Cooking in Bulgaria

Well, I had hoped to get some pictures up today, but the guy working at the internet club doesn't know how to hook up internet to my computer and I don't know where the internet cable is. Oh well. I'll get them up sometime.

Things are moving really quickly now for us PC trainees in Bulgaria. In another two weeks I'll be moving to Lovetch where I'll be for the next two years. I'm so excited and nervous! It's a lot like I felt when I was in America waiting to come here. But right now I'm still in Kraynitsi and things are as usual. We're having language lessons and finishing up our project to paint the fence around the school with youth and community members. We were supposed to paint on Saturday, but it rained, so we're going to do it Thursday, Friday and Saturday instead.

Things have been pretty stressful here as we get to the end of pre-service training. We've had so much to do in such little time, and on top of it all I got sick last week. I also got pretty homesick this weekend, and I cried for the first time on Saturday. It was bound to happen sometime. I fell asleep listening to the music on my computer, and when I woke up I felt so much better. I didn't feel so sick and I wasn't as exhausted as I'd been for a while. I had so much energy and the whole day before me that I decided to make my family dinner.

My host mother, Danche, was really excited about this because she had been wanting me to make some American food since I got here. I decided to make stroganoff, and Danche wanted to watch me cook it so she would be able to make it too. Every step I took, Danche had suggestions to make it better. She decided to boil the meat instead of frying it, and when I added the spices, she added a lot more (Bulgarians generally like things REALLY salty so she added more of that as well as other things too). Then she didn't unerstand why I had put it in the oven. It was supposed to be in there for two hours, but an hour and a half in she decided she'd rather finish it on the stove top. When I started to add the flour she asked why, but I didn't know the word for "thicken" to tell her it was to thicken the gravy. She reluctantly allowed me to add some. Just before we were about to serve it, I added some yogurt (which is a lot like sour cream here) and she was pretty dissapointed about that. She said that I should have let people add it themselves to their own portions. Oh well... now I know. It was so funny, and I was laughing so much at each step of the process. My host mother's a great cook, so I deffered to her on most things. And I did make the kitchen pretty smokey because Danche had turned it on and I figured she knew what setting would keep the oven at a reasonable temperature. Instead, it was turned to the highest setting, so after that I monitored the temperature better.

Cooking in Bulgaria is definately quite different in Bulgaria. Most Bulgarain women know how to make many of the same dishes, but they are made quite differently from home to home. And the stove is sort of different too. Some people have wood burning stoves which they use not only to cook but to keep the house warm during the winter. My group in Kraynitsi cooked on a wood burning stove for our community skills assignment, and that was quite an adventure too.

So I'll end this by saying that I'm feeling much better now, and I'm enjoying myself again. I am sad about moving and leaving my friends and Bulgarian family because I've gotten pretty close to them. But at the same time, there are a lot of opportunities and things to look forward to in Lovetch. My coworkers were pretty amazing when I visited them, so it's comforting to know that they will be there when I move.