Makos Kifli, a Birthday Treat!

Yesterday was John's birthday, and so I decided to make one of his favorite desserts for him: Makos Kifli! These Hungarian cookies are made by wrapping a sour cream butter dough around a ground poppy seed filling. "Makos" means poppy seed, while "Kifli" means crescent. These are most certainly a labor of love, so John's birthday was a perfect occasion to make them! This is the recipe I used (modified slightly) along with some pictures!

Ingredients:

* Dough

1 1/2 cup of flour
1/2 cup unsalted butter
2 egg yolks
2 2/3 tbsp sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

* Poppy Seed Filling

3/4 cup poppy seed, freshly ground
1/2 cup sugar
3 tbsp milk
2 tbsp butter
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

In a large bowl, cream together butter and egg yolks. Add the sour cream and vanilla. Mix in the flour until smooth, gather the dough into a ball. Turn out onto floured surface, and roll into a smooth log. Slice the dough into 24 equal size pieces, rolling each into a ball (about the size of a walnut). Refrigerate while making the filling, it makes the dough much easier to work with. In a saucepan, combine all of the filling ingredients. Over low heat, stir constantly about 5 minutes until mixture thickens slightly. Take off heat and let cool. The filling should be easy to spread, if too thick add a touch more milk. Preheat oven to 350. Flour work surface and roll each ball out one at a time to about 1/16 inch thick. Spread some filling on the inside (one or two spoonfulls) and roll up the edge closest to you, continuing until the it is in a roll shape. Pinch the edges to seal, and curve into a crescent shape. Place on a greased cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Continue until all of the Makos Kifli are rolled, and then bake until very lightly browned. Cool, and sprinkle with powdered sugar. Enjoy!

The dough, ready to be gathered into a ball:



The dough rolled into a log. Baguette, anyone?:



The dough balls, ready to be refrigerated:



One dough ball rolled out, ready for the filling:



All finished rolling and filling, ready to bake!:



Finally, ready to be devoured!:



Happy Birthday my love!!!

Walking With Dinosaurs- Live!

While John and I were in Paris last summer, we saw ads in the metro for something called "Walking with Dinosaurs- Live" (though it was in French of course) and we were depressed to see that it was playing just a few days after we left. Not really knowing what it was, we forgot about it until around October, when we saw a commercial on tv for the very same thing, coming to Albuquerque! We quickly alerted my dad, who is a little obsessed with dinosaurs, and we got four tickets for March.

Well, it was last night and it was amazing! Basically the dinosaurs are giant puppets that come out into the arena while the "paleontologist" talks about them, etc etc. Each dinosaur was more amazing and more giant than the one before it! We had such close seats (4th row) that the Brachiosaurus actually reached his neck out over us. The music was great, and when the final giant Mommy T-Rex came out to protect her baby from the Triceratops and Ankylosaurus, my body started coursing with adrenaline. It was slightly embarrassing, because my mind logically knew that it wasn't real...but her roar was so loud and so intense and she was so dang huge that the survival instincts of my cave-men ancestors kicked in!

Here are some not so great pictures (cell phone) but hopefully the point gets across!

The Allosaurus:



The Raptors devouring a corpse next to the humble paleontologist:



The Brachiosauruses (whose heads barely cleared the arena ceiling!):



The amazing yet slightly terrifying T-rex:



The T-rex with her baby:



It was an amazing night. Walking with Dinosaurs Live is touring Europe, the US and Japan as we speak, so go see it!

On a side note, my Mom left for India this morning- Have a great trip Mom!

The Wonder That is Byki- A Review.

You might not be surprised to know that are no Hungarian lessons offered here in Albuquerque. After realizing this slightly sad fact, I set out on a quest to learn as much as I could on my own before leaving. One of the ways that I have done this is through Byki, a free language learning software, available from their website www.Byki.com. They offer over 70 languages and unlike Rosetta Stone, actually have Hungarian as one of them.

The language is taught through drills using virtual flashcards and if you're lucky, audio and pictures too. Though the software itself does not come with many flash cards, users can submit their own "lists" that are downloadable from the "List Central Community" feature of the website. I have learned many, many useful things such as colors, fruits and vegetables, days of the week, seasons, greetings, etc etc. The only critique that I have is that it does not teach grammar, so I am left with a group of seemingly detached Hungarian nouns in my brain. But that's what books are for, and more recently- Pimsleur's Hungarian Audio Program that has taught the actual speaking part of it.

This is how it works, and what it looks like for those who may be thinking of using it.
This is the first step, where a flashcard is presented with the Hungarian and English word (and sometimes a picture) side by side. If the card has audio, the word will be said to ensure proper pronunciation:



This is the second step, where the Hungarian word is presented and the user must say the English word and later, type it in as I have done here:



Finally, the third step (which is the most difficult- this is where you can tell if you really know the word or not!) in which the English word is presented and the user must spell out the corresponding Hungarian word. Accents are made on the vowels by using the arrow keys after typing said vowel; this scrolls through all of the accent options (and in Hungarian, there are a lot!). I have written in the Hungarian word for "yellow" here:



After an entire "list" has been learned, some fun, triumphant music plays to make you feel good about your accomplishment.

There are many other features as well including, slowing down the speaker's voice (the little turtle icon), and refreshing "stale" words so that they are not forgotten.

I give Byki a 4/5 for ease of use, effectiveness and overall fun. I take off one point for no grammar lessons. And best of all- It's Free! Go try it out!

Hungary News

A lot of great news has been coming our way lately, and I have finally had the desire to blog it all. So we got our placement, and not only is it in Budapest but it is at the same elementary school! We have also been put into contact with the two very nice teachers whose lives we are essentially taking over and they have given us great advice, as well as sharing with us some photos of our apartment.
And here they are!




The balcony (which I am thrilled to have), the kitchen and the living room. Jack and Cathie have also suggested that we take over Cathie's volunteering at the local animal shelter which is just a few blocks from our apartment. She walks the dogs every so often into the wooded area around the shelter. We are in Ujpest, which is the very northern part of Budapest along the Duna. It has a very interesting history and is quite industrial as far as I can tell, but has a neighborhood feel to it.
Aside from all these great new developments, we have been playing too much WoW, studying some Hungarian and most recently doing some concept art for my Dad and Ann. Time seems to be flying and crawling simultaneously.