Craving Green: Wintergreen Soup

Post New Year is a pathetic time for cooks. It's like coming to a low after an incredible high. All the holiday baking, cooking, eating and partying have taken a tool on our cooking minds and our bodies. Snow is not pretty anymore, not even in pictures. Market is brown. Food is brown. And together with the fresh New Year resolutions, we crave some freshness in our lives and our tummies. Thus, let me present my New Year's resolutions soup. Post Thanksgiving, post Christmas and New Year, when I regret all the turkeys I ate and all the champagnes I drank, this is the soup to start fresh, clean and light. Not really quite Asian, not really quite Western, not really quite anything, just a tiny bit of aromatherapy for the soul.

The Family Heirlooms: Ischler, The Emperor of Cookies

Time to disclose another favorite recipe from my "secret" book of family heirlooms.

Cesnica: The Serbian Coin Bread

Holding onto Things

Little Ray visited us unexpectedly today. It rarely comes in the winter. The skies are cloudy and the days short. But today it was there when I woke up in the afternoon, the room was lit up and brilliant and warm. It is funny how we never notice things until they are about to disappear. We take them for granted until we learn that we will not have them anymore. As I was watching Little Ray dance around the room, I realized that it is perhaps the last time it is coming to us. A skyscraper across the street will soon occupy the patch of the blue sky Little Ray so liked to inhabit.

Little Ray visited us unexpectedly today. It lasted for a brief two minutes, just about enough to grab a camera and take a photo of it. And as I pressed the shutter a million of wonderful memories were recorded in a megabyte in which Little Ray now resides. The long lazy summers we spent wondering around and discovering this city piece by piece. The day we brought Miss Pain from the hospital. Her first birthday. The day we moved out. And came back. All the food we cooked and all the friends we fed.

Little Ray gave us that perfect zen moment. And then it was gone. I cried briefly for Little Ray. And then it was gone too. Little Ray taught me to let it go.

Bajadera Nougats

Vanilice (Serbian Vanilla Walnut Cookies)