I have received have had quite a bit of it.

So I have had to come up with some recipes to eat up all these greens...and even though I discovered a number of recipes that involved cooking the lettuce {the likes of casseroles & soups} the thought if it still kind of creeps me out. Here are a few that I actually did make.

Salad
Our latest salad kick involves greens, goat cheese, green apple, roasted pecans & an olive oil, garlic & honey-lemon dressing. We have our friend Hannah to thank for this magical combination.

Spring Rolls
From Eco Valley I used radishes, spring onions, lettuce & spinach. I supplemented with carrots & shrimp and would have loved to have added some fresh herbs such as basil, mint & cilantro {honestly, if felt like a crime to omit them} but alas, I did not have any on hand. I made a simple peanut dipping sauce to go with them.

Lettuce Wraps
I didn't have the ingredients to make this P.F. Chang's version, so I improvised and they turned out alright. It was my first time making the crunchy rice noodle thingies {I used this gal's blog for guidance} and I am proud to say I only burned a few.

Green Smoothie
Spinach, Green Apple, Pineapple, Mint. If I would have had a few other ingredients {yogurt? juice? berries?} on hand I probably would have added them in. And I would try to use my immersion blender instead of my food processor...or invest in a real blender some day since the consistency ended up being a little too chunky for my liking.

And the runner-up veggie jokes were...

Why do potatoes always argue?

Because they can never see eye to eye.

Why did the carrot get embarrassed?

Because it saw the chick "pea"!

Why shouldn't you tell secrets in a cornfield?

There are too many ears!

Some thoughts on Traveling…

My capacity for self-deception becomes evident to me every single time I travel.

First, I have this delusion that I’m some sort of “experienced” traveler, that I “pack light” or only take “the necessities” when I hit the road. But when it turns out you’re THAT lady at the airport, with a long line of impatient travelers behind you, madly scrambling about and shifting the contents of your suitcases all over the place to not go over the limit {who knew the giant tub of guacamole you bought at Costco would weigh so much and also be considered a liquid or gel by the TSA?} it really causes you to reflect on the nature of your packing skills, or lack there-of. I might add it is also thoroughly embarrassing when you can’t even lift your carry-on suitcase {sans-guacamole} up to the overhead compartment because the rock-like contents {cheese, books, assorted jars, unreasonable amounts of electronics, bark collars, what else of course?} prevent you from doing so. This, in turn, reinforces the fact that you are a weakling and also raises a few suspicious eyebrows as to what could possibly weigh so much when the strong man you have managed to recruit also experiences a certain level of difficulty lifting your ridiculous suitcase.

My friend Val “shattered my glass” about this a few years ago when she told me, in passing, that she always thought of me as the type of girl who “always carried around a bunch of bags.” Much to my chagrin, she was right. Even on short road trips where most people would probably bring 1 bag, two at most, I somehow manage to have to make multiple trips to the car with all my junk; there’s the “snack” bag and then a cooler "bag" for drinks or snacks that need refrigeration, my dog’s bag, my own bag, a camera bag, my purse, a hostess gift if we're going to someone's house…I could go on…you can see I am an absurd human being and fit the description perfectly of "a girl who carries around a bunch of bags."

Another imaginary characteristic I like to pretend I possess, is that I think {somehow} I will manage to use all of those hours on planes and connecting airports in some kind of a productive manner. Reading the plethora of books I managed to stuff into my luggage, writing letters, listening to sermons or podcasts, maybe even writing “blog” entries or ideas…I even consider sleep productive under the circumstances, but before I know it, I’ve generally spent the entire time watching a few kids movies, usually some sort of drama, a Bollywood film & a handful of documentaries or tv shows. For the record, “Wreck it Ralph” was my favorite of the kid’s movies I watched this time around, “English Vinglish” was actually pretty good as far as Bollywood films go, and “Siberia Teaches” was a very interesting documentary about urban snowboarding in Siberia {side note: while trying to find a link to this documentary I stumbled upon this amazing music video of Ethnic Siberian Music}.

I suppose one could argue that watching movies isn’t entirely non-productive. It keeps me up-to-date with some significant cultural elements of American Society {and Indian Society for that matter} and prevents me from being swallowed up by boredom, I guess.

For some reason I am also always thinking that I’ll get unprecedented amounts of reading done while I am traveling. I have never been on a trip where I actually wish I had another book and didn’t. And yet, I generally pack at least 2, sometimes 3. I try to rationalize this by claiming that the genre of the book will have some sort of effect on my desire to read; sometimes a girl just wants to read a novel, or sometimes a book about economics…you never know which Steph will show up on the plane. But I never finish more than one. Most of the time, I don’t even finish any.

When I studied abroad in Cuba, I was going to go on a little side-backpacking-trip through the southern mountainous region, including scaling their tallest peak, Pico Turquino. I had a small backpack, which needed to have supplies that would last me about a week. Some of that time was going to be spent on trains, buses and otherwise promising places to read a book {nevermind that I have a tendency to get a bit queasy}, so what did I pack? Super high-tech and light-weight camping equipment? Nope. A hard-cover copy of the Brothers Karamazov, by Dostoevsky. Have you seen that book?!? It’s HUGE! Did I even have a headlamp for reading in the wilderness where we were camping you ask? The answer is no. Did I read any of it? Not that I can remember. Did the Cubans think I was an idiot? Probably.

Catching a ride for the first 1000 meters...

Group shot with the bust of Jose Marti at the peak...

***I am happy to report that I finished one book on this last trip: “Ethnic America” by Thomas Sowell {I love that guy!} which I would highly recommend. He is brilliant and insightful and I only wish he hadn’t written the book in the 80’s because I feel like he kinda left me hanging…but nonetheless it was super interesting.

With the amount of traveling I have signed myself up for, I better start making some changes…or else you may hear about this in some unfortunate later blog post.