About Me

My name is Artur and i am from Shkodra, north of Albania. I grew up in small village in north of Albania, near city of Shkodra. When i finished school like most of Albanians my vision was to head west for few years and get some experience or just make some money whilst the perspectives of life were very limited back home in terms of finding a good job.

Having friends and family in countries such as, Greece, Italy, Austria, Germany, Belgium, France, England and Ireland i planned to visit all those places whilst in all of those i was welcomed by family and friends. I decided to visit all those places and then settle in the one i find most interesting.

My journey started from Tirana, Athens, Vienna, Brussels, Paris, London, Dublin. Having been around Europe from September to January 2000 when i arrived in Dublin.

You know bit about me but yet you have to hear about my cooking and you might wonder what's the link from above to my cooking! You might be surprised when i tell you this but until i left home, i had not had the need to even fry an egg nor ever was i to clean a plate. My grandmother was the one and only doing the cooking in the house and my part was to eat, eat and eat some more. She did not like wasting food and she had difficulties cooking just for 8 persons that we were. There was always food for 15. Most times she was "eat eat eat (in Albanian: HA HA HA", finish the plate. Given that she would cook twice the amount we would eat there was always left overs. She would not waste food though, if there was beef left over, she would take the beef, mix it with peppers, onions, garlic, chilies and mince it all in food processer and use it to stuff chicken, peppers...etc

When i first left Albania, i stayed in Greece for two weeks i was suffering to eat Greek food which was something i had never tasted before. I was dreaming about my grannies cuisine and i started loosing weight not being able to eat. I decided to start cooking, my first dish which my friend told me he had not eaten for 6 years was Fasul. In Albania Fasul is countries favourite.....will continue


Albania At A Glance:
Location: South Eastern Europe
Country Population: 3,619,778
Life expectancy: 78 years
Literacy rate: 99%
World development ranking: 68th (out of 177)