Cooking

This I have never really done very much of. Like most things, I wait until the most difficult time possible to start. But, this all adds to the fun.

Because I have never cooked before, and because my options for purchasing goods is limited –not by supply, mind you, but by my inability to comminicate any intricacies with the locals.

You mean, Daniel, that the farmers and shop clerks don’t speak English?

Yeah.

…so this cooking is quite the improvised art thing.

So yesterday I am inspired and I have my Bosnian language lesson at the embassy (yes, your tax dollars hard at work to help me survive in a foreign land and also to support a local literary great), so I say, “Wanna go on a field trip?” So we go to the ribarnica to look for some fish.

In the States, you would have a hard time finding fish sold with the bones (yet alone eyeballs) still in it. Here it is just the opposite. There they are, in a big pile: just fish. Just like you just pulled it out the river (good news being that it was probly just pulled out the river).

‘Cept I don’t know what to do with that. I’m a city boy, after all!

Fortunately there was another ribarnica around the corner and they had losos–salmon, and already prepared as “steaks”. At least I didn’t have to pull the guts out!

Next we went into the tržnica, a large covered market where they sell a lot of meat and cheese. The guys selling it shout at you to come buy their meat or cheese. Pretty cool. I didn’t know what they were saying so I just imagined.

Hey, guys! Come buy my cheese! I have the best cheese here! Loooook at my cheeeeese! Doesn’t it look tasty! Hey! Don’t walk away! I also have a pretty daughter! Would you like to see my pretty daughter!

Then across the street to the fruit and veggie market, which is even more chaotic, if that were possible. On the way some guy tried to tell me about how his car broke down and he needed some money. I stick out on the street like a sore foreign thumb!

So at the market I got paradajz–tomatoes, narandj–oranges, and mrkva–carrots.

Trying to make an already long story shorter–got home, made a nice sort-of orange glaze for the salmon, with some cooked carrots, tomatoes on the side, fresh hljeb–bread…not bad, not bad atal.

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