Bulgaria with Noodles

Okay, so we are in the middle of the most terrible pandemic since the Black Death, with stock markets crashing all around the world and the health services struggling to cope with more and more cases. There is, quite obviously, only one thing to be done: make homemade marmalade. First you need a lot of oranges and sugar. My dear Irena says that it is more or less one kilo of sugar to a kilo of fruit. Then you need to “top and tail” the oranges and start the long, laborious process of peeling. Now don’t go breaking my heart, as Elton John and Kikki Dee used to sing, by throwing away any of that peel. When the outer, orangey peel has been peeled, then you need to peel it again (yes, I know it is not so exciting) in order to get rid of the white stuff. Then all of the orange peel and then all of the oranges go into the splendid Bosch mincer. This Bosch mincer is the real deal. (Yes, I do hope that a kind and generous Bosch executive is reading this blog and then maybe we c...

Tina in Kalotina, contemplating the workings of the boiler I started writing this in the kitchen of our house in Kalotina. Every so often, there is a little “tinkle tinkle” sound. No, it is not that naughty little doggie, Tina, peeing again. No, it is the sound of the wood pellets falling down into the central heating boiler’s combustion chamber. Very clever, really. I wonder how it knows when to feed in some more pellets. The boiler also makes a golden glow, an orange light that bathes the room. It is like having your own pet dragon in your kitchen. The bad news, of course, is that the whole damn house is so blooming cold that it is going to take ages for the central heating system to warm up every room. Well, that is the main drawback of a pellet boiler, of course.  The boiler uses wood pellets (and lots of them!) The boiler itself takes ages to get going properly and then it takes even longer before the house starts to warm up. But when is the house going to war...