Burekas

For Rebecca's Master party (Master Rower, that is) I decided to get frozen burekas from the store, so I will have enough time to make a card. Getting frozen burekas seemed like a great idea to me, because it would be super fast to make them, with minimum effort, AND everybody will like it because they've never had it before and it's completely unfamiliar to them - they might even think I made it myself! So I looked for a place that might sell such a thing, namely a Kosher grocery store, on the web, and found one that was right off the greenway, about 4-5 miles away. Perfect - I can ride my bike! I was on the bridge over Salt River when it suddenly occurred to me that a "Kosher" store might be closed on Saturday - you know - the holy day. When I lived in Raleigh, I could get such things from the Persians - they were open all the time. So I called Mark and asked him to call and see if they're open before I make it all the way to there. Sure enough - they're closed! And not only for Shabbath, but completely, since 2001!
Then I thought that maybe the Turkish grocery store would have something. It's only about a mile from our place, so I was off on my bike again. When I arrived I found a couple of people loading boxes of groceries on their van, parked right at the storefront. "Oh, they must be having a party or something," I thought. I walked in to find empty shelves and cleared floor. "Khalas, no more store," the owner told me.
Oh, no! What am I gonna do? Will I have to bake them myself?? I went to Food City to look for ingredients - butter and Feta cheese. Butter was too expensive, and they didn't have Feta. I'm doomed!
So I went back to the house, and google-mapped "Bulgarian grocery", because Bulgarians have the best burekas. The results included a middle eastern grocery store located too far for a bike ride (for me) but not too far by car. I went there and looked for frozen burekas. They didn't have them. They had filo filled with cheese and spinach (spanacopita?), but not burekas. But, they had Bulgarian Feta and puff-pastry leaves. I figured I can handle that - making the filling wouldn't take all that long, and I won't need to make the dough myself.
So here they are, in the container, on the way to Rebecca's party:



Indeed, it did not take long to make, and I still had time (despite spending hours just looking for a store!) to make the card (with a rowing leaf-cutter ant, of course).
The party was fun! I watched, yet again, "The Triplets of Belleville", and it was still good, and there was a lot of good vegetarian food. I think my burekas turned out pretty well. Well, at least they were pretty :)