15/07/16

Nettle pancakes with wild strawberry and rose petals jam - Crepes all'ortica con confettura di fragoline di bosco e petali di rosa - Palačinke od kopriva sa slatkim od šumskih jagodica i ružinih latica


We always had in our garde-manger some medicinal herb my mother used to harvest in the meadow or in the bushes at the edge of the forest. I don’t remember we have ever used infusion bags to prepare a chamomile tea or other herbal teas, like lime or rose hip tea. My mother used to cook various dishes with first young spring herbs and she still does it, she knows very well when to collect different herbs and wild plants and how to dry them and preserve them in the best way. Our family loves the nature and every time we went somewhere for a picnic, we returned home with paper bags full of plants, fruits and flowers. If you picnic in the wild nature, you need to be well equipped, we never went picnicking without the pruning shears or  the knife,  or without the basket and paper bags. At that time plastic bags were not so common as they are today. Think about it, there was not all that dirt around and our land was not so polluted. Sometimes we got the baskets as present from my uncle, he used to do basketwork at home using the elastic willow branches he gathered from the trees that were growing between different lands and properties. Other times some neighbor brought us nice baskets as present. In all these years we have gathered a small collection of baskets. Once upon a time there were many people able to create these simple woody wonders...

11/07/16

Pistachio cake with apricots - Dolce al pistacchio con albicocche - Kolač od pistacija s marelicama

Sometimes I feel blocked inside and I can't find the words to express myself. It take days, or even weeks before the right moment arrives and I decide to fill the blank paper in front of me. I would need another me, more strong and daring to tell all those feelings that are captured inside of me. Instead, I continue taking pictures, baking, inventing recipes and experimenting...trying to imagine in advance new and even bizzare combinations of flavours and perfumes. The beauty of creativity gives me so much good vibes and even if I dissapear from the world for some time I'm usually back with new interesting experience. This life is so fast and I have already spent my best years in this world. This life sometime offers happiness, you only need to discover it. It happens each day. Happiness simply happens! Go ahead and search for it in any possible way and in every moment.
Sometime I miss my old memories, I miss people and events that made me as I am today. My birthplace is faraway from where I live now and every time I go back home I feel some kind of unrest, because eventually I will have to leave again and go back where I now belong. I have two homes, I have two families, all is duplex in my life. Although I like both places and I feel at home in both countries, I always miss something. That strange sense of not belonging to no place is my faithful fellow since many years. All I have left behind in my homeland is no more familiar to me, all I have in my new country is still unknown to me.
It's like discovering new flavours, but if you don't taste them, you will never know how good and inspiring they are.
Today I have some unwritten recipes and some new pictures and all those things can't be put aside for long time. But in last days I had an urgent idea to be transformed into this cake and some old recipes have to wait patiently another perfect moment to be discovered.