Rot war die Farbe des Tages. (Red was the color of the day.)

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This is our class picture, yes, we only had a gentleman in our room (hihi)! Our (almost) 5 months German course ended today, sadly. Although the group will still be doing application and resume training for the remaining weeks of May, we spent our last day today with our very efficient teacher. (She’s in the middle wearing gray blazer.) We all agree that she is the best teacher we could ever have. During our classes, she has rubbed on us her positivity, tolerance and respect in many ways to which we were thankful for. (Danke!)

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Our colleague from Egypt brought an Egyptian specialty, falafel. It is is a fried ball or patty made from spiced chickpeas and/or fava beans. Falafel is usually served in a pita-like bread called lafa, either inside the bread, which acts as a pocket, or wrapped in a flat bread. In many countries falafel is a popular street or fast food item.

Pita Pizza

This gastronomic surprise comes from Serbia. I do love Chicken Tender Pita from Kenny Rogers…(I am not sure ifthey still have that) but this one has ham, salad, cheese and loads of spices which Serbian cuisine is known for. The wrapping used is thinner than the usual pita though but blends well with the  filling.

Though the word Pita can be traced back to modern Greek for “pie,” “cake,” or “bread”;  In Serbian it means pie in general. Interestingly,  Another possible etymology is from a Romanian archaic word for bread, pită. An alternative etymology traces the word to a cognate for pine pitch, which forms flat layers that may resemble pita bread, which in turn may share an etymological origin with pizza (Italian for “pie”). The word spread to Southern Italy as the name of a thin bread. In Northern Italian dialects pita became pizza, now known primarily as the bearer of savoury toppings but essentially still a flat bread. Indeed in some parts of southern Italy, there are pastries called Pita, which are filled with spicy fruit and nuts….I think I ate two and then I brought home two more My colleague from Serbia (there are 3 including the gentleman) prepared this herself.

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Meet my seatmate/s, at least the other one because I already wrote about the gentleman sometime ago. Click here to see the sweets from Paris he bought us. Beside him is the youngest in the group (15 years old, also from Serbia), she has the same name as my daughter, she is sweet and as a typical teenager, active and full of laughter.

(I sit on the other side.) She bought a homemade cake, made from a combination of their healthy biscuit (plazma/lane biscuits: made out of domestically grown grains), fruits and cream. I had a big chunk of this cake, I really like the texture and the sweetness in it, I think though it wasn’t baked, but I might be wrong. I forgot to ask its particular name. At times, my seatmate would bring those biscuits for snack and we would munch happily hehe, in a way this is like our graham cracker cakes but the biscuits used are sweeter.

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Palacinka

—I also forgot to ask what this pancake is called, it is a potato pancake from Slovakia so I just assumed that it is the same with Austrian palatschinken only with meat included.  Normally it is cooked without the meat, but my colleague said it tastes better with its inclusion though, this pancake is not exactly sweet but rather salty and somehow like hash potatoes. I do enjoy this more than the sweet ones.  In right photo, wearing red is our colleague from Slovakia (she also speaks/understands Russian and Serbish). Beside her is the “life of the group.” In terms of jokes and emotions that is, she comes from Columbia. She was responsible for today’s drinks and music. Although I would have really loved if she brought empanadas too. hihi.   These two are the tallest in our group, I am dwarfed whenever I stand beside them lol.

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Tikvenik (Pumpkin Banitza)

This yummy treat is a Bulgarian symbol of cuisines and tradition, unassuming on the outside but very tasty on the inside! Banitza itself is prepared by layering a mixture of whisked eggs and pieces of sirene (a type of cheese) between filo/phyllo pastry and then baked.Putting pumpkin a filling is the same as that of apfelstrüdel; with sugar, walnuts and cinnamon. I forgot to ask our teacher though how she prepared this. I was so engrossed in it, savoring every bite while I listen to my “classmates” chattering.

(A closer look.)

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