krofi – meiadeleite.com

around this time two years ago, we watched the kurenti come to ljubljana on a freezing day… and we were so in awe of the whole event that we decided there and then that the next year we would go to ptuj and see the real thing from the source.

so we did! about a year ago, we drove all the way to ptuj on a mission. i remember it was unbelievably cold and windy, and yet we sticked around through the folklore and performances, warming our hands on steaming mugs of glühwein (one of the best i’d tried so far!) until finally the kurenti came out. i froze my fingers off making a video of the whole thing, and with the move to berlin, never got around to publish it… so here it is now:

quite something, isn’t it? i don’t think carnival will ever be the same without these big guys and their cowbell cacophony!

and of course, we stopped at the famous trojane krofi house that everyone had told us about, and bought a bunch of them for the road!

i don’t think they were the best we’ve had in slovenia, but there were certainly up there in the top 5, and well worth the short detour on the highway! :)

some months ago, the company i work for got mentioned on the newest tim ferriss book, the 4 hour body. i’ve gotta say, i’m not mr. ferriss biggest fan, so i looked it up, confirmed the quote, and forgot about it.

but then some weeks later, someone else mentioned it and i actually started to read it. the first few chapters are about nutrition and weight management, which peaked my interest a bit – especially after the semi-disastrous results on our xmas blood tests… definitely not a bright idea, going for blood tests on the end of the xmas holidays, after feasting on portuguese delights for weeks. *sigh*

anyway, mr. ferriss’s approach to weight loss is rather simple: avoid food that will produce sugar peaks and trigger fat storing mechanisms in your body. he doesn’t say “count all the calories and eat less” – he says “eat as much as you want, from the right stuff”. that’s it. basically, lots of protein, veggies, fat from the right things, and specific carbs that are digested slowly (hence the name, the “slow carb diet”).

he doesn’t explain things very thoroughly though, which irritates me quite a bit, so i started researching all about glucose levels, insulin responses, ketosis… things started to slowly make sense, so we decided to give it a go. fast forward 4 weeks, and i’m quite a bit lighter than i’ve been in years, so something must be working! :)

the best part of it all is the fact that you are encouraged to cheat on the diet once a week, so that your body doesn’t go into ‘saving energy’ mode. this, to me, is what makes this diet stick. i eat within rules during the week and then, on our cheat day (we affectionally call it DoD, the ‘day of disaster’), we go crazy… very literally! i get vivid sugar rushes from all the sweet stuff we eat! :D

which is where the mighty krofi comes in: it’s our favourite breakfast food on cheat days! :D why eat bread or cereal when we could eat berliners with chocolate or jam for breakfast?

they’re delicious, especially on the chocolate version and remind us of the portuguese bolas de berlim, without the egg filling. krofis are especially popular around carnival – last year on carnival we went to a printer shop to print some flight tickets and the owner wanted to give us a few krofi for the road! :D

they’re unmissable year-round, proudly displayed in bakeries all around the country. definitely a must try!