Moțeasca Cuisine, Gârda de Sus cookbook

 The Moți (mot-zee)  are a highland people who live in the Apuseni Mountains.  They are shepherding folk who have lived in the region since Roman times.  Their mountain villages, way off the beaten path, consist of clusters of houses overlooking beautiful valleys where they graze their livestock.

We stayed in a bed and breakfast in a town in the center of the Moți region which had a cookbook of traditional Moți recipes.  I copied some of the more interesting ones:

Mămăligă with grositor (Polenta with cream)

You need: Butter, corn flour, cheese, and fresh cream

How to prepare: This recipe is relatively easy to cook.  Prepare the traditional maize meal and place a layer in a deeper pot, after having greased the pot with hot butter). Grease the layer of maize mush with some of the hot butter and grate cheese and cream.  Serve while still hot.

Recipe from the Beleu Maria family, Snide village

Pies cooked on hot stone slab

You need: wheat flour, yeast, green ewe cheese or fresh cheese, an egg, salt and sugar

How to prepare: Knead the dough and set it aside to raise.  Roll out the dough and cut it into pieces the size of the frying pan.  Fill them up with cheese and bake them on the hot stone slab.  Add some cream mixed up with butter on each of them.  Serve with a glass of milk.

Recipe from the  Bendea Constanța family, Gârda de Sus

Întinsură (the dip)

The name of this culinary delight comes from the fact that it is served with mămăligă or bread that is dipped into before eating.

You need:  milk, cream, wheat flour, salt

How to prepare: Put the milk and the cream on to boil in a pot.  Whisk the wheat flour continually until the mixture has the firmness of cream.  Salt to taste.

Recipe from the Tomuța Maria family, Huzărești village

Balmos

You need: a cupful of fresh cream, a spoonful of wheat flour, salt and corn meal (polenta)

How to prepare: Mix thoroughly the wheat flour and the crem in a pot. Put the mixture on to boil and mix continuously for 10 minutes.  Add the corn wheat and blend it until it is coming to the boil, about 10 minutes. so that the mixture comes off the pot’s edges.  Serve it while hot.

Recipe from the Trifa family, Gârda de Sus

Shut-Up-and-Swallow

You need: milk, eggs, butter, cream, cheese, and corn meal

How to prepare: Put the milk on to boil and prepare the maize mush.  Add a pinch of salt.  Grease a griddle with butter and lay the maize mush.  Make a hole in this mixture and put some butter and an egg.  Add some cream and grated cheese and bake in the oven for 10 minutes.

Recipe from the Suciu Maria family, Gârda de Sus

Crampă (the cramp)

The Cramp is an alcoholic beverage, often found in Gârda de Sus commune, particularly during the cold season as it is a beverage which is served hot.

You need: 0.5 liters alcohol, sugar, cumin

How to prepare: Put the alcohol on to boil with 1 liter water and add 150 grams of sugar and 5 grams of cumin. Mix thoroughly and boil.

Recipe from the  family, Gârda de Sus

Berry Liquor

You need: 5 kg of ripe berries, 1 kg sugar, 1 liter vodka or brandy

How to prepare: Mix the berries with sugar and put the mixture in a glass jar in sunny place for 2 weeks until the mixture becomes juicy.  Add 1 liter of vodka or brandy. Strain the mixture through a towel folded in four.

What’s behind my blog title?

 One of the first hokey counseling techniques I learned in college was the JoHari Window, supposedly named after its two creators, Joe and Harry. It's a graph with four quadrants: 1) what you know that

Pickles were our only vegetable for one memorable meal

you know; 2) what you know, but you don't know that you know (the taken for granted knowledge); 3) what you think you know, but you really don't know (your pretensions); and 4) what you don't know that you don't know (your blind spots).  The goal of self-reflection is to increase the first window, what you are confident that you know, and decrease the third and fourth, what you don’t know.

I find that international travel is the best way to discover what you think you know that you really don't…about the host culture, about your home culture, about yourself.  When you encounter a foreign culture's customs and norms, you have a chance to learn about your own culture and its different ways of doing things that you take for granted and have never thought about. 

No horse carts: One of those "Toto..." moments

It's those moments when you say to yourself, "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more."  You learn about the wonderful, beautiful foreign culture that you find so fascinating and dazzling and also learn about yourself.

Kent's picture of the sea, Amalfi Coast, Italy

My travel quote for today from my travel journal is from one of the oldest travelogues in history: by Homer: “They change their climate, not their soul, who rush across the sea.”  For me the purpose of travel is to change your soul, or at least to expand your knowledge of the other culture and of yourself.  And expanding what you know about yourself changes your soul.

So I am impatient with the “ugly American” type of traveler.  However, the “ugliness” is not a uniquely American feature; I’ve seen it among Germans in Italy, Spanish in America, and Americans in Paris.  The “ugliness” is a cultural ethnocentrism, "For some reason, the [American] people I meet in my country are not the same as the ones I knew in the United States. A mysterious change seems to come over Americans when they go to a foreign land. They isolate themselves socially. They live pretentiously. They're loud and ostentatious." (from the novel, The Ugly American, thanks to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ugly_American) ).

These travelers, no matter where their passport is from, are blind to what they don’t know. And they don’t know how isolated, pretentious, loud and ostentatious they are. 

Our Romanian Rroma friends

And they don’t know what they are missing from the local culture.  They think the floor show of folk traditions IS the culture, and they never get invited into a local person’s home to see their dowry room or their workshop or whatever makes them proud to be a Romanian.

So “Discovering [What I don’t know] about Romania” is both "Discovering About Romania" and "Discovering What I Don't Know."  At the same time a reflection on Romanian experiences and “what I don’t know about myself that I learn from encountering foreign ways in a foreign land.” 

Never seen this traffic sign in US

The kids discovered that we have a cellar!

EU bumper sticker; notice some non-EU flags?

Paște Ferecit! Happy Easter!

Last night as we walked to the Easter vigil, we could hear Gregorian chants, in beautiful male harmonies, from the Orthodox Cathedral two kilometers away.  Walking in the beautiful night air at 10:00, the haunting rhythms and harmonies of the chants created a mysterious, magical feel in the darkened streets.
We passed six churches on the way to the Central Plaza, and each one was either finishing their Easter vigil or getting ready.  Those leaving the Easter vigil carried lit candles with them on the street.  The streets were deserted except for families walking together to bring the light of Christ to their home.
We attended the Easter vigil of two churches, the Greco-Catholic and the Romanian Orthodox.  The Greco-Catholic Church in Romania comes from the Greek Byzantine Orthodox rite that came under Rome in 1687 with the Hapsburg conquest of Transylvania. Since these services began at 11:00 and midnight, respectively, Our son said we were "church-hopping instead of bar-hopping."  We planned to visit the Roman Catholic vigil in St. Michael's Cathedral, but the Greco-Catholic was filling up fast for the 11:00 service, so we took our seats. 
We sat in the dark sanctuary while the priests dressed in black robes chanted the liturgy.  After 20 minutes or so, the bishop and priests, dressed in white and gold vestments came out from behind the screen.  The bishop wore a jewelled Byzantine mitre --looked like a Byzantine crown--with cameos of the patron saints around the band.  The congregation prompted rose to the feet and exited the building.  The bishop and priests, carrying the icons, the bible, and several golden standards, flags and banners, followed the congregation outside to carry on more liturgy in the street. 
As the bishop and priests exited the building, the congregation gathered around them to light their candles.  Soon the entire area in front of the church was light by candelight.
After 20-30 minutes of more readings and chants, the bishop and priests, followed by the congregation, processed to the side of the church, following a waiting police car with flashing lights.  Next was a procession around the block--a very large and irregular block in the old medieval section--with everyone singing.  Police escorts were at each intersection to stop traffic as we passed by.  The lead priest carried a wooden board, probably 6 feet long, which he and the other priests banged in a rhythmic way for the entire procession.
When we returned to the front of the church, the bishop ceremoniously and loudly knocked on the front door with a wooden hammer three or four times.  Between each knock, the priests chanted some liturgy.  When the doors finally opened, every light was on in the church and all the lenten coverings had been removed from the statues and icons.  The Bishop turned to the congregation and said a liturgy welcoming everyone to the resurrection church.
We decided that at 12:30am, we needed to move to the Romanian Orthodox church, so we stayed on the plaza until we could discreetly slip away.  Down the block, another church was emptying out with their priests in white and golden vestments, so we stopped to watch their liturgy until they all processed around the corner. 
On to the Romanian Orthodox church. We got there for the sermon, lost interest, got cold, and decided that we had adequately welcomed Easter. 
Paște Ferecit!
Alleluia! Christ is risen.
He is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Doing what you were put on this earth to do

I cannot believe my Romanian experience is coming to an end.  My project here has been a case study in social networking and in "doing what you were put on this earth to do" (personal mission -> work impact). 

Speaking at Social Enterprise conference

Example of both: In addition to teaching in the social work department, my project is to provide technical assistance to local social service agencies in strategic planning and service delivery (family therapy techniques with children and families).  My first job was to network with social service agency leaders and find out what they need in the way of consultation. On average, I met with one NGO per week for October and November.  I quickly discovered that social service leaders here are pretty overwhelmed and dispirited, from the hardships of the economic crisis (more needs, less funding), but also from 15 years of outsiders telling them what they were doing wrong (15 years of development preceeded Romania's EU accession in 2007). So here is another "helpful" outsider who want to tell them how to do things better.  My first task was to position myself as a friend, not a critic.

I was not finding many takers in my offer to provide free strategic planning.  The response  "yes, that's a great offer" never got converted into action (wouldn't return my emails and phone calls, missed appointments, no-show a class presentation, contact me about events after they occurred, etc.).  I kept offering to help, kept working on my needs assessment, and kept meeting people.  I concluded that the "outsider fatigue" meant that I needed to have my new Romanian friends do the talking for me, so I invited NGO leaders to talk in class.  I was setting up a NGO Resource workshop in which NGO leaders would tell other NGO leaders what works for them.  Building social capital like this is a stretch for many Romanian NGOs, who tend to look at one another like one dog with a bone looks at his peers.

Romanian Social Enterprise Conference

I finally got an invitation to present at a high level social entrepreneurship conference at the US Embassy in Bucharest with leading Romanian NGOs that have in the past received USAID funding.  The same week a NGO leader told me of an upcoming conference in my own town, Cluj, that involves over 200 Romanian NGOs. The format is for NGO leaders to tell other NGO leaders what works for them.  Since there is power in collaboration, I dropped my NGO workshop idea and pursued helping them with their NGO conference idea.

I went on "full court press" to meet leaders at the organizing NGO (began as an informational interview, but I ended with a trial run of my Bucharest presentation) and to get them to invite me to speak at their big NGO conference.  Which they did, but with the condition that I have Romanian co-presenters to give a case study of my main point.  So a couple of phone calls and a day later, I had two really effective Romanian NGO friends lined up to co-present (networking pays off).

So now, in a two month period, I have four presentations at major conferences (two down, two to go) where I talk about one really good idea that NGOs here can improve their services. I illustrate that good idea with Romanian NGOs that are doing it, and US NGOs that aren't. I don't want to criticize my Romanian friends, but I want the audience to learn how to critically analyze NGO mission and activities. So in criticizing foreigners, I'm hoping they can transfer that skill to critically analyzing their own NGO in the privacy of their own office.

from L to R: me; Hon. George Teseleauna, Romanian Consul; Prof. Antonio Panico, Rector. LUMSA Univ.; Prof. Riccardo Rossario, LUMSA Univ.

In my last presentation I was surprised with how big a deal it was: I shared top billing with the Romanian Consul to talk about social service needs of Romanian immigrants.  I did my talk about what NGOs need to do and say to communicate what good they do for Romania. It resulted in a potential research collaboration to do a needs assessment of Romanian immigrants in the EU.  I am writing a grant application, could be really big $/Euros, for a multinational collaboration between three universities (StMU included) to do the research project.

So "what am I put here to do?" I want to nurture good ideas and the people who have them.  By making connections between people and their ideas. By focusing on the good idea, clearing it from all the organizational clutter that distracts.  By showing the impact of the good idea and giving it legs to stand on.

Yeah, that’s what I’m all about.

Erica Lock with Mark Gitenstein, US Ambassador to Romania

Speaking at the LUMSA International Social Services conference

Prof. Antonio Panico, Rector, LUMSA University

Cornell Blajan: He was a good and honorable man; may he rest in peace.

 We came home from our recent Prague/Italy trip to discover that our landlord, Cornell, had passed away quite suddenly.  The graveside service was the morning after I returned, a day before Nancy and the kids returned. 

Cornell always had a twinkle in his eye

One of the last conversations I had with Cornell, he invited me for "o mic," a little tsuika, he said with a twinkle in his eye while holding two fingers about a centimeter apart.  Of course, he always served me more than a centimeter of tsuika... and a beer and water to chase it all down.  We sat in the kitchen and talked about his life, in Romanian, of course.  I've learned enough of the language that I could understand and keep him talking ("înteleg...sigur...da da").
He pointed out to the garden and around the house and said, "this is my life.  Everything that is important to me is right here, my family, my garden," and pointing around the neighborhood, "and my friends." He talked with pride about how successful his daughter and son have become, and how big his daughter's new home is, and how proud he was of his two granddaughters. He talked about how he could walk around the neighborhood and say hello to everyone he meets because they are all good people and he knows them well.   I wanted to ask him to introduce me to his friend who makes the tsuika from the apples in his garden, but I thought that could wait until later (after I practiced how to say that in Romanian).

Thanksgiving Dinner with Cornell, Luci, Bailey and Paul

We invited Cornell and Luci for Thanksgiving dinner with two American students who are learning Romanian.  They had heard about American Thanksgiving and knew that it was a big deal, but Cornell was worried about spending an entire evening together without having conversation (we couldn't do anything in Romanian then).  The students were capable translators and conversationalists.  When we shared what we are thankful for, all three Ratliffs  told Cornell and Luci how much living next door to them has made our experience of Romanian culture enriching.  I can confidently say that knowing Cornell and Luci and being included in many of their family customs has been the highlight of my cultural exchange.  Living in some apartment in the center of the city, I never would have harvested grapes and apples, grilled sausages in the fire pit, fed the chickens, killed the Christmas pig (well, actually they killed it at the farm and chopped it up in the kitchen), celebrated birthdays Romanian style, shoveled snow.

One of the "Cornell-isms" that I won't forget is his playful sense of humor.  He had a way of ending a story about "Romanian life that didn't quite go as one would want things to turn out" with a gesture: a shrug, his palms would turn up, and his eyes would bulge out, which seemed to be a gesture of resignation, "What do you expect?" or "So what can you do?"   One of my favorite stories he told went something like this: The Turks came in Romania and took what they could; the Hapsburgs came and took what they could; the Soviets came, now the EU and the the multinationals come... Then the shrug, "What can you do?"


The last conversation we had with him was when he came over to the apartment to ask us if we could help him with a surprise for his two granddaughters.  He asked our advice on how to buy laptop computers, a sizable purchase by Romanian standards, and we planned to go shopping when we returned from our trip.  He wanted to surprise his son and daughter with the gifts as much as his granddaughters. When we asked if his daughter could help us translate some of the technical details when we went shopping, he responded, "No, then it wouldn't be a surprise!"

Cornell's birthday party

Pressing grapes on the back porch

Cami enjoying the fresh grape juice

Cornell, Luci and family