Yum.

Lately our lives have been full of good food.  And though usually this blog is full of words and musings about things more complicated than food, I'm a big fan of eating, so I want to share some of these culinary delights!  I think I'm even going to break the general code of black-and-white photography on this blog to share pictures... they were that yummy.

To wax philosophical for a second, I think food is one of those great, universal things which bring people together.  After all, everybody eats, and eating is fun.  In every culture I've ever experienced, food is an essential part of hospitality and celebration.  Feast days and holidays are universal, and everyone loves them... well, at least I do!  So living in a culture where food is an essential part of hospitality and where local and home-prepared food are valued parts of the rhythm of life?  I love it.

Otilia, our host here in Târgu Mureș, loves food too.  (We're kindred spirits that way.)  She told us a few weeks ago that Sundays are the day for church and special "Sunday food," and we've been living that up.  One week she made "Varza la Cluj," which is sorta like a Romanian casserole with ground pork, rice, cabbage, spices, and smântâna (the ever-present Romanian sour cream), followed by dessert of homemade crepes with homemade plum jam.  Yum.  The next week was sarmale, the Romanian national dish -- little cabbage rolls stuffed with, you guessed it!  Pork, rice, and spices. 

 I didn't take this picture... but here are the famous sarmale!

This week she made pork șnițel (flattened, battered, fried pork chops) with mashed potatoes with smântâna and a side of homemade pickled tomatoes and cucumbers.  We followed all that with gogoși, or Romanian donuts... they just sound fancier by their Romanian name.

Making gogoși with Otilia was delightful.  She'd made the dough before church and let it rise all morning, so that when we got home we could simply roll it out and cut it into circles with a coffee mug.  You then drop the little doughy circles into sizzling sunflower oil, let them puff up and fry, and then scoop them out.  Once cooled, you top or fill them with accessories of your choice: chocolate spreads, jams and jellies, cheese... endless possibilities.  They're not as good the next day, so Jack and I each ate, like, five.  But it was worth it.  As you can see.

Cutting the dough into donut shapes...

Frying them in oil...

And delight!  I think the best way to eat gogoși is with jam AND chocolate...

So Otilia's a great cook, and our weeks here are filled with soups, bread, potatoes, vegetables, and all the hearty, healthy delight of Romanian cooking.  But we do some of our own meal preparation too, which has been a source of amusement to Otilia, who marvels at the strange things we make.  Last night we got ambitious and made spring rolls with peanut sauce, after the delightful discovery of peanut butter, rice paper, and rice noodles at a big grocery store here.  She laughed at them, calling them "strange Vietnamese sarmale," but ultimately sat down and enjoyed them with us.  Success.