The pistachio (Pistacia vera), a member of the cashew family, is a small tree originating from an area that includes Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Iran. The tree produces seeds that are widely consumed as food.The name pistachio is from late Middle English pistace, from Old French, superseded in the 16th century by forms from Italian…
Category: route
Kebab in Iran
Kebab, kebob, kabob…According to tradition, the dish was invented by medieval soldiers who used their swords to grill meat over open-field fires. Kebab, also spelled kebob or kabob, dish of Middle Eastern or Central Asian origin that typically combines small pieces of meat such as lamb or beef with vegetables on a skewer and is…
Rainy San Francisco
Once upon a time there was a girl we called Yesyes. And I had a crush on her.In February 1982 I was in SF for the first time. I’ve always wanted to be there, I’m just a child of the hippie generation.I took the overnight Greyhound from Los Angeles. It was five in the morning…
Turkish Coffee at Hafiz
“Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love” – Turkish ProverbTurkey and Turkish coffee. Perfect association. After all, we are well-known coffee drinkers in the Balkans (where we also belong just a little). Bosnia and Serbia were part of the Ottoman Empire anyway. And the first cafes in Europe were…
When the Police Arrest the Wrong One
When I was wandering in the early 1980s across the USA from New York to San Francisco and back, I wish to stop in Dallas. I was still in elementary school when the principal came in during class and said President Kennedy had been shot. Then we watched footage of the assassination on TV and…
Marquee Club Silver Jubilee
London, summer of 1983. Music was still music that summer. Punk in all its splendor, progressive rock, The Police with “Every Breath You Take” were constantly on the radio. And good old rock still insisted on the barricades.In such an atmosphere, the friends I was staying with invited me to the famous Marquee Club one…
Kir Maison at Brasserie Lipp
What could be better than a combination of a famous drink and a famous pub.September 1987. Three weeks of autumn pleasure in Paris. When you throw yourself in the everyday life of the locals, when you have a weekly ticket for the bus, metro and suburban train. Every morning I took the train from Andrésy…
Jack Kerouac and I at Sam Wo’s in San Francisco
Jack Kerouac. My favorite writer of the beat generation of the fifties. I have no idea how many times I’ve read his book On the Road. Definitely every time I went on a trip to the US. And I always wondered if I was more Sal or Dean.And so in the summer of 2001 I…
The Beginning
All my airports, landing, take off or just lay over Brnik Jože Pučnik Airport, Ljubljana, Slovenia; Edvard Rusjan Airport, Maribor, Slovenia; Vienna International Airport (Schwechat Airport), Vienna, Austria; Vincenzo Bellini Airport, Catania, Italy; Pristina International Airport, Pristina, Kosovo; Dubrovnik Airport – Čilipi, Dubrovnik, Croatia; Split Kaštela/Resnik Airport, Split, Croatia; Zagreb Airport – Pleso, Zagreb, Croatia;…
Prologue
“We’re going to discover the North Pole.” “Oh!” said Pooh. “What is the North Pole?” he asked. “It’s just a thing you discover,” said Christopher Robin carelessly, not being quite sure himself. A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh …