jelkie's croatian cooking sufari

for each of the seven days i have been back home, the girls have taught me two meals/recipes per day

in our family the way it works is, with every recipe comes a story, so it's not just about cooking, it's about learning where the passion for certain foods, distaste, resentment or love come from

like cabbage stew. both my Mother and Father's families were very poor back in the old country, so naturally cabbage stew was a daily staple.
It's a meal they hate but love. It reminds them of shoes that were four sizes too big for them, sharing a bed with three others and herding sheep and stuff

just the sheer hint and smell of cabbage sends these memories flooding back

apple strudel reminds my grandmother of trying to put on weight, because skinny women were classed as poor and unsuccessful
it also reminds her of trying to bring a young family up in a foreign country, with minimal english talent and a minimum wage to match

funny that spinach reminds both ladies of fighting and survival?



so naturally, i've been picking the minds of not only the Mother and Baba Sex, but also my GranDIDDY-which has proven to be quite difficult as age has begun to take control over his mind


he starts off ok, talking, laughing, joking and then out of nowhere something clicks and he begins a negative and sometimes offending tangent
Baba Sex kills me. she just sits there, staring at nothing in particular.

so of course, i asked her what it is she stares at. what she's thinking in that pose

she thinks of the day they met
she thinks of the contract and musical career she passed to be with him - the beautiful ultimatum he gave her by the shores of the neretva
marrying him finally after living next door for 17 years
saying goodbye to him when he went to war
welcoming him back when he survived the war
creating life with him
moving worlds with him and their young family in search for a better life
leaving behind all she ever knew with almost nothing except the belief in him and them
she thinks of building something from nothing
of the battles of their sons addiction they fought together
of the heartache of trying to fight their daughters sickness
of the war
of losing everyone and in the end only having him
of that being more than enough to carry on

of watching albeit from a distance his Mother go down the same mental spiral


she LOVES him. could you fathom ever loving someone so much? i am without words, plain in awe
love is so much more then being thin, looking pretty and farting in the next room
love is accepting EVERYTHING and experiencing EVERYTHING with another person, allowing those things to push you closer together rather then drag you miles apart...



when i lived in croatia i spent a great deal of time with my GranDIDDYs mother. she had Alzheimer's and dementia, her health had deteriorated to such an extent that they could seldom move her from her bed.
but she just wouldn't give up. she just kept living.

i would sit with her in silence. listening as she would speak in tongues and mumble. at her moments of clarity she would grab my hand hard and look me straight in the eyes. straight through me. i wasn't at all scared.

i felt this great deal of relief for her when i was by her side. like someone was there to listen to her. does that make sense?

our living quarters were separate and at night i would scale the fences to get to her balcony and just sit outside her french doors. she knew i was there and would talk to me - screaming her story out finally.

she was the prettiest woman in that part of croatia and married by great grandfather, who was the best looking guy in that part of croatia.
he spent the rest of his life beating her, cheating on her and abusing her because he could not handle the fact that she was so beautiful

but loyal as she was, she remained by his side until he finally died of bowel cancer.

then her life begun.


in the time i spent with my great grandmother, i expanded. i learnt an unspoken language of which i continue to this day.
i can not explain it. but i feel it and think it and create with it.


she died the day after i left her village.


they refused to tell me for a week and a half



following on from that my heart hurt
a lot

i couldn't understand that a woman who had been denied the right of VOICE had once again been shut down. the one person who listened to her banned from seeing her on her way onwards - what kind of selfish human being would carry the tradition of her husband?




was that sickness the result of not being able to speak and express? did my GranDIDDY go through something similar? to an extent i suppose.



either way, it just hits home so hard. being away for so long at a time, coming back to visit every now and then. you really see how life progresses both in peoples minds, in their appearance, etc

hands change the most
then droopy eyes


i don't want droopy eyes
i want happy smiling ones




tangents.