Today's Culinary Success: Refried Beans

- 1 can kidney beans
- 70-80 grams salami (or to taste)
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1/2 red onion, chopped
- three or four cloves garlic
- Cayenne pepper, nutmeg, cumin, salt, black pepper
- Olive oil
- brown bread

Fry the onions with a bit of the chopped salami for a couple minutes, then add pressed garlic. Add one or two teaspoons of salt and black pepper. Fry until fragrant, then add the rest of the salami and the can of kidney beans with some, but not all, of the liquid. Cook for four or five minutes then add the red onion and cook for a minute or two longer. Next, squish the beans in the pan with a spatula or other kitchen implement. Add 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper, 1/2 tsp. nutmeg, 1.5 tsp. cumin, and salt and black pepper to taste. Cook for a minute or two longer and eat on toast with spread cheese. Delicious!

Spring is sprung, the grass is riz

We are unquestionably on the brink of spring. Originally, this is why I came back to Budapest: warm bike rides around Margaret Island, open-air beer gardens, and, most importantly, more asparagus and strawberries than it is possible for one human being to reasonably consume.

But I wish it would wait a couple weeks longer. My coat is warm and I am in love, so I can withstand the cold. More importantly, winter is stasis. In winter I can postpone difficult decisions, looking for jobs, thinking about the future. Spring, however, hurdles rapidly towards summer, and summer becomes the fall, and fall is when I have to produce once more some semblance of a sustainable lifestyle (by which I find a job with some income). Please, don't make me do it yet!

Wednesday I used up five more of my fifteen minutes when I won the February Gift of the Gab. In Budapest's own speech slam, five contestants first give a five-minute prepared speech, then consume some beers in the twenty-minute break, then finish up by giving a three-minute improv speech on a topic selected by the audience. Mine was "Things you would rather forget."

As a result, I 1. am the proud owner of a bottle of Jameson whiskey and two Jameson brand glasses 2. am now an extremely minor celebrity in Budapest's minescule public speaking circuit. I'll be speaking at Ignite in two weeks (probably about the Ottoman Empire) and then at the Gift of the Gab final on the 24th of March. Be there, or be square!

I realize that this will be the third post about food on my blog... I promise to write about other things soon (like pig killings!) but life seems too busy for whatever reason.

I am always impressed by how great lentils are to have around. My pantry is quite bare, and on Sundays here in Budapest that usually means preparing oneself for meals of peanuts and bland pasta. I was psyching myself up for similar fare this afternoon when, lo and behold, my eyes caught a glimpse of the lentils I keep in my pantry! Huzzah!

I rapidly set the water boiling and chopped up a yellow onion, a red onion, the four mushrooms that were hours away from being two old to eat, garlic, two bullion cubes and some basalmic vinegar and -- ta da! Instant soupy deliciousness.

Over the summer I made a soup with fresh tomatoes, a roasted pepper, garlic and fresh herbs. It was the essence of summer. I took one serving and hid it in the back of my fridge for the dead of winter when the weather is unrelenting and the vegetables taste like cardboard.

I knew today was the day to finally take the soup out. It was every bit as delicious and sunny as I thought it would be :)