We did not celebrate Valentine’s Day in Serbia when I was growing up. So my first February on the new continent, I strolled through the aisles of the grocery stores in a western suburb of Detroit, and gazed in amazement at the piles of chocolates, pink and red hearts, red roses, and enormous helium balloons. [...]
It is not luscious and red like a strawberry; it is not juicy and crunchy like an apple; it is not blushed and soft like a peach; it is not sweet and bold like a plum. It is hard, gnarly, irregularly shaped, pale yellow and covered with an unflattering wooly layer. But in spite of [...]
When I go to a grocery store, I am faithful to my nature and I always carry a list in my pocket. Farmers’ market is a completely different story. I bring an oversized canvas bag, preferably equipped with wheels, and meander around the rows waiting for inspiration to hit me while I ogle all [...]
There are three big barrels at Father’s ranch full of sweet, ripe plums, languishing in their own juices, getting ready for the final process of distillation in a copper cauldron (“lampek”). In a month or two, there will dozens of bottles full of rakija, flavorful and awfully potent plum brandy. The plum trees have released [...]
About thirty years ago, father acquired a piece of land in the hills overlooking the town. Deda-Ljubo gave him half of the money and convinced him to invest, firmly believing that you cannot go hungry as long as you own something tied to the earth. Since then, it has slowly morphed from a neglected side [...]
They all look different. An old woman with greasy tufts of hair shuffles along the hallway, dressed in a faded brown house dress. A middle-aged man in jeans and sandals sits on the bench playing with the ends of a light blue scarf casually folded around his neck, obviously not there as a fashion statement. [...]
Growing up in Serbia, which was then a part of Yugoslavia, we never went hungry. But the lack of food was a reality for our parents’ generation and every generations preceding theirs. There were wars, there was re-building, more wars, more re-building. Being hungry most of the time was a part of life they accepted. [...]
I have been reading food blogs for several years. The blogs with really pretty pictures, the blogs with true and tested recipes, the blogs that care about the origins of food, environment, and sustainability, and the blogs that deal with food policies, trying to make a statement. My blogroll is as immense as my interests. [...]
My hometown in Serbia is surrounded by hills. They are not high, but wavy, seemingly undulating, leading the eye from the bright meadow greens to golden fields of hay. And everywhere you look there are orchards. The plum* is the undisputed queen of the summer fruits. It is a symbol of Serbia, interwoven into our [...]
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