Food Remix

I realized before that there are a few things I left out about Russian cuisine that I really wanted to add.
First, to describe my lunches: for the first 2 weeks or so we all ate at a wonderful little cafe called "Samovar," where their specialty was blini. Blini are essentially crepes but (dare I say it?) typically more delicious (unless they've been cooked by two starving girls in the Sarver household) and cooked to perfect crispness. You can get them plain or smothered with (incredibly fresh) honey, sour cream, or butter; or you can opt for the stuffed version, the blini filled with apples (my personal favorite), caviar, or ham and cheese. Russians all love these little delights, and you can find them in just about any cafe (the best chains that serve them are Chainaya Lozhka/Teaspoon and Teremok, in that order). After a while I wanted to cut back on my spending (basically so I could splurge on weekend dinners) and I've since taken to taking sandwiches with me to class. Russian bread is varied and typically delicious; also, it is generally split into two types, black and white. They're fans of the byterbrod, a fancy name for an open-faced sandwich; until last Friday, Marina Nikolaevna thought that I was making 2 byterbrods every day for school, instead of realizing that I was simply putting the two pieces of salami-and-cheese-covered bread together face to face. While we're on the topic of sandwiches, peanut butter is virtually absent here; not even the supermarket on Nevsky carries any (Nutella, too, is difficult to find). Peanut butter definitely ranks in the top 10 of things I miss about home.

Drinking in Russia is a completely different matter, too. On the whole, most Russians regard drinking without eating as just plain stupid (not stupid in a "you'll get drunk quicker" sense, but stupid in a "why not have good food, too?" sense); therefore, a whole culture of beer snacks has grown up as well. Chips, peanuts, and pieces of dehydrated bread (hard to describe but very delicious; although I sometimes confuse their name with the word for "artists," much to my family's delight) are popular snacks, while it is just as common to find dried calamari and fish on the menu (personally I'm a fan of the calamari). For instance, at our Georgian restaurant, there was one whole page of the menu dedicated to snacks for drinking. The prices started out low for special breads, but you could easily spend over $80 just on snacks alone--not to mention the wines they offered for pairing.

Sweets aren't exactly a domain you'd consider the Russians ruling, but I'm convinced they beat out the Germans and edge past the French in terms of pastries and delectable treats. At least, they certainly love them, especially with tea--tea and cake, tea and tort, tea and random unpronounceable pastry... people wait in lines forever for these things, and there's at least 3 little cafes without any menu at all every 100 feet down Nevsky. For breakfast, plenty of people on the run just grab something flaky and sweet from cafes, while dessert is always offered at mealtime. Ice cream in particular is very very popular, and very very good. I'd eat it during the winter, and I definitely didn't turn down an offer from Masha for some yesterday even while I was shivering from the wind. There's tons of kinds of ice cream you can buy, and all sorts of assorted kinds on the streets; many have fruity fillings (Creme Brulee is also popular). If you ever get to Russia, I recommend to anybody "Bely Nochi."

Addition:
A lot of people joke about how all the Russians drink is vodka, and there is truth to that; you can find the stuff anywhere (be careful about buying it from kiosks off the street, as it might be dilutd with antifreeze). But when you think about it, the water quality is so awful that even in the major cities most people boil it before drinking it (hence the popularity of tea and coffee). Mr. Marin pointed this out in respect to the Mexicans, too. I believe his words went something like: "Of course they're drunk all the time, all they've got to drink is tequila!"
Sidenote here: Did I ever tell the story about Curtis and his hostess's bottle of tequila? One day another girl from his group comes over with her hostess, who is friends with Curtis's hostess, and they all sit around the table drinking and talking. And the other girl starts to explain about the worm in the bottom of the glass of tequila, as they do in ol' Mexico, when Curtis's hostess jumps up and says "I know about that! I've got one!" and brings down a bottle of tequila, wherein is sitting a dead baby cobra. She says "Oh, he needs a drink," tops him off with some liquor, and leaves the bottle sitting on the table so the cobra can stare at Curtis for the rest of the night.
Also, it is supposedly illegal nowadays to consume alcohol on the streets, and on the trains. The catch: they still SELL alcohol right on the street, AND on the trains, so clearly nobody pays attention to that rule. However, foreigners should do this with caution, because we're always under closer scrutiny.

And my last addition/sidenote: One time a week or two ago, Marina and I were talking. I think I asked her why she ate beets every night before going to bed. I believe her answer was something to the effect of "Because I'm a Capricorn." In return to my quizzical look, she got up and brought a big plastic bag full of newspaper clippings, which she paged through saying, "Leo, leo, leo..." and finally, "Here. You're a Leo. Read." So I read aloud this small clipping that told me what I should and should not eat, because I'm a Leo. It's a good thing that I eat greens on all my meals--something to do with the vitamins--but I should cut back on bananas. Also, I shouldn't eat potatoes very often, either (perhaps that's why we've only had mashed potatoes once or twice). Why? Because I'm a Leo! ...in return to the potato stipulation, all I wanted to say was, "But I'm Irish!" ...but I don't want to change how Marina cooks at all--she's a wonderful cook, and I feel like by not giving her too much idea of my preconceived likes and dislikes, I'm getting a fuller, more "Russian" experience of the food.. albeit influenced by my horroscope sign. =)