Gulasz

I'm trying to clean out my freezer and fridge before I move in two weeks, so I let 1.3lbs of beef cubes out to thaw out last night. With that much beef, you can easily make two dishes and then freeze it, so that's what I did.

One dish I made was a chunky beef chili, but I want to focus on the other dish I made, which is a Polish favorite: Gulasz

This is such an easy meal to make if you cheat like I do and buy the sauce mix from a local Polish specialty store. Actually I think you can even get it in Food Basics if you're lucky. The only problem is it is usually in Polish and if you don't know how to read it, you might be out of luck if you're not good at guessing.

So what you'll need:

1lb stewing beef cubes

1 carrot

1 tsp minced garlic

1 yellow onion

1 packet Knorr gulasz mix

2 cups water (500ml)

2 tbsp butter

2 stalks celery

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 potatoes

sour cream

maggi seasoning

Like I said, this is an uber simple recipe:

I cut the cubed stewing beef into smaller bite-size pieces because I find it can get a little chewing in this recipe. I would recommend cutting a big cube into about three smaller pieces. At the same time, take the carrot, shred it, and set it aside. Also dice up the yellow onion and two stalks of celery and set aside. Save about a half cut of the diced celery for later use.

In a frying pan, place the meat inside with a quarter cup of extra virgin olive oil. Fry the meat while stirring intermediately so as not to burn the meat. The small meat pieces will cook quicker than they would if left their normal size so pay close attention.

Drain the fat and oil and add chopped veggies. Stir continuously for a few minutes to the veggies fry a bit before adding water.

Add 2 cups of water. While stirring with a fork or whisk, slowly add gulasz sauce mix a little at a time. Reduce heat to low, put a lid on the pan, and simmer for 45 minutes to an hour, stirring occasionally.

About fifteen minutes before the gulasz is ready, I make homemade garlic mashed potatoes. You can make this to your own personal tastes.

When everything is ready to serve, place the mashed potatoes in a bowl and then pile the gulasz on top. Then add a dolop or two of sour cream and add the rest of the diced celery to the top of the sour cream. As a finishing touch, sprinkle some drops of Maggi seasoning on top for a very delicious flavor!

A Walk to Remember

I've mentioned before that I love working in a hotel because of all the interesting people that I get to meet on a daily basis. My feelings on this proved true Sunday morning while I was working front desk and breakfast duty.

I noticed a few guys wearing the same jackets with a picture of Oprah on them that looked like this:

The story that came from asking a simple question was amazing! These six university/college students from the southwestern Ontario area are walking from Toronto to Chicago to raise awareness of the humanitarian crisis of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka. As many of you may know, there has been a civil war going on in Sri Lanka since July 1983 and many innocent people of both sides have been killed or severely injured in the process. I talked with one of the members, Veejay (photo below), and he filled me in on their mission.

He assured me that there was no political agenda to their walk. They want to bring awareness to the plight of the innocent Tamil civilians who have been suffering throughout this war/conflict. I find it especially admirable that they would walk such a long distance to ask for help for their people.

Hopefully Oprah will let them on the show and give them a voice. That is their main goal. Veejay remarked that they it would take about two and a half months to reach Harpo Studios in Chicago. They walk between 20 and 40 kilometers a day. That's such an unbelievable thing to me. I can't help but be impressed the the resilience of these young men and the strength they all must have for taking action for a cause they so deeply believe in.

If you would like their voices to be heard too, please go to Oprah's website and send her a message: Oprah Show

Similarly if you would like to see the progress the guys are making or if you would like further information, please visit Oprahgiveusavoice.com

Putting in the Two Week Notice

I put in my two week notice today, officially. It's more of a three week and then some notice but it's not called a three week notice, now is it? A little less than three weeks from today I will be living in St. Kitts with the love of my life. How great is that to say? It will indeed be great. Seeing someone you love every day is the best thing in the world. I know I'm a freaking sap.

It's just putting in the two weeks is a big step for me. That's me leaving my roots here in London and taking the final step. But hell, after the episode that happened last night I'm ready to leave now!

When Friends Turn Out to be Sociopaths

It's inevitable that most of us will run into at least one sociopath in our lifetimes. It is estimated that 3% of the US population are sociopaths. Therefore, an American can run into 3.3 sociopaths, figure-wise, in their lifetime. Sad to say, I've had about three boyfriends who were sociopaths and dated another one briefly. The last one I had contact with when I was 20. So you can imagine my surprise to learn that someone I considered my good friend turned out to be a complete sociopath today.

So why do I say he turned out to be a sociopath? Well by definition from dictionary.com, a sociopath is "–noun Psychiatry.
a person, as a psychopathic personality, whose behavior is antisocial and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience."

This all started out when my former friend hung up on me last night for no reason. He took a joke I made, twisted it beyond definition into something cruel, and yelled at me for something I didn't say. I had a disgusting voicemail last night from him but I shrugged it off and went to bed. This morning I had a note from him on facebook calling me all sorts of names and saying all sorts of cruel things that played on my insecurities. So I wrote him back, wishing him a good life, but saying I didn't want anything to do with someone who'd treat me with such disrespect.

All this created a barrage of text messages sent to me since 10am this morning until 6:36pm tonight. Like an idiot I responded back to him until I just stopped reading and deleted all incoming messages. At one point I asked him why he was trying to hurt me so badly. His response was "I'm sorry, I was venting, and I feel really good right now." This is when I knew he was a sociopath because he kept sending more cruel text messages which made him feel good. That is the epitome of a sociopath: getting pleasure out of my emotional pain.

My cell phone company couldn't block him and he was sending me multimedia texts which cost me lots of money to receive. He sent me fifteen multimedia texts within one hour, so I phoned the non-emergency police number and made a report. All they had to do was phone him and they stopped. I took control and stopped the situation. I let the boyfriends and the date emotionally and mentally abuse me to the point that I developed such a bad anxiety disorder that I was having panic attacks every couple of days. I'm sorry, but not anymore.

The Plight of my Nephew

The title of this blog sounds like a title of some horrid novel that you're never going to read, but I don't know else how to put it exactly. My nephew, Krysiu (Christian), was born on September 24, 2008, and has grown into a big six-month-old bouncing boy, but at four months of age, my parents noticed he had a problem. His eyes would not focus on anyone. They just darted everywhere and didn't fixate on a single thing or person. He has since been to the Children's Hospital in Cincinnati to have an MRI. The results came out that he was blind or at least partially blind. His optic nerve is intact but extremely thin. Unfortunately, they can't determine the full extent of his vision loss until he can actually talk and tell them what he can or can't see. I feel so bad for my brother and his wife, but mostly I feel for Krysiu. There's nothing he has done to deserve blindness, but you can't pick the cards you are delt in life. I know this lesson all too well on a personal level.

Although his blindness is horrible, there are worse things that being blind. He could be mentally repaired or unable to walk, or worse. There are also special schools for the blind where he can get the attention he needs and can be taught in a proper fashion. Here's to my nephew with love!!

-Auntie Magda

Happy St. Patty's Day!!

So here it is finally.....the big green holiday.....St. Patty's Day! How do you properly celebrate this great holiday at the University of Western Ontario?


Simple: Wake up, drink a beer, stand outside on Richmond or Huron street at 8:30am with a beer while wearing green, drink more beer, walk around to other drunk people's houses, drink a beer, hang around to 2:30pm and strip off some of your clothes to get ready to go to the bar, appear half naked, drink a beer, walk to the bus stop half naked, get off at Jack's or Barney's or Molly's, or your bar of choice, drink a beer, try to pick up a guy/girl, dance, drink another beer, trip over a chair, drink ten beers, hang out til 11:30pm, hail a cab while drinking a beer or try stumbling home while hiding the beer you're drinking, open your door, fall on the floor while trying to drink a beer, sleep.

Seeing Double

Ever notice someone who reminds you of a friend or family member? There's this guy in my Tech. writing class who reminds me of my Unlce Alex in New Jersey. It's kind of eerie how much they look alike. This guy is in his 50's and around the same age as my uncle, same haircut, same mustache, very similar faces, and same laugh. Really the only differences are hair color, slight weight difference.

I like to refer to these coincidences as "ghost sightings." It's like you're seeing an apparition of another person in someone else. Therefore......ghosts.