Birthday Extravaganza (Plus Beets)

Hmm, the Internetz are not working at my dom today… We’ll see if this gets posted, or if the black hole that is cyberspace eats it up.

(Also, my upstairs neighbors recently decided that they want to listen to really loud techno at all hours of the night and day. I want to beat them up. They have been listening to the same song for about 3 hours againandagainandagain.)

One of my classes was canceled today, so I have extra time for blogging! Yay! Ready for birthday extravaganza time? It actually wasn’t that wild or crazy a day, pretty pleasant overall, but I did eat like a princess.

Saturday night I made my lengthy trek into Moscow to meet some friends at a pub. We just chatted for a long while, drinking brews. However, some of us got a bit peckish… And so we ordered wings and fries (and more fries) for our table.

Sorry. It was a bit dark, wasn't it?

We also had a chat about what is spicy. Russians don’t really do spicy-hot, but I say pour on the heat! Our Russian friend, Meddick (his nickname), tried the sauce served with the wings and thought it was hot. I thought it tasted sweet. It was a tomato-based sauce that had onions and garlic in it, maybe some cayenne, but it was DEFINITELY not hot. Poor Meddick. Do you like hot and spicy?

Anyways, after a few rounds, we went back to my friends’ apartment. Somebody made me this very thoughtful “birthday cake” out of a finger cake, and used the plastic wrapper from a hot chocolate as a substitute candle. Gee, thanks, guys… Whatever, it was cute.

That burning plastic will probably kill me

The next day I started my 23^rd year with a big ol’ bowl of cold muesli and milk. Alex could not get over the fact that I took a picture of my cereal bowl. This one’s for you, girlie-o.

After much hemming and hawing, I finally sketched out some sort of rough plan for how I wanted to spend the day. One thing was certain: I wanted to eat Georgian food. So the crew got ready, headed into the city, and we met a few others to go to Dioskuriya.

It was a close call, because I almost couldn’t find the restaurant! I had been there once before in January, but it was at night when it had been quite dark. AND, we happened to get incredibly lost looking for it that time. All I knew was that it was on the far side of the street from Arbatskaya station. We wandered a bit, asked a travel agency if they had heard of this restaurant or had a map (they said no to both. What kind of travel agency doesn’t have a map?!?!), and I was about to feel really stupid when out of the corner of my eye, I spied a sandwich board pointing the way to the restaurant. Thank you, Fate, for smiling down on me! (Also, it was about 100 meters from the travel agency. Like, literally in the building behind it. Sheesh.)

We went all-out for our “lunch” at 3 o’clock. The Chadster ordered a bottle of champagne in my honor, and I wanted a Coke. Here I am with my beverages, and the salad I shared with Heather to start. It has tomatoes, cucumber, onion, and herbs.

Then, of course, I had to have my beloved kharcho—a soup of meat, rice, tomatoes, plum/pomegranate juice, and lots of herbs and spices. So, so good. I love you, kharcho. This was rich and tasty and put a big smile on my face.

We got a couple orders of kachapuri—Georgian cheese bread—for the table. This stuff is so good. The closest thing  I could maybe compare it to is pizza without the sauce, but it is really so much more. I am so jealous of Luke for getting to eat this every day when he lived in Georgia!

For my “main” I went with a Georgian classic, khinkali. These are dumplings filled with spiced ground meat and herbs. These unfortunately, were not that great, but it was nice to have them again at all. To eat them, you grab the little knob, bite the dumpling, and suck out the broth and juices.  A little bit messy, but fun to eat!

After we were all stuffed to the gills (or at least I was!), we went our separate ways. Some friends headed back to the ‘burbs, but a few of us decided to stay in Moscow a bit longer. We walked along Novy Arbat looking for a Sephora, but we couldn’t find it… So instead, we decided to go to Biblio Globus, a fantastic bookstore next to the former KGB headquarters/prison. This store has a whole English-language section, and I treated myself to a new book for a present. I bought The Night Watch, which is part of a trilogy/tetralogy (I wrote about the movie here), so I will have to go back soon to buy the other two books!

For my final birthday fun, I wanted to go to the Starlite Diner, an American-style diner that has a few locations around Moscow. They have all the diner classics—huge burgers, baskets of fries, bacon and eggs, pancakes, and old-fashioned desserts. Not healthy, but it is like a taste of home. (Although I won’t deny that I love me a good burger… I will be returning for one, and inevitably, a big plate of bacon and eggs.) I decided that I wanted to get just a scoop of ice cream with strawberry sauce, but Heather and the Chadster talked me into going for the “Kitchen Sink.” It was a for SERIOUS beast of a sundae. We decided to split it among us, because, get this: it weighed 1600 grams. Yeah. 1.6 kilograms of ice cream sundae.

Here was the stuff:

• 12 scoops of ice cream (vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, and orange sorbet)
• Hot fudge
• Caramel
• Blueberry sauce
• Strawberry sauce
• A chopped banana
• Brownies (amazing, because they don’t really exist in Russia)
• OREOS (even more amazing. They must have been imported. I am sorry, carbon footprint!)
• Nuts
• Whipped cream
• Cherries

I admit that I totally love Oreos, artificial ingredients and hydrogenated oils, be damned.

When we ordered, the waitress stopped and looked at us with wide eyes. “Are you sure?” she said. We were sure. Well, they were. I thought we were going to be sick if we tried to eat it all.

About half way through, we had to stop and take a breather. Our bellies were filling, but we decided that we should try to finish it! (I think I should enter—and win!—eating contests… apparently I am good at consuming huge amounts of food at once…)

So we rallied, and did everything we could. We left about 2 scoops of ice cream and some of the melty sauce, but I was quite impressed by our efforts. We all got serious sugar highs from eating this. Let me tell you, I slept like whoa that night. Probably a food-induced coma…

The next day was not very exciting food-wise, but I did have to go to the Central School for a meeting. My meeting was over at lunch time, so I took myself to cafeteria-style Vokzal for a quick and cheap lunch. I got a bowl of borsch with sour cream and dill, vinagret salad (beets, pickles, peas, potato, carrot, onion), a Caesar salad with a bit of chicken, and a roll with apple filling. Pretty good for $6, yeah?

And thus ended the birthday weekend. With a bunch of beets

Questions for you:

1. What is your favorite “traditional” flavor of ice cream?

I’m a strawberry girl. All the way.

2. What is your favorite “non-traditional” flavor?

Ben and Jerry’s Chubby Hubby pretty much tops my list, but flavors that combine sweet and salty (most especially if there is peanut butter involved) are gnawsome.

3. Favorite sundae?

The best is peanut butter sauce on Oreo ice cream with whip, nuts, and a cherry (hot fudge is optional). My other favorite is the Ana sundae: bananas and strawberry sauce on strawberry ice cream, whip, nuts, and cherry. Nommin’ outrageous.

Read Full Post »

Feats and Eats and Sweets (No Beets)

Oi. Bozhe moi. How is it that I feel like I spend my days doing nothing, but I feel like I never have enough time to blog? Riddle me that, dear blogonauts. Over the summer, when I probably did more things on a daily basis, it was hardly a problem, but now, I really need to carve out a chunk of time to write. How do you make time for blogging?

Sorry, kids, but Ima back-track again. Just because I feel like your lives will be better should you see the marvelous concoctions I have created and consumed. Poekhali! (Let’s go!)

Apple breakfast surprise:

I chopped up my apple, and cooked it in hot milk, added a little wee bit of oatmeal to the pot, and topped with a tonnn of cinnamon and some peanut butter. NOM. Superyumdelicious.

I had to buy a bagful of sweet treats to bribe my teenage class to behave at least half-decently (it takes us about 2 hours to get through 1 page because I have to make them stop hitting each other, stop chatting in Russian, and to stop stealing Anya’s things. Sheesh. I am never having children). I tried one (or two?) of the “creme brulee swan souffle” treats. “Souffle” is sort of a general term for a “fluffy” candy–it is sort of marshmallow-y inside…

We also took a mini-break from our evening sandwiches and had just meatsticks (pork chops), salad, and mashed potatoes for a couple days… A nice break, but our dinners are extremely monotonous, overall.

Last Friday I had a wild craving for spaghetti at lunchtime. I popped down to the shop (hee hee) and bought some spaghetti-makin’ supplies and then some.

The “and then some” would include Fage Fake Twin Pots, some gigantic apples, and Alenka mini-chocolates.

My Fake twin pot: cottage cheese and raspberry jam, enjoyed with a cup of coffee

I'm not kidding, these babies were huge!

Alenka chocolate is super famous in Russia. I’m not quite sure why… But, how could you say no to this face??

My pasta sauce made me very happy. It had the cutest label ever. And, it was all natural! Definitely a feel-good kind of buy. Since I’m guessing you can’t read the label, it just says how they make the sauce (there are 10 tomatoes in each jar, they use fresh basil, Italian olive oil, etc. It’s pretty sweet, overall) and the very plain-jane ingredient list: tomatoes (75%), tomato paste (14%), onion, sugar, lemon juice, garlic paste (garlic, oil, salt), olive oil, salt, basil, oregano,  parsley, black pepper.

But, of course, I only used this as a base. I also tossed another tomato, a shredded carrot, a diced onion, a couple cloves of garlic, a yellow pepper, and some crushed red pepper into the mix. Holy monkeys, the result was awesome. As in, lick not just the plate clean, but the pan, too. Yes, that good.

I am so happy I made a lot at once, because now I have a tasty an ready-made dish to eat!

The day after I made a really good breakfast sandwich: egg whites, tomato, and Tabasco in grilled pita. (I couldn’t fit all the egg in the pita, so I had 1 more egg white on the side.)

I just gotta say, this girl knows how to do breakfast.

Eek! I just realized that it is 1 a.m.! Sorry to roll out in the middle of things, but I have to leave to teach early in the morning… Ima leave the rest till tomorrow (hopefully. It is kind of a busy day…), where you can see the Birthday Extravaganza goodtimes. For realz. Until then, my friends!

My bag o’ bribes for my teen class totally reminds me of trick-or-treat. How are you celebrating Halloween? What will your costume be? What is your all-time favorite costume? Do you make or buy your costumes?

Well, for me, I am a bit stuck this year–Russians don’t really do Halloween so much. I am invited to another teacher’s party, however, I don’t have any ideas (or supplies) for a costume. Yikes! (If you’ve got an idea, sock it to me, sweetie!) Anyways, I think my favorite Halloween costume was a sandwich. Yup. I also had a really-freakin-sweet parrot costume when I was little. I am proud to say that every costume I’ve ever worn was homemade. My momma is an incredible sewer/seamstress, so I’ve had custom costumes from the get-go.

Read Full Post »

Ketchup on your Reading

Hey-o!

So, just a snapshot into my life/explanation of my post title…. When I was little, I participated in my library’s summer reading program. All the youngsters who read a quadrillion books or so (yeah, that would be me–a nerd at 6 years old) won a tee shirt that had two mice pouring a bottle of ketchup onto some books under the title “Ketchup on your Reading!” I thought it was hi-LAR-i-ous. Absolutely positively. I sincerely wish I still had this shirt. But anyways, whenever I have a lot to catch up on, I remember this shirt and its oh-so-funny slogan. So: a lot of ketchupping catching up to do.

(On a relatedish note. I hate ketchup. A lot. So I think it is funny that the shirt was one of my all-time favorites. And, I’ve already read through all the books I brought to Russia. HELP!)

Ima try to catch you cats up into foodstyles in Domodeadovo (so I have to make punny jokes about the city’s name now and again. So sue me!) right quick, so here’s a greatest hits list.

Let’s see, let’s see.

I had a glorious moment when I discovered tofu at a Japanese store in Moscow. I bought that box o’ ‘fu in .2 seconds because I was so excited. Seriously, I was practically jumping up and down, even though it cost like, $8. I hate you, Russian prices. When I cooked it up, I dredged the tofu in some flour, cayenne, and ginger and plopped it in a skillet. It turned out like this:

It looks a lot better than it tasted I was sooo disappointed. I dunno if it was me or the tofu, but it was super-duper flimsy and falling apart. I like my tofu really quite firm, so this didn’t float my boat. Darn it!

I was also (re)introduced to Tarkhun, which is tarragon-flavored soda. Yeah, seriously. The color is a bit off-putting, but it does taste good, I swear.

Can you guess what this is?:

Scrambled eggs? No.

Something cheesy? No.

Yogurt-like thing? Yes.

This is some sort of tvorog, which comes in too many varieties for me to keep track of. (There’s super-thick-like-Greek-yogurt tvorog, cottage cheese tvorog, weird lumpy white stuff tvorog, and super fluffy what-am-I-eating tvorog to start….) I think this is the weirdest one I’ve tried yet. It was super light and sweet, and jiggly like that creamy sort of Jell-o. But I would still call it “yogurt.” And it had orange chunks mixed in. Why do they make this?

Snack plates like this (I accidentally typed “snake plates,” ha) ran down my pb supply.

I (gulp) finished my first jar of peanut butter earlier this week. Siiiiiiigh. Half my supply is gone!!!

On the bright side, I got to use the jar for a creative breakfast endeavor. Oats in a jar? I kicked it up a notch. It was cooked apples in a jar with kasha. Basically, poor man’s apple crisp with pb. Mighty fine, I say. I served it up with a coupl’a egg whites and Nesquik.

Katya recommends Nesquik over coffee or tea because it has vitamins in it. Well…. Hmm.

Whatevs. I’m cool with drinking chocolate for breakfast. I mean, I need my vitamins!

Other breakfast goodies?

Kasha (oatmeal)+glob o’ pb:

Pita toast and my cool-kid drip-coffee set up:

1/2 pita with pb, and the other was cinnamon-toast-style. Yay-yo. Oh, ps, that’s Bronya, my armadillo. She’s a balla dillo. Just look at all those roubles and kopeks she’s got!

And my life was made the other night when I finally mustered up the courage to ask if it would be “okay” for me to take pictures of our food (any pictures I had before were from alone-times, not evening dinner times, if you hadn’t guessed from the breakfastiness…). Artem (boss man) was pummmmmped. So he decided to give you a step-by-step demonstration of how we make sandwiches.

This is our table to start. You see pork chops, tomato/cucumber salad, pita, cheese, beer, hot peppers, and a variety of sauces:

So. To make the sandwich, first you cut off one end of the pita, and then you slice it open into a pocket:

Cut up your pork chop and put it in the pita. Be careful that the pita doesn’t tear!

Add in a spoonful or two (or if you’re me, seven) of salad. Pour on the sauce of your choice (in this case, Saltsebeli)

Finally, add a square of cheese. Then, prepare to eat your masterpiece!!!

Thus concludes our photo essay. I hope you didn’t mind too much. He was genuinely so excited to demonstrate how to make a sandwich. Meanwhile, the whole time we were taking pictures, Katya was standing behind the table saying things like, “Artem, they know how to make a sandwich;” “People know how to cut meat;” “Why are you making her take more pictures? She has one of the pita already!” Basically, I laughed. (Oh, ps, how do you make those snazzy photo collages? I can’t figure it out…)

And then I ate a Nesquik cookie for dessert. Because it is full of vitamins.

Nom.

QUIZ TIME!

Let’s say, hypothetically, you were in a foreign country and it was your birthday. Would you celebrate? How? Because it is my bday on Sunday, but I haven’t a clue as to what to do for it. I think a party is out, since I can’t host one in my distant, little flat, and I work all day Saturday so I will probably have to do whatever on Sunday… Not exactly the time when the English-speaking expats want to stay out late before work on Monday…

Well: Restaurant? Bar? Afternoon stroll? Club? Help? I feel like a total lamezilla for not having something great up my sleeve! (Last year, I went apple picking with LVP! Hard to beat, I know.)

What’s yer favorite animal? I seriously love armadillos. A whole lot. Katya and Artem were pretty impressed to meet Bronya (they, actually, named her! It is short for bronenosets, the Russian word for “armadillo”), and pretty surprised when a postcard from my mom arrived with an armadillo on the front. They’d never seen one before!

Do you legitimize any food so that it can be called “healthy”? I’m pretty sure that Nesquik is not actually all that good for me, whether or not there are added vitamins. But, I’m going to pretend it is a health tonic nonetheless. Girl needs chocolate, you know?

Read Full Post »

Take That, Russia!

HIIIII!!!!!!! Hello, world! Hello, friendskies!

Russia thought she had me good, with these silly Internet limitations, unusual living situations, and all that jazz. She thought she could stop me from blogging. She thought she could dominate the Sarah.

Oho, no. Oh, nyet. It’s time I fight back. Take that, Russia! You can’t stop me! Because I’m Sarah, and I do what I want!

….How’s that for a triumphant return?!?!

No, it’s the truth folks. I was seriously missing blogging, and feeling a bit a-jumbled without it! So, I took action. I talked to the boss-man (with whom I am still living….) and we worked out how it will be okay for me to blog and all. So here I am. Hurrah!

To be honest, I haven’t really taken very many pictures in the past 2-3 weeks, but we’ll start small, no? Soon enough I will be back into the swing of things, I am sure. But! Until then, let me show you some things I ate a lonnnng time ago. They’re pretty, though!

Let’s see, let’s see…

Miss Heather and I one day had a fabulous “date” after our training program. We walked by a little bakery-cafe, and realized THIS was where we had to be. It was so cute and un-Russian inside! Look at all those beautiful baked goods!

We couldn’t decide what to get, there were so many tasty-looking treats. After much debate, we ordered:

I enjoyed a good-quality latte (as opposed to that instant “coffee” that is served most places) and a roll with what was something like blueberries and creme fraiche under a crumble-cover. It was ochen, ochen tasty.

After we walked around a bit, I decided that I was craving soup (as I am wont to do, I suppose) so we went into our neighborhood Yolki-Palki for a bit more to eat.

Of course, I chose pumpkin soup. It is fall, after all!

We also ordered what we expected to be like mozzarella sticks, but ended up being closer to fried cheese cubes served with duck sauce (?). Not what we thought we were getting, but still palatable.

And when we were leaving, we noticed a strange scene:

…Right…. Just, you know, some stuffed ducks (geese?). They get really into themes, here, I think. Yolki-Palki is like the Ukrainian version of Olive Garden, as far as I can tell. Whatever, the ducks/geese were weird.

I also have discovered a great snack. Cottage cheese plus fruit preserves! I know, I know, I could do this myself. But when I eat these, I pretend they are Fage twin pots instead. Maybe that is pathetic, but whatever. They make me happy, stupid cat and all!

This little baby has 5% fat. Oi. But, basically, no-fat and low-fat do not exist as concepts here. You either eat fat, or you eat fat. And that’s that. In some ways, I can appreciate this–not all of the food is weird frankenfood like we have in the U.S. to stop ourselves from eating 2 more grams of fat. I definitely have more fat in my diet right now, which I don’t think is that bad… But on the other hand, everything is really rich and heavy, and my tummy fills up quick!

On our last day of teacher-training, all the teachers-to-be and the other staff went out to a pub for a few brews. I hadn’t yet eaten (I had to practice teach until 9:15 on our last day!), I loaded up a huuuuge plate. This was definitely a case of my eyes being bigger than my stomach!

I got a tray full of:

• salad (I think maybe cucumbers, peppers, and cabbage in oil??)
• schnitzel
• grilled veggie mix
• 1/2 a pretzel
• borsch

I did what I could, but I couldn’t quite finish the veggies or the schnitzel, if memory serves me right. But who knows, because the rest of the night seems kind of hazy now… I’m going to blame it on the time lapse, and not the number of beers I drank

I DO remember that Heather and I were dubbed “The Pie Girls” after word of our pie-baking escapades got out. See, other teachers from our company have developed a scheme to open pie shoppes in Russia called “All Right Pies!” I think that Heather and I have jobs should this teaching English thing fall through. What a weird crew, no? Anywhoodle, I will have a new pie update for you soon!

The night after that was my last night in Moscow, before moving to the city where my teaching post it, Domodedovo. I was feeling funk physically and down mentally. There was really just one thing that could cheer me up: Georgian food. You see, Georgia has one of the (if not the) tastiest cuisines in the world. Everything is very flavorful, and ingredients like pomegranate, walnuts, lemon, plums, garlic, and spices are in many dishes. It is seriously so, so good. Here, in Russia, Georgian food is ubiquitous, sort of like how it is never a problem to find a Mexican restaurant in the US. So, it was just a matter of us finding an inexpensive reasonably close Georgian restaurant. I did a little online research and found what was rumored to be a very tasty and moderately priced Georgian place about 2 metro stops away. When I met Heather at Barrikadnaya (a neighborhood/metro stop), we wandered around looking for this little place on Bolshaya Gruzinskaya Ulitsa (which means “Big Georgian Street”–what I figured was a good sign!). We wandered and wandered and wandered, but couldn’t find this restaurant. We finally went into a cafe where the restaurant was supposed to be located to ask if anyone knew where we should go… No one knew! The closest that the unusually helpful cafe man could tell us was to go to Shesh-Besh, a chain restaurant that specializes in Caucasian food (I would compare this, also, to Olive Garden!). Desperate for my beloved kharcho, we decided to bite the bullet and go to Shesh-Besh instead. Oh, well.

We started with some warm bread:

And kharcho:

A few posts ago, I asked what everyone’s favorite soup was. I said mine might be borsch or black bean, but those were LIES (plus, who am I kidding? There’s not a chance I could pick one favorite soup. If you call it soup, I will love it). I don’t know how on earth I could have forgotten kharcho! It is a really flavorful soup made out of a tomato base, with rich chunks of meat and rice. It is made with pomegranate juice and ground walnuts, and is just a bit spicy-hot. Basically, it is super-delicious. Times a million. If you are interested in trying this culinary delight, a decent recipe can be found here. (I use this and another recipe sort of blended together when I make this myself. I change the ingredient proportions a bit, and tweak here and there, but this gives you the picture. And is easier than many other recipes!)

For our entrees, we decided to split the lyulya kebab (ground, spiced chicken roasted on a skewer, served with onions, pomegranate seeds, herbs, and a spicy tomato sauce, to be wrapped in flat lavash) and the grilled vegetable plate (pepper, tomato, eggplant).

It was a pretty good meal, and okay for the price. It wasn’t totally Georgian though–I will have to eat out again to show you better (oh, the things I do for you guys!)…

Again, the next day I moved from Moscow to Domodedovo, which more or less turned my life upside down, again. But I am working on getting it right-side up! Another post coming soon, I promise.

Until then, a few q’s for you:

What’s the most exciting thing I have missed?!? What is the best thing that’s happened to you in October? For me–I moved, I started “real teaching” and have been speaking more Russian. Right now life is a bit mundane, but I think it is because I am still settling in…

What is your favorite herb or spice to use? I couldn’t live without red pepper flakes/cayenne and cinnamon. I brought my own supply to Russia! For fresh herbs, I really like basil and rosemary best, I think. Dill, which is everywhere here, is growing on me considerably….

Oh, and another triumphant return? Another fabulous Sarah! But you probably all already know this, right? (Gimme a break if I’m slow on the uptake–I live like, a million time zones away, k?)

Read Full Post »

Она Жива!

For you unfortunate souls who can’t read Russian, that just says “She’s Alive!”

Because I am. I am sorry for disappearing on you all recently. My training program ended in kind of a work-intense week, and then I moved. Yes, moved again. And not even into my own apartment–I am sleeping in the guest room of my boss’s apartment until my own is ready, and then I move one more time! Plus, now I do not have ready-to-go wi-fi at my fingertips, and I don’t want to use up all my boss’s bandwidth posting pictures. So please, please, bear with me while I wait it out. Hopefully, I will have my own apartment with my own Internetz soon!

I promise I will make it worth the wait. I’ve had some interesting eats this past week… And, the plus side is that since I am living with my boss’s family, I get some home-cooked Russian meals! Provided I muster up the courage to whip out my camera, you might get to see some actual Russian food, and not just what Sarah whips together with Russian ingredients

I can’t wait to catch up with you soon!

Love,

Sarah

Read Full Post »