Bulgaria with Noodles

Lunch for a hard-working blogger At lunchtime yesterday, Irena and I were sitting on our balcony (the one next to her music room). It was a wonderfully sunny day with lots of trees in blossom and not a cloud was in the deep blue sky. We were having a good glass or two of white wine (in case you were wondering, it wasTargowischter Eselsmilch, about 2 leva a bottle) with some cold chicken, humus and salad. It was a bit bizarre and you might say that in some ways it was almost obscene, having such a good scoff and listening to Irena’s Clavinova quietly tinkling in the background, playing some old piano tunes, while all over Europe this dreadful Coronavirus disaster goes on and on. I felt a bit like Vincent Prince, playing Prince Prospero in The Masque of the Red Death.   A View from a Balcony (not a Bridge) As for the U.S. of A., my guess is that it is going to be much, much worse. They have an idiot in charge of the country, President Chump, and their health system only ...

Lunch on the balcony of our villa in Kalotina is a multi-sensory experience. You can only have lunch out on the balcony when the weather is good. Well, we have had more than a week of rain and grey skies, so yesterday it was such a pleasure to have our lunch on the balcony, as we usually do in the summer. Firstly, my dear Irisha's Clavinova will be playing some piano music. It is not quite the same as having a live pianist playing a selection of different tunes, but it is almost as good. It is nice to listen to the Cla vinova tinkling away, while sipping a glass of wine. Then, of course, there is the food, as well as the wine! My Chinese friends will want to know all about the food, of course. We hardly eat any rice when we are in Bulgaria, but we do scoff our way through mountains of new potatoes and yummy Bulgarian bread. And the salads! The onions are big and sweet, the tomatoes are cheap (the other day Irena bought three kilos for one lev - or 4RMB, is you are in Chin...

The Redang Island Café in Shenzhen is not really a café. It’s a Malaysian Restaurant in Fumin, close to the Futian Border Checkpoint. Lots of teachers from Green Oasis seem to live in Fumin.  Maybe that it is because rents are a bit cheaper than Futian or perhaps because it is closer to Hong Kong. On the other hand, it might be because there are so many good (and reasonably-priced) restaurants in this district of Shenzhen. Even though we have been going there for nearly five years, Irena and I nearly always have the same main dish: the mango fish. It’s a wonderful spin on the traditional British fish and chips (or chish and fips, if you like silly jokes). The mango gives the fish a special freshness and the spicy sauce certainly makes a change from the usual vinegar. For good measure, we also added some curried vegetables.  Having introduced us to so many restaurants in SZ, it made a nice change for Irena and I to take our dear Chinese friends Bill and Julia to a r...

We washed the chopsticks too. Firstly, I was delighted to see that two of my favourite blogs, Peter and Minty's www.movetobulgaria.blogspot.com, and Claire's www.auntiebulgaria.blogspot.com, have new posts. Minty had not posted anything for ages, so we were wondering what had happened. Secondly, my own blog has now had more than 6,000 "hits". That is pretty good for a blog that has only been going for two months. Bill and Julia are our dear friends. It would be difficult to imagine our years in China without them. Even though Bill and Julia are younger than us, Irena and I always enjoy their company. We are always laughing when we are together.  Of course, this is China and so one of the most important things the four of us do is – yes, you guessed it – eating! Bill and Julia love Irena’s cooking, so they often come to our apartment for a meal. We often go out to a restaurant together and so that means leaving the ordering to Julia! On Sunday, after c...