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 :)

Ode to the Split Pea

O yellow Split Pea!
You are filling and tasty
and affordable.

I went whole hog making split pea soup the other night. I even went to the market and asked for a pig bone -- what a thrill to look at a pot of water and sauteed vegetables and then chuck in a huge piece of spine!

Eventually you blend the soup and with it any small pieces of meat you could tear off from the spine. So, I ate some blended meat soup.

One of the few downsides of split pea soup is that when it is room temperature or colder, it tends to harden into a gelatinous lump. My solution last night was to reheat it in a pan with some water, thus doubling the volume of soup and improving the consistency. I encourage all of you to try this!

Yurrup

I remembered something I really like about Europe this Christmas when I chatted to a 100% straight male (Turkish) friend of mine who was wearing a well-fitting sweater with two diagonal fashion zippers.

I was eating pizza the other day when one of the three songs that had been playing all break came on the radio. Except, because we're in Europe, it was a techno dance mix. Obviously.

Something I want to bring back to America is well-fitting men's jeans. Seriously, guys! The day of the potato sack trousers is done.

One thing I will not bring back, though, is the fashion mullet.

This semester will be the semester of studying languages! Surprising even myself I am back at the Goethe for part two of Deutsch A. Honestly, I went in last fall really skeptical about German... I have little or not interest in German food or German history, I don't want to live in Germany, I probably won't be an academic and it's not useful outside of Europe, so really I have no reason to spend the time. But I made some friends and caught the language bug and here I am.

And... I'll be taking Hungarian at CEU! I had thought about it and waffled and kind of convinced myself not to, but then B. mentioned that he was doing it and I said heck, why not? So I'm in the Intermediate (=highest level) class. Suffice to say I am pretty pleased with myself at the moment. I'll go tonight and see how it is.

Every Monday and Wednesday I mean to leave home at 7:30 but instead end up leaving closer to 7:34. Every day as I leave the door of my apartment I see across the street the bus I’m supposed to take. There are two that go in my direction and, due either to the unforeseen forces that control the public transportation system, or probably rather to bad planning, the second bus tends to follow almost directly behind the first. So, this morning as all others, I walked to the crosswalk and just missed the light. As I waited for it to turn green the second bus appeared, following on the heels of the first. It drove through the light, paused momentarily at the empty bus stop, and drove away as my light turned green. This vision I have of my bus pulling away as the two of us are hopelessly separated by traffic is my daily tablespoon of regret.
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I’m back in Hungary again after really more than a month away; I’m surprised to be enjoying myself much more than I thought I would be. The dread I faced at the prospect of return in fact dissipated in JFK airport Saturday evening as the woman at the ticket counter told me I couldn’t leave that evening because my reservation was, in fact, for the following day. Suffice to say, I felt like an ass.

But more than that, being denied from returning made me realize how much I did want to get back. My plans are only partially formed but I feel like I do have plans here, or at least a reason to get up in the morning, which is much more than I could have said in December. I feel now as I did when I was younger and I came back to my bedroom in Tokyo at the end of the summer after two months away. I dreaded my return to school and the end of my continuous leisure, but opening up my bedroom door (perturbing the thin film of dust that had accumulated in my absence) and seeing once more my things in their place reminded me of everything I liked about being home.
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Because I didn’t find out that I wasn’t coming back to Budapest on Sunday until late Saturday evening, I didn’t have the chance to ask my boss to tell my students not to be in class on Monday. As I feared, they were there and I was not. Today the two out of five students who bothered to come were thirty and forty minutes late, respectively. I mentioned to the first that I was surprised that anyone had showed up and she said, “Well, we were all here Monday.” Twisted logic, but perhaps justified? I was really sorry, if that’s any compensation.