TV, Dinners. Not to be confused with TV dinners

When will I learn foreign love affairs not only don’t last, but leave me heartbroken and full of longing?

In Italy (2004) I had two loves. One, gelato, was not surprising. Unavoidable, even. The second, fresh pesto, caught me off guard. I revisited Italy in 2005 and brought some fresh pesto home with me. (Snuck that sucker through customs.) But the pesto, of course, did last long, and I felt incomplete without it.

Here, in BiH (Bosnia), I’ve become entrenched in the most unexpected love affair. The signature food of BiH—its hot dog or apple pie—is čevapi: small, spicy sausages served with onions, bread similar to but thicker than pita, and a red side sauce. Even as I type this, nothing about the description sounds appealing to my normal palate. Yet I am full-blown addicted.

It wasn’t love at first bite. I had čevapcici my first night in Bosnia, in Sarajevo, and I was unaffected. I had it again a few days later at the bus station before leaving for Mostar, thought it was tasty, but I soon forgot about it. However, in the following weeks, I began to think about it and crave it. I ordered it a little over a week ago and haven’t been able to stop. Since last Thursday, I have had it 5 times.

The strange thing about this food love is that in the U.S., I don’t eat sausage. Never really liked it. And I avoid fresh onions; I always substitute onion power for the real things in recipes. But here, I think about čevapi during the day and am not satisfied until I’m shoveling a spoonful of chopped onions and sausage into my mouth for dinner.

Because I have a hard time letting go, even when I know the affair must end, and I’m traveling to Italy before going back to the U.S., expect to hear news of my arrest for gelato, pesto and čevapi smuggling sometime in mid-August.


Adventures in BIH TV land

I never thought I’d see the first episode of Northern Exposure or an uncensored version of the movie American Pie on prime time TV ever, much less in BIH, but both TV events have occurred here.

Around 8 pm, nearly all of the channels I get in my apartment play either American movies or TV shows. Most of which I have never heard of, and am embarrassed at the idea of the people here thinking these shows are popular back home. However, I couldn’t have been happier the other night when my favorite TV show, Scrubs, was on channel TV Mostar. They don’t dub shows here—they use subtitles—so I can understand what’s going on and try to learn some Bosnian.

As nice as it is for me, a visiting English-speaker, I cannot imagine what it’s like to be Bosnian, speak Bosnian, and so many of your available TV shows/movies are not in the country’s language. English is everywhere, commercials included.


Ah, Bosnian commercials. That’s a whole other story.