shakshuka

i'm starting another series -- because, thursday, i went to the best restaurant i've been to in vilnius

first, though, about the weather -- when i looked at the weather app on my phone, thursday night, it said that it was going to dip to 46 degrees, at six o'clock, yesterday morning

i asked maria -- she said her colleagues said it got down to three degrees -- celsius -- equals...38.4 fahrenheit

back to food

i first met this restaurant in march -- i was walking around, and saw these antique instruments in the window

it's between town hall and the gates of dawn (ausros vartu (that's awsh'rus), the only remaining gate to the city), a place of good luck

then, i passed the restaurant again, a month ago, when i was on my way to see hales turgus for the first time -- a popular market, on the other side of ausros vartu

reminded me of the women who sit on the ground outside the gates of jerusalem, selling their produce

the woman was wagging her finger at me,...about taking pictures -- i then walked by her, and we smiled at each other

i haven't talked about the rye bread -- unbelievable -- maybe the best thing here -- certainly,...the greatest discovery...from my first trip

a week before, i went to another turgus -- kalvariju -- i'll get back to that one

when i passed the restaurant, i took two more pictures of the instruments -- thought i might get a better result than the first time

 then i looked at the menu

WHOA -- SHAKSHUKA (the bottom-left item) -- WHAT THE HECK!

on mother's day, we went for a brunch at table 45, in the intercontinental hotel, on the cleveland clinic grounds -- hani, the egyptian man at the omelette station, made me an omelette -- very good -- then my ex-brother-in-law went -- hani offered to make him an omelette, arab-style -- shakshuka

we loved it -- lots of tomatoes,...well cooked -- stewed,...i guess...is the word -- with onions -- i think khalid said that cooking the tomatoes well, takes care of the acidity -- the eggs are cracked onto the cooked ingredients -- the egg whites get mixed in, but the egg yolk is left intact, until the end -- then,...a little cut in each,...to let the yoke leak out

so i made it a goal to have a shakshuka here

after spending more time walking around hales turgus than i should have, i finally headed back (towards the library), and i stopped at felicie, to check it out

we finally made it there, thursday -- a holiday here -- mindigas day -- the founder of lithuania -- brought the country together -- its only king -- but the founder of a dynasty,...i think -- one of his descendants, gediminas, founded vilnius,...responding to a vision of a wolf

the shakshuka was great

only difference,...the egg yokes weren't cut -- were cooked just slightly more than...to make them ooze-able -- i told the waiter...about everything -- he was going to tell the cook

actually,...looking at the picture now, i see that the egg whites weren't mixed in with the rest of the ingredients -- a la hani's shakshuka

oh -- something important -- when i first told the waiter why we were there, he said that they were no longer making shakshuka -- that it wasn't a popular item, so they took it off the menu -- i asked him, please -- he checked with the chef -- bob's your uncle

and we were the only ones in the restaurant -- inside or out -- they have a nice seating area outside -- great location

before the shakshuka, though, we had their baba ghanouj -- very different than what i'm used to (levantine arab style) -- excellent -- i loved it -- jewish style, the waiter said -- with mayonnaise -- funnily enough, the plain crackers worked better with the baba ghanouj than the soft bread did

and the mushroom soup was outstanding too -- a special local mushroom -- i don't remember the name -- something like buletas or bulentas -- i'll get it -- mushrooms are so amazing

maria wanted the baked goat cheese -- with caramelized beet roots -- she loved it -- i thought it was just all right

the gira was very good too

and look at the couch there

we sat on a similar couch -- looking at that one -- the outdoor seating area is to our left

i told the...replacement waiter -- our first waiter was great -- very friendly -- he left, though -- well, i told her that i've been to 20 or 30 restaurants in vilnius, and this one was the best

i'm going back -- for everything

it's pronounced felitsia

lithuanian drinks

i'm taking "anna moffo" on the road -- first time

i've been in vilnius, for more than a month -- will be here, another two months

i've enjoyed my time here, and i've shared a few things with people back home -- especially about food -- one person (you know who you are -- j-a-s-o-n) encouraged me to put my observations in a blog -- so, here goes

* * *
i've met a few drinks in lithuania

the first new drink to me was honey beer, which the man behind the bar at snekutis pub recommended to me -- this was when i was here for a week in march -- the name of the place is pronounced shne'koo'tis -- i don't like beer, so i'm always on the lookout for something sweet or fruity -- i didn't like it

more important than the beer were the beans -- when i saw the picture on the menu, i thought, tashreeb baa'gilleh, the iraqi dish of fava beans -- i had to order it -- the dish here is called pupas, which i think just means beans -- in tashreeb baa'gilleh, the beans are islands...in a sea of bread, soaked in the juice of the cooked beans -- i guess the beans and the bread are both islands -- well, the color and taste of the beans was the same -- even the taste of the herb/spice that it's topped with -- these beans, though, weren't peelable -- just ate the whole bean

when i went back to my hotel, i told rapoles (raphael) about it, and he said that they also eat it with bread soaked in the cooked juice -- unbelievable -- i'll have to find that -- at least confirm it

the next time i went back to snekutis (for the pupas), I got a cherry soda -- excellent -- refreshing -- not too sweet -- looking on-line for the drink, three months later, it looks like it might be a gira, the national low-alcohol drink made from rye bread (i think) -- more on giras,...anon

snekutis is across the street from the 13 and the sign for zemaitijos (pronounced zhé'my'tee'yos)-- its street, though, changes name, to st. nicholas, for the church that's across the street from snekutis -- pictured, on the left -- the church has a significant place in lithuanian history -- it's one of the oldest in the country (the last country in europe to become christian, by the way -- some parts of the country stayed pagan until the 19th century), and from 1901 to 1939, when russians and poles suppressed the lithuanian language, the services here were an exception -- and after antanas kmieliauskas made a sculpture in 1959 for the church's, of st. christopher carrying the baby jesus, it buoyed people's spirits -- the association of artists expelled him for it -- lithuanians seem to have a funny way of resisting,...and bouncing back -- last night, i was reading about the hill of crosses, outside siauliai, in north-central lithuania -- the communists kept tearing down the crosses -- thousands of them -- in '61, '73 and '75 -- and people kept putting crosses back up (dk eyewitness travel guide: estonia, latvia & lithuania) -- the rising of the baltic states against soviet rule from 1987 to 1990 is called 'the singing revolution' -- in my picture of the beans and cherry-drink, you can see the main entrance to st. nicholas

zemaitijos is a street of one of the two jewish ghettos -- pronounced jha'my'ti'yos

towards the left on siauliu (i think that's pronounced show(as in shower)-loo), is my hotel -- hey,...that's a shower and a loo -- here's the outer door to my room

and a look across the street from my room

more drinking,...to come

perfectly reasonable...apocalyptic thinking

i just read, in the book the devil within: possession and exorcism in the christian west, that 'jewish apocalyptic thought [influenced by zoroastrianism, during the babylonian exile] flourished in the two centuries before christ'

well, of course it would -- they were approaching the year zero -- they must've been thinking -- yelling and screaming -- 'oh, my god -- what happens next -- we're gonna fall off the end of the calendar'