That is how my New Year started. And obviously it’s not a great way to begin.

Gyorgyi came to America on a 90 day tourist visa. While here we have been in contact with one of Cleveland’s best immigration lawyers, who is actively working on our case to eventually bring Gyorgyi back on a work visa through our company.

For those of you who don’t know what this process is like– just take a metal stick and slam it into your knees over and over again and you’ll sort of get the sensation of what the American immigration process is like these days.

The good news is that her education credentials were finally evaluated and the firm has determined that she has a BA equivalent in English and Marketing, which is exactly what she needs for us to bring her on a work visa with our company.

Now it’s all in the waiting.

You can’t just apply for a visa like you apply for a drivers license. It takes time and there are certain dates when you are able to apply and there are only a few visas that are given away each year. The earliest that we can apply for her visa is in April and the earliest that she can reenter the US on a work visa is October.

Ten months.

She can still come back (we’re hoping this summer) on 80 days of tourist visa days that she has left for 2012, but she’ll have to go home yet again and come back in October if a visa is granted.

She is also applying to start the MBA program in International Business at Kent. We should know whether she gets in with funding in April sometime.

I don’t have any political points to make. And even if I did, I wouldn’t make them here for fear that someone might look at this who has any decision making power and think I’m being disrespectful to the process and black list her or something.

I don’t have any historical points to make either. Not about how this country is a country of immigrants. How my coal miner grandparents who gave their lives in the mines or risked them in the world wars were immigrants. No, I won’t try to make those points.

The only point that I would like to make is this: in this new year, let’s try not to forget that a lot of people (hard working people–loving people) just want to make a better lives for themselves and their families. Regardless of your political affiliations, try to exercise a little compassion before you speak loudly about issues and people you really know nothing about.

It can be a mean world out there, but let’s not punish people for who or how they love.

As for Budajest, I will keep this site up to document this process and my other projects. I’ll be working as a strategic planning consultant this winter and spring, as well as writing and working on other projects. I won’t be able to post as many lovely European pictures as usual, though Ohio does have its charms.

Thank you to everyone who has supported me and supported Gyorgyi and I. I cannot tell you how much it means. In the darkest moments when it seems like the whole world is unfair, the support and care is what keeps us trudging along.

Onward.

I don’t like to do a lot of self promotion on this blurb, but tonight my chapbook, Slap Leather, published by dancing girl press, came out. I am very happy and very proud of the book and the press. Thank you to everyone who made it come together. Here is a little sample. Happy Holidays everyone!

THE GRASS WIDOW

If you haven’t heard
of the grass widow,
hang around. She’s fond
of fires, is half seas over
for flumes. Doesn’t draw
the blinds at night—

prefers the moon
and her convolutions.

They say she stitched
closed the beak
of a meadowlark.

Sing-songed, the grassland
ocean in her throat.

Full as a tick and twitching.

 

While the breads can be filled with a variety of ingredients, the standards are walnuts, poppy seeds and apricots. My mom doesn’t really like poppy seeds, so our  kalácses have walnuts and apricots. So we mix up pulverized walnuts with a little sugar and condensed milk. It’s not too too sweet, but you wouldn’t want to eat a cup before getting your blood sugar levels tested. In a second pan we boil down the apricots until they are like jam.

This was my first year making the recipe (under my mom’s direct and strict supervision, of course). As she did when I was a kid, she scraped the dough from my fingers because she was worried I had too much margarine on my fingers and not enough was getting into the dough. Don’t worry though, Internet, she only scraped me with the sharp side of the knife a few times.

Dry margarine-coated ingredients are mixed with egg yolks, yeast and sour cream.

And pretty soon a rollable batter can be turned out onto the table.

We form them into dough balls, which then have to rise. This is fun because while over-kneading is discouraged, you can slam the dough balls onto the table. It’s quite satisfying.

After the dough balls rise a little bit, you can roll them out and spread on a layer of nuts or apricots.

After spreading, it’s roll up time, after which the rolls have to rise for another hour before baking.

Then it’s just a short thirty minutes before  kalács/beigli perfection!

Középfölde (Middle Earth) is located in Erzsébet liget right inside of the entrance to the open-air theater. I’m not sure why they chose the name Középfölde, but I think Tolkien would appreciate Chef Csabai László’s attention to tradition affixed to his imagination for reinvention. Györgyike, Andi and I have been several times and my only regret is that I didn’t take my Nikon with me each time to capture the full visual delight of the food. In any event, it doesn’t matter. If you are reading this and are anywhere near Szeged, go to this restaurant as soon as possible. Just don’t take my seat.

The pictures below are not in any particular order. They represent the highlights from the several meals that we have had at Középfölde over the last month.

1. Traditional gulyás soup. This was a truly old-style and proper gulyás. Beef and its offal mixed with a broth that was the essence of patience-to-perfection. Yes, you can order a goulash almost everywhere in Hungary, but after tasting Csabai László’s, I think that restaurants that aren’t making it like this should have to call theirs “kind of like  gulyás” or “almost gulyás”. A true, homey delight.

2. Pickled freshwater bream. One of the servers brought over a complimentary sample of a pickled bream. It’s a very ugly (but delicious) fish that lives in the Tisza. It had a bright, briny flavor that  awakened my taste buds for the following courses.

3. Swiss chard casserole. This dish was a real surprise. In addition to the chard, there was rice, layers of seasoning and fresh cheese baked on top. One excellent thing about this grill is that they always have a vegetarian dish. True hardy vegetarian dishes too, not like fried cheese and french fries but healthy, filling pots, such as this one.

4. Chicken Cesar Salad. This was a nice, light, summery salad with homemade croutons. I especially appreciated how the salad was served in a little plastic bucket with a tomato garnish. Very playful.

5. Summer pea cream soup with mint.  Served in a bread bowl, this soup was utterly wondrous, sinfully lucullan. Rich but not heavy, this soup has to be among the three best soups I’ve ever eaten in my life, third only to a she-crab on a picnic table in Rehoboth Beach and the french onion at Fairlawn Country Club.

6. Chicken gizzard paprikas with a dumpling pie.  I had never eaten chicken gizzards before tasting these, so I wasn’t totally sure what to expect from the organs. I thought they might be chewy, but instead they were moist and delicate. The flavor is similar to a piece of dark meat, but more gamey, though not as strong as other chicken offal. One traditional way of serving paprikas is with dumplings or noodles, and what better way to serve them than in a pie. Very inventive.

7. Homemade Hungarian truffle sausage. These homemade sausages, served with fried potatoes, were really lovely. They elevated the typical sausage to something rich, delectable and surprising. I had to smile at these, honestly, because when you think about sausage, you don’t really think bourgeois. But these somehow were, while at the same time maintaining that attention to an older style. A fresh idea executed perfectly.

8. Chilled tomato soup. The night that we ordered this, we had rushed out of the open-air theater ahead of the mass of people headed for the bar at intermission. The night was uncomfortably hot and this chilled, spicy soup with croutons was the perfect start to our meal.

9. Transylvanian sausages.  These sausages had a strong, burly flavor that was perfectly balanced by the cream sauce and the crisp side of greens.

10. Hortobágyi palacsinta in a pot. This meal was a cute play on the Hortobágyi palacsinta, which is a traditionally a meat and spice-filled crepe. Chef Csabai László’s version is served in a pot, layered with crepe, meat and filling and a baked cheese on top. You can’t really tell from this picture, but it was more than enough for two people.

11. Poppyseed bread pudding strudle with pumpin and white chocolate. I think that the name of the dish is basically all you need to know about this luscious dessert. This is another wink to tradition, as the poppyseed bread pudding, known here as Mákos Guba, is a popular Hungarian desert. To make it into a strudle, then pair it with pumpin and white chocolate is an eccentric kind of culinary genius. Nagyon Bravo!

The strudle came with a forrest fruit ice sorbet. I wasn’t sure if it was designed to be eaten with the strudle or separately, but once Gyorgyi got her paws on the strudle, I was left with the sorbet anyway. It was charming, and brought me right back to an American childhood summer with homemade icees at the pool.

12. Drinks. The grill has a full bar with various imbibements. They have Kronenbourg 1664 Blanc on tap, which is one of my favorite French beers, and the bartenders can make a quick wine spritzer for light summer sipping.

The grill is built right into the park with mostly open-air seating and some seats under an awning. There are tables, lounge chairs and picnic tables to chose from, in addition to fusball, pool and darts. And on nights when there is not a open-air theater performance, bands perform and a DJ spins into the wee hours. The first time we were there, the DJ was playing old-school 90s rap. They hooked me right from the first beat box.

On nights when there are theater performances, expect a crowd, though as long as you don’t try to order food or a drink during intermission, you shouldn’t face too much of a line.

Though you go through the ticket booth to get into the grill, you don’t have to have a ticket to the show to eat and drink at the restaurant. And on show nights you will be treated to the sounds spilling off the adjacent stage.

Simply walk right in and follow your nose to the tiki-lit grill stand where you will probably see a man in a red beret. This is Chef László, the culinary maestro of Középfölde.

When you meet the man, shake his hand and thank him for returning a little wonder to culinaria Hungaria.

Thanksgiving day is probably the hardest day to be an ex-pat. But the weather is sunny here and there are berries still hanging onto the bushes. And today Györgyi and I went out to get some final ingredients for our party this weekend. By the miracle of the Internet, I am about to watch the Macy’s Day Parade. Then, I will try to make a pumpkin pie with a sort of gourd-like-pumpkin-looking thing. Happy Thanksgiving to all of my family and friends out there, American or not. I’m thankful for you all!

St. Andrea winery is located outside of Eger on a beautiful hillside. We were all very impressed with not only the incredible wines, but with the philosophy of the owners and winemakers. Our guide, Tamás, spoke about how they are searching for the truth in the process, or as he said “the way”. And that more important than selling a million bottles of wine, they want to make a great wine that people appreciate. The tasting was wonderful in addition to the wine, cheese and bread with oil and balsamic vinegar. Inspired by his wife and muse, Andrea, Dr. György Lőrincz’s wines are (like the name of one of his white wine’s suggests) blessings in bottles.

And finally, after the wine tasting, we went back to Eger for dinner right next to the castle at a great restaurant called Imola. The restaurant was recommended by St. Andrea herself, and the food was wonderful. We ordered ham and cheese plates, gulyas soup, beef cheek, stuffed peppers, trout, veal stew and duck. And we were so stuffed from the wine and food that we couldn’t even order desert. So despite the trickling rain and cool weather, it was a beautiful September 1st in Eger.