What good did Little Red Riding Hood bring Grandma to her basket? Was the porridge that Gold ate for the bears like our breakfast cereals? What about the one who boils down to the Pot story, chef? Why didn’t the ginger house collapse? Would you read with us tales in which food plays an important role? Barbara Shabeder Jançiç has performed once with us, with a recipe for donuts for Berliners. However, when we met, we discovered that he has another special talent: he knows how to design dishes that make young children go crazy with enthusiasm. She calls those fairy plates. We will call them illustrations: Barbara in the coming months will illustrate with food some of the most famous fairy tales.
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Before we started the business, we were invited to her house, in a quiet green alley on the outskirts of Maribor. She prepared several dishes right away, to welcome us and greet us with an honest story that reaffirms what we adults already know: life is not a fairy tale, but you can decide for yourself and try to make the ending well. We believe she will be here: Barbara’s dream is sweets, she is just finishing her retraining. When she succeeds, she will be a pastry chef with a very special story… Let’s get to know her story and learn how to make fabulous first course dishes.
Little Red Riding Hood
“I started designing fairy tale plates about four years ago when my eldest daughter got sick. She was barely two years old when she got a severe form of rotavirus and stopped eating completely. Since she was still very young, she also could not say why. She just stopped. She weighed only nine kilograms. I was desperate. I no longer knew what to do when I came across the work of an online blogger who designs things like my current fairy tale dishes. I started with Little Red Riding Hood. I cut the toasted bread in half and rubbed it with hazelnuts, sprinkling some seeds. The girl was excited – and ate it all. Since then, I have created such dishes for dolls – the oldest is now six years old, the youngest is four. Twice, three times a week. No longer out of necessity, to hash, has become a beautiful family hobby. In the evening we read fairy tales, see what a cartoon is like and suggest an idea of what I can do. They are primarily interested in Disney heroes, as you know, they are little girls: current is the Red Panda, Anna and Elsa from the Ice Kingdom, Aladdin, the Little Mermaid, Pu Bear and the Tiger… «
“Well, I mispronounced it: do not tell me what to do. We work together. I am responsible for the ingredients and the girls help in the preparation. Cooking is a wonderful aid to developing excellent motor skills. “No one is afraid of knives, they know everything, they help everyone, they know the food, the spices, the taste, the salt when we cook… and then we clean together,” says Barbara as we sit in the kitchen, one of those who want to say if can be eaten from the floor, they are so clean.
Barbara acknowledges that there is no compromise when it comes to order – and the right attitude towards food. They cook all the time, sometimes it’s five – healthy! – meals a day. “We did not cook for a while, but the weight increased immediately. So it is with me: until the age of 27 I struggled with obesity. I weighed 145 kilograms and it was so hard that now I am scared and I do not want my daughters to experience something like that… “
Is there a magic wand?
Our interlocutor, already with a rather petty constitution, underwent an operation years ago: a reduction of the stomach due to overweight, so that endangered her health, her whole life. Without her there would be nothing, not even a girl, says Barbara. Just then she started cooking too – she was 27 years old.
“Because of the operation, I had to prepare the food myself. It is interesting how differently you taste the food after such a radical intervention: I liked fried, now I can not stand that taste. I like pasta, spaghetti, for example, I can not see them. It is this form that bothers me. I still like sweets, but not too sweet – I prefer agave syrup, coconut sugar … It was then that I started cooking, discovering new ingredients. I eat everything now, but not a little, because my belly is like an egg. And that’s the punishment if you pass it. “It hurts terribly”, says the interlocutor openly.
There is nothing wrong with this issue and it is also a real source of data for anyone who is facing a similar problem and is thinking alike to solve it with surgery. He says there is no magic wand: if you do not follow the instructions, the condition can return, exactly three, four years after surgery are crucial, but because the stomach is too small, it can not absorb enough vitamins from food, so it should take them twice a year in addition, it goes after the injection, lists only a few problems that remain.
Made at home a little differently
A few days ago, Barbara completed her final retraining exams and became an “official” confectioner under the Pyramid Education Center program. Currently she still works in a shop, but from education it is something else, educational. Its baking began to take place in parallel with the dishes of fairy tales and gave this a special name – “house a little different”. Classic recipes, but modified so that they are not quite everyday.
Her dream is to own a pastry shop, but everything is still open: she will cook at home, she will look for a local… She is interested in modern cakes, she will prepare about five other cakes for which she will specialize and would be “hers”. Princesses tempt her, eclairs, what slices, pies. Epo na encouraurajon, na befason. “I have not been able to sleep for a long time, because I say: I am completely self-taught in everything. But the challenge is to prepare it from the beginning… “
This is the lesson of this story: each of us would surely find in ourselves a dream from which we have given up. But who says it is not yet time to resurrect them? If Barbara, who once struggled with her heavy body, can bake cakes, why can’t everyone else do something for me too? One thing is clear: happy endings certainly are, but there is no magic wand as such – if they were, they would be called the right measure, smiles Barbara. Whether they are fairy tales, however, we will discuss and reflect on in the coming months. For example, we are already interested in how Barbara Šabeder Jančič will imagine the dishes for the Queen on a pea…
How to put together fairy dishes
Pancakes with teddy bear Malinka consists of fresh raspberries, face and legs are cut from a pirina chocolate pancake. For decoration, Barbara also used a fresh strawberry, a pancake flower, fresh blueberries and a fresh spinach leaf. The face part is sprinkled with homemade avocados. For the pancakes, Barbara used 2 free-range eggs, 300 ml of milk, 200 g of finely ground rice flour and a tablespoon of chocolate powder. Avocado is a spread for which we grate and mix 1 roasted avocado, 50 g roasted hazelnuts, a tablespoon of coconut oil, 50 g of dark chocolate and a teaspoon of dark cocoa and 1-2 tablespoons of vegetable or cow milk.
Spider Man it consists of strawberries cut into larger pieces, eyes cut from a pancake and a spider web hand-sprinkled with melted milk chocolate.
Summer bouquet. The vase is cut from a classic pancake, the melted milk chocolate is sprinkled on the edges. The flowers in the vase are made from fresh raspberries and blueberries, and daisy flowers and fresh lemon mint leaves for decoration.
The boat is blue by the sea. Barch was made from watermelon, banana pieces for windows and apples and blueberries for the chimney. The flags are made with fresh parsley, and the oats are sprinkled under the boat.
Pink unicorn. It is prepared from cooked oats with raspberries and garnished with fresh strawberries, blueberries, bananas and sugar stars. For the raspberry oats, Barbara used 300 ml of milk (it could also be herbal), 100 g of oat flakes, 2 tablespoons of honey, a little vanilla bourbon and a pinch of cinnamon (optional) and a handful of fresh (or frozen) milk. ) raspberries.
Margarita with strawberries. The flower consists of strawberries cut in half, chocolate pancakes and fresh blueberries. The stalk is a sprig of chickpeas and the leaves are young spinach.
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Photos: Pixie Line
