Csirkepaprikas, kérem



Tonight, my friends, we are celebrating the falling in of our dining room ceiling by attempting to make traditional Hungarian food. In Budapest, the food was, well, generally, kind of odd and not that great. BUT! I'm pretty sure that's because we failed to order what they tell tourists to order. They know what we'll like. They've been feeding us since 1991 or so. They know we'll like Chicken paprikas and goulash. I didn't try goulash, only because I had foolishly ordered venison and (canned, I'm pretty sure) mushrooms on our first night and we'd eaten too big a lunch to want dinner on our second afternoon. So, late lunch on Thursday(which also made us too full to want dinner later and so turned out to be the last real meal), and I ordered Chicken paprikas. And it was divine and creamy and paprika-y and served with deliciously carbohydrate-y nodleki (dumplings) and I was satisfied and could go home happy the next day. Jason, unfortunately, had wanted some decadent goose traditional thing, but they were out of it and he got something not nearly as good instead. But we were agreed on the heavenliness of the chicken paprika. And we live in the year 2006 and so when i got home I looked it up on the internet and got a recipe. We will try it tonight, and if it is not up to par, we will look up more recipes and try again until we get it right. And when we do, I'll make some for you, my dear Internet. And you will be mine forever.

And I will offer it to Jason in Hungarian, and he will say please and thank you in Hungarian. This, because for all my effort on the boat down from Vienna, everyone spoke English and i was unable to fully display my extremely limited, but awesome Magyar language skillz. Though I did make friends with the ferry boat man, who seemed impressed that anyone would even make the effort. Then he let me ride in the cockpit, or whatever you call it, when we passed the cool hilltop castle and everyone else was clamoring at the tiny doorway to get a view. (The regular windows were plexiglass and pretty scratched up.)

P.S. The photo is of the food in Budapest, not my version.