Mom's Recipe Collection

Smells from the mom's kitchen are something that all of us surely consider as the most precious memory to our childhood. No one ever knew to make such a delicates from nothing as mom did. There wasn't a moment or a day that there wasn't a delightful plate full of smelly sweet things placed on our kitchen table. Although, every Sunday a delightful smell of fresh rolls or some kind of pie discretely ran under the door of my room and sneaked into my bed. Who could resist it and don't get up immediately?

I am living far away from my birthplace for a while, but every time when I go to visit my parents' home, I have to dig into mom's recipes and make something from her collection. She isn't among us for several years, but every well known scent from the kitchen brings her back into the house. As smells spread around the house, I expect that every moment I am going to see the dearest face calling us to come to the table. Although the recipe I use is the same that she did use, it never tastes and smells the same. Only one person could make it that particular way. But I am never going to change some recipes and the way of making some food. This is one of the most precious things I inherited from her. And with every meal made from her collection, her spirit is there with me. My dearest company.

A few months ago I were in one of those visits to my hometown. When I opened the kitchen closet and digged through handwritten notebooks and a pile of papers with recipes, it came to my mind to gather all that in some electronic form. At first I meant to retype all of them into one file and keep it on some safe place, upload it to some internet storage place... But I wil loose one of the great memories, lines that are written with her own hand, stains that we made making that cake or pie and that bring all those memories back. Therefore, I decided to scan the whole collection and turn it into one PDF file. Memories to keep and to pass to new generations.

There is one more thing that I decided: at the same time, I am going to share those recipes here. From time to time, every single recipe I choose for that particular day. I want to share my memories with someone else and I hope that I will make pleasure to some other family for their family meal. 

Serbian National Cuisine

Serbian cuisine is the mix up of influences of many conquerors, but also has a great variety of characteristic food.

Preparing meals is a special ritual in Serbian home and that makes kitchen the central place in the house. There are three main meals for a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner. Lunch is the most plentiful and most important meal, so if it is possible the whole family is gathering around the table. Plenty of bread is must have for every meal, especially home made which is consumed with almost every kind of food.

Vegetable or meat soups and broths are always on the table so Serbian women usually make them once in the week in very large amounts, cook them for several hours and later add pasta or noodles to daily use and make the different meal every day. Main meal usually consists of some vegetables and meat mixed in famous mousaka, sarma or stuffed peppers. Something that makes Serbian cuisine famous abroad is rostilj, especially pljeskavica (grilled minced meat made like a beef steak), cevapi (small rolls of mixed minced meat) and Karadjordjeva snicla. To make material for rostilj, masters of that job mix several kinds of minced meat, add lot of spices including red pepper and garlic, but exact formula they use is secret and that makes Serbian rostilj unique.

Salads in Serbian cuisine are also made in specific way. One of them is tursija, pickled mixture of green and red peppers, green tomatoes, small cucumbers, cauliflower and carrots. Furthermore, there is pickled cabbage, that is unforgettable for all Serbs who leave their own country and make it wherever they live all around the world. Another salad special for Serbian cuisine is ajvar, known as the "Serbian vegetable caviar".

To make ajvar you have to roast red peppers and then leave them in closed dishes for some time to rest. Next you need to remove skin and seeds off the peppers and then ground them. At this point grounded peppers are then mixing with oil, salt and garlic and cooking for several hours to reduce water.

Finally, prepared ajvar is putting into glass jars and closing with a tight lid. Some other specialties that are always on the table when a large company is gathering are kajmak, kacamak and gibanica, a kind of pie.

Many meals known as Serbian national specialties are not even in the vocabulary of other nations, so their names are hard to translate. So if anyone wants to uncover the secrets of Serbian food, he should let the experienced chefs lead him through that fantastic journey.

Living In The City

Great number of people in one period of their lives have to decide to move to the big city, because in their hometowns they don’t have an opportunity to study or to work. Some of them stay there for the rest of their lives, though they are suffocating in the speed of life, overcrowded traffic, great expenses of everyday life… But business people, who are looking for the chance to get on with their careers, find great advantages for that, just like the students who don’t have proper university in their hometown.

Often the most important sports or cultural events are organized in big cities, since most of the appropriate objects are built there.  All these activities just hypnotize all their lovers, who decide to stay and live in the big city, where they are able to have an absolutely fulfilled cultural life.

On the other side, living in big cities, the places full of noise, air pollution and congestion, can be quite harmful for sensitive persons. People who are accustomed to noise and crowd, spending their days in the cars and crowded buildings, chasing the time, often have some psychological problems. To get to the job, they often spend an hour or two, which can be very frustrating. Exhausted by the long busy day, they fall asleep immediately when they come home. They don’t have time for fun and friends.

Children who are growing up in closed space have more allergies and some other immune problems, than children who are living in the country. Playing in the grass, mud and generally in nature, let children who live in the country to come in touch with many bacteria and get immune to them. City kids often live in sterile space and that causes an underdeveloped immune system. To be healthier, just a 20 minute walk in fresh air can be helpful. Trying to spend more time in fresh air, they have to get away from the cities for the holidays and spent them on mountains or somewhere else in pure nature.

Although majority of people see the disadvantages of living in big city, they have to accept that kind of life when it is their only chance to get a job or wanted education.

Influence Of Colors In Our Lives

Color has a very important role in our lives because it directly impacts our feelings and our mood. We all have our favorite color that makes us feel good, but also the ones that we don’t like, that make us depressed or sad. For that reason, colors from nature strongly affect our lives and our feelings. The way we feel them depends on many things: brightness of color, type of light, our mood and many other components. But overall influence of them on our lives is very impressive.

Basics of psychological influence of color on people lies in the interaction of visual and other kinds of senses. Every color triggers the different mood. We feel the bright, warm red, orange or yellow very differently than the cold blue, green or dark black. As the light is the essence of life, the bright colors make us feel pleasant. On the other side, dark is suffocating life, so the dark ones have negative effects on our mood.

The way we feel colors is strongly connected to acoustic feelings and sense of warmth. It is proven that people who spend time in the space colored in calm green or blue are especially sensible, therefore if being in the spaces that are in brightly colored, such as red or orange, they become less sensible. For that reason rooms with lot of noise should be in green or blue. Our senses also help us to differ warm from calm colors in the nature, where the yellow sun is hot, flame is red, but cold water and ice are light blue and green. Because we feel the same way in closed space just like we feel in nature, in the blue or green room we feel some lower temperature than in orange painted room, nevertheless the temperature is the same in both of them. Explanation for this is that our eye catches a color and converts it into another form of energy. But it is not felt only by eyes, it is felt also with other receptors, skin for example. This is the reason that even people who are not able to see or to recognize colors can feel their effects.

There are many researches about influence of color on human brain. In one of them you should imagine the especially colorful room: walls in many various colors, yellow and orange furniture, blue carpet, and a green plant in the corner. Than imagine the other room, all in black, gray and white. In which one would you prefer to spend a day? Probably, as a majority of people, you would choose the first one.

It is proven that different colors cause different emotions, reactions and moods.

Red stimulates brain activity, excites and warms the body, increases the heart rate and blood pressure. Because of that, students choose red painted rooms for studying, and mothers stimulate activity of their babies by red balloons and toys.

Orange stimulates appetite and it is often used in kitchens and dining rooms, but it is recommended to persons on diet to avoid it.

Yellow stimulates memory and increases brain activity a bit less then red and it is recommended for living rooms.

Green recalls spring in our mind, calmness and beginning of life in nature. It acts calming and relaxing.

Blue has the same effects as green does. It lowers heart pressure and decreases heart beats.

Therefore, it is important what color you will use in a particular situation. For example, because red is initiating action we are going to use it in Web sites that sell products online and it can lead users to positive decisions about buying things. For web site that sells natural products it is logical to use green color, a direct association to plants, health and nature.

There is an area of psychotherapy that uses healing by colors, called chromo therapy. That method is known from ancient times and it is very much used nowadays. Some of those methods we use in everyday life.

We wear clothes in bright colors when we are depressed.

We enjoy watching warm yellow and orange sky transforming to blue and purple in the twilight.

Some pleasant colors make us feel comfortable, safe, calm and happy.

On the other side, lack of color makes us pale, depressed, unhappy.

Having all this on mind, we should consider the way we are using colors in our everyday life. It is extremely important to do it carefully in our home, working space, even on ourselves. We should use adequate colors, corresponding to our needs and our personality.

Remember: it is your character that chooses a color, not you.

One Sunny February Day

Early February sun took a lot of people to the river coast and nearby parks and playgrounds. Every cafe was full of loud groups of young people, moms who took their babies out, grannies who were trying to catch the early rays of sunshine… Teenagers drove their bicycles and skateboards through the park trying to avoid small kids running from time to time in front of them, playing hide-and-seek or catching a ball. Under the trees shy snowdrops carefully raised their heads. Little girls wandered all around to pick them and with a bright smile took the flowers to their mothers. Fathers and sons were playing football everywhere you looked

(Foto)

The loudest of all was a group of teenagers. They were playing guitars and singing altogether. Everyone who passed them got a tiny smile. Who could resist music in the sunny day? Spending a day in such a surrounding definitely gave strength to everyone to stay in a good mood until the spring comes..

Everyone was smiling, happy to get out into the nature after several months spent inside their homes and overladen with the winter clothes.

(Foto)