It’s Monday. Full throttle ahead!

Here we go, Maida. Better late than never and when we do it, we do it right. As promised, here comes the apple skuta cheese cake recipe. You can make it in a pie model (or a round cake model) but I prefer the rectangular as it maks it easier to cut into smaller pieces.

Mix 300 g flour, a pinch of salt and a teaspoon of baking powder.

Add 0.15 l of oil (if you happen to be out of butter, hmm..)

Add 150 g brown sugar…

..and an egg.

Mix until a sort of bumpy dough is formed. Spread two thirds of the dough on the bottom of an oiled cake model and push down with your fingers. Put the remaining third of the dough away.

Let’s get the apples ready. Peel and cut up 500 g of apples, I like to use Idared. Put them in a pot.

In a bowl, mix 5 tablespoons of sugar, two tablespoons of water and a tea spoon of cinnamon. Pour over the apples, put the lid on and let simmer for 6 minutes. In the meantime, prepare the skuta cheese filling.

Mix three eggs, 8 tablespoons of sugar and a bag of vanilla sugar with a mixer.

I added some seeds this time around. A mix of sesame, sunflower etc… Add 500 g of skuta cheese and mix gently.

After the apples have been ‘cooking’ for 6 minutes, drain the liquid and place them in the cake model. Spread the skuta cheese filling over them.

Sprinkle the third of the dough you’d set away on top of the skuta cheese filling. Put in the preheated oven and bake for about 1 hour at 180°C.

When the cake is done, let it sit for at least 10 minutes before cutting it into pieces. Serve with a kiss.

Dober tek!

Chapter 1 – Istanbul

Our flight to Tel Aviv had a four-hour layover in Istanbul and I found myself buying a tourist visa along with three sociology professors just minutes after landing in Turkey and sooner than you could say hoşça kalın, we were in a taxicab on our way downtown. (By the way, check out the meaning of Omar Naber’s family name at wikitravel’s phrasebook.

What an impressive city! One word? Huge. Granted, there is only so much one can do in a new town in a bit over an hour, but we did take a stroll around Hagia Sofia, the Blue Mosque and had real Turkish coffee with real Turkish sweets at the famous Taksim square. If you order the “chicken breast pie”, please know that it is not simply a dessert resembling a piece of meat. It is ground cooked chicken meat mixed with milk and loads of sugar, made into a gluey thing sprinkled with cinnamon.

We had to go see the Bosphorus bridge, of course. Quite a feeling to be standing there at the very edge of Europe, looking across to Asia. Moving around the city, we made a friend. Hasan the taxi driver who happens to be happily married to a Bulgarian and so understands some basic Slavic words and phrases. What came in really handy is the fact that his neighbour is Macedonian and was able to translate for us on the cell phone. More about Hasan later. The important thing the first time around was that he got us back to the airport on time.

We arrived to Tel Aviv in the wee hours of Monday and I settled down into my hotel room at 4 am.

More… much more to follow. Action!

Here are a few photos from the walk around Istanbul at night..

collecting garbage ~ haunted house?

mysterious or spooky?

no escaping shopping malls ~ relax with Kermit the Turk

desserts of all types (chicken breast pie to the right)

Sütis Coffee Shop at Taksim Square (highly recommended) and the final stop before our return to the airport: the Bosphorus Bridge connecting two continents.

Istanbul is such a beautiful city, but sometimes the lights are dimmed by more than nighttime. The elightenment brought to the country by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk has not gone far enough to reach today’s understanding of free speech and academic debate, as Professor Atilla Yayla found, having just been handed down a 15-month suspended jail term on account of insulting the state’s founder. (Source: BBC)

This one’s for Luka

Good morning, starshine

Good morning, sunshine

Pretty or What

How could I not love this town? Ljubljana rules! On the way to the bar…

No shortage of drinks… even if the waiter was far more incompetent than good old Manuel. Basil should fix things by the next time.

How’s it hanging?

Wild Ride

High Five

In addition to the cool and very different if slightly spooky environment, a good reason to pay a visit to Pr’Skelet is the 2-4-1 policy

Afterwards, we moved to the Cutty Sark just off the Three Bridges to say hi to another Ljubljana resident blogger, Pengovsky who DJd at the place that night.

Take your eyes off that striped sweater right now!!!

Gotta love those smiling faces!

More bloggers, including a *very* famous one

Photo by Pi.Roman

We finished the night with a slight doubt being raised in our minds regarding Fetalij’s sexual preferences, but the doubt has since been successfully dispersed. BTW, way to go, Fetalij! Grandma’s proud of you…

Here’s to many more gatherings such as this one. Thanks for the good time, y’all!