I love innards, you can give me hearts, kidney, liver, intestines whatever any day. I blame it to my Cantonese upbringing where there is a "leave nothing behind" mentality, and "fear factor" tasting where my grandma would ask me to close my eyes and taste different exotic foods. So I order a beef tripe Hungarian style stew, when offered potatoes or pearl barley. I naturally went for the 'different' one.
Beef trip stew was so-so but the real wonder was the pearl barley in the picture. Eaten like rice or risotto-style, I never knew that you could cook barley like that. Was so inspired, I bought a pack of pearl barley from my local Tesco and it is one of my staples now. It is not soft or squishy or sweet. The pearl barley just sucks up and complements the taste of the stew. By itself, it is like rice, tasteless but with a good chewy texture.
Another different thing that I have learn to appreciate was Poppy-seed. Being a person who simply likes new experiences, I just randomly picked out pastries, since there was no labels nor do the staff speak any English. I suppose it is partially my good fortune that a)I have no allergies that I know of and b) I eat literally everything. One of the most pleasant surprises that I had was finding a strudel in Budapest that had a poppyseed & apple filling. Tasting somewhat like sesame, with that aromatic goodness, but yet slightly lighter on the palate, I seriously liked it alot and started to look for all sorts of pastries with it. Some items that I found throughout was grind-up Poppyseed with sugar on bread, poppyseed filling with nuts. When i do buy my first oven, this is on the list of things that I will try to bake.
Alphonse Mucha, I know that I left a piece of my heart with him over in Prague. Discovering his works all over Prague in souvenir shops, I was wondering who this artist was and then, I found his exhibition. It was love at many many sights. Now i swear that once I get my own apartment, I'm buying high-quality prints of his works, frame them and put them around my apartment. This collage from a bunch of images that I grabbed online just doesn't do him any justice at all.
Getting the biography of Alphonse Mucha from this website, Alphonse Mucha(1860-1939) was during his life-time the most famous artist of the Art Nouveau period; indeed, his imagery was so inextricably entwined with Art Nouveau that the entire movement was referred to by Goncourt as the'Mucha Style'. Famous throughout Europe and the Americas, he inspired other artists and designers who copied him and plagiarised him so that for years the image of the Muchaesque beauty surrounded by her characteristic symbols was enshrined in advertising, magazine covers and illustrations, book jackets, posters, paintings and numerous artifacts.
1 comment:
Yo! :) U juz left me laughing with your burnt out drumstick n ur awe-inspiring photos of the beautiful sights that send my traveller's heart beating again ;) Thats some very beautiful places you been to :)
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