back to the roots

We played as kids, as many other kids I guess, cowboys and indians. I never wanted to be a cowboy, I found them a bit too ordinary, indians were much more fun, they always had more special horses, had long black hair and often wore nothing on top, or if they did it was often something with fringes.
My mother was addicted to Karl May as young girl, but she was more of a cowboy's girl, she had bunch of books on Winnetou and Buffalo Bill, they became my favourite read too, so in our cowboy games I was very well informed .
During the sixties, there were made more then dozen films on Winnetou, they were filmed in different parts of Croatia, some of them in the area where my mother comes from, close to Plitvice lakes. So when we were visiting my grandmother's house that was on the river Korana, down in the canyon, me and my cousins had a perfect film setting for our cowboy/indian games.

On those summer days, between the swimm in the river and running around bushes with chicken feathers in my hair, we often ate punjena paprika, meaning Stuffed Peppers , prepared by my grandmother. It was always served with mashed potatoes and tomato sauce.
I'm making today Stuffed Peppers and polenta cakes, remembering all the Indians that I hoped one day to become.