Sunday, March 24, 2013

New year adventures


Hi Everyone,

We are sorry for the delay in publishing this post, but you know, we were busy; elections: in Israel ;), work, buying a car, cooking and just in general, living. We had quite some adventures and some misadventures (or in Polish, nieprzygoda) but we’ll try to focus on the positive sides AKA, new-year vacation.
Two good friends, Mieke and Bjorn came to visit us. We picked them in Washington DC and the four of us went to the Appalachians (after a day and a half in Durham and some Pita bread w/ Humus), south to the Great Smoky Mountains area (link to our cabin in the mountains). During the day we were hiking (three days) and in the eves we had some Vodka, food, Alcohol and Vodka. This is also the only reasonable explanation for the fact that Asia and Mieke defeated us (Bjorn & Guy) six times in a raw in a game called Pictionary. During the first hour of the second day we met a dog (see link to Picasa); it was the cutest, most loving and obedient dog. He was a hunting dog with a GPS collar that got lost to his “owner” and he followed us in the snow for the whole day. Twice he decided to stay behind, alone in the forest but just when we thought he left, we so him running back to us. We took him in the car and fed him in one of the shops on the way and, unfortunately, called his owner and returned him back to his redneck hunter. We are saying unfortunately because when the hunters came the dog was terrified and it was clear that his life with them is not a pleasant one. We were really sad about this. Except for tis fiasco, it was the perfect vacation. The wooden huge house was amazing, the lady was making us cookies and muffins that were waiting when we arrived very late at night. She also made us food for the way back. She and her husband were both in their 60-70s and surprisingly, big supporters of Israel and the IDF. Till the next time...

Enjoy the pictures,
Asia and Guy

Monday, January 7, 2013

Christmas holidays

Hello everyone!
The start of our Christmas holidays was pretty hectic as we tried to prepare at least some of the traditional Polish dishes. For those of you who aren't Polish (to the Israeli readership, no worries, you all are) - according to the tradition there should be 12 dishes (12 disciples) but we managed to make "kapusta z grzybami" (cabbage with mushrooms), "barszcz" (red beet soup, AKA, Borscht), sernik (cheesecake) and we bought pierogi (Krepalach; that was an achievement considering the popularity of the Polish Deli store).

Czesc wszystkim!
Swieta rozpoczely sie dla nas w szalenstwie, poniewaz postanowilismy w krotkim czasie przygotowac kilka tradycyjnych polskich przysmakow. Dla nie-Polakow istotna informacja - na stole powinno sie znalezc 12 dan. My jednak zdolalismy przyrzadzic kapuste z grzybami, barszcz, sernik (tak, bardzo swiateczne danie) oraz kupic pierogi (bylo to nie lada wyczynem, majac na uwadze popularnosc jaka cieszyly sie polskie delikatesy)

Our Christmas tree was rather modest...
Nasze drzewko bylo raczej skromne..


Making barszcz ... very stressful!
Gotowanie barszczu bylo stresujace!


And required a lot of additional activities...Such as "filtration" :)
I wymagalo kilku dodatkowych zabiegow..takich jak "filtrowanie" :)



Our guests seemed very happy and surprised that Polish food is really full of flavor (okay, I overdid with the pepper)! The little one was occupied with more interesting things such as building animals and watching cartoons :).. He couldn't have cared less if the food was Jewish or Polish or even worse - Polish-Jewish. :D

Nasi goscie zdawali sie byc zadowolenia i pozytywnie zaskoczeni faktem, ze polski potrawy sa bardzo aromatyczne (okej, moze nieco przesadzilam z pieprzem w zupie)! Najmlodszy biesiadnik byl natomiast kompletnie zajety budowaniem zwierzakow z klockow i ogladaniem bajek. Wszystko mu bylo jedno, czy jedzenie bylo polski, zydowskie, czy (o zgrozo) polsko-zydowskie!


An important tradition of sharing presents will always be preserved in our house :)...

Tradycja upominkowa na pewno bedzie w naszym domu pielegnowana :)...




Till next time (stories about new year in the Smoky mountains with our Dutch friends)!!!

Do nastepnego razu (opowiesc o Nowym Roku w Gorach Mglistych (tlumaczenie Aski) w towarzystwie przyjaciol z Holandii)!

Pa!

A&G