Alive and Well (Fed). Sort of.

Some embarrassingly large number of weeks ago, I posed the tantalizing cliff-hangers, “If not mayo, what exactly do I eat?” and “Is my grandmother offended by the level of profanity in this blog entry?” My grandmother, once again demonstrating why she gets “grand” appended to her name while I am universally known in Russia as “Eh-bby,” actually answered that last question, whereas I tried to distract you by talking about salt. I wish I could say that this entry comes to you now from a newfound determination to update my blog in a timely fashion. But actually I’ve been sitting on it for about three months, waiting until this, the fatal moment when my illegally streamed “Dancing with the Stars” broadcast cut out unexpectedly, to finally polish it up and shove it out the door to make it’s way in the cold, hard world. Be gentle.

My decision to categorically close my refrigerator to mayo stems in large part from my experience in Russia over the summer of 2006, when the mayo flowed, free and plentiful, from the grocery store aisles through my host mother’s cooking, finally lodging in my arteries, where I am convinced it remains to this day. So naturally, I was relieved at the thought that this time around, I would be doing my own cooking. My sanguinity lasted until my arrival, at which time the obvious corollary to this point presented myself, which is that I would be doing my own cooking.

Disclaimer for those proceeding further: I’m serious about the “sitting on this entry for three months” thing. The situation, while not a gourmand’s paradise, is not quite so dire as I present it below. I do, however, live on in the hopes that I’ll be able to get “Dancing with the Stars” back at any moment, so I can’t be bothered to make serious changes. Suffice to say, I’ve figured out at least two more dishes, but not how to stop burning the garlic. Anyway.

Despite my extreme lack of experience in the kitchen, there are a number of modern cooking utensils that I am enough aware of to miss acutely. Chief among these is the garlic press. The garlic press is a fantastic invention that allows you to pulverize clove after clove of garlic into your food with an ease and alacrity that spectators may find positively dangerous. This is assuming, of course, that you aren’t trying to overload the garlic press, in which case you will require the hand strength of a thousand very burly men to get it to operate, or at the very least, you will require the use of both hands. And yet, an overloaded garlic press is bliss itself compared to the complete absence of garlic presses in one’s life. I cannot even begin to describe to you the annoyance of having to chop into tiny fragments each and every tiny clove of garlic that I want to put into my food. And you can never do it in just one round of chopping. Oh no. To achieve perfect garlic pulverization, you need to slice all your cloves, put them in a pile, run the knife through them again, wipe the knife off, scoop the garlic back into a pile from the far corners of the cutting board to which it has fled, knife through it again, wipe the knife off, and then go back and individually slice away at all the huge chunks you’ve somehow missed during your earlier ministrations. Now assume that your knife is dull, there is no knife-sharpener in the kitchen, and you can’t even begin to imagine how you might say “knife-sharpener” in Russian, even if you wanted to pay for one, which, by the way, you don’t. It’s at the point where I have drastically cut down on the amount of garlic I use, purely because I seriously can’t be bothered. This may not sound like such a problem, but allow me to show you few more glimpses into my life in the kitchen, and you’ll start to see this for the tremendous gastronomic catastrophe it is.

Without further ado, I present the recipes for three totally edible meals in heavy rotation at Chez Moi. Astute readers will notice some themes and motifs. There will be a test.

House Specialty (i.e., Pelmene, which are sort of large ravioli/dumpling things that are more delicious than they deserve to be, having been invented by Russians)
(Note: This recipe was the first one I developed, which is why it’s the house specialty, well, that and it takes the least amount of time and effort you could expend and still be said to be “cooking.” The point being, it predates the epic purchase of the water filter.)

Ingredients
Pelmene
Tomatoes
Garlic
Onions
Olive Oil
Salt
Prayer

Steps:
1. Fill pot with water from sink. Promise self to find water filter soon. In the meantime, pray.
2. Place pot on stove.
3. Remove pot from stove. Light stove. Replace pot on stove. Stupid gas stove.
4. Peel and chop as many cloves of garlic as you can bring yourself to do (no more than 3).
5. Peel and chop onion into as tiny chunks as you can bring yourself to do (not very tiny).
6. Place sauce pan on stove. Cover bottom of saucepan with olive oil.
7. Repeat step 3.
8. Throw garlic and onion into saucepan. Poke tentatively at mixture with spatula.
9. Throw pelmene in boiling water.
10. Wonder briefly just how bad for you pelmene are. Throw more into water.
11. Burn garlic. Curse loudly.
12. Chop tomato into medium-sized chunks. Throw into saucepan. Be dubious about quality of final product.
13. Optional step (to do only if remembered): Throw in salt.
14. Turn off stove, fish pelmene onto plate with stupidly tiny little strainer. Pour sauce over pelmene.
15. Eat! Be proud of yourself, you cooked something!

Advantages
This one has a special place in my heart because, like I said, it’s the first thing I did in the kitchen that in any way involved the chemical transformation of one or more ingredients. (So, for example, my previous experimentation with putting granola into yogurt didn’t count.) Okay, so I won’t be breaking it out at my next dinner party, but hey! It was completely, thoroughly edible!

Disadvantages
And there’s not a whole lot more than that that can be said for it, at least until I figure out how not to burn the garlic.

Stir Fry a la Soy Sauce

Ingredients
Garlic
Onion
Rice
Broccoli
Mushrooms
Pepper
Soy Sauce
0 eggplants

Steps:
1. Go to store. Note shockingly high price of eggplant. Do not buy any eggplant.
2. Go home. Retrieve other ingredients from fridge and lay out on counter. Survey small number and sorry appearance of your vegetables with dismay.
3. Eight dollars for an eggplant! Who do they think they are kidding? Whom, even?
4. Fill filter with water. Wait for water to trickle down. Pour water into pot.
5. Repeat step 5.
6. Notice that you have put too much water in the pot. Make face.
7. Decide not to pour water out and risk going through arduous filtration process again. Place pot on stove.
8. Remove pot from stove. Light stove. Replace pot on stove. Stupid gas stove.
9. Peel and chop as many cloves of garlic as you can bring yourself to do (no more than 3).
10. Peel and chop onion into medium-sized slices.
11. Place sauce pan on stove. Cover bottom of saucepan with olive oil.
12. Repeat step 9.
13. Wonder if you should really get out the bigger saucepan.
14. Nah.
15. Throw garlic and onion into saucepan. Poke tentatively at mixture with spatula.
16. Realize that you have no idea how to cook rice. Instantly regret foolhardy and overconfident purchase of rice in a bag instead of instant rice.
17. Oh well. Open rice bag. Be sure to fling as much rice all over the counter and floor as possible. Throw some rice in pot.
18. That doesn’t look like very much rice. Throw some more in pot. Throw some more on the floor.
19. Where were we with the vegetables again? Go check.
20. Burn garlic. Curse loudly.
21. Chop mushrooms.
22. Chop stem off broccoli. Be aghast at significantly reduced quantity of broccoli for consumption. Will inclusion of chopped up broccoli stem ruin stir-fry or provide budget-saving extra broccoli density? Ponder.
23. Chop up the stem.
24. Hmmm. Which goes in first, broccoli or mushrooms?
25. Dump both broccoli and mushrooms into stir-fry. Be sure to overflow saucepan. Curse. Poke vigorously at mixture with spatula. Make mental note to use bigger saucepan next time.
26. Add copious amounts of soy sauce to mixture. Wonder if it will just burn off, leaving nothing but salty residue behind. Oh dear. Too late.
27. Be dubious about stir-fry with only one spice. Sprinkle in pepper, just to be on the safe side.
28. Develop concern about the high proportion of water to rice. Maybe rice is like cous cous and has to absorb extra water? Should rice be completely cooked before commencement of water absorption process? Or does rice finish cooking during absorption? Is rice supposed to be al dente? What, exactly, does al dente taste like, when applied to rice? Perhaps final result of water absorption test will answer all questions. Turn rice off.
29. Attempt to stir vegetables with mounting sense of futility. Underline, bold, and italicize mental note about saucepan. Turn off veggies.
30. Check rice. Discover limits of rice absorption capacity. Strain excess water through stupidly tiny little strainer. Holy shit that’s a lot of rice.
31. Put rice and stir-fry on plate. Serve with extra soy sauce on side if necessary. Success, you made something mostly healthy!

Advantages
No salad necessary! In a country whose culinary motto is If It Isn’t Mayo, It Isn’t Food, I consider this dish a total coup. Also, I’ve never made a stir fry by myself in my life, so I feel an extra-tingly sense of accomplishment when I make it, which helps me eat it.

Disadvantages
Despite being cooked through, some bits of broccoli mysteriously ended up tasting about 5 degrees cooler than the rest of the meal, which was odd. I still don’t know from al dente with rice (slightly less grainy than undercooked rice, slightly more grainy than overcooked rice? What does can this term possibly mean when applied to something that tastes grainy no matter what you do to it?), though I choose to believe that I have achieved it. Also, there’s only so much soy sauce I can consume in one meal and still pretend to be eating more healthily than the average Russian.

Spaghetti with Sauce with Stuff

Ingredients
Spaghetti
1 can of canned tomatoes (Is there any other kind of tomato that comes in a can? Discuss.)
Garlic
Onions
Mushrooms
Salt
Pepper
Some stuff that I’m pretty sure is sugar, but I’m not sure that I should be cooking with
Olive Oil

Steps:
1. Fill filter with water. Wait for water to trickle down. Pour water into pot.
2. Repeat step 1.
3. Notice that you have put too much water in the pot. Make face.
4. Decide not to pour water out and risk going through arduous filtration process again. Place pot on stove.
5. Remove pot from stove. Light stove. Replace pot on stove.
6. Peel and chop as many cloves of garlic as you can bring yourself to do (no more than 3).
7. Peel and chop onion into medium-sized slices.
8. Place sauce pan on stove. Cover bottom of saucepan with olive oil.
9. Repeat step 5. @*&#! gas stove.
10. Throw garlic and onion into saucepan. Poke tentatively at mixture with spatula.
11. Notice that water has been boiling for probably 5 or 10 minutes. Note with satisfaction that water now appears to be at appropriate level. Put some pasta in.
12. Survey pasta. Put some more in.
13. Burn garlic. Curse loudly.
14. Open can of tomatoes. Pour into saucepan.
15. Chop some mushrooms into sauce.
16. Recall just how much mushrooms shrink while cooking. Chop some more into sauce.
17. Poke at mixture with spatula with increasing confidence and enthusiasm.
18. Accidentally fling tomato sauce all over counter. Curse loudly.
19. Add salt and pepper. Taste mixture. Make face.
20. Go looking for sugar. Don’t find any. Find brown grainy things. Taste. Decide that they are sugar. Toss some in sauce. Pray.
21. Strain spaghetti in stupidly tiny little strainer and try not to pour entire contents of meal into sink. Mostly, but not entirely succeed.
22. Put sauce on spaghetti on plate (not in that order). Serve with discouragingly wilted salad. Revel in deliciousness of your home cooking.

For a variant on this recipe, replace steps 6 through 11 and 14 through 19 with the following:

1. Go to store. Purchase low-quality pasta sauce for vastly exorbitant sum.
2. Heat on stove.
3. Note that we are not kidding about the low-quality of this pasta sauce. It is made by Heinz.

Advantages
It’s spaghetti! What else is there to say? What drawbacks could there be?

Disadvantages
Well, I am the one cooking it. The sauce ends up being sort of bland because I don’t understand spices in English and haven’t yet worked myself up to purchasing any spicing I don’t immediately recognize on sight, which pretty much limits me to pepper.* Note that this rule does not extend to salt, as I cannot, on sight, tell it apart from sugar. Fortunately, there was some salt (and no white sugar) in the apartment when I arrived, but the supply is dwindling fast. Will desperation drive me to finally work up the energy to look up the Russian words for “basil” and “oregano”? Or will my pasta sauce increasingly become indistinguishable from tomato paste with things floating in it? And most importantly, when will some combination of the receipt of my next paycheck, a reduction in price, and the onset of scurvy drive me to finally purchase the eggplant I so desire? Stay tuned!

*Now you understand the magnitude of the garlic problem.