Papernjaci (Papernjak)

These are the BEST cookies. They are from Slavonia, where my father's family is from.

Here is the recipe from Kuharstvo by Mira Vucetic, 1952 (name of recipe is papernjaci iv).

• 500g flour
• 200g finely ground walnuts
• 150g sugar
• 200g butter
• 250g honey
• 3 egg whites
• 1 lemon peel, grated fine
• 1/2 tsp (2.84 grams) cloves finely ground
• 1/2 (2.84 grams) teaspoon pepper finely ground

Mix the butter and egg until creamy, then add the sugar and mix till creamy, then add the honey and mix well. Add the flour, then the rest of the ingredients. Mix until the dough is very hard.

Roll the dough out with a rolling pin to a width of 0.7cm (as fat as a finger) and press down with the papernjak mold (pictured to the right). Remove the mold and cut out the individual cookies. Brush with egg whites. 

You can roll the cookies on the parchment paper as well, if you find it difficult to transfer them from the counter to the baking sheet (bottom photos is baked papernjaci).

Put the cookies in the oven to bake on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, at 375 for 10 to 15 minutes. Use the middle rack of the oven. 

Sretan Bozic i sve naj naj!

pencilnpaper: Walnut and vanilla cookies or Kiflice od vanilije or Kiffel

pencilnpaper: Walnut and vanilla cookies or Kiflice od vanilije or Kiffel

Kiflice, kifle, Walnut and vanilla cookies or Kiffel

http://balkanbarbie.blogspot.com/
To celebrate the holidays, my friend T. came over last Sunday afternoon and we baked these kiflice.

Ingredients (in USA/UK imperial measures and then in European):
half pound (1 cup) butter, soft = 225 or 230 grams butter
half cup sugar = 95 grams sugar
2 cups flower - sifted, all purpose = 200 grams flower
1 and 1/4 cups walnuts, well ground (mljevenih). Buy them that way or grind them in the blender or food processor. = 105 grams walnuts
1 teaspoon vanilla (liquid form of vanilla, .17oz) = 5 ml vanilla
confectioner's sugar (also called powdered sugar) for dusting

Sastojici:
225 g puter / maslac
95 g secer
200 g brasno
105 g orah, mljevenih
5 ml vanilje

Tools: I used the lovely Bosch stand mixer you see in the photo, which my parents gave me as an early birthday present (December 23). A hand mixer will also work. Mixing with a wooden spoon would work as well. I guess you would need to use a wisk to cream the butter and sugar, in that case.

Directions:
The Dough:
Mix the butter and sugar until creamy. Probably use middle speed. Add vanilla. Mix until well integrated. Add the flower, a spoon full at at time, on low speed. Mix until it forms a solid mass. Slowly add the ground walnuts. When the walnuts are all integrated, stop mixing. Take the dough out and make a ball out of it. Wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 3 hours, or put it in the freezer for about 2 hours. It is nice to prepare the dough and refrigerate it overnight. The dough needs to be a solid, hard mass.

The baking:
Heat the over to 350 Fahrenheit, which is about 175 c, for those of you in Zagreb, Osijek, Vienna, Graz ... Toronto, and Vancouver
Line a cookie baking sheet with parchment paper.
Pinch off some of the dough. Roll it between your hands, specifically palm-side of your knuckles, to make it into a tube shape. When it is ready, it should be about the length of your index finger, thinner than your pinky. Lay it on the parchment paper in the shape of a horse shoe.
Keep all of the kifle the same thickness and length so the batch bakes evenly. I hope the photos are instructive about the size and shape of kiflice.

Bake for about 10 or 15 mintues at 350f, 175c, until slightly brown on the top. My oven took 15 minutes. The ones in the photo are pretty good.
Take them out, let them cool off. When they are cool and you are ready to serve, dust them with the powdered sugar.

Store them in a tin can or in a plastic box - anything with a good seal - in the cupboard. They keep very well in the cupboard (no eggs in the dough). They freeze very well. Children enjoy making them because they role them with their hands and that is cool. It isn't very messy either, maybe put a plate under their hands to catch crumbs when they roll the cookies.

For your convenience, here is a kitchen conversion web site in which you can ask for the conversion of weights and measures of specific ingredients used in the kitchen (convert-me.com).

And we ate a few, drank wine, then later some tea, and laughed quite a bit. Today, we had our first snowfall in Urbana. Very nice. The year will come to an end quite soon. The days are short, and cold, it is the time of lights, we can celebrate living through another year, and hope for what will come the next. Peace on Earth.

Enjoy
Merry Christmas, Sretan Bozic, i Sretna Nova Godina 2008.

Talking Heads

Lately, I have been listening to Talking Heads, especially the song "Sugar on my Tongue." I also like Elvis Presley. I can reccomend the movie, "Lost Embrace" (2004). In Spanish, it is "El abrazo partido." The movie takes place in a shopping mall in Buenos Aires, perhaps the most beautiful city in the world.

This is what they drive in Hungary...

Timing

There is a time for departure even when there's no certain place to go.
Tennessee Williams

War crimes tribunal and job interviews and online dating

There are some things I can't impose rationality on. Yes, I am talking about love. I am also talking about the dynamics of job interviews. This could also be said for war, or Stalin. Maybe that is why historians explain events by saying one person is dominant, for example, things went this way or that, but so and so was mostly guilty. I think Milosevic was mostly guilty for thing sin the 1990s and early 2000s. What about the war crimes tribunal. Is that an effort to impose reason on horror? Maybe it is just a way to get rid of the past. It makes secrets public, it shames some people and social groups.
I watched an ad for an on-line dating service last night, I think it is chemistry.com, and it seems to be branding itself as the hipsters dating service. It is the opposite of e-harmony. They suggest e-harmony rejects people - hipsters. It criticizes their questions as long and not relevant to hipsters. The questions are the unique selling proposition of eharmony. They say it matches people on important values. I wonder how chemistry.com matches people - probably on cultural things like what music I like, I guess. I think chemistry.com is more like Bourdieu and interpretive marketing research brought into VALS while eharmony is more like VALS and lifestyle research. Please don't rip off my ideas and write an article on them and get tenure etc. Yes, I am a wounded graduate student, just back from a job interview. Regardless, I am right about these dating services and their connection to marketing research, and I am taking marketing research theories seriously. Hey, maybe if I have to teach Audience Analysis this spring, I will apply dating services as a case study.
I started to write about love and imposing reason on it, and how you can't, even though dating services say you can. Then the connection with Bourdieu came up. So that is why we went down that road.
Please, do not impose reason on love, that is a one way trip to crazy town.

Žuži Jelinek

Mrs. Jelinek (70) is a fashion designer. Recently she published a book and thus became an author too. In various Croatian weeklies we can read her columns, she is often invited as a guest to popular TV talk-shows and she has been frequently interviewed by the press. Mrs. Jelinek attracted the media with her statements about the relationship between men and women and has thrust herself upon the public as an authority on beauty, harmonious marriage and success in life. Although Mrs. Jelinek shamelessly and with a smile talks pure nonesense, nobody has openly said anything against them so far. Here are only a few quotations which are characteristic of Mrs. Jelinek's points of view.

---

(quotations taken from the daily paper "Vecernji list", Oct. 2nd 1998., journalist Branko Vukcic)

"VL: If a man does something inappropriate, for example is late....if he (un)intentionally hurts a woman, what can he do to make up for what he did? What works with women?

Jelinek: If only men would know how women are easy! We are all alike inside."

"Jelinek: In the morning a man should say a few warm, kind words, and all his problems are solved. If a woman was clever, and the majority is today, she would not reproach him anything, because men today are extremely touchy."

"Jelinek: Four rules how a woman can keep a man are: First, with sex. Second, with a smiling face. Men do not like women who sulk. Third, she must never begrudge him on anything because all men are alergic to reproach. Fourth, if a man is well fed, if he is happy and content at full dining table then a woman can't lose him. He might temporarily go to another woman, but he will come back. Men are different than women and sex is important to them as much as food."

"Jelinek: Every woman must be interested in politics so that she would be able to make conversation with a man at all."

http://crowwomen.tripod.com/zuzie.htm

Adjusting to America

For one whole weekend, I didn't go to the mall. No, it wasn't a dare, or a political statement, it just happened that way. I was working, doing laundry, watching DVDs, talking to friends, going swimming at the pool, and having a cafe late at Cafe Paradiso. It just quietly happened on its own that way.

Looking Good in a Buffalo Stance

What I miss about Zagreb:
I miss Otvoreni Radio (it translates into Open Radio and you can listen here through live stream and you can listen here www.otvoreni.hr). They have a mix that floors me. I love it. I feel like I am back in my kitchen on Kaciceva, the third floor, with the balcony on the garden, not street side, dancing while cooking up some lunch, maybe trout, on a Saturday afternoon, listening on the 1960s era Grundig "Yatch Boy" he bought on ebay (his first ebay experience) and mailed me in Zagreb from Germany, cause he knows I think Grundig makes the best radios, my father has them. I even shipped it back with me, and it is in my kitchen right now.
Or sitting in a car in front of my building, he's driven me home after drinks, it's Chaka Kahn's "Ain't Nobody," on Otvoreni, he thumps his palm on the driving wheel, tells me about when he was a DJ at KSET ages ago. It is the first time I listened to Otvoreni, and I kept my dial there since.
I heard this song (Buffalo Stance) on Otvoreni while in my kitchen and was delighted. Nenah Cherry (she's Sweedish, are you also surprised) sings it and this is what she says about it, from her web site: this song "is about sexual survival. It's not a feminist record - none of my songs are. But it's about female strength, female power, female attitude."
Yah, I am back in the USA, in a town in the mid-west.
I just heard the whistle of a train, that reminds me of Zagreb...

Moving a bit slower

My recovery time after a night of dancing and drinks is two days.

What Everyone Should Know About Those Things

You would have seen me dancing at Global last night, here is the web page of this gay club in Zagreb, in case you missed it last night:
http://www.globalclubzg.hr/home.asp?lang=eng

Trout Lady

Trout Lady, who sells me trout once a week at the fish market at Dolac, the main market in the city center (this was last Thursday; I usually go Saturday):
(As she is turning to me and holding the trout in her left hand knife in the right, standing over the chopping block, inside the square of tables with fish)

Do you want to take this now or do you want me to hold on to it until later?

(As I am waiting on the other side of the table, looking at Trout Lady as she's just sliced open the first trout and is pulling out red mushy insides)

Thanks, but no, I'll take it now.

(Lady Trout, looking up, right hand pulling out slimy insides of trout)

I thought you would have a coffee and then come back for it.

(Me, trying to memorize how to clean a fish and happy she always cleans it for me and is willing to hang on to it so I don't have to go to coffee smelling like trout but uncertain about this answer)

Usually, of course, but today it is too hot, it is too hot to sit and have a coffee, I am going home now.

This is important because I went to see Lady Trout last Saturday just as she was about to leave. I was with my girl friend Mare to buy fish for her and for me, to show Mare where I buy cleaned, fresh fish. And Lady Trout was really not happy that we had arrived at five minutes until two and wanted cleaned fish. She said to Mare,

You can't come here at this time and ask for fish, I have been here since 4am. She (nodding at me) comes here all the time. Next time, buy it earlier and then come back for it (referring to what I usually do). We said sorry and Ok. Mare was also shy about it and tolerant of Lady Trout's scolding us (well, and Lady Trout has power, she has cleaned trout). I was a bit ashamed and I think Lady Trout was making up for it Thursday with the offer to hold on to it, or letting me know we are still cool, and she will hold the fish, or thanking me for not coming at the last minute, or reminding me this is an option.

Plastic

These Barbies caught my eye. The way they are friends, they shine, they are unclothed. Someone was selling them at Hreljic last Sunday. Passed by them, they were laying on the blanket with many things. Looked like things you would find in your junk closet. Will write more later. In a bit of a rush in the moment.

Reader's Request

I will tell you about going to the gynecologist in Zagreb, but only if you really want to know. So, please let me know. Ok, I really want to write about it, am a bit shy, and need your gentle prodding first.

What Every Woman Should Know About Those Things

Differences in gender relations between people in the US and in Zagreb. That is something I can talk a lot about, I do talk a lot about, and I am interested in talking a lot about. Beyond men-are-stupid, women-are-smart.

Let's start with the Wikki entry on Romantic Love. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_love
From their web page:

Properties of romantic love include these:

• It cannot be easily controlled.
• It is not overtly (initially at least) predicated on a desire for sex as a physical act.
• If requited, it may be the basis for lifelong commitment.

No, it cannot be easily controlled, and trying to control it has, in the past, made me quite frustrated. Is it American to think emotions can be controlled or should be? For me, it can be hard to control my obsessions in romance, and to tell the difference between my obsessions and feelings for someone. Maybe men here are less intolerant, they do expect women to have personalities, relationships to have flows, they do not expect to put people and relationships into categories and check off like a list.

It seems to me that here, some men control emotions, some don't, and some are so up to their eyeballs in getting ahead in a tough context you just marvel at how they can have so many emotions and so many jobs at once. Other men, you want to kick them to the curb, they are so vulgar and arrogant. Probably some men see women these ways.

I am not sure if I can agree with Wikki that romantic love is not overtly predicated on a desire for sex as a physical act. I would argue for a desire for sex and small talk, conversation. To fight off boredom. Men here like to conquer, to dominate, the relationship and the sex. Maybe they do in the US, too, but they have to hide it or are frustrated by it. US Feminism says: their domination is oppressive. Popular culture: equality in a relationship. I say: there is no equality between two people, none. Give and take. Let him think what he wants. If he wants to think he conquered me, I can pretend to be surprised and seduced. I'm certainly going to do what I want anyway.

Lifelong commitment. Overall, I should have taken the chance here and have that affair with that married man. Get some myths out of my head.

If you read the whole web page, you will read that romance is something that exists in specific occasions and moments in a relationship. I think that is really true in Champaign Illinois and in Zagreb.

--------------------------------------
Why am I writing this, I have to write my cover letter for job applications and get ready to move back to the University of Illinois from my sweet home in Zagreb. I can't believe I still haven't been to KSET or Limb, that I worked so much here (you are right, there were some non-work moments - the writing about romance).

Tito's Women ... Titova Zena

Sparno

It is really, really hot here in Zagreb. Also, woke up around 4am with thoughts about upcoming Zagreb departure. Not looking forward to trading Zagreb for U-C.

Sitnice koje život znaće

Sitnice koje život znaće (life is made up of small things).