for your viewing pleasure

grandma's meatloaf

shopping at Getro

Getro is a chain grocery store in Croatia. They have got everthing from fresh produce, dairy products, bakery goods and alcohol... Fun place!

grandma's chocolate cherry cake

croatian hot chocolate

I am not a big fan of hot chocolate to begin with, however, the hot chocolate I happened to have in Zagreb was absolutely amazing... It is very rich, creamy and thick. When I first tried it, I was wondering what makes it so thick. Later when I got hot chocolate mix from a grocery store, I found out that it contains significant amount of starch. It is definitely worth trying!

grandma's strawberry shortcake

grandma's strukle

Croatian style soup with home-made pasta with cottage cheese. Grandma made this dish for us, and just like all the other dishes that she prepared for us, this was delicious and perfect for a cold, rainy day like today.

Kras

Kras makes one of the most well-known chocolates in this part of the world. Their dark chocolate is simply amazing... The picture is one of their most popular lines, Griotte. This is dark chocolate covered sour cherry in brandy. My crazy Croatian friends call this "Grehote", meaning "original sin". Looking at the empty box of Grehote, I must confess I am such a sinful person now.

red flower in Rovinj

Yes, I do take non-food pictures sometimes. ;-)

red clovers in Zagoria

yellow flowers at a beach in Rovinj

pink flower in Zagoria

Ranka's salt-crusted brancin

Coach Horva and Anita's friend, Ranka, cooked lunch for us in Rovinj. Brancin is a Croatian word for white sea fish, but we cannot find this word in English on our dictionary. It may be a kind of fish that is only in this region.

raznjici u somunu

Tomi, Anita's nephew, enjoying raznjici.

Tomi and Anita. Tomi is Karate Master of the family along with his brother Marko.

grandma's Croatian pancakes

Croatian pancakes are served with chocolate, icecream, jam, whipcream, etc... Croatian pancakes are a bit heavier in texture than French crapes, maybe because of amount of eggs...? Anyhways, it tastes AWESOME...

Grandma, everyone's favorite chef, enjoying her famous Croatian pancakes.

ledo

Croatian company that makes excellent icecream in this part of the world... The picture shows their pistachio and strawberry icecream.

Croatian pizza

When Kontesa Nera was in the US, they told me that Domino's was not what they call "pizza" in Croatia. Back then I did not understand what they meant, however, now I know clearly why they said what they said. Why is Croatian pizza so good? --- I am not sure exactly, but I can only assume that Croatian people tend to use more fresh, domestic ingredients. For me unfortunately, that simply means that I cannot really replicate the food in the US... ;-(

grandma's fish paprikas

Croatian fishermen's creation - tomato based soup with carp. This was also made by granma. She has cooked so many dishes for us already for the last several days, and there was no dish that I did not enjoy. I must say fish paprikas was my favorite of all the dishes that she has made for us. Evidently there are not many people who can make fish paprikas now because this was originally fishermen's creation, and not many people inherited the recipe.