Coltunasi

Hey, let's cook together again. Would you like that ?

It came out so well last time... So how about this time we make a traditionally RuRomanian eggy bread-like thing ?

It's going to be delicious! All full of stuffing and buttery and filling... Mmmmm-hmm!

And also Mmmm-phhhh!

Um... Ooops! How did those get in there ?

They belong in the delicious cake, as I'm sure you know ; not in the delicious coltunasi, which are a different thing altogether.

Anyways, that outta da way let's get this show on the road!

Depicted above, delicious Camembert, middling aged ; depicted below, delicious Brie, not aged almost at all. Underaged, really. Produits du France, les deux, adica ambele.ⁱ

Is underaged cheese even legal in your jurisdiction ? Because really, if there should be a minimum age for anything, it's dubiously the taco but certainly the motherfucking cheese. I hope you've tasted enough of this world to readily agree ; and if you haven't... fuera i furastieri!

The two, grated most finely, are mixed with a dollop of (very stiff, sour) cream and a selection of spices (which I'm rather not about to share in detail) and go in the fridge to await their eventual fate.

Above, potatoes, about to be grated into a very thin stringpile.

Below, avocados, with marinaded champignons an' grated youngⁱⁱ red onion hmmm... it occurs to me there's a lot of grating in Romanian cuisine. No wonder they're so grating...

Above : fresh curly parsley. Chopped, this time.

Below : kitten kneading the dough. You know how they do. Do you ?

Whether you do or rather as I know you don't : the dough is made out of three or so pounds of flour, three eggs, a precise small sliver of milk and a good helping of potato noodle. It is a very worked dough, second only to something like biscuits in workedness. It has to be kneaded until it becomes what all dough eventually becomes : very much a guy, like a living, happy, potbellied NPC. You'll know it when you have it, and until that time... you don't have it.

Above : the dough goes to rest in the fridge for a good half hour after it assumed lifelikeness. Then it's taken out and thoroughly rubbed in soft butter. Then it is worked a lot more, and then it is stretched out into a thin sheet, which you cut into squares.

Below : the girls fill the squares with their holes... oh... oops! Spurious reference, yet again, how did that get in there, *blink* *blink* &c.

What I mean is, the girls fill the squares with their filling oh bother it all. Naimean ?

And that'd be it, next you dump them in a large pot of boiling salted water, you wait until they raise to the surface (which yes they do -- if yours don't the dough wasn't alive, do it over) and then you serve, to be eaten warm with goat yogurt, stiff sour cream, thick chefir, artichokes and melted butter, freshly cut thick juicy deep red bell peppers, olives marinaded in spices and other such trims.

After which, you go shopping!

It's Sunday today, traditionally a fair day in this little village (like in all the others). Admire above the pointedly spurious morons queueing for the plain, the nude, for them the desired experience of queueing. Just like all the other ones.

There's absolutely no need to actually queue, by the way. We simply went in through a different entrance (which yes, the girls had scouted out in advance, sure) ; but these idiots aren't here for any other reason besides the very queueing. Not like they're trying to get anything done whatsoever ; all their investment in the world is the piling up of excuses. Nobody could accuse them of not doing anything, right ? I mean, you saw it yourself, they were queueing, it's all good, what else could they have possibly done.

That's what they seek, and that's what the queue delivers them : the check-out opportunity. They've got enough brainpower to last maybe half-hour each day, they're nevertheless sorta-kinda required to engage in some at least supperficial semblance of activity for longer than that, what can they do ? They'll queue! That'll fill a few hours, and who (besides really really evil haters-of-people) would ever think of accusing them ?!

They're the true heroes of the pandemicglobalcrisishashtag! THEY'RE queueing!

The fresh juicing station. That girly got so very sexually bothered by my magnetic presence, she could barely add anymore. In fact, she could barely talk anymore, you know how women (especially young women) talk when they're really really anxious to make a good impression (as opposed to a bad one) ? That talking without breathing, making them ever dizzier and lightheaded ?

Yeah. Well... I see a lot of it, what can I say.

The cheezing station. Can you believe the maduros they've got in there ?

Anyway, it's time to go. See you... asquare, I guess, the rounds being all taken already.

1. Pen'ca io ambele. Tu ai bele ? [↩]
2. This is becoming quite the theme... why are you folks so obsessed with youth in the kitchen ? [↩]