Dracula's castle, Romania and a vampire bite

בס"ד

In 2009 we decided to be spontaneous and book tickets to the cheapest flight out there, and the cheapest destination was Romania.

At first, we thought there won't be anything to see in Romania, but after some searching, we came across many interesting places.

One of the places that seemed very intriguing and beautiful was the ruined castle of Vlad Tepes, AKA Dracula wha ha ha (you know I had to make a ghoulish laughter :-) ).

Vlad the third was very vicious and cruel and the author Bram Stoker wrote the Dracula novel about him. 

Why was Vlad the third called Dracula you ask?

I'll tell you exactly why :-)

 Vlad Tepes's father was named Vlad Dracul the second, thus the name Dracula.

Poenari Castle is a ruined castle, which was used as one of many fortresses of Vlad the third.

According to the author and the storyline, that is not Dracula's castle, however, it is a very beautiful place to visit.

The castle is located on a cliff, near the Fagarsh mountains.

Before we even got there, we read on the net about many stray dogs in Romania, which can have rabies, so be careful. We didn't come across any stray dogs thank god.



Poenari castle on the cliff

To get to the castle, you need to climb 1480 steps, so you should be in shape, although it's possible to the less active, and up there, you'll have to pay in order to walk through the ruins and see the gorgeous views.

We didn't know it cost money to enter, we thought there's a possibility, but we took the chance anyway.

We climb the 1480 steps and saw there was a guard to the fortress.

He told us we need to pay some Lays (local currency) that we didn't have, so we turned back and before we even started to decline, the guard called us and let us in for free.

I think he felt sorry for us three, after all, we looked kinda exhausted.

We entered the ruined castle...



The guard's cabin

And the views from the top

Romania is a very beautiful location and I have plenty of stories to tell, but one thing that is really worth mentioning is the people living in the countryside, they are so nice and welcoming.

Every time we drove in the rural areas, the villagers were waving at us and it was so nice and warm.

I decided to make a vampire bite.
A Vampire bite is more like an appetizer, but instead of calling it an appetizer, I thought to call it a bite. It would be more appropriate, don't you think?
The Vampire bite is a face - carved cucumber filled with a hummus - ketchup spread and pastrami as a mantle.

Being a Jew, we don't celebrate Halloween, but we do have Purim with all the great customs and hamantaschen cookies. And since I was always fascinated with creating fun food with customs and colorfulness, I had this idea of carving Dracula out of a cucumber and not pumpkin haha. And this Dracula bite is cute, healthy, and delicious!

Ingredients:
cucumber, cut into 2-3 slices
hummus spread
ketchup
pastrami
toothpick
knife


Preparation: 
Discard cucumber's edges and cut into 2-3 slices.
With a knife, carefully, remove the inside of the cucumber just till the end, leaving a base.
Mix together hummus (approximately 1 Tbsp. ) with Ketchup (approximately 1 tsp.).
Carve with a sharp knife, a face to the cucumber.
Fill the cucumber with the hummus mixture and tear a slice of pastrami to wrap around the bottom of the cucumber for a mantle.
The pastrami slice should be long enough to place the two edges one on each other and with a toothpick press to the cucumber, so it will stay still.
To make the Vampire look a bit more like a vampire, spread a bit of ketchup on the sides of his mouth.

And there you go, your very own Dracula / Vampire bite appetizer, What do you think?
Please leave a comment and if you like it, do share :-)

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