American Girls

Oh, weekends. Yes, I know it is Tuesday, but I am just a bit behind the times. I have Sunday and Monday off from working, so my schedule is a little funky, I know. I get really confused as to why things close so early on Saturdays, until I remember that it is actually Sunday. Doh.

So, without further ado, I present to you: Weekend Eats. But be warned–these eats are wild and woolly, and not for the faint of heart!!

If I may be so bold, I recommend this lovely song for a reading soundtrack. (P.S., Ari, please make an official music video for this song soon. And repost “I Love That Girl” on YouTube. Thanks.)

Sunday, I woke up with one of my infamous “fake hangovers.” Now and again I wake up feeling awful: headachey, icky tum, sluggish, the works! I have no idea what causes it, but let me tell you, it is no fun (especially since I didn’t have any fun before feeling so blech ). So even though I was supposed to meet my girls in Moscow for a big ol’ brunch, I rolled over and stayed in bed until it was quite late.

And then I ate a yogurt mess. I didn’t even bother trying to thicken up this yogurt. However, I felt a little better when Heather told me that she had had some bad experiences with Chudo brand yogurts, as well.

2 apples, plain yogurt, raspberry preserves, honey, cinnamon. And coffee-cocoa.

More or less revived, I rode into Moscow to meet my girlies for a way-past-brunch kind of brunch.

And where else would a few amerikan girls eat, but at the Starlite Diner?! Yup. I sidled into our great, big, glittery booth and immediately ordered “American coffee,” aka not that instant nonsense. Score 1 for the Sarahmeister. And at 85 roubles (less than $3), I don’t think I could have gone wrong! It was SO GOOD.

After some hemming and hawing, I went with my gut instinct and ordered the Cowboy Burger, which was loaded with cheddar, BBQ sauce (yes!), and two strips of bacon, plus the standard lettuce/onion/tomato/pickle. What can I say, this girl loves a good burger! And do I even need to say that it was a “good” burger? This was bomb. I subbed grilled veggies (a mix of zucchini, onion, cauliflower, celery, and mushrooms) for my crinkle-cut fries, since I knew I would eat some of the chili cheese fries that Caro ordered.

mmmmmm

Caro ordered a regular cheese burger with potato salad, and Heather got the “Veggie Cheese Avocado Burger.” Just look at these happy faces!

Heather’s Veggie Avocado Cheese Burger was a marvel. It was a glorious composition of onion roll with alfalfa sprouts, avocado, a crap-ton of melted brie, cheddar, swiss, tomato, and onion. It was awesome:

Obviously, I had to look out for my friend and make sure that this sandwich wasn’t sub par. If I have two burgers (as opposed to cocktails/beer) in front of me, is it still “double fisting”?

nommin' outrageous

Oops. There are two cups of coffee, too. I was livin’ large. Really large, apparently, because then we ordered this to share:

YUM!

Vanilla ice cream with hot fudge, Oreos, whip, and nuts. Niiice.

We also fell in love with our waitress, Natasha, when she said (in English), “Here is your deeelicous dessert” as she put this little bowl of heaven down in front of us. And when she came to take the dish, she commented again on our awesome-sundae picking prowess. Basically, she was the cutest thing ever, and a genuinely great waitress. So we left her a love note:

P.S. if you just happen to be able to read Russian, please forgive our grammatical error(s)....

Who am I becoming?? Trying to pick up the waitress at the diner…? For the record, she hasn’t called. Siiiigh.

After our epic eat-a-thon, I went to meet up with another friend. We went on a long walk, which in retrospect was a bad plan because I was wearing 4″ heels and it was raining. But, you know. After a while, Shane was hungry and wanted Chinese food, so we went to a place off Tverskaya Blvd. For some reason they put us in a really funny little room. It was like a private “chamber” with a table for two and there was shiny, red fabric draped all over the walls. It would be quite intimate, if that was what you were looking for, but since that wasn’t the case, it was just comical.

ridiculous

Since I was still stuffed from that indulgent lunch, I just got a bowl of some sort of chicken soup with ginseng. It was interesting. Not good, not bad. But full of mysterious things that we couldn’t quite identify–maybe dates and raisins? But they had funny textures and sizes….

also pictured: Shane's shrimp fried rice and beef in oyster sauce

After that, it was pumpkin time, and I rode back to the girlies’ home to spend the night (too far of a commute back to Domodedovo). Breakfast the next morn involved a lot of sugar. Donuts and a pumpkin pancake…

not as good as Dunkin', but I'll take what I can get

Heather did nice work on that pancake, let me tell you! If only I could learn how to make pancakes, too….

I hung around with Caro all afternoon, and we dined on some “tomato soup” for lunch. I don’t think there is such thing as soup in a can in Russia, but Caro thought up an ingenious alternative: she heats up tomato juice with a bit of onion/garlic, adds milk, and lets it boil so it gets thicker. Then, she adds a little bit of salt and Mrs. Dash. Tastes better than Campbell’s!

Finally, I made the trek through Moscow back down to Domodedovo. I had such a fulfilling weekend, that I haven’t been hungry all day, still! It was definitely an epicurean adventure, as far as I was concerned… Worth it overall, though. Especially if Natasha ever calls.

Qs:

So now I want to know what your favorite coffee and/or tea drink is! Coffee straight up, or a vanilla latte. For tea, I think there isn’t much better than black tea+mint. And best of all? A dirty hippie, which is a chai latte with a shot of espresso–and I like mine with pumpkin spice syrup, too! Yummy.

What kind of toothpaste do you use? I’m currently rocking the Aquafresh Extreme Clean. I love oral hygiene. Remember to floss, too!

Gratuitous picture of the day….

Probably the most famous building in all of Russia: St. Basil’s Cathedral! Honestly, I thought it was a bit disappointing and a lot gaudy the first time I saw it! But it is pretty at night. You can also see GUM (say: goom) all lit up in the background. In another month, Red Square will be an even bigger color/light/sound explosion than usual, because they will put up all the Christmas/ New Year’s decorations, including a giant ice skating rink, ginormous fir trees, and basically glitter everywhere.

Giveaway Alert! Visit Holly’s post for a chance to win some Tera’s Whey! Enter by Tursday 11/12 at midnight! See ya tomorrow!

Off Her Rocker

Howdy, folks.

It’s one of those weird “I have absolutely nothing to do” sorts of weekends, so, all alone in my tiny town, what better to do than blog, right? Yeah!Yeah!Yeah!

However, this is going to be a rando post. For serious, I think I am going a hair stir-crazy or something, because my eats are out of control on the silliness factor. Oh, well. At least my heart and belly are happy!

After my souper adventure on Wednesday, I’ve been eating a lot of tomato soup. Case in point: tomato soup and fruit preserves-topped cottage cheese for breakfast on Thursday. Yeah. The first thing I ate that day was soup.

I kept up the soup work for lunch both Friday, and Saturday, too…

Friday: soup with buttered black bread

Saturday: soup, plus little apples and yellow pepper (didn't eat the apples, though...)

I also tried to recreate my own glorious Greek-style yogurt. I remembered to take a picture of my yogurt-straining “contraption” this time, and also managed to avoid a “what the heck are you doing to that cup in the fridge?” kind of talk. I’m pretty sure that Katya and Artem think I am off my rocker most of the time.

I'd like to point out the 1/2 kilo tub of red caviar that's out for breakfast...

Unfortunately, I bought some whack yogurt that refused to thicken up! So much for “Miracle” brand yogurt. So that’s what you call being miraculous, eh? I guess you get what you pay for, sometimes. So much for scrimping on the Dannon to save 10 roubles!

I ate my far-too-thin yogurt anyways, topped with honey and raspberry preserves.

with a cup of "vitamin-rich" Nesquik

I have also had more ants on a log snacks than is normal for a person of 23 years:

a big log

lots of "dirty" logs

I’m pretty great at ants on a log, I guess. The “dirty” logs are doused on cinnamon. However, I don’t think these top my best celery/PB invention: red ants on a log in a blizzard. Catchy name, no? They were super delicious! (And, funny coincidence, that post is exactly a year old today!)

In addition to the dirty logs, I ate some funny little open-faced sammies, PB and mashed banana on toasted black bread. (A delightful dinner combo, with the “sandwich” part inspired by Holly.)

And another bloggie-inspired snack? Fruit cereal with chopped apple (3!), cinnamon, sugar, raisins, and oats in a glug of milk. Nomalicious.

The fruit cereal was ridiculously good. I will certainly recreate this! Another ridiculously good treat? This thing, whatever it was:

This was some sort of zephir, aka “marshmallow” treat (the closest comparison, but the “marshmallow” here is way softer and lighter), but oh-so-much more. It also had a crunchy graham-cookie base and a layer of caramel. Holy monkeys, this treat was delicious.

More ridicularity? Okay. This bowl of oats. It was totally nuts. I made a big pile o’ kasha in 1/2 water and 1/2 milk, and added the remaining un-Greek-ified yogurt, the last dregs of my (homemade) pumpkin puree, 1/3 banana, a spoonful of peanut butter and a handful of raisins. Oh, and I dumped a tonnn of cinnamon on after the photo…

For some reason, oatmeal is always satisfying, but not always filling. This, however, was just about the biggest, most filling bowl of oats I’ve ever had, and I stayed full for hours and hours!

My final photo, however, takes the cake in food craziness. In my defense, we don’t have any food at home, and it is dark and sleeting out, so a walk to the grocery store was not really appealing. So I made do and had the most random dinner I have ever sat down to eat. And also one of the most monochromatic?

Yeah, this is a little embarrassing. I had a dinner of 1 egg and 1 egg white, mashed potatoes mixed with corn, my leftover yellow pepper, and cottage cheese with honey and jam. Apparently, white and yellow things go great together?? I told you, I am off my rocker!

I wanna know, I wanna know–tell me!

If you could eat food that was only 2 colors for the rest of you life, what two food colors would you choose? I think that is the most bizarre-0 question I have thought up yet. NOT white and yellow. Maybe orange and green? Red and green? I would have to add food coloring to my peanutbutter, though…

Do you prefer tea or coffee? I don’t know! Tea is quite comforting and cozy, but coffee is so rich, it is more of a “treat,” I think. I guess it would depend on my mood.

And, of course, a gratuitous photo for you!

This is an older photo of mine. There are a number of churches within the Kremlin walls, and I am pretty sure this one is the Annunciation Cathedral, built about 530 years ago! The inside is covered in icon paintings by one of the greatest “Russian” iconographers, Theophanes the Greek. Back in the 1500s, this is where Ivan the Terrible went to church, until he wasn’t allowed to enter the main part of the church (because he had been married too many times? something like that). He had another part built onto the church so he could still hear the services. Interesting how he can kill loads of people, but still be a devout church-goer, eh?!

Have a great weekend!

Mondo Huge Post

Hello, friendsters!

How goes it, how are you? How has your week been going?

Mine drastically improved Monday night when a certain LVP told me that she was going to be able to visit me in the beginning of December! I. AM. SO. EXCITED. Shakin’ in my shoes, I tell you. And even more pumped when, coincidentally, I “earned” a day off in December because I agreed to work today! I didn’t have that planned, but it couldn’t have worked out better! (Today is a national holiday in Russia, and according to my contract I didn’t have to work, but my school didn’t realize this and hadn’t canceled my class. Not a problem because it was my favorite group, anyway!) Everything is coming up roses, I tell you.

Roses, despite the snow. I know, I know, Colorado got buried last week, but I never can believe when it starts snowing wherever I am. And as far as I’m concerned October 31 is too early to start. Even if I am in Russia… But anyways, it did make for a pretty walk home from our Halloween party on Saturday night.

my friends Caro and Tom posed while the others bought more beer--at 3 am... Oh, Russia...

After said Halloween party, we crashed at my friends’ place. Caro and I woke up strangely early, well before the apartment’s actual inhabitants. Caro went home, and I went on a mission to find bacon and pancake mix (I’m probably the only blogonaut who doesn’t know how to make pancakes without a mix. Whoops. Will fix that). After wandering around Mytishchi for a gazillion years without finding a grocery store, I finally gave up and wandered into a produkty, a mini-grocery, but all the food is behind the counter and you have to ask for what you want. Not so easy for someone who just bumbles along po-russkii… But, somehow I persevered and walked out with 10 eggs, a chunk of meat stick (ahem, “bacon”), and some oladi mix (they’re like little fried buckwheat pancakes). And then I made breakfast for my slumbering friends.

I know that a big, eggie breakfast is a perfect hangover cure, and let me tell you, those kids needed my foods. The oladi did not work out at planned, and instead of the yummy, fluffy, pancake-like plops of goodness they usually are, they came out dense and brown/ slightly burned. But we ate them anyways. (And I think my camera ate my photo, because it is missing now.) I also scrambled all those eggs with a bit of onion, and cut up the meat stick to make “bacon.” Ta-da!

(insert song: "cheese and eggs! cheese and eggs! everybody loves cheese and eggs!")

An easy way to say “thanks” to my friends for letting me sleep at their house almost every weekend (because we live so far apart from each other).

After whiling away the hours and watching The Nightmare Before Christmas in Russian, Shane and I wandered to the local market to look for hats. No luck. So we decided to wander into Moscow to get some books and meet with Heather. Much luck! I am a reading machine these days, and already needed something new. I also decided to read a “real” book with my upper-Intermediate class, so I had to see what was available (any ideas out there for a book that is not too hard to read, but would appeal to younger (17-24) adults?). After this, we were starving so we went to Okhotny Ryad, an underground shopping center just outside of Red Square, where we knew we would find something to eat.

We decided to go to Il Patio, an Italian chain restaurant, and to order 3 dishes to share. We started with penne pasta in a roasted red pepper sauce with cheese and olives:

And then nommed our way through the pizza primavera, with tomato, onion, eggplant, broccoli, and arugula. But no cheese! We didn’t realize it was going to be a cheeseless pizza, but I think we all liked it pretty well, nonetheless.

Finally, we tried pollo parmagiana, which had a really tasty crispy breading (not greasy, just quite crisp!), a tiny salad, and some waffle fries. Yeah. Waffle fries….

And, of course, our trusty heroine figured that the meal needed to be ended with a sweet treat, so we decided to share the banana split!

The waitstaff totally thought I was a cuckoo, because first I answered the woman in Russian even though she spoke to me in English, then I took pictures of all our food, and finally I combined the contents of two almost-empty water bottles into one. We decided to bounce before they chased me out of there with pitchforks…

Still, it was a good meal, and felt like the perfect amount of food in my belly, and I was happy to have a chance to try several different dishes. Good work, team.

When I came home, however, Katya told me that I had to eat some of the cake she had bought. Look at this baby!

It is very thin layers of cake with walnuts and whipped cream with chocolate glaze. Since I’d just eaten dinner and dessert, I didn’t really want any, but you practically have to eat something sweet when you drink tea in Russia (which I wanted because I was cold). So I obliged, and took the littlest piece that Katya would let me (and she still thought it was too small!) to try some.

If you couldn’t tell, it was very tasty. And surprisingly light… Oh, Russia. Your sweet treats are going to catch up with me soon….

Anywhoodle, Monday was a day off, so I decided to totally rest, relax, and recuperate. I started my day with a cup of cocoa and whipped cream, and some pumpkin patch oatmeal (it looks like a pumpkin, right?). Katya had brought home a GIANT bag of apples (she’s so rad) and so much apple-snacking was in line.

I also made the best salad I have had in a lonnnng time for dinner. This baby had:

• lettuce mix
• 1/2 tomato
• 1/2 cucumber
• 1/2 red pepper
• 1/2 ear of corn
• big squeeze of lemon
• about 1 T olive oil
• several shakes ground ginger
• a shake or two of cayenne
• salt and pepper

Tuesday started with some polka-dot oats (I have to entertain myself somehow!) and a big ol’ piece of ooey, gooey kachapuri (Georgian cheese bread).

Today, I kept myself occupied by making soup! I decided that I had a hankerin’ for some good tomato soup. I went out to the store, and bought 1.2 kilos of tomatoes, and went to town, using this recipe as a guide. The whole thing was surprisingly easy to put together, so now I know that I need to make soup much, much more often (especially since it’s like, my favorite food. After ice cream, of course). I almost didn’t blend the ingredients together, because it was quite tasty as a chunky soup, but then I changed my mind and pureed them so that the flavors would meld more. <before/after>

I ladled out a great big bowl and ate my yumdelicious soup with a piece of black bread and melted cheese. I think tomato soup is a perfect comfort food, and it feels so warm and inviting on a cold day, don’t you think?

NOM. And just to round things off, I had ants on a log for dessert. I have to do something with all the extra celery from my soup! But, a happy ending to a happy meal. Happy happy.

Would you mind telling me….

How do you feel about snow? I am definitely a fan of warm hot weather. I get mopey about the long, cold winter. But, I have to admit, the first snow IS kind of exciting and pretty….

What was your favorite childhood treat? I wish I could say ants on a log or something cute and natural like that, but I looooved Swiss Cake Rolls when I was about 8. Thanks, Little Debbie.

And your gratuitous picture of the day:

Heather took this picture a couple weeks ago outside of Red Square. It is actually facing Okhotny Ryad, the underground center where we ate on Sunday night. It almost always looks this busy, but not usually this pretty! The yellow building you see in the background is Manezh, a big exhibition center. If you walked out of the picture to the left, you would get to the Kremlin entrance.

Strokes of Genius

Howdy, folks. How’d everyone’s Halloween turn out? Mine was all right, thanks for asking. We lacked the usual hullabaloo since it isn’t a “real” holiday in Russia, but I was excited in my heart, and that’s all that really matters, right? I tried as hard as I could to get my students revved up for Halloween, but I think my efforts were in mostly in vain. Although I think they were excited to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! And I was excited to plan 20 minutes’ worth less of my lesson… (insert innocent whistling….)

Anywho, we’re here to talk about food, right? Right! Last week I seemed to get good idea after good idea as far as my eats were concerned:

Example 1:

Oatmeal Friend. His name is Fred. I’m no Oatmeal Artist, but he’s kind of cute in his own way, right?

He’s made of oatmeal cooked with milk and apples, pureed pumpkin eyes and nose, peanut butter mouth, and cinnamon hair. It was nice to meet you, Fred, but even better to eat you!

Example 2:

Poor Man’s Chicken Parm Sandwich. Or rather, Poor Sarah’s in Russia Chicken Parm Sandwich.

This little beauty was just 2 chicken tenders in my incredible pasta sauce served in a toasted pita, but it was seriously tasty. It would have been a hair better if I had put some cheese on, but we only had super-salty Armenian cheese. Still a good lunch, though!

Example 3:

DIY Greek Yogurt! A while back, Holly posted some instructions on how to make your own Greek-style yogurt. However, I was lacking the proper tools: a colander and paper towels! Oh, and plain yogurt. Seriously, I couldn’t find ANY plain yogurt! But when I was in a shop in Moscow last week I took a look at their expanded dairy department and spied some Dannon plain yogurt. Then it was just a matter of getting creative! Instead of using paper towels in a colander, I hooked up a coffee filter to a mug using some clothes pins. You cannot believe the conversation this contraption sparked when Katya saw it in the fridge. But, it was totally worth it. Look at this little bowl of beautiful deliciousness:

I mixed my yogurt with some raspberry preserves and honey, and holy cow this really hit the spot. Now I just have to find a BIG container of plain yogurt somewhere, so that I can make more than one serving at a time…

Exhibit 4:

DIY Fake Pots. So, I’ve grown to love those little cottage cheese + fruit preserves packs, but at $1 each, I can’t afford to get them every day. So I went out and bought a big container of cottage cheese and a big jar of raspberry preserves. I can combine them myself, and hopefully save a few dollars in the long run.

Drizzled with a spoonful of honey for extra-goodness

Example 5:

“Bacon” and Eggs. I love bacon and eggs for breakfast. A lot. (My heart probably doesn’t, but sometimes you just gotta do what tastes right.) Missing my favorite breakfast treat, I attempted to cook up a close substitute. I couldn’t find any bacon, so I just fried up some (cured?) ham sort of meatsicks to serve with a couple of egg whites.

Of course, there is plenty of Tabasco on those eggs! I decided to have some raw green pepper for crunchy veggie goodness. This worked out pretty well and made me fell all nostalgic for “proper” breakfasts (i.e. big ones of bacon and eggs) at home…

Example 6:

Falling for Fall Stir Fry. I had (and have) a big chunk of pumpkin sitting in the fridge just screaming to be used up, but I didn’t feel like putting in the time and effort to make a pie… One of the other teachers at my school had recommended frying pumpkin, so I thought it might be tasty if I made a stir fry with it.

Please note our cute mouse spatula

To make this glorious dish, I cooked a small chopped onion in a drizzle of olive oil until they started to become translucent. Then I tossed in 2 cloves of minced garlic and stirred for a minute to release the flavor. Next, I tossed about 1/2-2/3 cup of chopped pumpkin into the pan and cooked for several minutes. I chopped about 1/4 of a HUGE red pepper and added that next. After another minute or two, I added 1/2 a chopped apple and several shakes of cinnamon, ginger, and cayenne. Once everything seemed cooked and the onions were browned, I took it off the heat to eat with a sprinkle of salt and pepper. It was seriously scrumptious, and really well combined sweet, savory, and spicy flavors. The pumpkin was also surprisingly good cooked this way, and the flavors were really all the best parts of Fall. Try this! (Perhaps you could add a bit of sausage to the pan, too. I think that would be really tasty!)

Example 7:

Raspberry M&Ms. Okay, so this wasn’t my idea, but it was a really good one. I have no idea why there are so many “alternative” candy flavors here, but these were a winner! And I am not the biggest fan of fruit+chocolate as a general rule. Do these exist in the US?

I enjoyed this lovely snack in pieces over one afternoon: Raspberry M&Ms, almonds, and 100% white grape juice. Those almonds were really enjoyable, too… Mmm.

Example 8:

School lunch. Again, not my idea, but a worthwhile one. Tuesdays are a crazzzzzay long day, I am at the school from 1-10pm! We often have some sorts of snacks in the teachers’ room, like blinchiki (stuffed crepes) or bread, but one day Artem went all-out and set up a feast for all the staff on a really long day.

So, I took this picture after we ate, actually (I didn’t need to explain this taking-pictures-of-my-food thing to all the Russian teachers…), but you can still see what we had. We ate some meat-filled blinchiki, salad of cucumbers/tomatoes/herbs, ham, Caucasian lavash, cheese, and tea. Niiiiice. Definitely better than just bread!

I’m still trying to think up healthy, easy alternatives to cook up with my limited access to ingredients, but I felt proud of my efforts and accomplishments last week–better than plain oatmeal for 5 days, right?!

Question time:

Favorite oatmeal combination? Recently I have really been feeling this combo of apple in the oatmeal, pumpkin, peanut butter, and cinnamon on top. Yum!

Do you like fruity-chocolate things? Usually not so much, but like I said, those M&Ms were surprisingly good. I like chocolate covered strawberries, too.

Now that we are sort of starting “holiday season”…. What is your favorite Holiday? Mine is definitely Thanksgiving. Food and family really can’t be beat, as far as I am concerned. #2 is Halloween. #3 is the 4th of July!

Gratuitous photo of the day: Also, I feel bad that a lonnnng time ago, our favorite Everythingtarian asked for me to post some pictures of the non-food parts of my life in Russia. I am awful about taking pictures in general, but for you, girl, Ima try to pull out the camera more often. Here is a picture of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior  in Moscow 2 weeks ago.

credit for this photo actually goes to my friend Jenny...

This church is actually quite new–it was finished in 2000! The original Cathedral of Christ the Savior was demolished under Soviet rule to build the Palace of Soviets. However, the land was bad and the Palace couldn’t be built–so they made the land a public swimming pool! After the fall of communism, the cathedral was rebuilt to look just like the original.

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.

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.

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?