Marius the Chef

I wanted to show some more of the delicious food that we ate while in Romania. My cousin, Larysa, has a fiancé and his name is Marius. He is an excellent chef. He specializes in all types of international cuisine.

We arrived in Romania late Monday night. On Tuesday night we ate dinner with Larysa at the restaurant that Marius and her both work at. This is what he made special for us.

I ate the spinach and sage stuffed chicken wrapped in bacon. It was so good. I can't remember exactly what the husband's meal was. It was sirloin. The meat was really good too. I loved the figs. Larysa had the chicken salad which looked really good.

Dessert: Tiramisu

This dessert was heaven. It was creamy, decadent and delicious. I felt so spoiled. Did you notice the crystallized sugar ball on top? It has toasted walnuts inside of it. And the blueberry sauce spread around the plate. Oh.my.goodness. This dessert was so good. We both became fans of tiramisu after eating that.

On our last day in Suceava before we had to return to Bucharest, we took Albina, Ionica, Vica and Razvan to dinner at the restaurant again. Marius surprised me with this awesome creation for dinner.

Doesn't it look amazing? The flower petals are thin potato slices, topped with 3 thin rolls of spinach and cheese {I think} stuffed chicken and sprinkled with cheese.

Sarmale cu Smantana

I remember eating sarmale as a little girl in Romania. After all these years, I still craved their delicious flavor. I told my husband all about it, and how much he would like it. When I returned home for the first time last October, I was so excited to {1} eat sarmale again and {2} have my husband try it. I just knew he would love it.

The first time we ate sarmale was at Saveta’s house on Saturday night. I wish that we would have taken a picture of it. But to give you guys a visual, here is a picture I found.

{photo credit: danagrad.blogspot.com}

Sarmale {stuffed cabbage} is a traditional Romanian food. {Actually, I think it’s a pretty traditional European meal with different variations found throughout Germany, Bulgaria, Poland, etc}. It’s made by taking pickled cabbage leaves and stuffing them with different types of meat {usually pork or lamb}, rice, onions and different seasonings. It simmers in a pot for a long time, usually in some red sauce. It is traditionally served at weddings or for Christmas dinner. {Maybe someday if I ever master the art of cooking sarmale, we will eat it for Christmas}. To me, this is true comfort food. I could eat a whole pot by myself. I kid you not. It is so good. And I think that’s due in part to the fact that for me, it has many memories attached to it.

In Romania, we had something called smantana which is similar to sour cream, only the consistency is thinner. I had to google the correct definition, but it is basically a dairy product that is made by souring heavy cream. And for some reason it just tastes better than sour cream. Albina made a lot of soup for us, which I loved, and we always put smantana in it. We also poured it over stuffed bell peppers and of course, sarmale. The combination of the delicious sarmale with smantana drizzled over it was so good.

I hope that I can learn how to make this dish in the traditional Romanian style. I want to have my kids grow up eating sarmale. It just seems right.

And when we return to Romania this fall, I’ll get to eat it again.

Blue, Yellow and Red

I noticed something yesterday while working on the blog. My color theme is blue, yellow and red. When I drew out my template I told Jenn that I wanted the color scheme to be yellow and blue with some red.

Notice something familiar between the colors of my blog and this….

{Photo Credit: Google Image}

I didn’t even realize the similarity because the colors of my blog are a bit different {especially the hue of the blue}, but the color scheme is the same. This is probably only interesting to me – but I had to document it.

I think that means I am a true Romanian {at heart}.

Romanian BBQ

This activity was one of my favorite things to do while we were in Romania. I am sure there is a correct Romanian word for it, but since I don't know it, I’m just going to go with a Romanian bbq.

Our first experience with this was Friday night at Saveta’s house. After dinner, we went outside to cook the meat {some sausage} and sit around and visit. It was a pretty cold night. My aunt Zamfira came down and sat with us.

{Sorry for this b/w photo. It was taken with the video camera.}

On Saturday night, it didn’t seem nearly as cold as the night before. After dinner everyone went outside to sit, cook the meat and talk. My cousin Ionica even turned on some music for us. You can read about that here.

In this photo you can see how the meat is cooked. It is actually a really neat thing they have. It cooks the meat pretty quickly and evenly. Saturday we cooked meat and potato wedges.

After the meat is cooked, everyone heads back inside for some food, laughter and conversation. The meat and potatoes were excellent. We were so full from dinner, but we just couldn't stop eating the meat and potatoes. They were really delicious.

Although we couldn’t speak Romanian, it was fun to sit around and spend time together. I could understand some of the conversations and was proud to be able to somewhat translate it to my husband. We just loved to be in their company. It was very enjoyable and relaxing to be together as a family.