May 112012
Low-Cost Poaching

When the times get tough financially, my instincts kick in and the survival mode becomes default. But I don’t really change my modus operandi, as frugality is somehow ingrained in me, and I just keep on doing what I do best: digging through my pantry and my freezer and putting healthy, nutritious, appetizing food in [...]

After School Special

It’s a quarter past three and they’re at the gate, their long fingers clutching the bars. They pretend they are in jail, and when I turn the key to liberate them, they shuffle across the brown-colored concrete of the courtyard, howling in make-believe despair, arms flailing, their eyebrows turned into apostrophes, their backpacks magically turned [...]

Apr 122012
Spring Break(fast)

It’s spring break week and every day seems like a Sunday. Most of my friends have packed their bags and left sunny California for even warmer, more tropical climates, and I cannot wait to hear their stories of culinary escapades and see their sun-kissed faces once they return to reality. The girls have been going to [...]

The Pudding is Sometimes in the Proof

There was no kindergarten when I was growing up in Yugoslavia, and my first attempts at socializing started at the ripe age of five in preschool. While most of my classmates in senior grade were veterans, jaded and resilient, skillful at banter and repartee, as well as avoiding elbow nudges in the lunch line, I [...]

Mar 232012
A Real Happy Meal

My girls are not the type to grab the box of cereal and milk, and call it a proper breakfast, even on the school mornings. If my alarm miraculously fails to scream the most obnoxiously repeated sound in my ear at the proper time, I have to go for the emergency cereal box and offer [...]

Mar 032012
Flowers on the Wall

I started my blog thinking that I managed to hide myself in a cocoon of obscurity, buried behind the computer monitor and  printer, in a dark room that rarely saw a beam of light. Facing the blank page was a challenge I accepted eagerly, filling the space with words and continuously chasing the elusive tail [...]

Feb 242012
Poetics in the Pot

Mother usually made her chicken or beef stock in a pressure cooker, a shiny metal beast that sat atop the stove spewing steam at and hissing like a dragon from some of the scariest Serbian tales. I tried not to pay attention to the ingredients she threw into the pot showing oh-so-typical disdain for such mundane [...]

Blue Monday, Fat Tuesday

I have never taken February seriously. It was the month right after winter break when my legs still craved the tortuous curves of the moguls on the snow-covered mountain, feeling the weight of the boards and the bindings days after we said goodbye to our family winter haven. It was short and unassuming, but crammed [...]

Feb 172012
Spudnik

When you are a child, your family is like a fortress, protected from the outside world by this invisible wall of habits and routines. Every day, I left my house in the morning and spent several hours in school with other children who belonged to seemingly similar, but in essence very different tribes. Just because [...]

Advanced Pantry Spelunking

  I like to pose challenges for myself from time to time, and this week I took inventory of our pantry and the fridge, and decided to clear out some of the underused items before adding more and shoving them farther toward the dark corners where the chances of ever being consumed become slim and [...]

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