Russian Christmas

January 7th, in case you didn't look at today's date.

Christmas Day according to the Julian calendar. In our hybrid household, we celebrated the day as we have since the beginning.

Many Eastern Orthodox countries have switched entirely to the Gregorian calendar and celebrate religious holidays at the same time as Western Christians, but a few, like the Russian Orthodox Church, hold fast to old traditions (or maybe habits) and continue to mark the feasts according to the Julian calendar, 13 days later.

I'm not going to try and explain who is right and who is wrong, and what the mathematical underpinnings of either calendar are -- for one thing, anyone who knows me also knows that I have issues with numbers. It's good enough that I remember there's a +13 conversion from Gregorian to Julian. Besides, it's easy to find out more on the subject.

Now Easter is another story altogether, and another one I'm not going to talk about now.

Anyway, we put up our Christmas tree around Thanksgiving, like most people, but we keep it at least through January 7th, usually through the 10th, because according to Russian tradition, all major (religious) holidays are celebrated 3 days.

С Рождеством Христовым!

Another Borshch marathon

I made Borshch again and I made my family happy.

Over the years, I've translated our family Borshch recipe. I've posted it. I've used it to illustrate lectures in my folklore course. I've ranted about it. And of course, I've cooked it innumerable times.

My own recipe has at least 4 variations.

It's the quintessential recipe of the Russian cook. However faithfully you follow your teacher's instructions (whoever your teacher may be -- grandmother, mother, aunt, cousin, friend, even cookbook) it will never taste the same as the original. It's one of those country recipes that take on the spirit of the cook and reflect the cook's qualities in the flavor and the body.

Don't ask me what it means. Taste someone's Borshch and learn from them, and then try to duplicate it. Right away, it will be Borshch (not borsht), but it will be yours, not the original.

Why? I don't know.

Maybe because chopping the onions into 3mm chunks instead of 4mm chunks makes a difference. Or not. Because I've substituted potatoes for beans and back again, depending on my mood and what was in the pantry -- and it was still MY Borshch (not borsht), unmistakably, and I choose the meat according to what looks best in the meat department, not by name or price. It's usually a roast, though.

This is the magic of traditional recipes.

They're fluid, none any more right than others, but some are still "righter" than others.

No, I'm not posting the recipe here. Maybe, once I finally (SIGH) solve my site issues the recipe will appear there once again (shortly, so be on the lookout), but I won't leave it on my blog.

It's MINE. MINE, I'm telling you.

I'd rather feed you than tell you. I'd rather teach you and show you, than tell you and leave it to languish in the archives of a blog.

A traditional recipe is a living thing.

Web Politics or Web Satire?

Today a what looks like a political web prank is making waves in Chechnya and in Russia. It purports to promote the candidacy of Chechnya's current president, Ramzan Kadyrov, to the presidency of the Russian Federation in 2012.

To get the full impact of the original site, here,  you need to understand Russian, so you'll have to trust me when I say that it's classic political satire, very well executed, and more dangerous than physical attacks: it makes people think.

All writers know the power of the word. Even more so, the power of the insidious innuendo, the well-written (or well-said) comment that doesn't really hit you until later. The one that stays with you, makes you examine every aspect of the form and the content, and what's more, makes you come back to look at it again.

This is what the authors of the "Ramzan Kadyrov for President of the Russian Federation" site did. There is no overt criticism of Kadyrov, quite the contrary. The site appears to be laudatory and supportive, but...

It's not what is said, or how it's said, it's the context that counts. You have to think about Kadyrov's achievements such as they're praised in the web pages. Indeed, with everything the president of Chechnya has done in Russia's favor, according to this site, he surely would be a good candidate.

Kadyrov didn't find it amusing at all.

I thought it was a fine example of a well-executed political satire, classical in its delivery, worthy of any of its illustrious predecessors.

As a literary sample, of course.

Otters on a plane

No wonder they created a delay and all that: who would put otters in the luggage area? Otters travel in first class, of course!

  Otters are creative creatures, we all know that.


Here's what I'm talking about:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/offbeat/2009/12/23/dnt.oh.otters.plane.wbns

Cooking Day

I don't do this so much anymore. Maybe I have too much time to sit and think and I don't have to be on my feet running around after a small child bent on mischief. Maybe it's just that others have taken over the kitchen. Or maybe I'm just old(er).

Or maybe I just lost the habit of long, complex dinner in the years I worked a full-time, 8-5 job with a long commute.

Anyway, yesterday, I went all out on traditional Russian cooking. Of course, it was at the request of my kids, and they did promise to help.

Well, help is as help does, but I must admit that they did a lot. Because making pirozhki ([pee-rohzh-KEE], singular pirozhok [pee-roh-ZHOHK]) one by one by hand (take small amount of yeast dough, add spoonfull of meat filling, wrap and seal) is time consuming. But they did it. While I did the other stuff.

So we had pel'meni last night (pehl-MEH-nee, the Russian answer to ravioli: meat-filled pasta served with sour cream and a vinaigrette dressing) which we ate with a side of cucumber-and-sour cream salad.

One thing you have to understand about Russian cooking: it comes with sour cream. Everything is better with sour cream. Sour cream gets added pretty much to everything, and then served on the side.

As salad dressing, with salt. As flavoring in pastries, cookies, and bread. In your soup. On the side with almost every dish. As a dip. On bread (why not? on a nice, thick slice of rich, dark bread -- and it's a spoonful of thick, creamy sour cream, not the runny "light" stuff -- you have to eat right!). A little sour cream in your shortbread heightens the flavor. You say buttermilk pancakes, I say sour cream olad'i (oh-LAH-d'yi).

And today? Today we will have BORSHCH.

Not Borsht. Not the dark pink canned beet product you find in stores. Nope. That's not the traditional Russian dish. No more than sweet-and-sour chicken is a traditional Chinese delicacy.

No. Borschch. Don't-call-it-soup Borshch. It's LIKE soup, but not soup. It's LIKE stew, but not stew. It's Borshch, and that's what Russians call it.

It's cabbage-based, with other root vegetables, including beets, carrots, turnips, leeks, and/or onions, potatoes and/or beans. It can be beef-stock based and contain beef chunks, or it can be a Lenten dish and be strictly vegetarian. It's tasty, filling, versatile, it has a million variants, and even though I use my mother's recipe, mine does not taste like hers. Close, very close, but not quite. Anyone would recognize the flavor and aroma of Borshch but each cook, each household has its own variant.

The magic of true Russian Borshch.

That's what we're having tonight. And while the kids don't particularly like soup, they've been asking for Borshch. Because, and it bears repeating, Borshch is not soup. It's just Borshch.

It can be served with thick slices of hearty bread slathered with butter, or, like we're going to do tonight, with pirozhki.

Because we were in a cooking frenzy, we only have meat pastries (meat-filled pirozhki), but you could have some cabbage filling, some mushroom filling, even sweet fillings like farmer's cheese or sour cherries.

And because we're only having an ordinary family night, we're just having borshch and pirozhki. If, however, I was serving up a proper feast, borshch would be a first course, followed by some kind of roast (meat or fish), with a vegetable, and a salad. Followed by a dessert.

Okay. That's enough. I'm hungry now.
But you know what? Ethnic cooking is pretty healthy. Look at all the good ingredients that go into borshch. And just ask the kids (and all the students of Russian who tried it over the years): it's tasty. Especially with pirozhki.

Anniversary

September 11

Eight years ago.

I was sitting at my computer like any other day, having sent the kids to school, checking my email and going through my morning routine. Happy and oblivious.

I saw the newsflash on AOL. I didn't believe it. I turned on the TV and I saw the second plane hit the Twin Towers.

I thought this might be it.

You know, it. The End.

When you grow up, as the child of politically engaged Russian émigrés, with the perfect awareness that the Bad Guy is not a fictional construct and that They Are Really After You, anything of this magnitude will glue you to your seat with a mixture of fear, fatalism, and helpless fascination.

Add to that a lifelong preference for fantasy and science-fiction, and you start building scenarios for the counter-strike and retaliation once you realize that it's not an accident.

And you've seen War Games. You know there can be no winner.

Fortunately, they've seen War Games, too.

But there is one realization that doesn't go away.

Someone has done this on purpose. Someone took several civilian planes and used them as weapons. Someone broke the most basic rules of engagement. Someone perpetrated an uncivilized, barbaric act worthy of the darkest moments of the most dramatic post-apocalyptic movies. Something that would have driven Mad Max to tears.

Today, we have monuments to our losses. Memorials. A minute of silence. A moment of rememberance. The president spoke briefly on the occasion. The local newspaper has a small front-page note. Google doesn't have a touching graphic attached to its name.

Has it been so long? Aren't we angry any longer? Almost 3000 people died in one day. I can't believe it wasn't yesterday. It's one of those moments that will always be there. Right in front of me.

Because like eight years ago, it's unbelievable.