The other day I was going through my old notebook recipe collection and this recipe caught my attention. I had all the ingredients available so I decided to give it a try for the first time since the recipe found its way into my precious collection almost two decades ago. I don’t even remember where I got it from. The poor thing was called Piroq, which in Russian means Pie, so I had to brand it with some type of fancy name to make it sound appealing and attractive. And this is how the cake got its new name - Cheese and Yogurt Cake with Lemon Zest. Is it fancy enough?

The recipe did not call for any baking powder or soda, which I found bizarre. But I still decided to stick to the original and I am glad I did. My cake turned out beautifully. It didn’t rise much but I still loved its soft and moist texture. Tasted and looked almost like cheesecake. Then this idea about no baking powder started to bug me and two days after we devoured the fist cake, I knew I had to make another one (since I am a Daring Baker), this time using what I thought was the missing ingredient - baking powder. I also used 4 eggs instead of 5 and added more flour. Result? My cake did not rise a bit, and was more dense and heavier in texture than the previous one. A lesson taught. I am now sticking to my good old recipe I have a pleasure of sharing with you.

Note: Per Deeba’s suggestion (thank you, Deeba!), I am submitting this recipe to the Sugar High Friday, a monthly event created by Jennifer of The Domestic Goddess. This month’s theme is Citrus and the event is being hosted by Helen of Tartelette.

CHEESE AND YOGURT CAKE WITH LEMON ZEST

Ingredients

1/2 pound (250 g) unsalted white cheese (I used part skim milk cheese. If you are in Azerbaijan, use kesmik/tvoroq)
1/2 cup (4 oz/113 g) butter, melted
5 eggs, at room temperature
a pinch of vanilla powder
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 cup plain yogurt
coarsely grated zest of one lemon
confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

1. Preheat the oven to 350˚F (180˚C).

2. In a large mixing bowl, coarsely crumble (break up into small pieces) cheese using your hands. Add butter, eggs, vanilla powder and flour. Using a mixer, beat at medium speed until well blended. It should take you only a minute or less.

3. In a separate bowl, combine sugar and yogurt and beat with a mixer until well blended. Add lemon zest and mix.

4. Gradually add the yogurt mixture (step 3) to the cheese mixture (step 2) and mix. The batter will be quite thin, and this is how it should be.

5. Lightly coat a 8 1/2 (21 cm) x 4 1/2-inch (11 cm) loaf pan with cooking spray. Pour the batter onto the prepared pan and place the pan on the middle rack of the oven. Bake for about 50 minutes, or until the cake is lightly golden on top and spongy when lightly pressed, and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. You will notice the cake will only rise a little - this is normal. Remove the cake from the oven. Allow to cool in the pan, then carefully turn out onto a wire rack. Cool completely before serving. Dust the top of the cake with confectioners’ sugar and sprinkle with lemon zest, if desired. Enjoy your cake with a cup of hot tea!

A couple of days ago I received three more awards (actually 2, I am in the process of claiming the third one) from my fellow foodies. They made my day but I am also incredibly humbled and flattered. And before I get all nervous and forget, here’s my 30 second thank you speech: I would like to take this opportunity and thank all of you for taking the time to visit my blog, to try my recipes and to leave comments. Thank you for your support and friendship. It means a lot to me and… End of my Oscar speech:)) Sad. I could say so much more.

Back to my awards. The lovely Gretchen of Canela & Comino honored me with a Blogging With a Purpose Award. Thank you so much, Gretchen! I will cherish it!

I am pleased to pass this award to some of my favorite food blogs. Check them out!

1. Marija at Palachinka - for sharing the best of Serbian/Balkan cuisine with us.

2. Maryann at Finding La Dolce Vita - for sharing traditional Italian recipes with us.

3. Kay at Cooking From A To Z - for sharing the best of Indian cooking and beyond.

4. Amy and Jonathan at We Are Never Full - for their interesting stories and recipes from around the world.

5. Erik at My Life As Chef Erik - for sharing his delicious and healthy recipes.

And this is not all. My dear friend Amy of Familia Bencomo gave me this cutest sweetest award I just loved! Thank you, Amy! I love you back!

And this award goes to the following bloggers I can’t stop admiring for their creativity, talent and enthusiasm.

1. Susan at Food Blogga - delicious recipes and wow, what a stunning phogtography!

2. Julia at Dozen Flours - for the most delicious desserts to satisfy the most demanding sweet tooth!

3. Diva at The Sugar Bar - if you haven’t checked out Diva’s Beauty and The Feast Challenge, you are missing out on a lot. It promises to be a lot of fun!

Another news. Looks like I have a competitor in the kitchen. Guess who? My daughter Meltem, who just received her first blogging award (hey, who is blogging here?). My dear friend Medena of Cafe Chocolada awarded Meltem with Arteypico Award for being “the cutest chef in the world“!

Thank you, Medena. Meltem is very happy and she now proudly displays the award in her room. Thank you for making her day! I am jealous but proud:)) And now with Meltem’s permission I would like to award the following bloggers with the Arteypico award. Please check out their blogs -you won’t regret.

1. Helen at Food Stories

2. Nina at Nina’s Kitchen

3. Eva at Tea For One

4. Mag at Hommus & Tabbouli

5. Patricia at Technicolor Kitchen

The Arteypico award comes with these rules:

I know, you are probably saying - Liver? Nah, thank you, I’ll pass it. But wait! Make no mistake - this is not just liver. This is delicious and fancy roulade of liver pate, my favorite appetizer. A very presentable starter that is guaranteed to impress your palate and …well, your guests, too. Azerbaijanis love liver pate. It is a popular starter that frequents the tables at wedding parties and other special celebrations. Always a hit.

So, if unlike me you are not friends with liver, you will convert at your first attempt to make this appetizer. I know you are already heading to the kitchen: ) So, without much ado, here is the recipe. Note that this is enough to feed a party of about 15. Reduce the ingredients accordingly if you want a smaller roulade. Enjoy!

LIVER PÂTÉ ROULADE / Jiyer Pashteti

Preparation time: 20 minutes, plus 2 hours refrigeration
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Makes 14 inches (35 cm) long roulade

INGREDIENTS

2 lbs (about 1 kg) beef or lamb liver
3 tablespoons oil or butter, for frying
1 large onion, chopped
2 medium carrots, boiled and peeled
salt, to taste
pepper, to taste
2/3 cups (6 oz/ 170g) unsalted butter, softened

NOTE: You can prepare pâté with chicken livers, too, in equal quantity. Just trim the livers and cook as directed in the recipe. Note that chicken livers usually cook faster than beef or lamb liver.

1. Clean the liver by removing the membrane if any. Cut into medium sized pieces.

2. In a medium saucepan, put about 6 cups water. Add liver and bring to a boil. Using a slotted spoon, skim off the froth that will rise to the surface. Reduce the heat to medium and cook for about 20 minutes or until the liver is cooked. Check to see if it is ready by piercing with a knife or fork. Juices should run clear when the liver is cooked. Drain, then puree the liver in a food processor until smooth. Set aside.

3. In a non-stick frying pan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add onions and sauté for about 7 minutes, or until brown. Remove from heat and puree in a food processor until smooth. Set aside. In a food processor, separately puree the carrots.

4. Place the pureed liver, onion, carrot, salt and pepper in a food processor and process until very smooth. Or, using a potato masher, blend the ingredients together until you obtain a creamy mixture. Adjust seasoning to taste.

5. Place the mixture in batches on a parchment paper (do not use foil paper!) and spread using a large knife, until you obtain a layer about 1/4 inches (0.6cm) thick, 14 inches (35cm) long and 10 inches (25cm) wide. Using a knife, spread butter evenly over the liver mixture.

6. Lifting the parchment paper, slowly roll up the spread to form a roulade. Tightly wrap the parchment paper around the roulade.

7. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving. When ready to serve, remove parchment paper and slice the roulade into circles (neither too thick not too thin). Serve plain or with bread or crackers.

Nush Olsun! - Enjoy!

And here’s one interesting Azerbaijani proverb:

A house without a guest is like a mill without water (Qonaqsiz ev susuz deyirman kimidir).

So, be my guests today, dear friends!

Meltem (almost 5) making her own cupcakes from her Cupcake Book. She inspired the name for my tag.

Recently I’ve been noticing more and more tags going around the blogosphere and I thought it would be cool to create one of my own. Anna at Anna’s Kitchen Table, who created this wonderful tag called Top Ten Pics inspired me. I wanted something that would be benefitial to the food blogging community. So I came up with this idea for Look What I Made! Maybe something like this already exists, I don’t know, but I am happy to share my idea with you anyway

My friend Diva of The Sugar Bar who instantly approved of it says she “can’t wait to see this tag floating about the blogosphere.” Diva, thank you for your encouraging words. The idea was born a week ago but lazy (actually, super busy ) Farida was postponing telling the world about it for no obvious reason. Until.. a lovely food blogger and my wordpress theme buddy Amy at Eggs on Sunday published a very interesting post where she wrote about her never-ending ‘To Cook” list of recipes she found on other blogs, web site, magazines and cookbooks. Amy wants to try all of the recipes she has collected. And she actually listed some of the dishes she has prepared from the list so far. Amy’s post prompted me to finally launch my tag

We all leave comments on each other’s blogs, drool over mouthwatering pictures, print out the recipes and file them somewhere to cook/bake later. But at some point we do make some of those recipes, don’t we? And I thought it would be great to share with others what we cook from other foodies’ blogs.

This is a great opportunity to give kudos to the fellow foodies whose recipes we used and inspire them to post more of their yummies. A way to say thank you for what they do. I also think this tag will help us discover some interesting recipes and blogs out there. There are a lot of delicious recipes hidden somewhere in the archives, and this tag may actually give them another chance to shine

When I want to take a break from testing recipes for my own cookbook, I turn to my foodie colleagues for inspiration and for some great meal ideas and recipes. I have a “TO COOK” folder with a huge amount of printouts from other blogs. As soon as I finish my own cookbook, the number will increase for sure:)) In the meantime, here are 5 of the recipes I have tried so far. I encourage you to make them too. They are simply great. I wish I could list more because I did cook/bake more but the rules allow for only 5 at a time and I’ll stick to the rule I’ll confess - for the 4 months of my blogging activity I’ve tried about 15 recipes from other food blogs. I think it is still good considering my time constraints. Most of the recipes I’ve tried so far quickly became keepers.

So here they come, the first lucky 5. This time mostly baked goodies. I’ll save more recipes for next time somebody tags me back

1. Corn Bread with Cheese from Cafe Chocolada - Medena’s doesn’t stop amazing me with her wonderful recipes. She is an artist in the kitchen. You’ll know what I am talking about as soon as you visit her blog. This corn bread was simply yummy. Note that the 16 spoons of flour the recipe calls for is 1 cup. I also added some spinach fried with onion to the batter and it turned out nicely. Great recipe! Thank you Medena!

2. Pumpkin Yeast Rolls from Erin Cooks - As soon as I saw these yellow rolls I knew I had to make them. Erin’s blog is one of my favorites and she posts great recipes all the time. My changes: The recipe calls for canned pumkin. I used fresh butternut squash. I cut it into wedges and baked it in the oven, then mashed and added to the dough. I also added a little more sugar for extra sweetness. Instead of using a muffin pan, I simply shaped my rolls and baked them on a regular baking sheet. This recipe is a Keeper! thank you, Erin!

3. Chicken and Wild Garlic Squares from Palachinka - Marija is a true inspiration. A very talented and creative cook. I really want to make everything she has on her blog! These pastry squares were a hit at home. The only change I made was I used chives instead of garlic leaves. Everybody in the family loved it! Thank you, Marija!

4. Prune and Nut Bread from Sunita’s World - If you want a healthy snack, go for this recipe (Allen, are you reading this? . The only change I made was I used walnuts instead of cashew nuts. My bread baked beautifully and was moist. But I noticed Sunita’s bread was darker inside than mine - I liked hers better. I am blaming my sugar for that - was not dark enough:)) Great recipe! Thank you, Sunita.

5. Paneer from Eating Out Loud- Allen is a gifted guy. Cooking, pottery, making soap, sewing, crocheting, writing poetry - Allen does it all I used his Paneer recipe when I had some milk sitting in my fridge but no cheese at all. As a souring agent I used plain yogurt and it added nicely to the overall taste. I also added salt before I left the cheese to harden. Follow Allen’s advice - use whole milk! I used reduced fat milk and I only had a little cheese at the end It tasted great nonetheless but, alas, it disappeared quickly. Thank you, Allen!

ENJOY!

And I am tagging the following 5 bloggers to tell us what they made from other blogs!

1. Amy at Familia Bencomo

2. George at Culinary Travels Of A Kitchen Goddess

3. Brilynn at Jumbo Embanadas

4. Erin at Erin Cooks

5. Allen at Eating Out Loud

HERE ARE THE RULES to LOOK WHAT I MADE! (you can copy paste in your blog)

1. List the names of 2-5 recipes you tried from other blogs. Provide a direct link to the recipe. If not available, give the blog link and let the reader search for the recipe by name.

2. Shortly describe your experience with the recipe.

3. Tag 3-5 other bloggers or the authors of the recipes you listed to post the links to the recipes they have tried from other bloggers. Note: If you are new to the blogging world and haven’t had a chance to try any recipes form your fellow foodies, just pass the tag on to someone else.

4. Notify the tagged bloggers about the tag either by leaving a comment on their blogs or by emailing them.

I received another sweet award. This time from my dear foodie friend George at Culinary Travels Of A Kitchen Goddess who surprised me with the You Make My Day award! George, it is you who made my day:)) and I am flattered as much as I am thrilled. Thank you!

I am pleased to pass this award to the following wonderful bloggers I visit often and enjoy. Please take a moment to visit them too! They are all AMAZING!

1. Medena at Cafe Chocolada

2. Susan at Wild Yeast

3. Diva at The Sugar Bar

4. Marie at Proud Italian Cook

5. Nicola at Cherrapeno

Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome Mr. and Mrs. Cheezypop!

Today is a very special day in my blogging history! I just accomplished my first Daring Bakers Challenge! This month’s challenge is being hosted by two wonderful Daring Bakers: Deborah of Taste and Tell and Elle of Feeding My Enthusiasms. For the April challenge, they picked the recipe for Cheesecake Pops.

I had never made cheesecake before this challenge, so I was a little nervous. But luckily the process wasn’t as intimidating and difficult as I thought it would be. In fear of ruining something, I strictly followed the recipe (see below) and everything seemed to flow easily until I read “scoop the cheesecake into balls” part. I had a hard time doing so.

I used ice cream scoop and obviously, it was a bad idea. It simply didn’t work and soon I knew my cheesecake was going to turn into mashed potato if i didn’t stop. I welcome any suggestions from those of you who succeeded making the balls Anyway, I cut the cake into rectangulars. I had exactly 40 pops as the recipes read. I decided to try dipping the pops into raspberry jam and then coat them with melted chocolate. I tried the jam on a few pops then gave up, because the jam was more spreadable than dippable and was guaranteed to break my pops. I gave up on jam. I continued with plain chocolate coating, but hated my chocolate because it would harden so fast. See the imperfections on the first picture

Another challenge was how to fit these long sticks in my freezer? I had to rearrange the freezer to fit them, and boy, it was a lot of work:))

The fun part was decorating. I wanted something interesting. So I had this idea of marrying the two pops and inviting the rest to their wedding:)) This is how Mr. Cheezypop and Mrs. Cheezypop were born. I really don’t know what sort of creatures the Cheezypops were, but they were really cute and funny looking. I had some fresh raspberries at home that served as their noses. The broom had beautiful almond shaped eyes and the bride had almond shaped ears:)) She was wearing a white dress and a long white veil with coconut-flakes pattern:)) Their stylist was a little sloppy and they weren’t the neatest newlyweds in the world. And the photographer took the worst pictures of her career, too.

The guests were wearing black tuxedos and dresses. The ceremony was a lot of fun! The couple danced and sang, took pictures - they were simply happy. And they lived happily ever after. Not true. They lived happily…until… we, the gluttons, happily ate them. The End. Sad but sweet And we had a lot of dressed up wedding guests left over in the freezer to eat the following days. Sounds like a horror movie, doesn’t it?

But to be serious, I was a bit frustrated with the way my pops looked but the many compliments I received later for my crazy imagination lifted my spirits, so I am happy I tried the recipe!

If you want to make your own cheesecake pops, follow the recipe below. I thought my step by step illustrations could be helpful too, so I am posting them for you. Also, please check other wonderful Daring Bakers to read about their cheesecake pop adventures and to see the pictures of their masterpieces. Viva the Daring Bakers!

CHEESECAKE POPS

Makes 30 – 40 Pops

INGREDIENTS

5 8-oz. packages cream cheese at room temperature
2 cups sugar
¼ cup all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
5 large eggs
2 egg yolks
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
¼ cup heavy cream
Boiling water as needed
Thirty to forty 8-inch lollipop sticks
1 pound chocolate, finely chopped – you can use all one kind or half and half of dark, milk, or white (Alternately, you can use 1 pound of flavored coatings, also known as summer coating, confectionary coating or wafer chocolate – candy supply stores carry colors, as well as the three kinds of chocolate.)
2 tablespoons vegetable shortening

(Note: White chocolate is harder to use this way, but not impossible)

Assorted decorations such as chopped nuts, colored jimmies, crushed peppermints, mini chocolate chips, sanding sugars, dragees) - Optional

METHOD

1. Position oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees F. Set some water to boil.

2. In a large bowl, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, flour, and salt until smooth. If using a mixer, mix on low speed. Add the whole eggs and the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well (but still at low speed) after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and cream.

3. Grease a 10-inch cake pan (not a springform pan), and pour the batter into the cake pan. Place the pan in a larger roasting pan. Fill the roasting pan with the boiling water until it reaches halfway up the sides of the cake pan. Bake until the cheesecake is firm and slightly golden on top, 35 to 45 minutes.

4. Remove the cheesecake from the water bath and cool to room temperature. Cover the cheesecake with plastic wrap and refrigerate until very cold, at least 3 hours or up to overnight.

5. When the cheesecake is cold and very firm, scoop the cheesecake into 2-ounce balls and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Carefully insert a lollipop stick into each cheesecake ball. Freeze the cheesecake pops, uncovered, until very hard, at least 1 – 2 hours.

6. When the cheesecake pops are frozen and ready for dipping, prepare the chocolate. In the top of a double boiler, set over simmering water, or in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water, heat half the chocolate and half the shortening, stirring often, until chocolate is melted and chocolate and shortening are combined. Stir until completely smooth. Do not heat the chocolate too much or your chocolate will lose it’s shine after it has dried. Save the rest of the chocolate and shortening for later dipping, or use another type of chocolate for variety. Alternately, you can microwave the same amount of chocolate coating pieces on high at 30 second intervals, stirring until smooth.

7. Quickly dip a frozen cheesecake pop in the melted chocolate, swirling quickly to coat it completely. Shake off any excess into the melted chocolate. If you like, you can now roll the pops quickly in optional decorations. You can also drizzle them with a contrasting color of melted chocolate (dark chocolate drizzled over milk chocolate or white chocolate over dark chocolate, etc.) Place the pop on a clean parchment paper-lined baking sheet to set. Repeat with remaining pops, melting more chocolate and shortening (or confectionary chocolate pieces) as needed.

8. Refrigerate the pops for up to 24 hours, until ready to serve.

_ Oh, Mr. Cheezypop, this is the happiest day of my life!!
- Ah, Mrs. Cheezypop, let it always be so!

Verdict: This is one fun recipe! A keeper. It was a hit in our family and among our guests! But I think there were too many pops. So, unless you are throwing a big party, make half of the recipe. That’s what I’ll do next time. Enjoy!

I’ve been tagged again. How fun! My wonderful foodie friend Vi from Flowers In The Kitchen tagged me. Thank you, VI! This is a new tag started by Anna at Anna’s Kitchen Table. Here’s a quote from Anna:

“Right guys, listen up….I’m starting a tag. It’s called ‘Top 10 food pics’. Here are mine, all my favourites. I’m tagging 6 people to do their own ‘top 10′. Then if those 6 people could each choose 5 people of their own to tag we’ll get to see some really good food pics! Almost like our very own food pic chain…”

Oh, that’s a great chance to direct my readers to some of my favorite recipes in case they have missed them:)) So, here they come, My Top 10 Pics. Click on the picture to see the recipe. Scroll all the way down to see who I am tagging for their best shots! Enjoy!

TANDOORI BREAD

CREAMY YOGURT SOUP

POMEGRANATE SALAD

PICKLED MIXED VEGETABLES

STUFFED GRAPE LEAVES / DOLMA

ZEBRA CAKE

BAKED FISH STUFFED WITH WALNUTS / LEVENGI

POTATO OR MEAT STUFFED PIES / PIROJKI

EGGPLANT ROLLS

EASY BAKLAVA

I am tagging the following 5 foodies to post their 1o best shots. They all have quite a lot of nice pictures on their blogs, so.. check them out:

Diva at The Sugar Bar

Deeba at Passionate About Baking

Cynthia at Tastes Like Home

Chris and Lisa at We [Heart] Food

Divya at Dil Se

Vi, thank you for tagging me. It was fun!

The contest is over. Looks like my daughter generated more interest than ice cream:)) Thank you for your nice words about her! Hmm, maybe it’s my fault - I shouldn’t have posted her picture She receives enough compliments from people wherever we go as it is When I told her that people who read my blog say you are cute and that nobody says I am cute:)), she replied, “I am so lucky! Maybe you should send an email to everybody and say you are cute too!”::)) And this comes from a girl who is only (almost) 5 years old. Looks like I am in big trouble Saswati, the name Meltem in Turkish means breeze - ocean or sea breeze.

Anyway, back to the contest. I enjoyed reading your responses although I was expecting more would participate. But thank you to all of you who took the time to answer. I thought it was a great exercise for everybody and fun too. But since there are only 4 gifts to give away, I had to pick the answers I liked the most - Honestly, there weren’t too many answers to choose from which made my decision easier

So, without much ado, I am announcing the 4 lucky winners:

ICE CREAM WINNERS:

- Elle at Elle’s New England Kitchen - everything you wrote is so true about Azerbaijani cuisine. And yes, since we have 4 seasons, we do take advantage of what’s available in season. We like things fresh. We usually don’t store anything in a freezer except meat and that is only if there is too much of it and it doesn’t fit in a fridge

- Mr. Moo at Dulcimoo- Who simply impressed me by his “discovery” of Azerbaijan from reading my posts. I wish I could write WOW in Cantonese:)) because that’s what I think about your answer. What an intelligent person you are!

- Amy at Familia Bencomo - Whose genuine answer just won her two adorable kids a box full of ice cream!

A WINNER OF AZERBAIJAN INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE:

- Diva at The Sugar Bar -Whose answer left me speechless - literally. It read like a beautiful story. Diva, you are such a talented writer! Those of you who haven’t visited Diva’s blog, please do so and you will know what I am talking about. She is only 20 and she is writing a novel!

Thank you for being such loyal readers of my blog. It makes me happy and inspires me to do more for you!

Enjoy your gifts! They are well deserved!

I am humbled and excited and happy! I received several awards within a week. I feel honored to have been selected among so many wonderful blogs out there considering I’ve only been blogging for a little less than 4 months. These lovely bloggers awarded me with the E award for Excellence. THANK YOU!

Marija at Palachinka - She was the first to award me

Pixie at You Say Tomato, I Say Tomato

George at Culinary Travels Of A Kitchen Goddess

This is not all I have received. One of the friendliest and the most supportive foodies our there - Amy at Familia Bencomo - gave me the the Arte de Pico Award. Thank you, Amy! I’ll cherish it!

I am happy to pass both E-Award and Arte de Pico award to the following bloggers I visit often to get inspiration for my cooking adventures and suggest you all do the same

Kevin at Closet Cooking

Allen at Eating Out Loud

Astrid at La Cerise

Shawnda at Confections of a Foodie Bride

Hulya at Mutfakta Biri Mi Var (Turkish recipes in Turkish)

**

Below are the rules for Arte de Pico award

1. You pick five blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also contribute to the blogging community, no matter what language.

2. Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.

3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and the link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.

4. Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of Arte y Pico blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

This is my daughter Meltem happily unpacking the ice cream Head cropped off, bad bad mom.

Yesterday a UPS truck drove up to our house and a friendly driver handed us quite a heavy box which contained… you guessed it, ICE CREAM! Ice cream that I won for the best Ask Erin Question. A gift from the most friendly Erin over at Erin Cooks. Thank you, Erin! My daughter and I were about to scream from excitement but the prospect of indulging into ice cream kept us opening the box until we got the yummy treasures out. Believe me, the excitement is different from when you buy the ice cream from the store. I never thought ice cream could arrive in the mail. It can, proven. And guess what? Now you can receive it too! And here’s how. Just win the contest I am putting up Simple. Leave a comment for this entry answering the question below. Can be in one sentence, in two, or as long as you want.

What have you learned about Azerbaijan from reading my blog?

Please read the Rules and Notes before you Scream Ice Cream:

1. NO INTERNET SEARCHES PLEASE! I am just curious as to what comes to your mind regarding Azerbaijan when you read my entries, when you see the pictures. Just be sincere and honest. Anything bad or good is welcome

2. Unfortunately ice cream can only travel within the US and cannot be shipped outside the country. So, the ice cream winner will have to be one of my US readers. THERE IS AN ADDITION TO THIS RULE - PLEASE READ BELOW!

NEW RULE: OK, I really can’t end up sending ice cream to US winners, and sending nothing to my non-US living readers, so … those of you in other parts of the world, do not get discouraged because I am GOING TO SEND YOU A COPY OF A LOVELY MAGAZINE called AZERBAIJAN INTERNATIONAL. It is coming from my own collection of it and is special to me because I used to work there! SO, WHETHER YOU ARE IN ENGLAND OR ELSEWHERE, YOU WILL RECEIVE A GIFT FROM ME!  I wanted to be fair:))

3. Contestants must be people who are not originally from Azerbaijan or in someways related to Azerbaijan (travelled, lived, married an Azerbaijani, know me, ate my food:)) and etc.)

4. Three Winners to receive the ICE CREAM and One Winner to receive the MAGAZINE will be selected based on originality of their answers and will be announced on Tuesday.

I am looking forward to your comments! Have fun!

Oh, in case you wonder, what may be in your ice cream package? Here it comes:

Vanilla Honey Bee, Pomegranate Chip, Frozen Yogurt with Vanilla Honey and Granola, Fleur De Sel Caramel, and a box of snack size Vanilla and Almond Ice Cream Bars. Plus a “Bee Friendly Seeds” for you to plant. Not bad, ha?