Three generations behind the stove

Hello everyone! Dobar dan!

Since I am in Croatia over the Easter break I was convinced that our requested blog post is going to write by itself because every time I am here, there is constantly some deliciousness served on the table. It took me a while to choose the right recipe to write about but then I thought: Why focus on one recipe when I can show you a few meals I cooked with my grandmother and my mother? So here you are and I hope you enjoy it!

First things first, let’s start with the main course: chump chop with cooked cabbage.

In a bowl, combine oil, lemon, and thyme. Season to taste and pour it over the meat. Set aside for at least 20 minutes. Turn occasionally. Heat a pan for about 5 minutes on full heat, add oil and next the chops. Fry on each side until evenly browned all over. Rub some garlic and parsley over the hot meat and lay it in a large dish, covered.

Meanwhile cook the cabbage in salted water. Melt butter in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat, add flour and paprika powder and stir until thickened - add water if needed. Then add the cooked cabbage, some water, salt and pepper and cook a further 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Season to taste and serve warm beside the chump chop.

Secondly, there's always room for dessert, especially for „Fritule“, a Croatian pastry resembling little doughnuts. Bite-sized snacks always go down well. ;)

                                      Ingredients:

• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 packages vanilla sugar
• pinch salt
• 2 tbsp white sugar
• 20 tbsp plain flour
• 1 package baking powder
• oil for frying
• 1 tbsp brandy
• zest of 1 lemon
• powdered sugar

Mix the plain flour and sugar together. Add the beaten eggs, lemon zest, vanilla sugar and brandy. Stir together well. Add some milk if necessary. You can use a whisk to mix the dough to make sure everything is well combined and that there are no lumps left. You should have a batter which has a dropping consistency, if it is a little thick, add a splash more milk. In a small pot, heat oil and quickly drop teaspoonfuls of the batter into the boiling oil – until you have around 8-10 cooking. Fry the mini doughnuts on all sides, until they are golden brown (1-3 minutes in total). Carefully take out the „Fritule“using a spoon and drain in a bowl lined with kitchen paper. Once they are all cooked, sprinkle them with powdered sugar and serve them warm. Basically, nobody can resist those little bites - they will disappear immediately.

Wait a minute. Did you think that I am going to show you some fish recipes because, well, I am in Croatia? You’re right!

Last but not least, I am going to show you my first attempt to make fish. It didn’t turn out at all like my mother’s, but at least eatable as well as my Swiss chard.

Say hello to my fishy friends!

  

Lets start with the fish. You will need:

• 5 grey mullets
• salt, black pepper, parsley
• garlic
• onion
• juice of 1 lemon
• olive oil

Directions:

Mix olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic and parsley together in a bowl until well combined. Place three of the grey mullets into a dish, pour over the marinade and rub it into the fish. Set aside to marinate for about 30 minutes. Preheat a pan and put oil in it. Grill the fish for 2-3 minutes on each side. Obviously, I grilled it for a few more minutes. When done, baste the fish with the lemon juice.

You could use the other two fishes to make some fish soup, like I did. Just add olive oil, salt, black pepper, garlic, onion and laurel leaf into a pot. Bring it to the boil with some water. Add the fish. Be sure to stop cooking when the fish is just shy of done, otherwise, it will overcook.

Now, the side dish: cooked Swiss chard                                 

                                          Ingredients:

• 1 pound Swiss chard (or other greens)
• 1 pound potatoes, peeled and cut into quarters
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 3-4 large garlic gloves, peeled and minced
• salt and cracked black pepper

    Directions: 

Wash the chard and trim the stems, then cut everything into pieces. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, then add potatoes and cook until almost tender (about 20 minutes). 
Add the stems from the chard and cook another 10 minutes, then add the leaves and cook until wilted. Drain the potatoes and chard very well in a colander. In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat and add the garlic. Season the oil with salt and pepper. Add the Swiss chard and potatoes, and then cook over medium heat. Stir often and mash the potatoes gently while they cook. Taste, and adjust seasonings as needed – serve warm beside the grey mullets and enjoy. 

Who am I?

Actually, that’s a good question. The last few days I was intensely thinking about how to describe myself because it is really hard to squeeze your whole life and you as person into a blog post. My name is Monika, I’m 23 years old and I’m born in Carinthia where I grew up bilingually like the most of my study mates whose surnames end with an “-ić“. As my parents come from Croatia we spent every summer holidays there until I became 16 and got my first holiday job in Austria. I miss those good old days from my childhood. Still, I didn't manage to find out where I really belong. To requote a sentence from the book “Balkanizer” from Danko Rabrenović: 

„I’m the happiest while sitting in the plane travelling between Germany and Serbia - doesn’t matter in what direction.” 

I’d recommend this book to everyone who is in a similar situation as me – having the feeling to belong everywhere and nowhere at the same time and I know there are a lot of people out there.

Apart from that I love baking (as you’re going to find out soon), travelling - who doesn’t if there is enough time /money - and good music. There isn’t any specific music I listen to but I don’t much like jazz. When I’m in a bad mood I mostly listen to Croatian music because there is something special about this music I can’t really explain that cheers me up. 

Here’s one example =)

Recently I started organizing my cousins wedding and it’s quite an honour that people trust you so much and ask you to organize one of their most important days in their lives. I’m going to tell you in a following post what I’ve reached so far, as I have to create the corsages, the invitation cards and the whole decoration of the restaurant.

In addition to studying, baking, travelling and organizing someone’s wedding, I have a part-time job as a telephonist. I like the job because it is often really amusing. I like my colleagues, my boss and I it takes me only about 15 minutes by bus to get there. Working with people is something I really enjoy but of course there are sometimes those people who are mess with my head more than they should.

Another thing I feel passionate about is drawing and painting. A lot of my family members are creative in some way but my cousin and I like the drawing and painting part. I feel that her pictures are much better than mine but here are two pictures – so feel free to make your own opinion and maybe let me know what you think about it. The picture with the elephants is one of mine and the one with the deer is one of my cousins paintings.

At this point I want to finish my post. If you liked it let me know, if you didn’t like the post let me also know or if you just want to know something more in detail, feel free to leave me a comment. I’m looking forward to hear from you and getting to know all of you guys better.

I wish you a nice evening...

Who am I?

Hello! Guten Tag! Dobar Dan!

I have actually never thought about a person behind a blog I have read. Have you? Maybe because there is no possibility a simple blog post could reveal something truthful about a person, except he/she is writing it on purpose. And this, my dear reader, is exactly what I am going to do!
Too little people consider themselves important enough to write about, while it seems like posting something about food, clothes, music or travelling is more necessary. Why is that so? What could be more important than yourself? Asking myself the same thing, I got nowhere. The constant and most recurring question: Who am I? 

My name is Gabriela Penic, I am nineteen years old. My parents are both from Croatia, more precisely my mother is from Sinj and my father is from Bajagic, a small village nearby Sinj. 

Sinj

I was born and raised in Spittal, in Austria. My two elder brothers Ivan (29), Mario (23) and I, we grew up bilingual. That would explain my greeting: "Dobar dan", which, obviously, means "Hello" in Croatian.

I am a very open-minded person who loves to talk a lot (really.. A LOT). Therefore it´s easy for me to meet new people and to make new friends. Self-confident is one of the adjectives which describe me the best. I don´t consider it as a bad quality anymore, like I used to, because self-confidence is often seen equal to being conceited. I don´t really care what people may think about me anymore, as long as I like myself the way I am. A negative mind will never give you a positive life, period!

Thinking further about who I am, I tried to find things in my room which say a lot about me. Not as easy as it seems at first, because basically all of my stuff is in Graz and not at home anymore. However, one thing caught my eye: my bedroom door repleted with pictures I cut out of magazines. I guess it reflect my creative vein, which I am proud of but which is neglected at the same time. 
Additionally, music is one of my other passions. I used to play the piano and the violin since I was seven years old, but as soon as I got older my interests began to change and I stopped playing - not uncommon for kids. After all these years I definitely miss it and I absolutely regret quitting my piano lessons. That´s why I persuade myself to play every time I come back home and I really enjoy it because I am playing modern songs I like. It´s much easier to learn playing new songs nowadays, thanks to a variety of websites on the Internet, such as YouTube. 
By the way, this makes me realize I should finally manage to play through "River Flows In You" in once. If you want to relearn playing the piano like I do and you want to start with a beautiful song that comes with an easy tutorial - You will kill two birds with one stone with this one right here: 

Who am I?

Hi you :)

My name is Viktoria and I'm 20 years old. First of all,

• 
• And because I have Croatian, more precisely, Dalmatian blood running trough my veins, I'm more than happy to tell you some facts about me, myself and I. I was born and raised in a lovely small town located in central Dalmatia called Šibenik. It is one of the oldest native Croatian towns on the eastern shores of the Adriatic.
•                           

With a population of 40, 000, Šibenik is one of those towns where everyone knows everyone and where everyone is living under the one same simple rule : "POMALO" which cannot really be translated but it basically means that we should all just relax and take it easy, without much hurry, because hey, you only live once. 


                                

                                  Btw, this is actually the way we communicate. Crazy, right?


Aside from being lucky growing up in a carefree environment I was surrounded with a loving family as well. Surrounded by the sea, smiling people and lots of natural beauties, I would say that I was pretty much blessed. Although Šibenik is a wonderful place to live in, there are not so many things you can do. Because of that, I never truly had a chance to develop any of my talents. I'm one of those people who just can't decide in what they are most interested in.


                                          

I would gladly write about the instrument I play or about how awesome my karate tricks are and stuff like that, but the truth is, I can't. If I had a chance growing up in a bigger town with bigger opportunities, I would probably start playing an instrument, perhaps the violin or the cello or I would dance my heart out at the local dance studio. Who knows. Still, I'm thankful for all the opportunities I had. Between the age of 8 and 16 I tried out a lot of activities.Through the years, I've experienced a lot of different dance styles ( ballet, hip-hop, jumpstyle, zumba, cheerleading). I also attended acting classes in school and while preparing for a few musicals organized by the main Church. The memories of me spending most of my free time with the Church community are, I would say, the best ones I have. Especially the memories of me singing in a choir. I know it probably sounds boring, but it was super exciting and pretty much the only place where I could express myself.

Anyways, you know how they say. Life goes on. There are still plenty of goals in my pocket that I want to achieve. Aaand that would be pretty much it for now. Feel free to comment or ask questions. I'm looking forward to it :)

Who am I?

Hello to all of you!

The main thing to know about me is my name, Jelena. Born in Zagreb, Croatia, and partially raised in Austria and Croatia is what resulted in growing up bilingually. This led to me ending up at the ITAT and taking the English and German courses. At the moment I live with my sister in Graz, but I don’t plan on staying here longer than it is necessary. You see, I want to move to Australia after finishing University and settle there. Unlike many of my colleagues, I never had the chance to travel outside of Europe and therefore I cannot wait until I will finally be able to make those kind of experiences and memories. As far as my interests are concerned, I absolutely love to read, but lately I somehow can’t find the extra time to do so because of all the everyday hustle and bustle. Another thing about me (which shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone) are my love for makeup and fashion. I haven’t mentioned Tumblr yet, the social platform where I get all of my inspiration from when it comes to makeup and fashion. Yes, I am obsessed with Tumblr, and yes, I approximately spend almost two hours per day on it. But I’m not as crazy as I probably come off right now; I'm actually a very active person. The healthy lifestyle has played a major role in my life for the past year and therefore I started doing fitness almost on a daily basis. To me, the fitness studio is a place where I can blow off my steam, regenerate and boost my energy. Oh, I forgot to tell you what an absolute anti-talent I am when it comes to music. Not only have I never played any instrument (I tried to learn playing the guitar, however it ended unsuccessfully), but I am also tone deaf. Funny, because music is a part of my life which I cannot live without and whenever I feel under the weather, music is the only thing that will cheer me up.

A picture is worth a thousand words :)







At this point, I think I have given you enough information about myself. If you are interested in finding out more about me, you are more than welcome to approach me and we can hang out with a cup of coffee and chit chat! :)

Who am I?

Hi y’all!

„So, tell me a little about yourself! “ How many times have you heard that one before? Do you like that question? I don’t even know where to start when someone asks me, so I don’t like that one in particular. It is always like „Do you want me to start at the beginning or do you want to hear the polished version? “ There are really a lot of things I am interested in. These are just a couple of important ones to be able to get a picture of who I am.

I could write about all the great places that I visited and about this and that course I participated in. You see, the reality is I haven’t visited any exciting places nor have I ever had the chance to take part in a course or, say, a play. Not that I wasn’t interested in it, on the contrary I would have loved to take piano lessons or visit Disneyworld. So ever since I was a kid I had to spice up my life my own way. Due to having a lot of siblings it was never boring at home. My big brothers and I have always been the comedians in our family – everything was and is inspiration to make a joke out of. This was when I developed my interests in mimicking accents and voices as well as imitating people and re-enacting scenes. My main goal was to make people laugh. Coming from a tough environment this was the only way to bring joy into the lives of my siblings and me. Sometimes it was more on the sarcastic side - but hey - a little bit of everything makes the dish better, doesn’t it? 

                          

However, making jokes and people laugh was not what I was doing for the past two decades. I have always been the happiest when I could borrow a new book from the library, because that was when I really parted with the reality and it relaxed me. Not only am I a bookworm, but also I like to write stories and years ago I had started to write a book which I will hopefully finish one day. The thing with me is I am constantly on the edge and like to get something done immediately otherwise I feel anxious. 

I guess until now you may have noticed that I like to express myself creatively and through various forms of arts. While I lived in Zagreb, Croatia, I attended the School of Applied Arts and Design to become a textile designer. Through this school I learned a lot about art itself as well as what results from a brush, some tempera and the right applied techniques. Now this is where makeup joins the party. During my schooling I fell in love with the art of makeup – the art of simply prettifying someone’s face in order to make their natural assets more noticeable. Makeup is one of my biggest passions. Except that, pretty much everything from the artistic circles draws my interest. There’s painting, singing, music itself, decorating or refurbishing old pieces of furniture etc.

You know, there is a lot more than I could possibly squeeze into this blog post but it would be really too long. I am going to stop at this point and encourage you to walk up to me and get to know me better. Maybe a lot of us actually share some interests and if so I would at least like to know who you are. 

I’ll see you around, Bye! :)

Who am I?

Hello everyone,

I’d like to introduce myself J

My name is Suzana and I come from Medjimurje, a small county in the northernmost part of Croatia. Medjimurje borders Slovenia and Hungary and that’s probably the reason why we have our own “language”. It’s actually a dialect, that is a mixture between German, Slovenian, Croatian and Hungarian and that makes it difficult for the people from other parts of Croatia to understand us.

I’m really close with my family and they are the most important people in the world to me. Although I have a lot of friends and I enjoy spending time with them, I still consider my sister to be my best friend in the whole world. She is person who understands me the most and who is always there for me, no matter how silly, childish or selfish can I get from time to time.

                

One thing that everyone knows me for is my desire towards Red Bull. I can say I’m really addicted. The first thing that I do in the morning when I wake up (besides getting out of my bed) is to drink some Red Bull. I consider us partners in good times and in bad times, in sickness and health, until death do us apart (I see now that I sound crazy and I have to stop with that awful and unhealthy habit).

I can be really annoying and complicated sometimes and despite all my flaws (and I have a lot of them :P ) I know I am a really good friend, who will never let you down.

If you still want to know something else about me, all you have to do is ask. I would rather talk in person over a cup of coffee or a beer (just not Red Bull, I had enough of those in my life :D).

Wish you all great semester and a lot of fun. J

Who am I?

Who am I?

Who am I? I guess this is one of the hardest questions you could ask yourself. Of course I could tell you that I am obsessed with fashion and make-up and that my hobbies are reading, baking and spending some time outdoors with my loved ones, but instead I am going to tell you a story my grandfather told me a couple of years ago when he was still alive. To understand the whole story, I have to tell you a little bit about my origins. I am Croatian, who originally comes from Bosnia (obviously the Croatian part of Bosnia) and was born in Austria. My parents were not refugees as you may think because of the Yugoslavian war from 1991 until 1995. Actually they came prior to the war because my dad was offered a job and that's how they started a new life here in Austria.

“Odžak“ is the name of the city I originally come from. It's located in northeast Bosnia, ten kilometers from the border with Croatia. It was first mentioned in 1593 during which time there was a huge fortress. Until the end of 1900 Odžak was part of the Ottoman Empire. After 1908 the city started developing as being part of the House of Hapsburg. Recovering from the First and the Second World War required a lot of time and energy, but the damages of the Yugoslavian war, often described as Europe's deadliest conflict since World War II, can still be seen in many parts of the municipality. But back to the actual story I'd like to tell you.

I remember playing in the yard on a hot summers day when my grandfather pulled out a sheet of paper and told me to have a look at it. While growing up, my grandfather was always keen about telling us stories related to historical events or to our origins and family. The headline of one special article instantly cached my eye. „Berlin pao, Odžak nije“, meaning that Berlin had capitulated and Hitler had already pulled the trigger, while Odžak was still fighting. The article was about the Second World War especially in connection to not only my home town but also my home village. When I saw my surname in a collocation (Nuića Bášča) mentioned in the article I absolutely had to read it.

While Berlin had already capitulated, the combatants “Yugoslav Partisans” were planning on invading Odžak. After fighting several days against “Croatian Armed F

orces” they managed to occupy it. Their goal was the occupation of all municipalities around Odžak, including “Posavska Mahala” (also known as “Vlaška Mala”), the village I come from. The ”Croatian Armed Forces” were trying their hardest to defend their territory, but after numerous battles and thousands of lost lives, they had to capitulate.

We have a huge plot of land in Bosnia, which is common down there, as agriculture has always been and still is the main occupation. Let me now explain why my surname was mentioned – Behind our stall there is a small cemetery located (Nuića Bášča), which cannot be seen when standing in front of our house. This cemetery has not always been there, but was more or less created during the Second World War. It is said that this last battle, which led to the final end of the Second World War, ended right at our property. All the dead bodies were at first just thrown at one side of where they were battling and should have later on been brought to the local cemetery. But the number of corpses was increasing each minute, so they decided to bury them right at our plot of land. The cemetery officially includes just about 30 tombs, but the number of people buried there is countless. I researched the internet and found out that the cemetery is nowadays a symbol for the arrival of the enemies, the “Yugoslavian Partisans.”

My father once planned to engrave the names on a huge marble slab of all those who fought and lost this last battle but were not buried properly. But as my grandfather and probably all older people who could have helped him with the names, have already died, he never got the chance to do so.

While searching for some appropriate pictures of my hometown, I came across a picture of my grandfather with a link to a YouTube video. He passed away in 2008, so seeing and hearing him speaking after such a long time brought tears to my eyes.

Meet Hobbit

My name is Hanja and I am a 20-year-old student from Croatia. First of all, I will explain the title. In high school I got a nickname "Frodo" and "Hobbit" due to my height and because I love Lord of the Rings. After that it kind of stuck around.These days all of my friends call me like that and I do not mind it at all.  I am very sporty person who tried many sports like athletics, swimming and skiing before I discovered sport that I immediately fell in love with. Here is a picture and a video of my passion. I've been training this sport and competing in it for 12 years (Can you guess what sport am I talking about?). Throughout my life in my hometown Varaždin I dedicated all of my free time to it. A lot of people ask me if I regret spending six days a week in the gym while other people had fun. No, simply because being in the gym made me happy and it taught me some really valuable lessons about life, like dedication and determination.

The answer is gymnastics. On the picture you can see gymnastic grips, type of equipment used on uneven bars. This short video is from one of my last practices on which I am doing two and a half twist into the foam pit. Oh, I just love the feeling of falling in the foam pit after a twist or backflip. Priceless! My favorite apparatus was floor. Even though I do not compete anymore, due to my injury, I still practice to stay in shape. I also work as a referee and help around in the gym as a coach.

In my free time I like to draw. My, so to say, specialty, are characters from computer games like “League of Legends”. Not only am I interested in drawing, but also playing this game with my friends. It is great way of having fun and talking to them at the same time. 

I also like to travel with my friends. There is nothing more fun than going in a foreign country and just wandering around, visiting extraordinary places that are usually hidden from tourist’s eyes. Speaking from experience, real adventure starts when you do something unusual. For instance, if you climb a hill at 2:00 a.m.  in a cold, winter night just for the view and have drink with your friends there.

Well, that would be all you need to know about me. Just kidding. :)
Feel free to ask me any question.