I thought that if I was lucky I might get a sneak peak into a Bulgarian kitchen in Teteven two weekends ago and that by helping prepare some food, I might be able to count one of them as my own in my on going pursuit of mastering a few Bulgarian dishes this month.

[caption id="attachment_4349" align="alignleft" width="614" caption="Homemade Salads!!"]<a rel="attachment wp-att-4349" href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/?attachment_id=4349"><img class="size-large wp-image-4349 " title="Salads!!" src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/DSC02328-1024x768.jpg" alt="" width="614" height="461" /></a>[/caption]

Great plan. But in practice there were too many cooks in the kitchen. I guess this happens when there are 19 people to feed hanging around. I. and her boyfriend J. had things under control and put as many people as they could to work right away.

[caption id="attachment_4347" align="alignleft" width="614" caption="Bulgarian Pottery"]<a rel="attachment wp-att-4347" href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/?attachment_id=4347"><img class="size-large wp-image-4347 " title="Bulgarian Pottery" src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/DSC02309-1024x768.jpg" alt="" width="614" height="461" /></a>[/caption]

I helped where I could.

That ended up being potatoes. I. made a simple but tasty potato salad. The thing that I was surprised by was that the potatoes had been boiled with the skin on and then after they were soft enough to mash taken off the stove and pealed by hand. Basically, you take the potato and scratch the skin with your fingernail and the skin comes off in strips.

[caption id="attachment_4348" align="alignleft" width="614" caption="Making Potato Salad"]<a rel="attachment wp-att-4348" href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/?attachment_id=4348"><img class="size-large wp-image-4348 " title="Making Potato Salad" src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/DSC02322-1024x768.jpg" alt="" width="614" height="461" /></a>[/caption]

This seemed to me harder than pealing the potato and chopping it into piece before boiling it because when do it the other way around you're wrestling with a hot potato. This said, I think this way you probably toss out less potato than if you peal it ahead of time. In my life though I am just not sure that it's really worth the savings.

So I helped peal a few potatoes, took some pictures and then missed out on the actual assembly of the salad because I was whisked out of the kitchen to speak some Bulgarian with one of I.'s super-duper nice friends.

These things happen. So instead we chatted, drank rakiya and then dinner began to emerge from the kitchen on plates. That was pretty great. The highlight of the meal was grilled pork which took some time but was well worth the wait.

Only now I have only the vaguest idea of what when into the potato salad and I have no idea what else went into the killer bean salad.