Coffee Clouds

Zira's Cup

Talking talking talking with the wind in our faces, our hair swirling along with the smoke. A moment of still. Clouds now gliding by painting mirror messages on our coffee.

Just the right light. I love this picture.

Minzio the Strong & Julie the Old

Mom is in town and we have taken up our 'kafa pauza' rituals again. I so miss making up stories and am determined to not let the opportunities slip from me in the new year.

Minzio & Julie

Here are her two ancient cats, the male with only one tooth proud and big as a tiger. He is protecting his own mom, the oldest, skinniest ass Siamese girl cat in the world. She waits for her padrona to come back from Denver and dreams big heart warm dreams all day long while lying on the rabbit shaped pupazzo on the bed. There is sadness and joy in seeing these things.

Stardust

Yesterday afternoon a bit later than our usual afternoon hour I sat with the Queen to partake in our daily ritual of drinking Bosnian coffee. It ended up a harried day. I had met with various friends and with these casual meetings came talks of dreams and plans - ruminations really, not much of substance. Girl talk I suppose. As interesting as it seemed at the time, I came home so thoroughly exhausted that even though it was later than normal to take coffee I ran to the stove and boiled the water. I put an extra spoonful of ground coffee in the dzezva, thinking it might wake me up. The table set, the fildzans out, the cookies in a tray. I spooned out the toss in each little fildzan, spooned it out into the bottom of the cups, as is the custom,  lit a cigarette and poured the steaming liquid into the tiny bowls of porcelain.

Relax.

Talking and laughing about something, I picked up my cup to drink from the dark, delicious liquid, knowing we would eventually turn over our cups to let the coffee grounds stream down the white of the white porcelain, onto the silver tablet where the magic symbols will sometimes reveal our hearts. I held the cup between my thumb and my index finger because it was hot and as I moved it to my mouth, the cup fell out of my fingers and onto the floor.

Cursing and pushing from the table I bent down to pick up the cup that had  shattered on the floor at my feet. Coffee grounds everywhere including the white table cloth, Queen a tad perturbed but laughing at my clumsiness, I picked up the pieces. The top of the cup and the bottom of the cup split right in half horizontally, in an abnormal way so to make me think bad luck things - I don't know where it comes from, but I can, on occasion,  be superstitious.

Two pieces - the sky and the earth, the head and the body, the soul and the breath. What was I supposed to understand here?

Calm down, girly. Say something like this to yourself : 'Thank you universe'. And a long silence.

There is a lesson here, I say quickly to the Queen, who is a little unsure how to respond.

Fucking lessons. Of course there is a lesson .

So,  the year ends, with the broken crown, the cracked open egg as it were. I had secretly felt it would all along. It culminates in this very vivid and tangible manifestation- this drama of the cup, split in half.   This is my world, exactly as the universe would have it. Opened up and raw. Ready to inspect and reconstitute. Decisions must be made. There is no confusion as to the message.

The bottom of the cup, my soul, cut off from it's true mission.  My feelings splintered from my thoughts -  my common beliefs, no longer in sync with what really is.

I poured myself another cup and drank it. The Queen has the Fool in her cup, {must have migrated over from my cup, I say to myself  as it's my sign, the liminal state - the all and the nothing} and I also spy a fellow with a heart where his groin should be. Lucky.

These in-between days I am 'a casa', inside, in the womb of the bottom of the cup. Back into my very own Garden. A perfect Solstice place to be.

I am Stardust. And I am Golden.

A Mad Dash to Arash

No coffee in the house, a lawn party on Sunday with gift required and on top of that Mary Day celebrations coming up on Monday gaaaaaa!  near hysteria! The thought of going to the bulging Bulgarian store on Arkansas Avenue was alluring - but, as Deshi san was out of town (this is a place we only go 'accompanied') that was out of the question.

What were the options? We needed fat sugary dates to go with our almonds, we needed above all to buy fresh vegetables that wouldn't ruin our weekly spending limit (why do we forget to buy at the Wednesday farm market even though we work the Wednesday farm market?) and desperately we needed Bosnian coffee. I found coffee beans in the pantry but since our coffee mlin is tucked away in storage....no grinding possible.

Then the Queen had a great idea! We should go to Arash, the Persian store on Yale and Hampden.  Yes, that Yale and Hampden, a million miles away, through the Glendale Corridor up Parker. Might as well be the other side of the moon! I was loathe to make the trip (traffic and stupid drivers) but since it was a lazy Sunday afternoon and we were starved and ready to compromise on a much lesser option, we jumped into the car, settled in for the drive, got there in no time and the day was saved.

This is the bounty that we bought home.

The after Arash table

Fresh Dates

Sweet Dates

Fava Beans

Fava Goodness

Anna as a Young Woman

100 Fildzana:- 56: "Anna as a Young Woman"


 I thought of this when I saw it in the plate. Beautiful, isn't it?

Easter at the Lake

                              Easter lunch at the Queens' house on the Lake.

Just the family, small and intimate - my Girl helped make the decorations and No.1 Son filled the empty eggshells with sponge cake to make little eggcakes.

We started off with an Antipasto plate: Prosciutto San Daniele, Mortadella and some Speck. There is always an element of Italian in all our holidays, either bread or sauce or antipasti, I like to be reminded of where we come from and where we can go back to, especially in the sensual experience of sharing food and memories.

Uncle brought some Argentinian rose  in the spirit of celebrating holiday and Spring at once.

Since I never think there is enough food for everyone, I couldn't resist making just a little bit of 'primo' and so un asaggio di Gnocchi with creamy Pesto Sauce found it's way to the table for an interim course.
.
I'm crazy for Lamb but we decided to keep it light this year and so I created an Asparagus feast instead...

 

Asparagus

with Parmiggiano and EVOO

and more Asparagus with Farm Fresh Eggs from Uncle's next door neighbor The Guy with Chickens.

In between the cooking, serving, talking, laughing...I had myself a little dirty martini in this pretty glass that I received as a gift long ago 

...and for dessert we all ate homemade sponge cake with strawberries and almond laced whipped cream.

After

we drank strong coffee and peered into our cups

 Uncle revealed a spontaneous vision of me moving down to Santa Fe to tell fortunes from a  colorful caravan...which we all thought was pretty amusing, each in our own secret way.....

Soon it was over - a beautiful, rainy Easter Sunday came and went, intimate and unusual in it's harmony and simplicity. Here's to more of these kind of days.

The Scholar

It's that time again, the weekly though sometimes it's daily or even monthly on occasions Bosnian Coffee Grounds!

A Bosnian Table

Bosnian Coffee

It's always so delightfully satisfying to experience Bosnian hospitality! On my recent visit to a home bound friend who is originally from Bosnia, I was treated, as always, like a very important person the second I took off my shoes and walked through the door.

The coffee was put on the table in minutes and the small plates with heaps of meat, cheese, and a ridiculous choice of beverages soon followed.

Bosnians love their mid morning or afternoon snacks or meze and are very fond of indulging guests with food, drink and song or story telling.

An important prerequisite is definitely home made suho meso, beef that is slowly smoked and cured and a standard in most homes especially in the fall and winter season. This arrived first.

While I sipped some strong coffee and enjoyed some fragrant sliced meat, the  smell of  frying wafted out of the kitchen and soon enough, gorgeous lepinje appeared, hot and greasy from the cooking oil.

                                            



My visit would not be complete without some sort of sweet, either. A little bit ill from too much meat and starch already ingested I was never the less hoping for something I hardly ever make at home like Baklava, which is, I think, the most well known of the Bosnian delicacies.

Hurmasice

Fatima brought out Hurmasice instead, a recipe I know well because my grandmother passed hers on to me. She made hers with butter, but most of the women I know make it with vegetable oil.

 Here is the standard recipe:
4 small cups each of flour, oil, sugar,
4 eggs
1 packet of baking powder
Mix together till dough like paste forms and shape into appx 4 inch ovals
Bake at 375 till golden brown

Syrup:
4 cups sugar
4 1/2 cups water
1/2 lemon
4 cloves
Bring to a boil
cool for 10 minutes and pour over warm hurmasice

Garden of Eden

 

And here it is..the weekly Bosnian Coffee Art Pic - Imagine away..

An Ideal Afternoon 'pauza'

via starerazglednice BiH

Anima Animus

Energy

What do you see?

The Third Man

The Third Man

Religion

Religion

Coffee Rituals

I have thousands of pictures - images and stories  played out in coffee cups.
Often as I look over the pictures I see the symbols but sometimes the subconscious synergy that was present at the moment of understanding is no longer and I'm left with just ..coffee grounds. Looking over the pictures makes me realize that this ritual of drinking coffee- and drinking together - is what we take away as our heritage. We carry it in our suitcases far away - a pound of coffee, a pound of sugar, a dzezva.  It is rooted deep in the fabric, the socialization of generations of Bosnians, sitting around a table and drinking small vessels filled with sludgey coffee. We all carry the memory, irregardless of what area we come from or what we call ourselves.  I like introducing this ritual  to others who don't know it. I look at it like throwing a pebble into a clear and still lake. Moving things around. I like to get people talking & using their imagination.

When I think of coffee I see a typical Bosnian family: hospitable, likable, with deep roots of tradition that often conflict with the image presented. In the coffee rituals I hear tales, bons mots intertwined with laughter, smoke, mirth & hints of bitter chocolate.

Coffee & Photo = Art

 I've been using my Blackberry phone camera exclusively now for 2 years and I have some pretty amazing photographs.  I don't pretend to be a 'professional photographer'- but I know a good photo..my little Blackberry really does a great job, is accurate, the lighting is phenomenal ( mostly I love the way  it makes me look ultra  fabulous, erasing hints of wrinkles and uneven planes on my face...) but of course, MORE importantly!!!  it gets a good shot right and the results are pretty detailed, in comparison what I see from friends' IPhones or what  ever else there is out there.

With my other blogs, I always thought to create a 'Photo a Day' section, but being a Pisces I could never decide what the theme would be. Like you know, people have '365 Days of Food' or 'A Photo a Day of Kate & Sue @Yoga Practice'. For days now I am still undecided - so just now I thought I would go with gut instinct and post a photo everyday weekly of a pretty little ritual that I have been doing everyday for years anyway....taking pictures of
....pictures of Coffee Grounds! In the bottom of my cup! I know, huh!?
Sometimes your creativity is just staring you in the face, blending in with the scenery, begging to be recognized. And suddenly, you're on it! (to be continued..)