Oana has been cleaning my apartment once a week since October of 2006. I love Oana. How did I ever get along without her?
Oana is from Romania, where incredibly I have travelled believe it or not. The day before Easter in 2002 I flew to Romania and stayed for 10 days in the American embassy in Bucharest, where my friend's partner was the ambassador. It is the farthest East this old gal had ever been, and have ever been - with the exception of my trip to Jordan at the eruption of the Iraq war in March 2003 when I lied to my family and said I was travelling in the vineyards of Italy. Another story.
Anyhoo, as a certain sister of mine might say, today Oana arrived as usual for her duties (much needed as my valiant hubby had done nada during all of my absense) and she was toting a large bag. "Happy Easter" she declared. So yesterday was the Orthodox Easter. We are the happy beneficiaires of several homemade delights straight out of Oana's kitchen. You can see the colored eggs in the photo above - they have this wild sheen on them unlike anything I have ever seen. I kept trying to get her secret out of her but she just keep saying "Something I bring from home". Like a vault, the girl is.
So, this next photo is "sarmale", a filling of ground meats, rice and spices wrapped in an incredibly fine layer of cabbage leaves. Sumptuous.
This is "drob" a meat cake filled with boiled egg. Wacky and yummy. Though the name is hilarious to me for reasons only members of my immediate family will understand. And maybe someone living in Rocky Mount.
This is "cozonac". Does it look impressive? Well, let me tell you, it is. This is a painstaking yeast-dough bread, swirled with a walnut-vanilla paste folded with beaten egg whites and I don't even know what else. It is a work of dang art is what it is. I keep walking by it and cutting off just another sliver. Heaven. I'm converting to Ortodoxy.
This is Estelle. Who has nothing to do with Romania or Orthodox Easter, but who had a really good time in her bath.
8 comments:
My grandmother (aka Nana) from Lithuania has a secret for her shiny eggs, she does it every Easter. She rubs them with raw bacon just after we color them. Sounds gross, but it works like a charm and I bet that's what Oana does! :)
Biz!
Estelle looks so cute in her bath. We miss her a lot. Cole asked yesterday, "When will Julie and Estelle and Thomas move closer so we can see them all the time?"
All that food looks fantastic. I would love that bread. You'll have to get her recipe for "drob"- it looks like something I could serve at Cole's next birthday party.
Love D,W,W,C,H
The food looked interesting. Am wondering if Laura would be familiar with any of it.
Estelle looks cute as ever!
I think I have had some "Pacha/Pasha (?) bread that Laura made once that was really complicated...sorta like one of Onna's. They looked so yummy!!
Upon a second examination of those eggs, I take back my comment about bacon fat. The bacon makes them shiny, but not pearly like Oana's! LOL! I clearly have too much time on my hands.
:)
I think that one of those dishes is close to the "Golumpkies" sp? that some people in my church make...they ARE yummy!
As the Russian Orthodox say, "Christos Voskrese!"
xo la
Oana Rocks!
That food sure does look good. But that's not the reason of my comment: It's about estelle's "poulpe" that she is holding in the picture: eliott had the same thingies, great fun during bath time, but: for a one reason, they started to grow some very ugly stuff inside, because of the water that stays rotting in there. we tried to clean them in all ways, but they keep spitting dirty water, so now i threw them out... sad huh!
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