The Romanian 'Pick Up'

The Romanian 'Pick Up'

Mili and husband Doru

The other night I had dinner at Mili an Doru's.  Mili works in RCE's financial office and is brilliant with numbers. We listened to records on their 'Pick Up' as we ate.  'Pick Up' is what Romanians call record players, because 'Pick Up' is the name of the company that manufactured record players in Romania back in the day. Just as we call tissues 'Kleenex'.  I'm told that record players/stereos are as hard to find in Romania as they are in the US, but they appear to be making small come back.

Mili's apple cake

Mili made this delicious apple cake for dessert (can't you just taste it as  you look at the picture) while I provided the main course-- pizza from 5 Corners Pizza.  For those of you who have had Romanian pizza, you know what a treat it is. For those who haven't had it, you don't know what you're missing! You can get pretty much anything on it, but corn and ham seem to make an appearance on just about every kind you can order. 

Food can be purchased at from many different sources in Arad.  Many go to open air markets, or by milk from their neighbor's cow, but there are also some larger supermarkets around.

The open air markets don't have much local produce to offer these days as the only vegetables really available this time of year are radishes and onions. You walk into this HUGE market and all you see are heaping stacks of green onions and piles and piles of bright red radishes. In the indoor part of the market there's a huge meat selection.  The meat is costly so many still have their own animals supply meat for their families. You can go up to a butcher's case in the market and see every single part of a pig up close and personal. Nothing goes to waste in Romania.

Bread is everywhere, as are hand made, hand cut noodles which are used in delicious Romanian soups.  Soup is found at pretty much every meal except breakfast in Romania.

Hand cut noodles (taitei)

Romanian Words of the Day:

Radish= ridiche (ree-deek)

Onion= ceapa (chop-ah)


Good night=
noapte buna (nop-ta boona)