WPC: Dinnertime, children

There was the subject of cook for another challenge not so long ago, so today let me concentrate on the places where we also eat when we don’t eat at home, even though there are some photos from there as well. More info in the captions. Buon appetito!

First Slovenia: a fish canteen in Portorož.

Bosnian restaurant in Piran named after the Olympic Games 1984.

The restaurant at the beach in Piran.

The best restaurant in Piran. Above the stove there is magnet saying “My family tree is full of nuts”. I bought it.

Here we eat in Piran if it’s not too hot (ok, or too cold).

Another restaurant by the sea in Piran.

This fish restaurant is in Ljubljana with the view of the greatest Slovenian poet and his muse.

Croatia follows: This is al fresco in camp Škrila, island Krk, Croatia.

Here we didn’t eat, looks lovely, Grožnjan, Croatia.

Back to Italy: Here Niki de Saint Phalle was making her barbecues. Il giardino dei tarocchi.

This is in Lucca and we didn’t stop and eat no matter how lovely it was.

This was the wedding on the beach in Ostia.

And this was Oktoberfest in Tuscany. Pub “Porta gialla”, Borgo Carige.

For my birthday they + dad took me to Orbetello and we had a great time.

And when you stroll around Pienza, this surprises you. Slow Food for Burkina Faso. Something sounds off here.

To return home: Did you know that in Italy it’s believed that one person eats 125 g of pasta? Slippers by UrsaNina.si

This happens when I ‘cook’ for myself.

I love eating on our terrace, whereas some others are afraid of flying bestias.

His father brought this. Five kilos of lamb. It fed us (and Bestia) for weeks.

His daughter made this: apple cake. Takes after father.

Ooops, this is not us. But they have dinner too. Buon appetito!

Photo: a © signature mmm production

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: Dinnertime

In fact, I’ll keep it!

It was two years ago today that I posted my first Manja Mexi Movie blog post. I can’t believe it’s been two years already.

(I know this, even though WordPress has stopped informing me about the number of posts or anniversaries and things like that a while ago. I don’t know what happened. – ADD-IT: The notification came at 11pm. WordPress never forgets, thank you!)

To think that the main impulse for starting the blog was lack of feedback from my family and friends upon sending them heaps of emails with photos from my new life in the new country!

To keep us company in this post, here are some of my favourite already published photos:

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Obviously the world is indeed big enough to find a variety of people who are not too lazy to tell you when you make them smile, busy schedule notwithstanding. Thank you all so much for that! I know how precious this is: even I with all the time in the world have trouble following everybody I’d like to. There are just too many brilliant people around!

It’s not just laziness, some friends back home are saying they don’t understand my blog because it’s in English. Hmmm, as little as I write? Photos are in English as well, are they? Whining like some Italians! Aren’t Slovenians known to brag how good we are at English? Because, compatriots, no matter how much you whine, this blog is NOT turning Slovenian any time soon.

And lest we forget, at the beginning, for much of the first year really, there were just about 7 followers, all family and friends. Only after I started joining photo challenges, many more of you came over and some stayed. Among the challenges that have achieved this are (in each line three links lead to three posts for every challenge):

• Weekly Photo Challenge
• Norm’s Thursday Doors
• various Cee’s challenges
• Sylvain Landry’s SL-WEEK

and the latest I have joined:

• Leanne Cole’s Monochrome Madness.

Soon I will reach the upgrade limit for this one and will start another WordPress blog. Nothing much will change (other than the theme), I quite like it as it is. I hope – I always hope – to do more writing, but just like the rest of the world I’m getting lazier in this regard, posting more photos and less words. They are easier on the eye, it seems, or is it brain. It’s not that words are lacking, I always have a bunch, they are lurking JUST behind the corner. Beware.

Here is a recap of my writings that I posted last June. I find it very telling that only father, Snow Somewhere Else and Badfish commented. Well, I do say it’s for the organised and the mad ones. 😀 (Love you!)

What is alarming is that I’ve only added very few writings to Own Words category since.

Among them are:

• an amusing tale about peeing
• 100 words on why nobody is to trust
• a reason why sister’s mirror broke
• some musings on borders, limits and boundaries
• and a recent bunch of excuses as to why I am not a writer as such.

In short – nobody has a truly good excuse for not following me. But I cannot and don’t want to force anybody either. Everything I said on this day last year in my first anniversary post is still true: we have strawberries and if you don’t want them – your loss.

And as they say in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels: “It’s a deal, it’s a steal, in fact…

…I think I’ll keep it!” 😀

Truly, from the heart, thank you all for every minute spent in my virtual company.

≈ Manja Maksimovič ≈

Featured photo: The header of my upcoming blog: MLK in Ljubljana. 

Photo: a © signature mmm production

SL-WEEK 35: Some cook, others eat

First I read the theme as book and had a photo of my new 7 acquisitions ready. They will have to wait for one of the next posts.

Then I thought it was food, and still wanted to post the books. They are soul food after all, and two of the books are about food (yep, got myself two Pollans). But since Sylvain said cook, here are some of my favourite home-made dishes.

Make no mistake: the chefs are amore and father (the last two photos). Oh, the strudel – that was mine, all mine. (Names of dishes in captions)

How puntarelle are made

Spaghetti alle vongole

Paella

Fennel

Melanzane parmigiana

Chicken with peppers

Pork with apples

Arrosto

Pandoro farcito

Tiramisu

Chocolate salami

Improvised sacher cake

Another improvised cake

MY strudel

Father’s blueberry crostata

Father and his bread

Photo: a © signature mmm production

For Sylvain Landry’s SL-WEEK 35: Cook

States of mind and trust

That state of mind and trust when you realise:

that you are in Prague, it’s 40 degrees C before the rain, and you will hear Pearl Jam in a few hours

that zen is real and it is breathing down your neck (Lake Bolsena)

that you might win this game (I came second, Lake Zbilje, Slovenia)

that mom is scared and wishes to go but nothing bad will happen, again (in Vulci)

that you are about to leave Piran and Slovenia and sleep in another country tonight and every other night (taken almost three years ago on the day of the move)

that you are in the land of carciofi and Settimana enigmistica now (the scene I witnessed upon entering my new home)

that Pearl Jam were on to something with Yield (just around the corner)

that a house has indeed grown where there was none, as has the first dog, and sister (in Piran)

THAT WE HAVE JUST GOT A BESTIA! (Taken his first moment in our garden.)

that father WILL impersonate ancient architecture (in Pitigliano)

that the coming year will hopefully be just as sunny and chatty (taken on the last day of last year in Lucija).

Photo: a © signature mmm production (except cards by a kind donator)

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: State of Mind

Cee’s B&W Photo Challenge: Eat and drink

Three posts have lined up nicely and enabled my offering for today. Thank you.

First, Ishita posted a quote on Italophilia which, after almost three years living here, I can verify is nothing if not true:

Then I saw that Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge for this week is on the subject of food and beverage. It’s interesting to view black and white images of food because lack of colour tends to render familiar stuff inedible. My photos are not from Italy (except the first when amore made what they call prosciutto) but rather from my homeland, Slovenia. For some reason I seemed to focus on drinks. More information in captions.

As not a big lover of red meat, this actually looks better now.

The image of my childhood: the face of sun-spoilt Janževec wine (well, parents had guests over a lot), now in barrels – filed under “if you live long enough”. Slogan goes: “Since I am a tzar, I drink Spri-tzer!)

What one needs on a hot July day: jubilee booze, rosemary bread and cards. And air-conditioning.

Fish canteen and a glass of white, Portorož.

ŠpriCar advertised again, and the coffee served Bosnian style as I like it, in Daktari, Ljubljana.

Sarajevo beer in Das ist Walter, Ljubljana

And lastly, to balance it out , I just saw a post on My Food Odyssey about the book by Michael Pollan with the title “In Defense of Food” and the film based on it that answers the question “What shall I eat?” in a very straightforward, and catchy, fashion:

Eat food,
not too much,
mostly plants.

Lucky me. The beverages above are made from plants!

Photo: MM

For:

WPC: Weight, what?

This week’s WPC theme has hit me right on the head. The “less” part sounds like a joke. I could post images of feathers, balloons and the like, surely. I’ve also considered skipping it but it would bad form. We are truthful around here. Did you notice that there have been no current photos of mine on here lately? Below is how I spent my New Year’s vacation, and this is why: I’m afraid I wouldn’t fully fit in a photo. She’s not heavy, she’s a hedonist… Right?

First there was lots of sea food: in Roma for Christmas and in a lovely fish canteen in Portorož.

Then it was New Year’s dinner in which uncle had his (hardly) favourite truffle-ricotta ravioli with panna, and amore made his now already famous Pandoro farcito.

Then there was a change of scenery to the snow in Ljubljana, where various cakes needed to be had, first in Cacao with photographer Dunja (who snapped it for me with my camera, thank you!) and then with Mateja in Lolita, the most stylish Ljubljana sweatshop (ADD-IT: hihihi meant to say sweetshop!) with cherry light fixtures.

Then we went to Velenje to see Alenka and on the way just had to stop at Trojane and buy a few of Slovenian most famous donuts.

All this was finally cemented with čevapčiči in Das ist Valter, Bosnian restaurant in Ljubljana, with the beer that “is almost better than Union”, as could be heard off the record by an insider.

Now gimme a fennel to nibble, will you.

Photo: Dunja Wedam

As close-up as I dare.

Photo: MM + orange cake by Dunja Wedam

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: Weight(less)

WPC: Circling around

First a few edible circles. Portorož fish canteen: a glass is a circle.

Plates are circles.

Home cooking: A bone is a circle.

Two cooking utensil circles.

A yummy circle from Ljubljana restaurant.

An Etruscan circle from Vulci museum.

The wheel was invented on this beach.

Lovely circles on Mengeš streets.

Circular growth back home.

The setting sun in Piran is a circle.

A ball is a circle first.

Roma: The moon is a circle even when there is nobody in the forest to see it.

A circle on my daily walk to the station.

This pumpkin that was still growing in Piran garden last week is a bright orange circle.

A fountain is a circle.

And now some images with multiple circles: first two wooden.

Then a disco ball and kaki fruit.

Quite a few circles in Il giardino dei tarocchi.

Several happy circles from Porto Santo Stefano to round this topic off.

Photo: MM

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: Circle

WPC: Now is the best present

Now will have to stretch into yesterday. To think of it, today has been pretty much the same so it should count. As it is, I have no problem living in the present. Especially with presents like these.

How it started out. This was followed (and I don’t exaggerate) by at least 4 more sea-food courses. Branzino had to wait till today.

Spin the black circle. The best present. And it’s a double LP.

Ok, ok, that’s a lie, the best present remains:

Ride the now until it lasts.

Photo: MM

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: Now

Chick peas, carrots, tuna, lettuce, pumpkin seed oil, aceto balsamico, bestia. Photo: MM

WPC: Our ooops moments

Over here, ooops moments are rich and varied. Let’s investigate a few.

First there is weird camera stuff: two images that the camera decided to take by itself right here from the desk, plus two that I think are called double exposure (hm… yes?). Or maybe it’s parallel universes? In any case, I like it.

Ooops can also be in the action itself: a flood in Terme Saturnia, followed by a hurricane in our back yard, followed by dry Fontana di Trevi under construction, followed by a lovely bookcase, just a bit high up (yes, ours!), followed by what amore calls “the Italian fantasy”, and last but not least, not really a welcome in Porto Ercole.

Here are a few animal ooopses: a sheep that lost its footing, the gecko that to me is in itself one big ooops, a sea (food) predator, and a mysterious cage of a dead parrot in Porto Santo Stefano.

The following happened when our olive tree called Olgo (because it’s male) got refreshed and we burnt the cut-off branches in our fireplace. Never put the wooden crate in an indoor situation on fire like that, in case you didn’t know. It BURNS. Consequence: the lovely green mirror you see above the mantel cracked from side to side. (It would anyway, crate or no crate, since the chimney behind it was so hot.)

My favourite ooops moments involve funny poses: mom as Kenny, mom as a peperoncino walrus, bestia as a symbol of joy, silly puppy face and silly photographer stand (but with nice imagery of Val d’Orcia).

This is better.

Photo: MM & last two MeMa (that’s you, mom!)

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: Oops!

WPC: Happy trios

Five happy trios of trios: an outdoors one, an animal one (here one trio is dead, sorry about that), a waterways one, a pack mentality one and a b&w throwback one. More information in the captions (plus click to view in full).

The right tarok is played in threes under trees. Bežigrad, Ljubljana.

In Pitigliano.

Two times three in Capalbio.

Three local nutrie.

Three local cattle.

Three local mackerel.

Happy pre-Pearl Jam Prague duck party trio.

Boat trio in Piran.

Non-typical Italian trio in Firenze.

Listening in to Etruscan ancestors in Vulci.

Happy branco (It. for “pack”) at home beach.

Happy New Year in Piran.

Happy uuuuu-ing with paternal grandparents and the green cat.

Happy 40th birthday (some years ago): One generation.

A smile in three generations (not fully related: child + father + the other grandma; mom is in the previous photo).

Photo: MM (+ BM – ‘uuuing’ + a friend – ‘one generation’)

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: Trio

Have a heart challenge

Because Judy collects hearts just like my mother does. Because mom’s cousin arranged them into I ❤ U. Because dad made the bread. Because bestia ❤ bread. Because the last 3-year-old visitor started throwing the stones off the wall before we could inhale. And because we can never have too much heart.

Photo: MM

Judy says it’s a challenge. Give us your hearts.

Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
—H. L. Mencken

Chicken with peppers and black olives. Chef: MC. Photo: MM