Mystery Meat

Life must be getting easier when a trip to the hairdresser is no longer a big event. I managed yet another visit with Estera at Salon Elite without incident. I did want to mention they have long rolls of paper they use to take the dampness out of your hair before using a towel. That really is the only oddity. I still haven't accepted a glass of complimentary wine but did finally agree to a glass of water! Now if I could just find someone who can wax eyebrows!!

After my stomach growled during our Polish lesson Monday night I managed to say I was making kanapkas (sandwiches) for supper. The resulting insults hurled at me inspired me to attempt to find some beef so we could have a "real" supper. My game plan was simple...go to the market check out the meat selection and then buy the appropriate fixings for a gourmet meal. I even had two recipes in mind. I was soon to find out the game plan is not even worth the paper it was written on!!

Approaching the eight foot meat counter (of which 2 feet is beef, 7 feet is pork and the last foot is comprised of anatomical parts that should only be consumed by roaming pack dogs) I thought I found something that looked surprisingly like roast beef. Aha...let's find some vegetables and dried onion soup mix and we can have a good, old fashioned pot roast. Finding the soup was easy, it was the vegetables that had me stumped this time. I quickly found the assortment of vegetables I was looking for but looming up ahead was something I hadn't seen before - a scale!! I had no idea how to use the scale and the few instructions were in Polish (duh...). What do I do? First I meander past the cash registers to see if they had scales at the registers (nope..bummer) so I return to the produce department and attempt to look like I knew what I was doing as I placed my carrots on the scale. Well, it certainly weighed them correctly but I still had no idea how to enter a price. By now there were several other shoppers in the produce department so I thought I would casually browse the vegetable selection and wait for one of them to weigh something. Five minutes later (it felt like hours) not one person had weighed anything and I was running out of fruit to fondle. I was genuinely thinking they were going to call security to apprehend the produce stalker!!! So I did the next best thing and returned my produce (still in the plastic bags I bagged them in) to their respective bins and casually strolled through the frozen foods, past the deli meats, past the cashiers (problem here) and stood by the meat counter. Oops...I now notice the meat counter has its own money plate (in Poland when you pay for something you place your money or credit card directly on a plate. Your change is also placed on the plate. No hand touching allowed here). Who would think you would have to pay separately for your meat - but it did explain the pained expressions the cashiers had as I sauntered past them with my package of dried onion soup mix in my shopping cart. So once again I walk past the cashiers and pick up a Pepsi Light and two bread rolls so I wouldn't feel stupid for having a shopping cart with only my soup mix in it. Whew...it was now safe to get my beef!! As I smile politely and point to my pot roast the woman behind the counter indicates she couldn't help me (not sure if she was a poultry specialist or just didn't want to help me) so she called for a kind gentleman to assist me. I once again pointed to my roast. He picked it up, I said, "Tak" and he proceeded to put it back. I was hoping he wasn't going to try to talk me into beef tongue but instead he turned to his meat cutting board and asked if I wanted this cut of beef. Not to offend him I said, "ok", since it did look more like steak. He then took out his meat cleaver and asked me how thick to cut them. Since I was thinking they were steak I asked for two thicker cuts. Believe me, you haven't lived until you see a Polish meat cutter work his magic on beef bones with a cleaver! As he was weighing the meat I placed my credit card on the money plate only to have him turn to me with a sigh and say, "uh uh". I guess he didn't want plastic so I dug through my wallet and came up with 10 zylotchs which just happened to be exactly what he wanted. 15 minutes and an extreme work-out for my deoderant later and I was happily exiting the store with my steaks in hand!!

Of course, Craig and I had to return to Tescos and buy the vegetables for our dinner but we were both anxious to see how our mystery meat turned out. Craig pan seared it in olive oil and garlic before broiling it. It looked fantastic!! Unfortunately, it was a bit tough. Great flavor but definitely a work-out for our jaws!! Maybe next time....

Kanapkas anyone???

I now am going to try to figure out why some of my kitchen cabinets open from the right and other from the left?????