It was one of those ‘if only I’d gotten the camera out moments earlier’ moments.

You might remember this post where we described how half of Haskovo’s charming power plant disappeared on us? Well, the other day I happened to be out on the balcony (not a common occurrence in winter!) when I heard this great boom like a thunder clap. I looked around to see the power plant’s 30m-high concrete smoke stack toppling over!

The image will stick in my memory forever! And the sound of its collapse was amazing (once it reached us)!

Here is a video I took of the aftermath. I apologise that it’s essentially pointless – in that I missed all the action and all you can see is the cloud of dust rising up from where it fell – but perhaps I captured some of the coolness of it.

Enjoy?

Cheers,

Stu.

Here’s a bit of a photographic suspense-mystery-thriller-romantic comedy* for you.

This is a typical view from our apartment balcony (in summer):

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Here’s the part of the picture I want to draw your attention to. Our gorgeous disused power plant:

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Here’s what it looks like at the moment… notice anything missing?

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Well, of course, I assured Elly that power plant cooling towers don’t just go missing! So of course it had to be a result of the 10cm snowfall we had the night before, combined with sub-zero temperatures, combined with a slight wind blowing against the side of the cooling tower we could see from our apartment. Completely plausible!

But since it was a sunny Sunday and a balmy minus 4 degrees, we decided to go for a walk to investigate. Did you know that it can be quite sunny, yet remain below zero? I didn’t.

Here’s what we saw last time we walked there (with Humf):

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And here’s what we saw on this occasion:

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But we weren’t quite sure, so we went a bit closer this time:

They knocked down HOW many tonnes on concreteness??

We can only assume they were able to dismantle and sell it. Check your local Trading Post this week for a bargain cooling tower:

Dale: Dad, someone’s selling a Nuclear Cooling Tower.

Dad: How much are they askin’?

Dale: Mill’yun Leva.

Dad: Tell ‘em they’re dreaming!

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* = I promised to throw in some romantic comedy, so it’s just as well I can wish Elly a

Happy 4th Wedding Anniversary today! Hi Elly. You’re nice. I kinda like you.

Hi all,

By popular demand*, here is a recipe you might like to try. It was adapted from various soups that we ate in Turkey, although I’m sure I’ve seen something quite similar here in Bulgaria. I don’t know what it’s called, though you could call it fasulye çorbası (pr: fah-sool-yeh chor-bah-suh) which means “soup with beans” in Turkish. You could also call it 62-cent soup, a (possibly accurate) reference to how cheap it is to make a big pot of this yummy dish!

[* again, on this blog, the phrase 'by popular demand' is really a euphemism for 'someone asked us'...]

62-cent soup:

serves 2-3

• 1 cup dried beans (we’ve used red (kidney) beans, borlotti beans, white (navy) beans, green (puy) lentils and chick peas – anything will work!)
• 1 onion
• other vegies (celery, leek, potato, cabbage etc… the authentic soup omits these, but add them in to keep your mum happy)
• stock and salt (we prefer a bit of both rather than a lot of either)
• 3-4 litres water (we prefer uranium-free water)
• 1 tbsp lutenitsa (a paste made from roasted capsicum – you can substitute tomato paste)
• 1-2 tbsp mild chili sauce (asian sambal oelek can work, but use less because it’s hotter!)
• 1 tsp herbs (such as savoury, thyme or oregano)
• 1 tsp paprika (gives the soup a legendary red colour!)
• 4 cloves garlic
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (use good stuff since you won’t be cooking the goodness out of it)
• dollops of yoghurt (for serving)

directions

Before you go to bed, put the beans in a saucepan and add a litre of water. They’ll puff up 3-4 times their size by morning.

Add another litre of water and boil the beans for an hour – this softens them. After an hour, drain the beans.

Boil the kettle.

Dice an onion and fry it, then add the beans, the kettle full of boiled water, along with lutenitsa, chili, herbs and paprika. The soup will need at least 30 minutes. Add stock and salt to taste.

While it’s cooking, crush and finely dice the garlic. Add it to the oil with a little salt. Stir this mixture and put it in a little dish for the table. That’s right – raw garlic. But trust us.

When the beans are super soft and the texture of the soup is a little thicker, serve with a dollop of yoghurt in the bowls and encourage everyone to stir several teaspoons of the garlicky oil into theirs! You know the rule with garlic: one in, all in! Serve with bread – that’s an essential over here too.

It’s hearty, flavoursome and delicious. Oh, and good for you.

Garlic is great for keeping away those winter chills… which is no good to all you lot at the moment (!) but we’re enjoying it.

By the way, that recipe is copyrighted by me and you only have permission to use it if you leave a comment on our blog!

Hope someone enjoys it!

Cheers,

Stu.