Grateful for a Stocked Pantry: Couscous Tabbouleh

For a few years, we have been facing some tough times. At moments, the panic would strike and I would not be able to breathe from anxiety, helpless, ambushed by an existential crisis that completely blocked my view.  I felt like a rabbit caught suddenly and without a warning in bright headlights, unable to move, [...]

The Magic of Miniatures: Sauteed Kale Sprouts with New Potatoes and Garlic

A long time ago I read that baby animals are cute on purpose, to make us like them and protect them. I can’t say that I loved our several cats and dogs any less when they became fully grown, but I definitely lamented the passage of time that rid them of their round, fluffy faces, [...]

Culinary Adventures: Savoy Cabbage with Peppers, Raisins and Red Quinoa

My parents traveled a lot when we were growing up and I cannot even begin to describe the excitement we felt each time when we sneaked out of our room well after midnight, after Njanja was sound asleep and snoring in her bed; we were eagerly awaiting their return on the living room couch. We [...]

Post-Valentine Bitter-Sweet Offering: Seville Orange Marmalade

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. [...]

Twitter Party: Lentil and Bulgur Pilaf with Caramelized Onions for Cookbook Tour - An Edible Mosaic

I have always wondered how celebrity chefs on TV manage to pull off their seemingly easy cooking demonstrations, having to consider the time and space limitations, the necessity to show technique, the need for banter and entertaining talk, and the intimidating presence of non-forgiving video cameras. I am an oldest child and I embrace challenges. [...]

Comparing Apples to Apples

  I’ve heard the phrase “As American as baseball and apple pie” many times as a child, watching old black-and-white American movies and enjoying translated comics that ended up in  Politikin Zabavnik, my favorite magazine that came out on Fridays. I was not familiar with baseball and as far as I was concerned, Americans were [...]

Sep 282012
FIGured It Out

I remember the two steps to the entrance of our yellow bungalow; I remember eating cold whipped cream “Ledo” with a square plastic spoon on our way to the beach; it was packed in a paper cup and it tasted like milk, vanilla, and freshly churned butter; I remember holding several really big, skinny books [...]

The Young Girl and the Sea

The road from my Aunt’s and Uncle’s house in Montenegro to the beach spiraled around the hills sparsely covered with yellowed weed and resilient and hardened Mediterranean bushes. The heat radiated from the asphalt and the crickets kept me in rhythm as I became aware of the smell I missed for years: the smell of [...]

Farewell with Red, White, and Blue

Thursday afternoon, the girls and I will board a big white bird and fly across the ocean to London and then to Belgrade. Last few days I have been overwhelmed with a feeling of unbearable panic accompanied as usual with an accelerated heart beat, a crazy adrenaline rush (not in a good way), and a [...]

Hummus a Song of the World

As a child I quieted my nomadic spirit by immersing myself in books and traveling vicariously through various lands and various times. I could not accept the static of my life and hoped that some genius would invent a time machine and liberate me from the shackles of my existence. I was a sensitive child, [...]

© 2010 Svetlana Watkins Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha