An awesome Banitza (fillo dough and feta cheese pastry) recipe

And here is a traditional Bulgarian meal - banitza. Bulgarians make this for Christmas, for New Year's, and for any other occasion and mostly without occasion. It's the BEST! So, you're gonna need:

- a pack of fillo (also spelled phyllo, phillo, and God knows what other ways) dough
- 1 cup feta cheese (less or more is fine)
- 5 eggs
- 1 stick butter (more is fine)
- 1/2 cup yogurt (it can work without it)
- salt

Grease a baking dish, about 14 X 12 inches or larger. Mix together in a separate bowl 4 of the eggs, the feta cheese, the yogurt and salt to taste. Melt the butter. Spread a sheet of fillo in the baking dish, sprinkle with butter, put one more sheet, sprinkle with butter, and so on until you spread half of the sheets. Pour in the mixture from the bowl and spread it evenly. Continue spreading the sheets of fillo with butter in between until they're over. Cut loosely into pieces about 5 X 5 inches each. If you have any butter left, pour it in the cracks and around the edges. Remove the white from 1 egg and coat the whole surface with the yolk. At this point your oven should be preheated to 375F (figure out on your own when to turn it on). Put it in and bake for 20 to 40 min (this depends on your oven) or until the banitza is golden brown and smells oh so deliciously you just can't take it anymore!


You can have it with the drink called ayryan which is simply 2 parts yogurt with 1 part water stirred well.

Bon appetit!

Blogging, knitting and selling computers

Yesterday Mom and I were talking about Dad and his mom (my grandma) who died long ago. Mom resentfully noted:

"Your grandma used to knit three pieces a year and she called that having a job, and your dad sold five computers a year and he called that having a job."

That comment made me shrink when I thought about this blog I just started. I felt discouraged on the precipice of my third post. Neither Dad nor Grandma were obviously too successful in their self-acquired businesses. Both of them are/were hypochondriacs who stayed home for the better part of their days. I just imagined what the continuation of Mom's line would be five years down the road:

"...and you write one paragraph once every few days, on some website that nobody reads, and you call that having a job."

The thing is that my Mom is the most amazing person in the world. If I had the power to make her a saint, I would. But she wouldn't understand blogging. She is a hard worker and a highly respected professional in her field and I feel like a loser staying home with Dad these days while I'm supposedly looking for a job. Which is one of the reasons I should get a real job with a steady paycheck even if that makes me a corporate slave.

Cabbage doesn't have to be boring

Cabbage is the cheapest "leafy green" on the North American market. While lettuce and spinach vary between $2 and $5, $1 if they're on sale in the poor end of your city, cabbage always has its spot reserved in the end of the grocery isle with a neglectable price tag of 40 cents.

For 4 people:

- 1/2 cabbage
- 2 medium carrots
- 2 roma tomatoes
- salt
- balsamic vinegar
- olive oil

Obviously, cut the cabbage finely. Grate the carrots. Cut the tomatoes in medium pieces. Add salt to taste, sprinkle with balsamic vinegar, and pour a thin stream of olive oil in a spiral over the cut vegetables. Mix well. It's good with white wine. If you're a lover of the stronger alcoholic taste, have it with grape brandy.

Okay, I don't like making this on my own, but when my Mom makes it it's the best!

Parkinson's Disease and Exercise

Dad was recently diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease - something that, if I think about in hindsight - has been there for almost 5 years. I compared pictures from the summer of 2004 and the spring of 2005, and I can see the difference. He's a healthy middle aged man with a tall standing posture and head held high in 2004. In 2005 there are the first signs of a hunch, holding his hands a little awkwardly in front of his abdomen, and his facial expression a little more goggley than the year before. The transition between being healthy and being sick must've happened that winter - 2004/2005 but nobody noticed, labeling his signs and behavior generally as "getting older". Today, in the winter of 2009, my Dad is an old man at the age of 60. I've been reading a lot of articles about PD and this one strikes me as one that everyone can benefit from. It explains how the regular practicing of sports slows down the process of the disease and can even prevent it before the disease picks up speed. It is yet another proof how important movement and regular exercise is. Of course my dad hasn't exercised much (if at all) throughout his life so I embraced this research thinking "This is it! This is it!" Of course this is not the only "it"; there are many other factors, about which I'll write some other time, but regardless, now when someone tells me "I haven't exercised in 40 years and I feel the same" I'd tell them to take a good and honest look at themselves, and then decide whether the above statement is a sincere reason to brag.

Make art, live life

A part of me is an artist but this blog is not about art only. It's about all those things in the meantime that we call "living life":

Sometimes we make art simply through living life.
Other times we live art and make life.



In any case, here you will find (among other things) posts about physical health, mental health, food, exercising, social connections, social issues intertwined in the web of personal perceptions.

Happy Holidays to my new readers! Be peaceful, healthy, and follow your dreams!