A culinary adventure

How can you tell that someone has Italian heritage? They talk with their hands and they love food. I am guilty of both these things. What comes to mind when we think Russian cuisine? Borsh? Yes, that's important but there is so much more! Before I get to the food, let's back-up one step: groceries! This seems trivial, but grocery shopping isn't the easiest task when you've just arrived... Once Matvei and I moved into the corporate apartment, we had to sort out where to buy groceries. The first night we wander around a bit and finally discover a "producti" on the other side of the bridge, which is a small store with different counters, each run by an independant vendour. As is commonly done in Europe, you must ask the vendor for what you want, they bag it, weigh it and then hand alll your purchases over once you have paid. All this is fine if you can ask for what you want!! This was the point where I realised I was coming up blank on all the Russian I had learned and quickly discovered that very few people out side our office actually speak English. It tooks us about 20 minutes of walking back and forth up the aisle of this little store before we actually built-up the courage to ask for something! We started with "the fruit lady"*, who was very nice and found us charming as we tried to ask for things in Russian. The next two vendors were not so nice... But the "bread lady" who we spoke to last was great and we managed to leave with enough food to make a few meals. We then walked 10 minutes back to our flat lugging all our stuff, which for Matvei also included several liters of bottled water since you can't drink that tap water here. Much to our dismay, the next day we found out that there was a grocery store with actual aisles and shelves that you can take things from yourself right DOWNSTAIRS from our apartment building. (**insert us feeling like idiots here**) So what do the Russians eat? There are these wonderful things called Blin (ьлин) that are like crèpes and are filled with anything and everything. We went to a Russian fast-food chain and had blin filled with red caviar. The picture is from our night at the Ukranian restaurant when we went with our Ukranian colleague). There are two things that come up very often: sour cream and dill. A large dollop of sour cream (сметана) is added to soups just before serving, or as a side for pelmeni (= something similar to ravioli that are delicious). As for the dill, it comes with everything. If it isn't one of the rare times where it is not part of the dish, a large sprig of it is added as decoration. They have even added chopped dill to an inside-out roll at our local sushi shop! If you do not like these two things and find yourself here, you are S.O.L. Getting back to the topic of caviar, Matvei and I made a sad discovery: we'd been eating imitation black caviar!! We came across the jar of black caviar in a super market for only 77 Rubles (~$3 CAD) and we thought it was too good to be true. We found out a week later that indeed it was... We have since seen caviar at the markets and grocery stores for more than 100 times that price. The good thing to come out of that discovery was the mix between salty and fresh. We've often been served kolbasa sausage with a piece of pickle or salted herring with cucumber, which makes for a nice mix. We had also done this with the (imitation) caviar. Then there are some familiar things that are just slightly different to cater to the Russian market... The Feta cheese here is excellent, though with a very different texture - more like solid cream cheese. I loved the instructions I found when I opened the package! As for the Lays chips, there are all sorts of unusual flavours here (except for "regular" it would seem). We first tried the Caviar flavoured chips, which tasted more like butter than anything else. But the шашльык were a different story... Chips aside, actual шашльык is yummy and we took an instant liking to it. It's basically marinated meat that is grilled as brochettes, much like shishkabobs. So whenever one of us is craving meat, we head out for some шашльык! On the weekend, Matvei and I visited a few farmer's markets (Рынок) that are close to our future "neighbourhood" (we should be settling into our long-term apartment next week). Markets are always an intersting place - lots of colours, smells and flavours. The second one we visited we really enjoyed. We found spices!! "The spice lady" was lovely - she spoke zero English but was still very talkative and keen to help us. We must have spent half an hour with her smelling the various spices at her kiosk. I have a feeling we will be paying her another visit soon... I know it's not exactly food, but I don't think I can end this post without mentioning vodka. Yes, vodka is popular here and, yes, it is great - a lot smoother than what we find on our shelves overseas. The Russians drink vodka straight, which is why I got some strange looks when I ordered a "vodka soda" at the bar the other night. It arrived as a plastic bottle of sparkling water (for the soda) and a shot of vodka in a large shot glass. The other fortunate discovery for this cosmo-drinker is a little something called морс (pronounced like "Coors", but with an M), which is a sort of cranberry juice here and is very typical Russian. We had home-made морс at the restaurant the other day and it was really good. So my favourite drink has become vodka морс. My luck with wine here hasn't been great, so I needed to find an alternative!

*the X lady term should be trademarked by our Australian colleague. He has a "bank lady" contact, the "apartment lady", etc. We thought the term was adorable so we've started applying it to everything! BTW - we met the "bank lady" today, so we now understand why he made such an effort to keep her as a contact!