Family and food

Aliona came home from the US in mid December and it from the minute we exchanged our first hello I LOVED her. We've had lots of talks (in english) and she is also tutoring me in Romanian as she is doing her practice English teaching at the school here in Stefan Voda. She is 22 years old and pictured here with our favorite food FRIGARUI!

This particular day was Saint Nicolas' day and the whole family went out to the park with some relatives... where we prepared a masa (which is the word for table and for huge dinner...) on the back of a car... here is Vanya cooking the frigarui.. which is marinated pork cooked bbq style... He used cherry wood that he found in the forest...




Another family favorite is preparing the traditional placinte which is a thin dough usually filled with ricotta type cheese (brinza) and green onions... or brinza and sugar (my fave... of course) or potatoes or cabbage or if I'm really lucky... apple!!! anyway... Nadia makes placinte over an outdoor fire and it is really good... so here's she and Ion proudly showing off the placinte.








Of course other days there was not so much to show off... like this fish head soup that I came home to... luckily PC has informed the parents that we are not allowed to eat any of the fish caught in local waters so I didn't have to eat it!!!






There is an older brother in the family here.. his name is Dima.. and he was only home for a few months and has returned to Moscow to work... I never did get a picture of him... but I DID snap a picture of his Manbag...as pictured below... I was so surprised to see him walk in with this beautiful purse... I thought maybe his sister had forgotten it at the party the night before or something... but turns out.. it is his!!! I had heard about these manbags before and I always wondered WHAT on earth do they carry in there??? so anyway... I became foarte curious!!! And I looked left and I looked right and there was no one in sight... I sooooo wanted to know ... I reached for the flap to look in side and it was secured by a combination lock!!!!! I had to laugh at my own self on that one!!!! Got me!!!!