Portugal, Pgymalion, Sunday Cook ~ Ç

MADEIRA

I heard Madeira first in a cake recipe as Madeira pond cake:

A traditional English favorite that's like a simple pound cake, the top of which is sprinkled with candied lemon peel halfway through baking. The name comes from the fact that it is usually served with a glass of Madeira. Some cooks also sprinkle the baked cake with Madeira before it cools.

Then Madeira is in the Finnish Hot Wine recipe. What I know about hot wine, you can make it from cheap wine, but in Finnish Christmas Glögg it is recommended to use Madeira!

When you G o o g l e Madeira, you immediately learn that it is an Portuguese island famous with its special quality of wine. I visited Spain 3 years ago. As a fond of everything Mediterrenean Portugal is one of the dream countries to visit. This beautiful island wih beaches and wine maked Portugal as a must destination together with Andalusia. Till now we already planned to visit Kyrete and Kavala together, so we added Andalusia and Madeira to the route.

PGYMALION

Second is Pgymalion. I was one of the facilitators of a training program last week. Training for management development and its name is Odyssee, from Homeros’ İliada. Odysseeus the hero in the legend has been in a sea travel for a very long time, more than 20 years full of wars, storms etc. Then his long journey has became a metaphor for challenging and long-term processess, as it is used in this training program.

But I want to tell more about Pygmalion instead of Odyseeus. Pygmalion is a sculpture, even it is told that he is a king from Cyprus, yes he is your citizen J. Pygmalion had felt in love the woman he created which is a ivory statue, however Aphrodite, the goddess of love, gives her life. Galetea and Pygmalion have together in a very happy way...

Bernard Shaw is the person who brought them today, or 20th Century. He has written a play – Pygmalion, and in the play the Pygmalion is a Professeur and Galatea is a flower-seller in Covent Garden. After many shows in London, the first movie done in Holywood in 1938. But, the most famous one is My Fair Lady of Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Dolittle.

The relation with the management development lays in the researches in 1960s about school children. This research repeated in the management area and the results are quite similar. Now the behaviour is known as Self – Fulfilling prophecy or Pygmalion Effect. I will write more about the concept, however it is easy to google it.

Here also I would like to mention my own version of My Fair Lady: Three years ago, a very close friend and I visited Barcelona and Madrid. After a beautiful concert in Palau du Musica Catalana, and a flamenko – ballet if Gabriel Garcia Lorca, we had a ticket for Spanish My Fair Lady.

I admired the visuals, the colors, the images and of course the music. Thanks to God i know the theme so, all I understand from the play is a rhyme: “İl pan di Spagna bagna la campagna”

SUNDAY COOK

On last Sunday there was our annual apartment administration meeting at 11:00. Since we talked to have breakfast together i planned to prepare something for breakfast – Olive bread!

I do believe you have very delicious recipes too, but my basic recipe is here...

Olive Bread

2 eggs
2 cups of flour-all wheat
1.5 cups of olive – without the seeds inside
½ cup of milk
1 table spoon of sugar
1 coffee spoon of baking powder
Rosemary

Mix eggs, sugar and olives together, olives dyes all to black! Add flour, baking powder and resemary and mix again with a spoon. Place in a baking tray and cook in 1800 for 30 minutes or until you get a knife clean!

My neighbours loved it! I also, recognized once again oil brings a unique taste – because i put the olive oil to the bread quite generously.

In the afternoon, my aunt and cousins came for the tea-talk.... Then they stayed for dinner. I have cooked the liver from last Fest “Kurban Bayramı”. I love liver, and if i cook it at home i love to prepare it with caramelized onions. I merge my own recipe with Emine Beder’s recipe with minor changes....

Arnavut Ciğeri- “Albanian Liver”

It becomes three layers:
1) Liver => after prepare the liver (clening the outer membrance etc) cut into mini-dices. Mix the flour with salt and sweet powder red pepper and coat the liver dices with this flour-mix. Fried in hot vegetable oil.
2) Onion (+ parsley) => Cut the onions in “yarım ay / piyaz” which means like very thin apple slices, add some salt and mix very well the onions with your hands until eliminate the bitter taste, wash the onions and leave to dry. Put some olive oil, add onions and some brown sugar and caramelize the onions. In the last minutes add the small pieces of parslay and “sote” all together.
3) Potatoes ( + carrot): Cut the potatoes to small dices and rende the carrots. Instead of frying, stir them with olive oil, salt and thyme and bake in oven for 30 + 10 mn.

Serve in a big-flat plate, potatoes at th bottom, onions in the middle and liver on top.
For the ones who like “sakatat” this is a fantastic meal! In Türkiye now, we are enjoying all these kind of food as much as possible until we got accepted to EU sometime in future :P