Burek

“I don’t have a home.”

An oft-uttered phrase, at least for me, for whom it’s fairly true.

It follows, naturally, that I don’t feel homesick. Or at least, I shouldn’t. That’s not terribly true.

It’s true that I adapt easily, that I usually don’t mind uprooting myself and sticking myself somewhere else. Living out of a suitcase, getting used to a new time zone, sharing a bathroom with people I don’t know… these things have never been a problem for me.

And yet, there is this crawling, gnawing sickness I get in my stomach sometimes–a feeling that I always want to feed, because it feels so close to hunger, even though I know it’s not. It creeps up on me in places where it shouldn’t: in my apartment in Paris, in my parents’ house–the house where I grew up. At a friend’s apartment. In the park. It’s homesickness–that I know for certain. What I don’t know is how to fix it, because I don’t have any home to go to.

I’m back in Paziols: my third summer in a row. For the past few summers, I’ve made my way down to this tiny town, just close enough to the Spanish border for the Catalan accent and Occitan language to permeate everywhere. I love this town: love the hour’s drive from Perpignan, love watching as the airport and shopping center give way to endless, crawling green vines, to winding paths into the Pyrenees, to the little towns I’ve come to know so well.

Estagel, Tuchan, Tautavel. I read the names on the signposts, recognizing them and waiting until we’re close enough to Paziols for the tiny, 300-some-odd person town’s name to start appearing as well. I wait until I see the road I recognize: too narrow for two cars to pass one another, with trees leaning over, forming a tunnel, welcoming me back.

The house is different this year, once again. Since we’ve arrived, it’s been a flurry of painting and organizing and dusting and endless laundry. This summer, Patricia, Alex’s mom, who used to come to Paziols to cook for our group of nearly 20, will not be here. The task–and the “toque du chef”–has passed to me. She drove us down and stayed for a few days, and last night, she taught us how to make burek, a Balkan dish of filo and feta cheese.

We’ve been back and forth to Perpignan at least three times, and I’ve been to Spain once and am heading back out tomorrow to pick up our new group: 13 more kids, in addition to the veteran from last year who arrived on Sunday and my boss’ niece, who have been painting and organizing and vacuuming with the rest of us. 13 more starry-eyed Americans, who probably will have no idea what they’re in for as they’re driven, drowsy and jet-lagged, up the same paths that brought me so much comfort a few days ago.

I hope they learn to love it as much as I do. I hope they leave a piece of their hearts here when they go. I hope they know, when they get that clawing feeling from the pit of their stomachs, that a summer morning in Paziols with a hot cup of coffee and a tartine with Nutella, a morning filled with jokes and laughter… I hope that they realize that that is the perfect cure.

Burek

~30 sheets of phyllo
8 125 g. pots of yogurt
30 cl. crème fraîche
800 g. feta, crumbled
5 eggs + 1
pinch of pepper
1/2 cup sunflower oil
1/2 cup sparkling water

Combine the yogurt, crème fraîche, feta, eggs and pepper in a bowl–be careful not to crush the feta.

In a plastic bottle, combine the oil and water. Poke some holes in the top of the bottle with a sharp knife.

Taking the phyllo sheets two at a time, sprinkle the top sheet with the oil-water mixture, and then spread some of the yogurt-feta mixture over half of the sheet. Roll and place in an oiled baking sheet. Continue with all of the sheets, and paint the top of the dish with the reserved egg.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes or until golden and the filo is cooked through.

Concombre au yaourt

1 cucumber
2 heaping tablespoons of crème fraîche
13 125 g. containers of Greek yogurt
5-6 cloves of garlic
a few tablespoons of minced fresh parsley (optional)
salt and pepper

Peel the cucumber and dice it.

Empty the yogurts into a large container and add the crème fraîche and cucumber.

Press the garlic and add it to the yogurt mixture. Add the parsley, salt and pepper to taste and combine. Taste for salt and then keep at least 2 hours in the refrigerator, covered, at least two hours before serving. Serve with the burek.