7/14 Kishegyes

Peter badly cut his finger this morning. No stitches here - squeeze some blood out to cleanse the wound, rinse in schnapps, and slap on a bandage. Schnapps, what it doesn’t cure will kill you. Must be the Hungarian version of Windex!

Lunch today is as guests of Emese and family. We had two different casseroles, a cheese and cauliflower thing and a stuffed pepper thing that was almost Spanish in character, fried cheese, fried bread, and some dead animal-flesh thing that I didn’t notice. (Sorry, Zia is going to have to tell you about meat dishes, the vegetarian cannot be expected to notice!) All this was tossed down with the obligatory schnapps and Pivo Pils. I really can’t tell you anything about the Pivo because of the two schnapps that completely obliterated my palate before it, but it was one of the afore mentioned "lawn mower" beers. Good, but not memorable. Dessert is cream puffs (entirely homemade!) and raspberry cream (for each cup of raspberries, one cup of sugar and one egg white and blend like crazy).

Before the meal Adam, Emese’s son, is told that we are eating all of the casseroles because I am a vegetarian. He wanted to know if I was going to be eating in the kitchen. It seems the family used to sneak into the kitchen to eat stuff Adam, who has food allergies, couldn’t eat on his diet. Seems he knew that.

Tonight’s at Domosfest (that would be dom-bowsh-fest) we get a study in contrasts. The first group is a duet, a female vocalist and a wind player (soprano sax, Hungarian bagpipe and a folk flute) doing traditional gypsy tunes. They are an amazing ensemble that held an entire audience spellbound for a 90 minute set, part formalized, part improvised and all hauntingly beautiful. Their web site, which we regrettably can’t get to on this computer (too slow), is www.palyabea.hu. They were followed by a band that had grown to 15 by the time we left (the lightning was getting a little ominous). I don’t know if they got bigger or not, but I know there were still open mics on stage. It was all very well organized and tres slick. Everything sounded the same, there was no strong lead voice - it was as boring as the other group was interesting.

At home Peter is watching a documentary about the church in Topolya. It is 100 years old as of the filming of this show (a couple of years old). They are showing a grade school age choir singing in 4 parts - a cappella - lovely!

Dave