Homemade Noodles in Spicy Sauce

13 November, 2015 | Food blogger | 6 seen

November started with a huge goal - not to spend a tetri eating outside, instead we decided to cook good food at home. Today I will show how to prepare a really fresh egg pasta noodles in spicy sauce. 

I really love to make noodle pasta by my own - and actually it's very easy, thus a hand strength is required if you are not using some dough mixer machine. 

My recipe for noodle pasta is simple - one egg for every 100 grams flour. Today I took 7 eggs and 700 grams flour. Add a little bit salt (1 tbs) and sugar (2 tbs). 

• Add Flour to a bowl (make a small cavity to put eggs in)
• Add eggs to the flour
• Knead your pasta
• Today I spent 20 minutes of kneading this egg pasta, it required a lot of muscle strength and patience. 
• Once you have finished your pasta kneading, make a ball shape of it and put it in fridge for some 30 minutes (at least)

Preparing fresh egg pasta

We bought our macaroni machine here in Georgia some years ago already, if you don't have one, take your chances…

Abandoned Armenian Church in Tbilisi (Surb Nshan / St. Nikoghayos)

12 November, 2015 | Churches and Monasteries | 111 seen

Tbilisi never ends to surprise (at least me). I thought I'm quite familiar with all the places in Tbilisi's Old Town, but turned out - I was wrong. It was a Halloween eve and we decided to head to Shardeni (Tbilisi Old Town) to photograph some Halloween pictures.

Prior to that we went to lovely noodles place called Fire Wok on Shalva Dadiani street, and then just to randomize our route we decided to take a slight right turn on Lermontovs street, our first discoveries started already here, so I find a lovely Boutique art shop - Estia. 

After Estia we continued to wander through narrow Old Town's street when suddenly we ended in some yard which featured a really majestic building - as I learnt latter - Surb Nshan Armenian Church.

Abandoned Surb Nshan Armenian Church in Tbilisi

Luckily I took a tripod and I had already mastered some skills of taking night photography. See: Digital Photography school

Outside altar at Surb Nshan Armenian Church

To get a decent night exposition here I used light painting technology from a flashlight built in my phone. See how I light painted a complete…

Estia Handmade Art Boutique Shop & Masterclasses in Tbilisi

11 November, 2015 | Shopping Venues | 25 seen

It was a late October evening (It actually happened on Halloween night) when after having a delicious noodles at Fire Wok we decided to take some other route for heading into Tbilisi's Old Town. And suddenly on Lerrmontov street 3 we noticed a small boutique shop with interesting name - Estia, at first I thought maybe it's somehow related to Estonia. The sign at outdoors informed they serve a coffee here as well.

You can't buy happiness but you can buy coffee

This statement turned out to be just a half true - you can buy a coffee here, but that's actually not a coffee, but an instant coffee for 2.5 GEL - takeaway only. I was hoping for some coffee latte or Americano at least.

Instead of having a cup of coffee here I spent some time talking to the personnel of this art shop, asked different questions, like are they somehow related to Estonia? In fact they are not anyhow related to Estonia, but with some ancient Greek goddess Estia. I didn't knew of such goddess.

Estia Art Boutique shop in Tbilisi

In short you can buy here handmade painted teapots, pads, cutting boards and other stylish items.…

Our First Veggie Garden: Planting Plants in Boxes

10 November, 2015 | Home Remodeling | 8 seen

What would be a real country house without a garden? Right it would be a garden less country house. Although we have some old apple orchard and a few cherry trees there was one thing missing - some small veggie garden for our needs. 

There was one another major obstacle we didn't have any water supply at our rural country house. Read more: Home Remodeling - How It All Starts

So we opted for a small veggie garden to be planted into boxes, call it a mini sustainable agriculture if you prefer. We saved a lot of water at least, thus we were carrying about 50 liters in 5 litter bottles each day just to water our garden. Water is crucial and during this summer I actually understood the real value of water. Well for the next year we are planing to dug a well in our rural property and hopefully things will change for good. But for now we were left with what we had.

Luckily we didn't burn all the junk during our Summer Solstice celebrations, we kept a few old wooden boxes and reused them by planting some seedlings into them. Seedlings we got at Riga Central Market.

Old Wooden boxes reused for veggie garden

…

The Tiger Lillies Concert Review in Tbilisi

9 November, 2015 | Living in Georgia | 5 seen

The Tiger Lillies performed on Tbilisi Concert Hall on November 8, 2015. I must admit I had no clue what this band is all about, but had heard that The Tiger Lillies are must have. And I'm glad I agreed to visit their show in Tbilisi.

This was the second show in a row (previous one was Diana Krall's concert at the end of October 2015) I visited in Tbilisi concert hall.

First surprise arrived when we noticed that our seats was just behind tuner control

Tuner control in Tbilisi Concert Hall

What seemed an issue at start turned out to be a good place to photograph from and see in action how tuner guy works. I would say I had an option to see two shows for price of one.

Local Georgian TV Iberia taking interviews before show has started

A lot of cameras, a lot of photographer's. Speaking of photographers seems Canon EOS700d is the king of Georgian photographer's - saw a lot of them during this show. On the other hand my Canon 1200d were not far behind those expensive ones.

Ah, and yes - the beards have taken over. So many beards at one place.

The Tiger Lillies…

How to Patch and Plaster Walls in Your Old Rural House

9 November, 2015 | Home Remodeling | 10 seen

It's one of the construction works I really enjoy - to patch and plaster walls - it doesn't requires a lot of skills and it's a really cheap way to get things done fast.

Today I will show you how I patched our rural country house's kitchen walls with a plaster mix for less than $10. Prior to that I removed all the junk from the room (kitchen) and applied a base paint both for walls and ceilings. Read: Removing Junk And Adding First Layer of Paint (Kitchen Works)

Tools you will need - and old bucket (I prefer used plastic bucket leftover after paint job), a trowel and some good mix of plaster mixture. In those parts of world I'm living and plaster mixtures I'm familiar with - I prefer Rotband.

Dry plaster mixture

Our rural country house doesn't have a water (yet) so I brought some extra water to add for plaster mixture

Walls waiting to be plastered

As you can see - I have applied a base paint job already. Read more: Removing Junk And Adding First Layer of Paint (Kitchen Works)

A really damaged walls

Well, some might argue that I should probably add here a…

Shaurma Club on Tamar Mephe Street (Tbilisi)

8 November, 2015 | Restaurant reviews | 18 seen

Shaurma club on Tamar Mephe street in Tbilisi is among one of the best street food places I have tried in Tbilisi and Georgia. They offer really tasty shaurma's, kabab's and they even have a salad bar.

They obey all sanitary norms (work in gloves at least) and the prices are really budget friendly.

If you enjoy street food and love shaurma's you will definitely enjoy Shaurma Club on Tamar Mephe in Tbilisi. Frankly speaking I have been living on this street for the last 2 and a half years, and Shaurma Club is a new boy on our street, prior to that, this corner of Tamar Mephe was a shady corner close to the Dezerteer Bazaar, now this is a lovely corner. 

I have this feeling that owner of Shaurma Club has some great experience in running a business, because all is covered - great service. Shaurma Club work 24/7 and offers home delivery. 

Interior at Shaurma Club in Tbilisi

At first I thought what a great technique they have used to decorate walls here, just latter I realized they have used simple wallpapers (photo wallpapers) 

Shaurma Club logo

Interior at Shaurma Club…

Abandoned Airfield Near P104 (Jaunpils-Tukums) Road (Latvia)

7 November, 2015 | Military Heritage | 29 seen

As I stated in my previous post about beautiful poppy fields near P104 Jaunipils - Tukums road in Latvia, there is a hidden treasure inside those lovely fields - an abandoned airfield. 

I doubt it has been used for any military means, more for agriculture (field spraying from a biplane).

So I headed in and here is what I got:

Abandoned airfield near Tukums

The same concrete plates for runaway structure as seen in Skrunda Abandoned Military Ghost Town

Abandoned airfield

I just love such low profile perspective photography. Grey concrete in contrast to dark blue skies.

Airfield in middle of poppy fields

This is the same poppy field I wrote before

Abandoned airfield in Latvia

I could probably do some of the photography in black and white for my digital photography school project, but I felt there is no need to add drama to this photo story. 

Riga Central Market

6 November, 2015 | Shopping Venues | 33 seen

Riga Central Market as I believe is among of of the top Riga attractions a tourist might want to visit and see. First opened to public in 1930, with main structures of the market built by reusing old German Zeppelin hangars, it now has become Europe's largest market and bazaar.

There are not many markets from which I have seen I could compare this one. The closest I can compare is La Boqueria market in Barcelona, Spain. 

One of the Riga Central market pavilions

In total there are 5 pavilions in Riga central market, each representing it's own sector, like there is a dairy pavilion, meat pavilion, vegetables pavilion, fish pavilion and the 5th pavilion which sortiment I can't recall (if you have an idea, please leave me a comment)

Vegetables for sale at Riga Central Market

The prices are in EUR, and many goods are imported from either Spain or Poland 

Sorrels and potatoes for sale at Riga Central market

It's not gone be a problem to get the right ingredients for your next Sorrel Soup

Riga Central market

Since 1995, the Central Market has been a…

Beautiful Poppy Field Near P104 (Jaunpils-Tukums) Road (Latvia)

5 November, 2015 | Tourism objects | 23 seen

Some might think what's so special with those poppy fields in some place called near P104 road in Latvia, and I might reply - probably there is nothing special, but since we used this bypass road to get to Riga all the Summer along, we just noticed them every time we drove past this district.

Now I took those images on June 26th and today being back in Tbilisi I tried to locate this place on map, unfortunately I couldn't find an easy task to do this (that's why I love cameras with built in GPS), but after some 30 minutes of using Google Street view I finally found the same bus stop I captured here and here you go - this place is located on my travel map as well.

Poppy field near Viesāti

Lovely sunset, lovely field of poppies. Could spend hours here for taking better landscape photography and most probably will repeat photography here.

Turn to Viesāti

This poppy field is located near P104 road connecting Jaunpils to Tukums. 

There is another interesting place hidden in these poppy field - some abandoned airfield - I will publish photos of it anytime soon.

Sometimes…

How To Split Large .TSV files and Import to MS Excel or OpenOffice Using EmEditor

4 November, 2015 | Servers | 81 seen

In this article you will learn how to split large .tsv (and not only) files so you can import them to MS Office, Open Office or whatever you need using a small and neat (paid) program called EmEditor.

Here is the scenario - I have been booking.com affiliate partner for many years already, I remember few years ago I dreamt I wish I would programmatically access to all of their hotels (with metadata) , so I could import those data to some other web app and reuse data I want in manner I want to.

Recently I noticed on my Booking Central there is a new option - Data download, and here it was - All I dreamt for a couple of years ago. Booking.com offered me to download their hotel data in zipped .tsv format. Unarchived my file was about 1GB large.  I tried to import it to both Open Office (Libre Office) and MS Excel, but both programs stopped working and couldn't handle my request. For a moment I felt desperate - I have the data but I can't do much of it.

Booking.com hotel data sets

Now I remembered a few years ago I was building a geospatial web application using data from geonames.org, and back…

First Summer Solstice in Our New (Old) House

3 November, 2015 | Home Remodeling | 14 seen

Last year we celebrated Summer Solstice on our apartments balcony in Tbilisi, this year we did it the right way. After I tried out how it's to move grass with a scythe, then with a trimmer and finally hiring a professional grass mover we started to repair our recent acquisition, after room and kitchen was cleaned out ouf junk and some paint job was applied both to walls and ceilings we did a test with a first garden party in order to prepare for this Summer Solstice night.

Now we were ready to great Sun. Since our property on that time was without electricity we decided to go creative and lightened a lot of candles and put them into jars, hang up them in trees and got a superb Summer Solstice feeling.

During Summer solstice a fire place is a must have, it symbolizes light's victory over dark, and according to some old legends with fireplaces we are helping sun to win this battle. On the other hand we used one of our fireplaces (we had two) to burn all that old junk, while second one just for heating and ... helping sun to fight that battle.

Author of this blog captured in action

Burning junk and old furniture

…

Ēdole Castle and Emila Market with 17 Cheeses and Crayfish

2 November, 2015 | Tourism objects | 13 seen

Ēdole Castle is a Gothic Revival castle situated on the banks of Ēdole Lake, Ēdole parish, in the historical region of Courland, western Latvia.

I had an opportunity to visit Ēdole castle and taste some of the 17 cheeses few days before Summer Solstice Līgo was held (back n 2015). During my visit a fair called Emīla market (Emīla tirgus) took action.

Famous Latvian film Emīla nedarbi was filmed here in 1985. So that's the reason why this fair is named after Emīls.

If you enjoy medieval things and medieval architecture you will find a lot interesting at Ēdole castle.

Ēdole castle complex

It was pretty hard to photograph here that day - because a lot of visitors attended Emīla market to taste those tasty cheeses and crayfishes, or buy at least some beer for coming Līgo festival.

Edole castle park territory

Visitors of Emila market (Edole castle)

Such trade fairs are pretty popular in Latvia where you can buy goods from local craftsmen, artists or small producers.

It's free to enter castle complex territory but you…

Removing Junk And Adding First Layer of Paint (Kitchen Works)

1 November, 2015 | Home Remodeling | 6 seen

In my previous article on home remodeling series you already learned how with the help of just a white paint I decided drastically to improve a room which latter might become our bedroom in our rural house. Haven't red that article yet? Go ahead and see it: Room One - Wall and Ceiling Painting with Water Based Paint

Now it was turn for another room (kitchen) to put some facelift on, but before that we had to clean up the mess, remove all the junk and... paint. 

Kitchen loaded with junk

As you can see from above picture both walls and ceiling are covered with soot, Soot is coming from the Kitchener.

There is a stove actually

So we spent about a day just to getting rid from all that junk, so we can get actually access to walls and ceiling.

Our kitchen

I scrapped soot from ceilings, covered the stove with some old wallpapers I found inside the house.

In the background you can see already white painted walls of first room.

Painting windows

You can achieve tremendous effect by just painting your wooden windows.

Adding first layer of…

How To Prepare Traditional Uzbek Plov (Lamb and Rice Pilaf)

31 October, 2015 | Food blogger | 38 seen

In this post you will learn how to prepare a traditional Uzbek plov (lamb and rice pilaf.  It might sound as a complicated food to prepare, but in fact if you have the right ingredients and right tools (cooking pot) there is nothing complicated in it.

There are three main ingredients to get that tasty plov done - lamb meat, rice and quince. Since I'm living in Republic of Georgia, it's easy to find all the ingredients here, on the other hand, it might be tricky to get the correct ingredients in other parts of World. For a seasoning there is one must have - a cumin, but unfortunately a seasoning lady I usually buy spices from in Tbilisi, sold me the wrong cumin and there are no cumin in this recipe, but cumin still is must have, to get that special flavor.

So I headed to local Turkish store called Ankara on Aghmanashebeli street in Tbilisi to buy that lamb meat. I took about 1.5 kg of lamb meat. For the second main ingredient I used the regular rices (not special ones) you can buy at your local store, got quince at local market and here you go - a traditional Uzbek plow.

Ingredients: