Munching Aquamarine

My little 'hippie' bunny is very noisy when it comes to feed so turn on the volume to smile a big!

~Banananaa

Introducing the Kelp Bunny

Good Day!/Szép napot! ✌ *sniff sniff*

Noisy Veszprém Part II

Saturday was the last day of the Street Music Festival. On Thursday and Friday evening I went with my mom to see what fun this little town can give us. ~Hmm It was surprisingly cool!!

There were much more music scenes as it was written in the program list. There were many beginners as well but they were very good! ~Wow 

But what hit me the most that I never saw that plenty of people in this town... I never saw a person in the city in the evenings at all... 

Luckily I didn't meet with familiar people. Usually this is the reason why I don't like to go out in Veszprém. Too much people on the streets who knew me since my childhood and call me 'Vikike' [childish nickname for Viktória] all the time I meet them and they just want to talking with me about everything and nothing. ~Oh How I hate them. I'm not rude at all. I like my cousins and relatives, I enjoy talking with them, but these people are usually old neighbours, teachers [I sufferred a lot in my childhood by them, no thanks...] and mutual acquaintance of my parents, but not me. So I just wanted an evening without them. It has managed! 

Starter musicians and bands [all Hungarians] only played covers but in various musical styles. Pro bands came from Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Slovenia and UK. There was a French band 'Mac Abbé et le Zombi Orchestra' whom I missed and I sorry for it. I like horror punk/rockabilly very much but I never heard of this band until now. I just heard that they were frantically good with their horror look too... Maybe they will come next year again.

My artist list from the fest [in those few hours I was there...]

5.

Missy Cage, a new Hungarian band with the best "Personal Jesus" cover I ever heard. Sadly I only arrived onto their last song...

4.

This cute couple played the cream of the 50's with a single saxophone and guitar

3. 

I enjoyed to listen a teenage band who played covers with heavy rock style. They were not on the list so I don't know their name but they were really cool. What it was kind of funny that every artists played a song from Bee Gees... Is it some anniversary of them or what? Their songs are ok classic but I really can't stand their voice... for me only deep voice I bear to hear in music even when a singer is female. [That is why I always adored the voice of Nina Simone, Shirley Manson, Carly Simon and Tanita Tikaram.] Their best was the cover of "Seven Nation Army".

2. 

German tourists appreciated much when this two punk boys played a Rammstein song ["Du Hast Mich"]. I love this song too.

1.

An Italian folk duo Ilaria Graziano and Francesco Forni on my first place. Although they are pro artists not beginners like the previous ones I enjoyed them the most! After my big Italian favourites like Rhapsody of Fire, Camerata Mediolanense, Lacuna Coil, Mandragora Scream, Amedeo Minghi and Angelo Branduardi I think I found the next one from that creative peninsula.

On Thursday I only heard their first song because I needed to go home early [next day work...] but I liked that one song so on Friday I just wait for their performance

At the start we were only a few around the little stage but in the end the small square filled totally. No wonder at all, they were very very good! So after the concert my mom brought their album for me as a gift. But how... I just wanted to ask them on my shy Hungarian way how much is their cd when my mom suddenly popped up from nowhere and started talking to them in French! And they spoke French too! How the cake did she know it?! I couldn't say a word as usual. For talking my English is very poor so I just kept smiling while they nicely dedicated the cd cover. I was not nervous or whatever, I see musicans as other humans I just can't talk freely with anyone so I just let my mom has her moment. The lady and her partner was very nice. She held my mom's hand while they were talking with us. It was a very cute scene. It's unbelievable how my little mom can chit-chat with anyone even with Otto von Habsburg! Haha

The album is as great as their performance was. [And the man has such deep voice! Haha]

Cute paper lanterns and light strings were for decorations, not something big or unique idea but it became the street more cozy by them

There were 60's style van cars everywhere in the city selled homemade beers and wines, special - also homemade - delicacies and various Hungarian and foreign dishes and fast-foods. Everything was very pricy ~Huhh... but I was hungry enough to eat something. I'm sinned...

...because suddenly I saw my dinner! ~Gloria in ex...

...and it was really meat and sauce!! [and the bun] I never ate that much meat in my whole life. It was extremely tasty therefore I missed some green parts. 
Anyway see you next year Sandwich van! 
 [...and cute seller boys whom I almost skip to notice... Haha]

Good Day!/Szép napot! ✌

Noisy Veszprém

Veszprém is usually a very sleepy town and now I was polite. No kiddin'... On autumn and winter there is noone in the streets after 5pm except some homeless, old drunkens and hooligan kids. It could be scary especially on winter. Only in May and on summer has the town some bigger festivals to wake up the people from their winter sleep like wine or beer festival [but I just call it "Ogre Festival"... sorry but some men on these evenings behave like Shrek doesn't...], VeszpremFest [Surprisingly it became more popular than a few years ago. It's cool although the ticket can be pricy sometimes.] and the Street Music Festival. Today has just started this last one. In the beginning Street Music Festival was about that mostly beginner or amateur singers, musicians and bands played on the streets all afternoon and evening for 4 days and at many places in the town from etno, jazz, electronic to hip hop, rock/metal and classical music. But I remember on an amateur goth rock duo too! Usually there were some famous Hungarian bands as well, but the meaning of this festival was to give a chance to the - yet - noname artists and brave enteprisers. When the festival has been over the current jury has awarded the most famous musician/band/singer of the street. I think it is a nice idea. But it was about 12 years ago. I was on the first ones only. I lived on Budapest for many years so I try not to miss out this year. I'm curious what has changed since then [hope not much]. I saw the flyer and the artists are mostly pro outlanders [although I don't know neither one of them]. There are Hungarian bands on the list as well whom will play during the day how I see but the evening is for pro artists from all over Europe. It sounds good anyway but I hope that there will be some brave amateurs too, they can be funny and surprisingly good! Sometimes they can be better than a pro one... But the best part of this festival that it's all free [especially if you skip eating and drinking anything they sell on the scene... which can be more pricy than usual. Clever...].

Anyhow the ad design of this years festival is cute I think

[Picture from utcazene.hu]

Hmm well, let's see hear...

Good Day!/Szép Napot! ✌

Escape From Office Day

One week ago was the so called 'Office Sports Day'. What is it? The entire bureau just take a friendly tournament for a day and singing and laughing arm-in-arm like a happy fami- 
...in the McDonald's perhaps or in a parallel world... 

For me - who is not a sporty person at all, more like the living anti-movement - it was just another 'I wanna go home!' day. You can call me grumpy and antisocial again - I am -, but I'm not intrested in 'having fun with colleagues whom I doesn't know and doesn't want to know at all...' Trust me some of them are really strange... The meaning of the so called 'social life' for me is not this foolishness, rather my family, friends and my bunny. Finished.
And if you think we just run or play some football and other things in a sports day then you are naive. The games were actually crappy tasks like "wheelbarrow race" [You are the wheelbarrow... Imagine it with the colleague you hate the most! Oh but don't...], fishing competition [at a pond where there is a warning sign 'Fishing is forbidden', because fishes are unedible and sheltered. They actually wanted to eat them for lunch... Congrat.], jumping with a biciycle on a table [They were older people as well and just hope they had life insurance...], boat pulling [Someone is sitting in the boat and you have to pull her/him to the other side of the pod. Just hope not the 200kg colleague wants to sit in the boat...] and so on... 

After I put my signature to the attendance register, with one of my colleague - who do not prefer hypocrisy too and doesn't like doing freaky games either, especially because of her back is injured, but they didn't care at all - we just silently stepped down from the scene to take a walk in the nearabout before we went home. Veszprém has a huge parkland under its Castle Hill with many smaller historical monuments. So we just went for a walk to see the newly renovated garden with the 'Margaret ruins'. You can laugh if you want but I'm a real history geek, so just some ruins can throw me into a fever... especially if it belongs to my beloved Middle Ages.

view from the valley of Séd onto the Castle Hill

So the 'Margaret ruins' was once a cloister named 'St. Catherine Dominican Nunnery' [Szent Katalin Domonkos Apácakolostor]. It built around 1240. The cloister probably ruined when the Ottomans besieged Veszprem in 1552 [this time the whole country seized by the Ottoman Empire]. The ruins had been excavated in 1938.

 
It was not something famous building, I just like walking among its stone walls. 

Two ladies lived here in those times whereof this monument is significant, Saint Margaret and Blessed Helen of Hungary. Although I'm not religious at all I do interested in some saints lives, like Saint Margaret's too. She was born on the exact day like me on 27th of January [crazy Aquarius] and my mom's name is also Margaret. 
She followed her own four simple orders: "to love God, to despise myself, to hate nobody, to judge noone". Easy-peasy, she thought. Her life was short, she lived only 28 years. She died from sepsis after the many years of serious self-mortification... She flagellated herself, wore an iron girdle, cilice on her head [sackcloth with inwardly-pointing tines] and shoes spiked with nails... Ok she was freakin' hardcore I think... I never agree with these things although I was a devoted catholic for years! Maybe my faith was not that high enough... Haha 
But it was the Middle Ages and these things was normal among cloister walls to feel themselves closer to Christ's sufferings...?! Ironically these were the times when the 'pre-Inquisition' started torturing people anyway no matter that the person was religious or not... so what was the point to torture herself, she would have been glad not being caged by them. [Humanity is uncomprehended for me...] Anyway she was the daughter of our current king, Béla the IV and his wife Maria Laskarina. In those times the Tatars attacked our country. They brutally assaulted everyone who came their way. After a bigger victorious battle at Muhi they wanted to capture our king once and for all. On the way to Buda they suddenly took withdrawal and leaved our country. We never knew what was the sudden cause for their act, but our ancestors were happy of course. Yeah! They gone. "...And there was much rejoicing!" So the king and queen and all the Hungarian people thought it was a miracle and grace by God. So they gave the only 3 years old Margaret to God as a sacrificial gift. She lived in this little cloister in Veszprem until her 9th birthday. Then she needed to leave Veszprém to start her punkish lifestyle from now on the Island of Rabbits. It sounds Monty Pythonically again but not, this was todays Margaret-island/Margit-sziget at Budapest, later named after her. There were another cloister in those times [now ruins] and her grave is on this island as well. This cloister was near to the king's temporary residence. 
I don't know why they called it 'Island of Rabbits', there never hopped a single bunny even on Easter... maybe a long long time ago this was a hunting place or maybe historians misspelled something because in original Latin it called 'Insula Leporum'. According on dictionaries the word 'leporum' means "rabbits" or "pleasures", both are nouns in genitive plural. If it meant to be the 'Island of Pleasures' it explains many things... although Google Translator simply [mis]translated 'leporum' as 'boy'...??? 'Island of Boys' ~Hmmm It's getting more interesting... Hehe

Where was I? So she was the princess after all and later the king just forgot everything about his pledge to God. He needed to marry Margaret to the Czech or the Polish king for diplomatical reasons of course. But Margaret was devoted for the cloister and God and simply told her father: -I would cut my nose down instead of being disloyal to God! [I bet she would do it!]

She hated the fact that she was born a 'blue blood' and everyone handle her courteously, so she started mortificated herself more than anyone, slept on the stone floor, ate less than a mouse, did the most disgusting tasks like cleaning the latrine, nursed the most sick people with the most disgusting diseases. After all she became the idol of the nunnery anyway. [So maybe she mortificated herself more to avoid the sin of proudness...? Sorry, bad joke.]

Margaret died on this island in 1270 and according on legends after her death her body avoid the decomposition for 3 weeks and it scented like rose. It sounds fairly but imagine how her body looked like from the many years of brutal self-torturing... ~Uhh Rose scent is my b... bunny.

About the other lady Helen the Blessed I only know that she was the teacher of Margaret here in Veszprém and according on catholic legends she always levitated during prays, she was a reputed stigmatist and "given to ecstasies, and lilies of light grew from her hands during prayers". [1] She would be the living flower-power hippie dream. Haha

...and then many centuries later a nun from Hell will be sitting on thy steps!

After this refreshing little tour I just went home. This forenoon wasn't that bad at least...

Good Day!/Szép Napot! ✌

[1] catholicsaints.info

Macaron Friday

Nowadays macaron is not a big thing at all I know, but in Hungary this sweet only came into fashion maybe 5 or 6 years ago. So I'm just a newly fan.
I have relatives - my paternal aunt and two cousins - whom live in France. They travel to Hungary every year with their kids to be the family together for the summer. 

And Oh they brought me a big pack of petit macarons... My mom couldn't stop laughing on my face when I saw the pack... It's just another sweet for her.

So I just waited for Friday - cause only on this day I have a little free time - to enjoy these colorful goodness with a little drawing of course.
I hate that I have only this little free time in these days. I need more drawing, but this school take my weekends fully... I can't wait for September to finish it.
Btw. these macarons are not filled, but their taste is soo fruity enough Haha I'm going to be crazy... but I still can't say "Ohh too much free time".

[this is trying to be a self-portrait...]

Good Day!/Szép Napot! ✌

Recipe Part I / The Goulash

There is a key scene in Tim Burton's Ed Wood movie

[Ed Wood] Is anything I could bring for you, water or a blanket?

[Bela Lugosi] Goulash. *sad sigh*

[Ed Wood] Sorry, I don't know hot to make Goulash...

Poor Mr. Lugosi. I couldn't die without tasting Goulash anytime in the last period of my life anywhere I could be. We are not some tradition freaks or whatever but indeed we can be very sentimental over a bowl of soup for example if it is "ours". Unbelievable. I don't know why, maybe our history was too sad, too many families were torn apart because of world wars and later hundreds of people must emigrated everywhere in the world because of political and other reasons, so they lived half of their life with deep homesickness... [as Mr. Lugosi as well] and yeah we are proud, hothead etc. so we can clung on every little national things easily [if somebody cares about these things at all of course]. When I was a teenager it annoyed me how my parents could be sensitive on smaller things. Then I just realized it last year how is it feel that you were belonged to something/somewhere what from now on only will live in your memories. 

I tried to accept it, but I can't...

At home my father was the main cook of the family. He made great soups. We always had something tasty on our table, especially at Christmas. He loved to cook and kitchen was the place where he was his real himself. When he felt ill [oesophagus cancer] and needed to stay in bed because of the horrible pain, I would take his place to make him his favourite soups, especially Goulash. Although he was ill he could quarrelling with me about little nothings like salting. I hate salt. Every time when it comes to salt, my father voice is in my head that if I not care the dish will be unedible - and as we know this is the most important thing in the world... Poor old chap, he was just a perfectionist.
He always tried to teach me cooking the family way:

-Now my daughter, you must learn how to make your national dishes too. 

...not just the Asian ones which - according to him - I mastered enough to this country. But in the last two years my approach has changed completely.

His condition recrudesced worse and I wanted the family recipes to keep in safe, because maybe I wasn't really care about the Hungarian foods before, I loved to eat them but only how my father made them. So from time to time I just kept asking him how to make this and that. At this point he just looked at me with his big frightened Donald Duck-like eyes. He loved to live, he afraided of death like a child. He believed that he will be healthy again. So he just asked me at this time: -What are you afraid of that much you always asking about my recipes, I will be better soon and I will teach you how to make them...

It remained a dream. He passed away last September.

Now the recipes are in safe and I cook the family dishes perfectly although I oversalt them anyway but this time with something else...

After this happy prologue - again - I return to Goulash. 

So is it a stew or a soup?

Traditionally it was a stew made by herdsmen in the Alföld/The Great Hungarian Plain. They lived far from the villages, so this was their only dish they could make in their kettle. Mostly the stew made from beef [Hungarian Grey cattle], but later in the 18th century when sheperds also appeared on the plain, they made it from lamb too. They seasoned it with spices, ate it with bacon and bread they brought with themselves.

In the 19th century this kind of stew was one of the most common dishes what peasants usually cooked.

Goulash - along with the other two main traditional meals, the Pörkölt and Paprikás - has became more popular when paprika [yet simple chili pepper] arrived into Hungary in the 16th century by the turks [into Europe the chili peppers brought by the physician of Christopher Columbus in 1494]. In those times we called it 'Turkish pepper' and only peasants used it for cooking. In stately homes it was just another bedding-plant in their botanic gardens... We use the paprika in the kitchen since the 18th century. Today it is our national spice, although many countries like to use it as well. But only we has started using the paprika in powdered format [made by a special procedure] which make our traditional dishes more unique. Paprika has very different size, taste and hotness than the South American chili kinds due to the climate differences and the quality of the Hungarian soil.

The second breakthrough for Goulash was the potato. It spread in our country in the 18th century, thanks to Joseph II [ruler of the Habsburg lands from 1780 to 1790] and his tax advantages. [1]

Goulash-soup is much more a "moderner" invention [19th century] of its original version. There are many variations of the soup too.

This is our family version of slow-cooker Goulash soup

You will need

1-2 tablespoons sunflower oil

1 red onion or onion [peeled and diced]

1-2 tablespoons ground Hungarian paprika [Hot or not it's up to your taste. We have many variations from hot to sweet paprika and we usually mark them by strongness: strong/hottest=csípős or erős, mild hot and sweet=csípős csemege, semi sweet=csemege, Noble sweet="Édesnemes" labels on the packages. Best is the Kalocsai and Szegedi brands.]

30 dkg beef stew meat [cut into small, bite-size pieces]

a pinch of salt

a pinch of pepper

2 carrots [peeled, cut into pieces]

1 parsnip [peeled, cut into pieces]

1 knob celery [peeled, cut into cubes]

1 1/2 liter cold water

1 tomato [whole]

1 yellow bell pepper [whole]

1 bunch of parsley

1-2 teaspoons ground caraway seed

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg/mace [optional but make the soup more tasty]

2 level teaspoon salt

2-3 medium-sized red skin potatoes [peeled, cut into cubes]

Method to make it

In a medium-sized pot warm the oil on low heat and saute the onion until it soft and translucent. Add the ground paprika and a sprinkle of water as well, because paprika can burn easily so stir it continuosly! Add the meat and sprinkle it with a pinch of salt and pepper. Stir it frequently and braise it until it well browned. Add the chopped carrots, parsnip and celery and continue sauteing them for another 2 minutes. Then add the whole tomato, bell pepper and the bunch of parsley. Fill the pot with water, add the salt, the ground nutmeg and the ground caraway. Bring the soup to boil on high heat. After it boils turn the heat to the lowest. Put the lid on but leave a little space for gases.

After 1 1/2 hours taste your soup. If the meat and the vegetables are more or less soft, add the chopped potatoes. [Add a little more salt and spices if you feel.] After about half an hour taste your soup again and if the potato is soft and everything cooked well together, your soup is ready. Remove the tomato and the bell pepper, we don't need them. Ready to serve!

You can eat it with fresh bread or you can make soup pasta called 'csipetke', or you can eat it with pogácsa/savory scones as well. I usually eat it with 'pork crackling pogácsa', but I never make it. I'm very lazy with baking and Hungarian bakeries sell very tasty pogácsas. But I found for you a nice recipe for the simple cheese pogácsa here.

Variations for the soup and the stew version

• Reduce the potatoes and add sauerkraut and sour cream. This version is called 'Transylvanian Goulash' or 'Székely Goulash' [The Székelys are a subgroup of the Hungarian people living mostly in the Székely Land, which is a historic and ethnographic area in Transylvania, Romania.]

• You can make it with smoked meat, either beef or pork. This version is called 'Betyár Goulash' [Betyars was famous highwaymen in the 19th. They were the Hungarian Robin Hoods.]

• If your are a vegetarian, then you just make it without meat, it will be tasty anyway! This version is called 'Hamis Gulyás'/Fake Goulash. Occasionally I just cook it this way.

 

Enjoy it!/Jó étvágyat! ✌

[1] Hungarian Electronic Library

Summer Vacation 2015

I have three days off from the office so I try to chill down a bit. I'm in a zombie-mode right now. Because of school there is no weekends at all since March and the 'office heads' at work can really tiresome as well in the weekdays. My colleagues are nice to me, but we don't have a single topic we couldn't quarreling on every day... I'm so different then them. I can't help it that I always have the opposite opinion than theirs. I respect their point of view but of course they doesn't respect mine... What a surprise in my life. But I don't mind. It's just the working hours lasts too long to quarel on little shits... Isn't it? Every minute is precious to me so I want to finish the job and after that I just want to run home to create or being with my bunny or whatever else. My life is not takes place in the office instead of theirs. But the best part is that they are such self-confident blusterers and I'm the "party pooper" and "negative one" when it comes to quarrel on crap things, because at this point I just grumping something to shut down the miningless topic or walk out to the washroom... [min. 15 times/day] They have family and money and every comfort [what I just dream on], they can travel anywhere they want but they just bored with their life and enjoy big shit-stirring instead of work or anything... So I'm a little bit down because of them...

But now I'm on a three-days long holiday. Be happy.

This year I'm not going to go on a "hobbit-adventure" again. *sigh* I can't remember when I was on a real holiday. The last big journey was with my parents in 2004. We went to Paris. My parents had many friends so we had free accommodation near the tower! Beside Paris it was a dream as well. Haha 

At the sea I was first and last at Crete in 2001. I worked all day there so it wasn't a real holiday, but instead of hard working under the sun I only remember at the color of the sea. I love the sea and I miss it very much. So I just sat on my bed this morning and looked on one of my first [old, amateur and unfinished] painting and I just put my dreams in a corner

[whale watching *justkeepdreaming...*]

Back to sleep.

Good Day!/Szép Napot! ✌