ABC Wednesday--Q is for 'Querent'

Actually, the 'querent' is not in this photo. The querent took it, since the word means, 'one who asks a question' (another 'q'). I asked the lady selling this enormous pumpkin how much the entire one weighed. "About 25 kilos," she answered, which is about 55 pounds.

One of these wedges, which baked, will make about 3-4 pumpkin pies. I make mine from scratch this way.

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"Minjoni" for Katarina in Canada

Today's photo fulfills a request from Katarina in Canada, who wrote the following to me:

"I am a Belgrader by birth who has been living in Canada since the age of 9. I love your blog and read it almost every day! One of the things I miss the most about Belgrade is minjoni, and the Petkovic pastry shop on Takovska (number 18, I think) makes the best ones!! The little pastel-coloured fondant squares in the little crinkle papers bring back so many memories to me and I make sure to have them every time I go back to BGD..."

I was more than happy to oblige Katarina, and as you see, I bit into one (just for the sake of art, of course, so you could see the inside...), and by the time you read this, the 'petits fours' called minjoni (MEEN-yo-nee) here, will be history. I've eaten these little cakes before here in Belgrade, but Petkovic's bakery really does make good ones. They're not overly sweet, and the crust is just crunchy enough.... (Minjoni most probably got their name from the French word "mignon," meaning cute, or in the sense of filet mignon, "dainty.")

Anyone have any other requests???

The Berlin Wall in Belgrade, or 'Gone with the Wind'

Like many other cities in Europe aside from Berlin, 'Berlin Walls' were constructed to be torn down today, November 9th, on the 20th anniversary of the real wall's fall. In cooperation with the Goethe Institute here, German artist Frank Betler constructed a heavy cardboard 'brick' wall on Republic Square over two days' time. It was 40 meters long and three meters high. On this link you can see the artist at work, on a bright sunny day. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans for the wall, and right here you can see the result of strong winds and snow that hit the city on November 3rd. At that point, the wall was not completely damaged, and would have stood until the 9th when the rest would have been knocked down, but (and this is unofficial, but reasonably reliable), there were reports of late-night hooliganism that involved leaping over the wall and knocking it down.

So here you see the wall all packed up. Under the plastic are the remaining flattened cardboard boxes, and the poster panels are lying beside them.

Addendum: I'm adding this after the 8th comment. This morning I saw that now instead of the collapsed wall will be a 'Berlin Museum' that will be opened this evening by the German Ambassador. In this small 'museum' will be photographs of the original Berlin Wall and other memorabilia. If you want to see it, go:here.

Women's rights

With several of my past photos having been taken out my automobile window, you must think I spend my waking hours in a car. I was actually a passenger when I took this photo. Belgrade Boys are a particular group of Red Star soccer team fans gone bad...hooligans in the worst sense, but this blog isn't the place to go into that. Google if you like.

Not a group to emulate, and I can only hope that the 'girls' simply wanted a voice.

Serbian Orthodox "All Souls' Day"

Today is All Souls' Day for members of the Serbian Orthodox faith. It's actually called Zadušnice, which doesn't really translate as All Souls' Day, but the idea is basically the same, except zadušnice happen (the word is a plural) four times a year. These are days when when people visit the graves of loved ones, light candles for the souls of the dead, and offer food and drink at the graveside. These days always fall on a Saturday, usually on a second Saturday before the beginning of the Lenten season (Easter and Christmas, since Orthodox Serbs avoid fats during those periods), the Saturday before the Holy Trinity Day, (12th October), and Saint Demetrius Day (8th November).

This photo was taken looking away from my husband's grave that my son and I visited.

Skywatch Friday--Serbia from the Heart

Not your typical Skywatch for sure, but there are two skies in this photograph. One is idyllic, with a beautiful Serbian girl and bucolic scene proclaiming "Serbia from the Heart".

The scene below, with a hazy sky, depicts what I call 'the fringe factor' of New Belgrade's flea market. The actual flea market is behind the blue fence and back a bit. It is not a flea market in the true sense, but rather sells new goods, some real, some fake. If you wish to sell there, you need to rent a stand.

However, just outside its gate, stretch along the boulevard and under the railroad overpass, you will find masses of people, trying to make a few dinars selling what you would find on a true flea market, but not nearly as valuable. You can literally find the proverbial kitchen sink here.

(Did I say I took this from the car again while stopped at a red light...?)

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What do you do in the bus?

Or perhaps you don't take the bus? Sometimes I do, and sometimes I take my car, like I did when I snapped this photo at a red light....I do this a lot.

The gentleman is reading a newspaper while another passenger reads over his shoulder. The lady in front is pick...uh, scratching her nose, another lady appears lost in her thoughts, and I can't make out what the silhouetted mystery figure is doing.

Perhaps she is watching me.

ABC Wednesday --"P" is for "Popcorn"

I just love popcorn, all warm and salty, no butter, thank you. This stand, one of many in of a chain of them called "Pećina" (PEH-cheen-ya--another 'P'!) or 'cave,' stands across from the Cervantes Institute on Knez Mihailova, Belgrade's pedestrian street. A small bag (just enough for a quick tummy-filler) costs 30 dinars, or just under 50 cents, and you can see the prices go up from there. You can also buy a about a pound (500 grams) of unpopped kernels to take home. I love Pećina's because it is popped in a metal spinner that has just the right amount of oil so that it's not too greasy and not too dry. And I really like how they chain the little salt shaker to the stand.... (In the cup are little pieces of paper with contact info.)

Which reminds me: Once at school I was telling my class how I had made popcorn the night before and had had just enough oil for the pot to make the popcorn I had left. I got blank stares, puzzled looks..."What pot?" they asked. "Oil?"

These are kids who only know microwaved popcorn or who use an air popper.... I explained how I waited for the burner to be hot, then put in just enough oil to cover the bottom of the pot, next a layer of popcorn to cover that, slapped on the lid, and shook the pot back and forth over the burner.

You could have heard a pin drop. "Can we make it like that sometime?" And so we did.

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Puzzling....

Yesterday's post involved a word/puzzle game, and today we have a jigsaw puzzle wall. The pieces are heavy nylon, and enclose a children's play area in a nearby suburb. Snapped from the car again while at a red light!

Hey, dude, where are my vowels?

Do you play Scrabble? I do, and sometimes I cart my Scrabble game over to an English friend's house to play. Like many other players, we sometimes draw impossible combinations in English, and I think I will suggest to her next time that we can also use Serbian words, since that's a pretty good way to use those letters that never seem to go together, at least without an a,e,i, o, or u. In Serbian, r's often serve as vowels along with the standard ones, being trilled on the tip of the tongue, not in your throat like the French ones. I've used my American set here, but since letters are given values for their frequency, the values on a Serbian set wouldn't necessarily be the same as the ones you can see here (some have accents on, but of course not here), lying on Morton-Benson's Dictionary.

Here's what they mean:

• trg--a square, open place
• krv--blood
• trk--race, gallop
• grb--a crest, like a family one
• prst--finger
• smrt--death
• cvrst--strong
• srz--marrow
• cilj--a goal
• rdja--rust
• grm--a shrub
• hleb--bread

If you read Serbian, you can read about Mattel's plans for Serbian Scrabble right here, since right now I've only seen 'Skrebl' in what must be a pirated edition.

Theme Day--Doorways--All aboard!

Not a fantastically beautiful doorway, but it caught my eye the other day while passing by. This is the side entrance to Belgrade's main train station, which I had shown you the other day, or at least part of it, right here!


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