à la carte spirit by ilona fried
Budapest
How Many People, and Bulbs, Does It Take to Change a Light in Budapest?
Jet-lagged and dazed, I arrived to my Budapest rental on a rare sunny afternoon in early November. I’m revisiting a place I once called home and which evokes complicated emotions. On relatively short notice, I’d found a one-bedroom apartment through Homeaway.com. Paolo, the Italian property manager, greeted me when I stepped out of the taxi. I followed … Continue reading
The Primal Power of Food Memories
The photo essay 33 Hungarian Foods the Whole World Should Know and Love grabbed my attention last week. Topping the list was lángos, a thick fried dough slathered with sour cream and sprinkled with cheese: Fat upon fat upon fat! Seeing the photograph, my saliva glands erupted geyser-like as I recalled this snack. Gulyás (goulash) was … Continue reading
Budapest: Beauty or Beast?
It’s Halloween, a chance to contemplate what is more creepy: a truly beautiful person masquerading as a hideous beast, or an attractive costume that camouflages beastly hate? Two very different news items on Hungary, one on beauty, the other on beastliness, grabbed my attention in the last week. The first, the results of a Conde … Continue reading
When a Memory’s Absence Tells a Story
A former boyfriend, from decades and another continent ago, e-mailed me last week to mention that Barack Obama had visited Germany, where he now lives with his wife and two children. He wrote: “I told my family that, thanks to you, I heard the senior Bush’s speech in Budapest in 1989!” Really? I didn’t remember … Continue reading
à la carte spirit by ilona fried 
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