happyland

someone in cavtat, croatia, has aptly named their house happyland. we were in cavtat last may and totally enjoyed the whole trip, great scenery, great food, wonderfull weather. i've been to croatia before, there is something about that country that makes me go there again and again



our hotel hotel croatia has a wonderfull location on a cape above the town of cavtat. there are footpaths around the cape and hotel, you need to be fairly fit to walk around as the hotel is on a hill




food is one of the reasons i like croatia so much. my all time favourite is "ligne na zaru" (those fluent in hrvatska, please excuse my spelling) grilled squid





we were there in may, i guess the owner of this boat thought that there is still time to fix it before summer...




dubrovnik in the distance, went there by bus for a day-trip




not sure i would have enjoyed this many birds around me!




old town of dubrovnik is filled with narrow alleys, love the potted garden on this one




cavtat at night, lights of dubrovnik in the distance




not jealous or anything, someone got picked up by this one




to have a house with a view like this!





newly budding cactus



there was this house that we liked a lot, great location, some obvious damage to it, not sure if that is from the war or something else. we wondered how someone could neglect a house this beautiful, with a great garden in the back, so that it is slowly turning into ruins. so sad, almost made us want to find out if it is for sale... the picture was taken from a footpath behind the house, to catch the view from the house. i'm still curious to know the story of this house




succulent of some sort




love love love the pink




secluded courtyard




makes my mouth water...




another version of ligne na zaru




interesting mosaic on the entry walls of hotel

winter fishing

winter finally came and froze the lake. mom and dad are fishing with nets, under the ice, and getting some nice catch! went there the other weekend and updated my knowledge of winter fishing.

first of all, you need to know the exact location where to put the net, fish don't just wander about, that's what i'm told anyway. once you got the location right, you make 2 holes in the ice, distance between the holes depends on the leght of your net. there are special tools that make making the holes easier that it sounds. then you take a sledge (particularly designed for this purpose) and put that under the ice with a line attached to it (so that you'd be able to pull the net under ice once you get to that point). your aim is to slide the sledge under ice from one hole to the other. you can drill holes in the ice to get the sledge moving if it gets stuck in the middle.

once you get the line (which needs to be few meters longer than the distance between the holes) under ice, you attach one end of the line to net and start pulling the net under. once you get the net under the ice, you need have weights on both ends to keep it at right depth, finally you secure the net with another set of lines on both ends so that currents don't move the net. my dad uses sticks longer than the holes are wider for this purpose. there is a lot of "science" to this and it'd take me forever to excplain it, let's prentend you got it right and a couple of days later are ready to see if you caught any fish.

you need to break ice on the holes, if you put some sort cover on the holes it'll be easier. take the long line, attach it to the net and start pulling it from the other hole. usually when you got fish, you can feel their movements on the net before you pull it all out. the idea is to gather the net to the other end to check if you caught anything. if you did get something, like my dad here caught a pikeperch / zander, you'll need to release the fish trying to keep damage to net minimal, sometimes easier said than done.



once you've checked the whole lenght of the net, go to the other other and pull the net under ice with the line you attached earlier. very simple!

in finland you need to have a permit to fish like this, so make sure you got one before doing all the hard work. this time the pike-perch got salt, butter and prunes inside before going into the oven. we don't usually mess around too much with fish since we eat it so fresh.



another fish caught in the net was a burbot, ugly bugger. it has no scales so it needs to be skinned.





this one ended up in a soup a day later. start with cutting up the skinned fish into 3-5 pieces, put to kettle with enough water to barely cover the pieces and simmer until fish is almost done. take out the fish, if you want to be fancy, strain the water and put back to kettle. add peeled and cubed potatoes, sliced yellow onion, salt and peppercorns and cook until the potatoes are almost done. while the potatoes are cooking debone and cut further the fish, leave the pieces quite big. once potatoes are almost done, put the fish back to kettle and simmer until done. add milk and butter to taste, or sour cream like i did here. great meal with rye bread and swiss cheese.



the dog loves it at the lake because it's the only place where he can run around free.



he is pretty fast!

hey all

just took chocolate cakes out of the oven, recipe from martha stewart's baking handbook (who else!), will frost them later in the week, the certain someone has his b'day coming up. i used different size pans than in the recipe, therefore will have 2 cakes. not sure what kind of frosting i'll use, will try to remember to take pics of frosted cakes

i spent yesterday making apple sauce. bought a slicing / coring tool that i'd earlier thought would be useless, but made all the difference with the apples. saw one in use on whateverradio.com blog by alexis and decided to try it. i had plans to do more apple sauce than i did, but i decided that 42 jars has to be enough. there is another fridge as full as this...

took the dog for a walk as well. i'm not particularly a dog person, but there seems to be things you do for certain someones. this particular dog puts a strain on my nervs, occasionally. the dog is organic, if the term can be used of an animal. by organic i mean the dog is not trained, kinda all natural... he was rescued as a puppy, first home being not a good one. difficult is an understatement of the first year with the dog, but it is calming down. a walk with it can be quite nice, provided there is no rabbits, deer or moose around. oh, the dog is terribly afraid of cameras, therefore the scared face

i live in the city in an apartment, the certain someone lives, with the dog, in the country in an old house we call the shack. workdays i'm at my apt, days off are spent at the shack where i do most of my cooking and baking. certain someone has remodelled the kitchen at the shack, which was very nice of him. the old kitchen, well, let's just say the stove didn't work properly and there were some issues with the oven. i guess it was the xmas turkey that almost didn't get done that prompted certain someone to take my pleas for an updated kitchen seriously. thank you for that.

once in a while we go to real countryside, up to the cottage at the lake and where my parents live. my brother and his family have moved back to that town some years ago, we go there to see them as well. my 2 nieces and nephew are growing up too fast, i would love to be able to spend more time with them.

today, before the walk with the dog, i put my variation of coq au vin on the stove. had an opened bottle of red wine, some bacon in the freezer, onions, carrots, garlic, thyme, button mushrooms and chicken legs. in a dutch oven, i browned the bacon bits and chicken legs, sauteed the finely minced onions, added the carrots, some fresh thyme, pepper and the wine and left them simmering on the stove for the duration of the walk. i had thought we'd be back in an hour but it took almost two. the coq didn't mind, it was amazing, if i say so myself. absolutely in the top five dishes i've ever made, almost better than bandit roast (there will be an explanation in the future). unfortunately, i really don't know what came to me, i forgot to take a picture of the coq in the pot.

i lovelove travelling, anything goes but some would say i'm obsessed with NYC, i keep going there again and again.

take care for now