Nu Să Mănîncă în Toate Zilele Placintă: You Can't Eat Cheese Pie Every Day

Interview With Romanian Actress Gabriela Marinescu


they gave me water so crisp and cold it froze my cheeks, water right out of the well, and we ate romanian meatballs you wouldn't believe, on the grill, and he was drunk like a horse, flattened, he didn't know his name and he kept pinching me

was he older?

no, he was 45-50 years old, much younger than me, he looked old, but he wasn't old, he was from the country (muncit), he worked his whole life and it showed in his hands, he kept pinching me on the ass, i didn't know how to get away from him -- they had chickens and ducks and geese and a dog that started barking when i went to the WC, a big black dog started barking at me -- it was chained, lucky me he was chained then we ate the grilled meatballs then palinkă (plum wine) and they said drink, drink, drink, bai mă că e palinkă!

my god

don't drink that unless you put a little water in it because it will burn the hell out of your throat

it's plum wine, right?

yes, ţuica, palinka

ţuica e palinka?

da, sau şliboviţa

şliboviţa

are aşa un sunet

you take the ţuica, and more ţuica, and let's drink some more, and they say, hi ma mai mănîncă -- ce ma nu mănîncă -- she doesn't eat, she doesn't eat at all, nothing, nothing at all, and then her father says, now i would like to see how she eats. I like the way she looks now i want to see what she eats. how she eats. and when she eats. when? when?

i say well i don't eat in the morning only coffee, i'm not hungry in the morning and at noon i might eat a little something, mayube a little salad or something

he says, a little salad? what's that?

then at night, and doina interrupts saying, oh, yes, at night she eats something if you can catch her eating

so then we went to sleep around nine

nine?

it was one of those obscure little villages -- not even romanians know about it -- poor as hell, but they have pigs, geese, vegetables, chickens, everything they need -- and they have a store they get newspapers and flour they make bread in an adobe oven at home -- they gave us a chicken, they caught it they defeathered it and boiled it

ai să jumulesc pă tine

they put the whole thing in hot water

then they grabbed some fresh eggs, hot right from the chicken's ass, you know that? they were hot, hot, and fresh milk with cream on top, right from the cow, only when i was little girl i drank milk right from the cow, fantastic, fantastic, a totally different flavor you know i don't drink milk otherwise

she was looking for her money and i don't know how many jackets she had and two or three hats on her head, and there was such heat in there

i had very few clothes

she was going from room to room in the whole house to find her money not mine, she didn't want to rob you she was interested in her own money, and finally she left and doina says, Tanti Prucină, culcă-te, te rog, te rog, culcă-te frate

she says i don't have any money, and that's how it was all night she didn't sleep all night that's how it was she spent the whole night looking for her money

she had almost 98 years you had to keep your eyes on her she kept trying to run away from home

she must have put it under the mattress

but she wasn't looking under the mattress