Friday, October 26, 2007

Burek: A Balkan Croissant, Only Better

I haven't eaten out very much since I've been here. This is partly because I like to cook, partly because I don't much relish eating in a smoke-filled restaurant, and partly because eating out has always been a social activity for me. However, yesterday I wanted burek (I like to think of it as a croissant-type of pastry filled with meat or cheese or spinach). After my class of high school students I turned to one of my colleagues and said, "Where is the best burek shop in Prizren?"

He started to describe to me where it was (assuming I meant a restaurant and not his wife's kitchen). I asked him if it was close by and he said that it was. "Well, then," I retorted, "Take me there." And he did. I bought each kind on offer: meat for him, spinach for me, and cheese for another coworker. They came wrapped up in brown paper and he bought liquid yogurt for us to drink with our burek. Sigh...flaky layers and spinachy goodness in the middle. Quite delicious. Do check the Wikipedia article on burek for the pictures if you're interested. The style we ate was like the Bosnian style, but it wasn't all rolled up like a cinnamon roll. We had long, thin logs of the stuff. Mmm-mmm.

Today I walked down to the green market for another pumpkin to bake, which I did. I also just made another batch of applesauce. This time I'm going to take a bit over to my landlord's house. My landlady dropped off a plate of beans with a small hunk of meat in it for my lunch earlier. That also was very tasty. I'm trying out a new low-fat buttermilk biscuit recipe to have with dinner (probably spaghetti sauce I took out of the freezer poured over polenta and baked). I'm trying to empty out my fridge and freezer so I can stuff a new batch of goodies inside.

Hopefully the power won't cut out until at least after 7pm. If it does, though, at least I'll have buttermilk biscuits and pumpkin to nosh on.

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