confession #000012

...or, polish pleasures

it's now been almost two days since my darling left for krakow and they've been quite hard, i must admit.  i don't know how the rest of the time without him will pan out but i'm trying to remain positive by counting down the days until i'm next to him, albeit for a week.  there's even a ticker bar to krakow on the side to the right of this blog. 

yes, i am that much in earnest of being with him.  (haha! i've actually used the expression "in earnest" ... must be the return of downton abbey and my feeling somewhat like jane austen narrating about my life on this blog.  next thing you know, i'll be referring to my darling as my mr. darcy!)

i realise that i've been sidetracking a bit from the actual subject of this blog, but in reality my eating patterns as well as my success or otherwise in losing weight are all linked to what goes on in my life.  like yesterday, for instance.  i had all the right intentions and spent most of the day being rather careful on what i ingested ... until right after my hour workout (yes! i actually went to the gym!) i was absolutely famished and ate a whole m&s gruyere and red onion focaccia.  i wasn't happy with just that.  i had to gobble down a good handful of toasted, salted beans for 'dessert'.  kudos to me at least for not reaching out for the jar of nutella, but i think the calorific value of the beans is just as dubious.  

bring on the dowager for some confidence boosting!

food is something that i just can't live without.  especially good food.  and i'm not referring to michelin-approved restaurant quality food.  i actually can't spend more than a couple of days having restaurant grub without having digestive problems.  good food, for me is home cooked, genuine food.  it doesn't necessarily have to be traditional food - as a vegetarian, i actually don't eat half of the traditional maltese dishes.  it just has to be something wholesome and cooked with love and genuine, fresh ingredients. 

i couldn't have said it better myself!

and besides being with my mr.darcy (there, i did it, i referred to him as mr.darcy!), one thing i'm really looking forward to in krakow is having a plateful (or four) of pierogi.  i just love these eastern european ravioli in an onion gravy.  my favourites by far are the cabbage and mushroom stuffed ones, but the ones stuffed with red lentils are equally smaku (that's tasty in polish for you).  the beetroot and sour cream soup is something that is on my mind as well.  last may i had the cold version, courtesy of a heatwave that had taken over warsaw, much to my pleasure as it meant i just had to buy a couple of sleeveless tops since i had packed only clothes for a colder temperature.  i'm really looking forward to having the warm version of this barszcz czerwony, maybe accompanied by some warm honey and wine liqueur, or why not, a shot of zubrowka (bison grass vodka).  

anti-clockwise from top: pierogi ruskie, barszcz cserwony, zapiekanka, obwarzanki ... i'm so hungry right now!

as far as 'street food' goes, my complete adoration of pretzels is well known, so when i had come across   obwarzanki (a cross between pretzels and bagels) in kazimierz, the jewish quarter of krakow, i was in absolute heaven.  i could live on them ... but i'm sure if i ever did, my waistline would be a much larger concern than it is right now.  there's another 'street food' which i'm yet to try - the zapiekanka - which is like a pizza on a baguette.  sounds simple enough, but definitely on my 'to try' list.  

being a vegetarian in poland is somewhat difficult given that the majority of dishes are meat based.  but since the country has ample countryside and a huge agricultural industry (of the 18,727,000 hectares of agricultural land (about 60 percent of poland's total area), 14,413,000 hectares were used for crop cultivation, 265,000 for orchards, and about 4,048,500 for meadows and pastures in 1989 - info courtesy of wikipedia), there are enough dishes which a vegetarian can enjoy.  and i can't wait to savour them again. 

krakow can't come too soon. 

st. mary's church in krakow's old town square ... can't wait to be there again.