Recipe: Chushki Burek

Don't ask my why my first Canadian post is about food, but...

There are endless versions of Chushki Burek which is a Bulgarian "Stuffed Peppers". To prepare them (my version) we will need: 4 green bell peppers 1 red bell pepper 1 small onion 1 large ripe tomato 2 bunches of flat leaf parsley 300gr feta cheese 2 tbsp olive oil sweet paprika, freshly grounded black pepper and salt

First, we need to boil the green peppers in a large souse pan for approximately 5 minutes, until they are soft. Then, split them in half, deseed (remove the seeds), clean and leave to dry.

While the green peppers are in water, finely chop everything else (including red peppers) and mix it with spices and olive oil.

Finally, fill in the halfs with the mixture and bake it at 180C for approximately 30 minutes.

Enjoy, John.

Birthday in Bulgaria

Boys and girls, gather around your screens, take a popcorn and soda (or beer), and let me tell you a magical story about Bulgaria, the land of Bulgarians and... Gipsies! As you all know, I had my 29th birthday and my wife's present was a week (plus 2 weekends) in Bulgaria (the wonders of married life).

On a first day, when we arrived to Sofia, Sergo (who managed to steal a car) and Sveta picked us up from the airport and immediately, we went to a mountains to enjoy the views, escape the heat and the dust of the city (it was close to 40C), and sample local cousin (local dark beer was AMAZING) at the... hmm... can't remember the name. Later that day, we took a night walk (after couple of cocktails) on the streets of deserted Sofia.

Before I will go on, let me tell you, Sofia is every bit ex-Socialist country where people took democracy to the wrong direction. All the building (including historic and governmental) are spoiled with graphite and half of the bricks are missing (I didn't know they can walk away on their own). Also, all of the people (at least the 37+) are frowning all the time. It's like they've seen socialism, and now they've seen capitalism, and they're not impressed with either one. On the other hand, it could be the heat...

On a day after, after having an early and a very tasty breakfast (eggs, eggs and some more eggs), we drove to Sezopol. Basically, it is a very long drive across Bulgaria but surprisingly, the roads (or the highways) are not bad at all and you are allowed to drive 120kph on most of them. We arrived to Santa Marina resort (2km outside Sezopol), checked in and drove to the ancient town of Sezopol to eat (yes, we did it a lot).

The next few days were pretty much as every vacation looks like: Sun Beach (or pool) Aqua park Old, in some cases ancient and sometimes very small cities with a lot of tourists Beer and food, food and more food Ohh yeah, and a birthday cake (2kg of sugar, cream, caramel and chocolate)

Out of all places we have visited (Burgas, Sezopol, Nesebar,Sveti Vlas, Primorsko, Kitten and Plavdiv), I can recommend only one place – Sezopol. It is an old town (with historical value) on the cliffs with amazing view on the Black Sea, friendly people, excellent cousin and not too many tourists so you can walk around and enjoy your time.

If you ask yourself “where are the photos?”, there is too much of them and we are working to delete some (or most) of them. I will upload them as soon as we are done... [10/09/2008] and finally, here they are (I had to delete a lot of old photo album to free up some space on Picasa Web): http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/john.markh/20080829BirthdayInBulgariaPart1 http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/john.markh/20080829BirthdayInBulgariaPart2

Enjoy, John.

P.S.: A short lesson in Bulgarian culture: Drink “Aryan” when you are hot, drink “Aryan” when you are cold and drink “Aryan” when you are thirsty [more info can be found here: http://mideastfood.about.com/od/drinkscoffeetea/r/ayran.htm]. Ohh yeah, and you also have to try Bulgarian Chushki Burek (roasted peppers stuffed with cheese), Za-Za (small fried fish which goes really well with beer – local beer or as a cat food) and “Fish On A Roof Tile” (sorry, don't remember the Bulgarian name) which is a whole fish (I had Mackerel) in a roof tile, topped with a rich, red-wine, tomato, and shallot sauce, then slow baked.