Summary

Well hello there. I know I've been a rather...absent...narrator, so let's wave good-bye to March and most of April with a few brief bullet points:

• There's been me, working. Then working some more. Then taking a trip to California and working. Then buying more work clothes, and continuing to work. Etc. The Pit, who was quite vocal about my previous lack of employment and the associated lack of dollars in our house-buying fund, actually moved in the opposite direction, and began complaining that I was becoming a workaholic. Me. Can you imagine such a thing?

• Besides the working, there's also been me, dealing with wedding stuff. Also a little bit of The Pit, dealing with wedding stuff... but really, let's not kid ourselves, it was mostly me. The Pit was made to participate in a 45 minute call with our incredibly meticulous photographer, whose very detailed breakdown of our wedding schedule almost drove The Pit insane. It's a good thing The Pit does not have to deal with my mother, whose scheduling of this event is even more detailed, perhaps to a...shall we say...unhealthy degree. Breath mom, breath.

• Also, taking the windfall of my tax rebate (you know, the whole not working for almost an entire year thing does have its benefits), The Pit and I purchased a new mattress on Sunday. The new mattress was actually very necessary, as some lovely and generous relatives had given us a new and enlarged bed as an early wedding present. The Pit and I fell into our brand new mattress last night, and so soft was it that we almost failed to emerge this morning.

And...yes, I do believe that's about it. Work stuff, wedding stuff, and new mattress are pretty much the only developments of the last two months. There, oh my voraciously complaining family, are you happy now? I'm back, and slightly more boring than before!

You can call me Dr. Peachy, just like my new friends at the office

Oh. my. god. I know that I dropped off the face of the earth for a while there, but who knew that real work could be so incredibly tiring? Go on, laugh, I know you want to. But seriously, between this actual gainful employment that serendipitously fell in my lap, and the wedding planning trip I took to California over the weekend, I just want to drop into bed and sleep and sleep and sleep.

So: work. It's a consulting gig, lasting 10 weeks. I was originally told I would be writing background pieces for a conference, and that I could work from home. Upon further discussion, it now turns out that I actually have to supervise other people writing, and this requires me to come into a physical office at least part of the time. Fortunately, the office is literally 5 minutes from our apartment. Unfortunately, I've already exhausted my two work appropriate outfits, and am now scrambling to obtain more. Also, two straight days, even in my most comfortable high heels, has resulted in a clearly noticeable limp. I've been giving my feet a 'once more into the breach' speech to prepare them for tomorrow's efforts, but thus far they remain unconvinced.

Also also, there's the issue of OL to consider. Feeling terribly guilty for abandoning her in favor of vast amounts of dollars thrown my way, I stopped by her place at 7:30 AM this morning. Yes, you read that correctly. I got out of bed before The Pit. She was happy that I had come calling, but a bit crestfallen that I couldn't stay for longer than an hour. Fortunately, it looks like Friday is a work from home day, so I'll be able to take her to lunch. I look forward to regaling you with OL stories once I gain some equilibrium with my new schedule.

Oh, those crazy Russians

I haven't posted anything for a while, because it would basically be a repeat of everything in the last entry...snow, digging, more snow, more digging, and The Pit and I cooped up in the apartment, slowly driving each other insane. However, things are finally looking up around here...the snow is now melting, we went to trivia and won again on Monday night, The Pit finally went back to work on Tuesday, and there is some small glimmer of a chance that I might be gainfully employed come Monday morning. Should this wonder of wonders materialize, I'll let you guys know. In the meantime, my now twice postponed birthday celebration is happening tonight. Oh sweet sweet Olive Garden, I can't wait for your delicious cheese ravioli in my mouth.

Since I have no real news to report, and the weather conditions are appropriately wintery, I will use the rest of this post to make fun of Russians. Or more specifically, of one particular Russian superstition that never fails to amuse me. See, Russians believe that under no circumstances should the female of the species be allowed to sit anyplace cold. This particularly applies to sprawling on the ground, a hard-wood floor, or, horror of horrors, a park bench in winter. You might be asking yourself...why? And why should only women and girls have to stand if there isn't a padded chair available?

The answer has to do with our precious reproductive organs. You see, according to a shared hallucination of all the peoples of the former Soviet Union, placing the baby-making equipment anywhere near a cold surface somehow result in irreparable damage. Even well-educated Russians believe this to be true. Take, for example, the case of my mother, a biologist and normally all-around sensible human being. Shortly after we fled the hell hole that was the Soviet Russia and settled in Boston, my mother enrolled my sister and I in ballet classes. On the first day of the class, she watched in horror as the teacher gathered all the little girls together, sat us on the floor, and proceeded to blithely explain various stretching techniques, as if she wasn't thus dooming our future unborn children.

About ten years after this first observation of grossly negligent American behavior, and numerous subsequent experiences watching American posteriors interact with various chilly surfaces, I had a conversation with my mother about irrational Russian fears. I had assumed that my mom had come around to a reasonable view of things, and was thus surprised to hear her explain that the Russian opinion wasn't wrong, per se. It was just that it never got cold enough in America to truly endanger our unborn offspring.

It's been another ten years since that memorable conversation, so I think it might be time to question her again. Next time I remember, I'll ask and report back.

This and that

So, as some of you may know, last Friday was my birthday. We had decided to celebrate it old school...by which I mean dinner at the Olive Garden, followed by bowling. Unfortunately, I was gifted with 18 inches of snow instead, so birthday plans were postponed.

Virgina seemed a bit better prepared for this snowstorm, and a plow kept going down our street even in the worst of the weather. On the plus side, this meant that our street was well cleared when the snow finally stopped falling. On the minus side, it meant approximately 3 extra feet of snow to shovel away from my car. I present you with exhibits A and B below:

A decided to forgo digging out, and so was trapped at his house and unable to come to trivia with us on Monday night. In an improbably turn of events, The Pit and I vanquished our opponents and received first place without his assistance, even though one of the rounds required extensive knowledge of sports nicknames.*

This win was especially nice, as we've been sucking it up the last few weeks. Our losing streak was capped last week, when we managed to drop from first to sixth place in the last round of the game after scoring a meager 2/10 on general knowledge questions. Apparently, our general knowledge does not extend to car racing, Victorian literature, or sequels to The Sheik. If only I was a little more redneck, and The Pit a bit more gay, and A about 60 years older, we might have been winners. But no matter, in week 20 of playing we were once again triumphant!

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* We scored 3/10 based solely on The Pit's guessing.

Instructions from the motherland

The tale I’m about to tell will shock and horrify the majority of my readers. No, it’s not one of those kind of stories, although I do have a few of those from way back when…but I digress. This is a completely innocent story, featuring chicken soup and grandmotherly advice. See, last Monday I bought some chicken thighs at the grocery store. I shoved them to the back of the fridge, and promptly forgot about them. I belatedly remembered the chicken on Friday, and stuck the package in the freezer. If you’re keeping track, so far that’s raw chicken, kept for five days in the refrigerator.

Tuesday morning The Pit said he wanted chicken soup for dinner, so before leaving to babysit OL, I took the chicken out of the freezer and put it back in the fridge to defrost. Come Tuesday afternoon, I deposited it in the sink for a couple of hours of further defrosting, before opening the package to begin my customary de-fatting process* around 4 PM. That’s when I noticed a distinct odor coming from the meat. A sort of fruity and vinegary smell all at the same time. A smell that was definitely not normal.

* I’m just a touch OCD about picking the large chunks of fat off the chicken thighs before throwing 'em in the pot to make soup. Everyone laughs, but this evisceration results in delicious broth.

I briefly pondered throwing the chicken out, but two things stopped me. First of all, The Pit insists that I buy expensive organic chicken at Trader Joe’s. Throwing that chicken out would be like tossing a crisp five dollar bill in the trash can, and then following it up with some singles so it wouldn’t get lonely. Secondly, I didn’t have any back-up frozen chicken in the freezer, so tossing the meat would have required me to get back into my street clothes, venture out into the freezing cold, and drive to the grocery store to buy more thighs. After all that, dinner would be late. So to summarize, because I’m too frugal to throw away $7, and too lazy to waste 45 minutes buying more meat, I was willing to risk poisoning us both.

But! Before you get all flabbergasted on me, keep in mind my clever next move. I knew that if I consulted American friends or the Internets, I would be summarily told to throw the chicken away. Instead, I picked up the phone and called my grandparents, who had spent 40ish years cooking in Soviet Russia, where you definitely ate whatever came your way after standing in line for hours in sub-zero temperatures. There was no way that people raised in such an environment would let a little smell stop them from using almost-perfectly-good meat.

My grandpa answered the phone, listened to my chicken history, and reassured me that if I gave the thighs a thorough washing, all would be well. I was relieved, until he added that I would definitely be able to tell if the meat was still off by tasting the soup before serving it. Nevertheless, I began washing the thighs, a process made all the more thorough by the previously mentioned de-fatting.

Just when I had both hands wet and covered by potentially poisonous raw chicken, the phone rang. It was my grandmother, calling me back with more detailed instructions. She informed me that I should wash the thighs in warm water, then again in cold water, then keep them covered in cold water with a teaspoon of vinegar for five minutes, then rinse the vinegar off with more cold water, and only then cook the chicken per the usual routine. Greatly reassured, I did as I was told…there was no way such a wealth of folk knowledge could possibly be wrong.

Half-way through this process The Pit arrived home. Fortunately, he was quickly distracted by internet videos, and did not ask me what the chicken was doing soaking, or why I kept smelling little chunks of it before throwing them in the soup pot. These questions would have been problematic, since a) I’m a terrible liar, b) once the truth was discovered, I was fairly certain he would have stopped my whole complicated washing procedure by throwing away the meat, and c) the tossing of the chicken would then have been followed by pointed comments about my heritage. All in all, it’s a good thing he was engrossed in the laptop and didn’t look up to my acting all furtive and suspicious in the kitchen.

Anyway, as it turns out, my grandmother was 100% correct in her assessment. The soup was delicious, and neither one of us was even a little bit poisoned. Now that 48 hours have passed, the leftovers have all been consumed, and there is no longer a risk of placebo-induced stomach cramping on The Pit’s part**, I am publishing this triumph of Russian culinary skills for the world to admire.

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** And for the record, I'd like my future in-laws to note that I would never truly risk poisoning your prodigal son. If the highest authority*** had so ordered, I would have thrown the chicken away.

*** My grandmother, of course.

Vegetarian Split Pea Soup (And Rosemary Bread)

My favorite food blogger recently did a post on Split Pea soup, and I was inspired to try it. Yes, that's right, much to The Pit's shock, I had never before tried Split Pea soup. This is partly because I'm not usually partial to foods that are almost completely liquid, and partly because most Split Pea recipes I've seen have included ham hocks. I don't like ham, and in point of fact, don't really even know what a ham hock is* or what it looks like.

*The Pit clarified that it's some sort of smoked ham bone. It sounds even less delicious with that description, although I direct you to the wikipedia page to see for yourself.

Anyway, I decided to omit the ham, simplify the recipe a bit, and hope for the best. With The Pit's optimistic encouragement, I actually used my biggest pot to make a giant amount of soup. Luckily, it turned out great, especially on the second day we had it, after sitting in the fridge overnight.

And the best part? Without the meat, it cost approximately $4 to make (with half of that cost coming from the croutons). Of course, the downside of no meat was that the soup alone wasn't super filling. I made this Rosemary Bread to go along with it, and I would suggest a big salad too.

What you'll need for 6-8 portions of soup:

• 1 lb split peas
• 1 large onion
• 1 large carrot
• 1 large celery stalk
• 1 medium potato
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 2-3 bay leaves
• several good shakes of dried thyme and parsley (or a couple teaspoons of the fresh stuff)
• salt and pepper

• 1 box of your favorite croutons (we used some with cheese and garlic flavor)
• fresh parsley or chives for garnish (a good way to use up leftover herbs, but totally optional)

Steps:

1) Pour the split peas into a colander, pick out any stones, and then rinse the peas. Fill your largest pot with water, and dump in the clean peas. Bring to a boil.

2) While the peas get boiling, dice the carrot, celery, and onion in small pieces. Peel the garlic cloves and cut off the hard 'foot' on each one.

3) When the peas come to a boil, a greenish scum will rise to the surface...skim this off for a few minutes, until the soup is relatively clear. Add the diced vegetables and the garlic cloves, and continue to boil for several minutes.

4) Season with salt, pepper, bay leaves, thyme, and parsley, and lower the heat to a gentle simmer. Cover the pot loosely, and let it simmer for about an hour.

5) Peel and dice the potato, and add to the soup after it's been simmering for about an hour. Bring to a boil for a few minutes, then reduce the heat again and allow to simmer for at least another 20 minutes.

6) At this point you have several options. If you like chunks of stuff in your soup, you can pretty much eat it as is. Otherwise, you can use a regular* or immersion blender to make a smoother consistency. If you're too lazy to use the blender, but have another hour of time on your hands, continue to simmer the soup until it's smooth and thick.

* If using a regular blender, don't fill the blender up too high, work in batches, and hold the lid down carefully when blending -- I got impatient with our tiny blender, filled it too high, and ended up with hot soup all over one side of the refrigerator.

7) Serve with the croutons, and garnish with diced parsley or chives if you have any laying around. There should be plenty of left-overs, which is excellent, because as I found out, the soup only gets better on the second day.

OL wins another one

So OL proved herself...unreliable...with her gas stove several months ago. Basically, when I went home for Thanksgiving, she sort of forgot to switch a burner off. Eventually her neighbor smelled gas in the hallway, and after a certain amount of frantic door-bell ringing, broke into her apartment convinced he was going to find her dead. Turned out she was just napping and couldn't understand what all the fuss was about.

In fact, she steadfastly refused to admit any gas-related negligence, and accused the neighbors of telling tall tales. For their part, her neighbors were, quite understandably, concerned that one day soon she would blow them all to kingdom come. Relations had reached an unpleasant impasse, when OL's doctor (who also has an office in the building) came up with an elaborate plot.

She visited OL one afternoon, and told her (completely untruthfully) that she smelled a little gas. Since all the burners were turned off, the doctor suggested that the stove itself might have a leak. Consequently, OL became convinced that a gas leak actually existed, and that her allergies, previously attributed to the carpet, might in fact be due to a decade's worth of leaking gas. Building maintenance was summoned, and, fully involved in the plot, said they were turning off her gas until the 'leak' could be fixed.

It's been a little over a month, and somehow, they just can't seem to find the right part. OLgrumbles about their slowness, but is actually only marginally inconvenienced by her lack of stove. See, she's never really cooked, and previously used her stove for exactly two things: boiling water for tea, and frying eggs.

Boiling water is easy enough with other kitchen appliances, but the eggs, well, the eggs have been a problem. Her son recently bought this plastic gizmo for poaching eggs in the microwave. OL took one look at the thing, pronounced it "a piece of junk," and refused any further attempts to involve her in egg making. Giving up on his own efforts, her son then sent me an email, requesting that I do my best to get her to use the device.

Thus, on Monday I opened up the packaging and read the instructions. Let's all bear in mind that I don't actually eat eggs, and consequently have no idea what a well cooked egg should look like. However, after a certain amount of trial and error, I got an egg out of the microwave that looked exactly like the egg on the packaging. OL had distanced herself from the proceedings and sat on the couch looking sour.

I brought the perfectly poached egg over for her to admire. "Looks undercooked" she muttered. Back into the microwave it went. I carried the results back to the couch. "The middle's not done." By this point, the perfectly poached egg looked a bit...scrambled, and was putting out a characteristic eggy smell that has always made me rather nauseous. Nevertheless, I bravely stirred it with a fork and stuck it back in the microwave for further cooking. I heard OL muttering from the couch, something about contraptions, idiot sons, and stubborn girls.

The microwave beeped, and this time, I was sure we had a winner. I triumphantly took the egg, still in it's plastic container, over to OL. She begrudgingly admitted that the egg looked about right. We both stared down at the eggy mass, and I was about to suggest that perhaps OL give it a taste. At that exact moment, the two halves of the egg-cooker came apart, and the whole thing dropped straight into OL's lap.

The look OL gave me at that moment probably had to be seen to be believed, but it contained about equal parts surprise, disgust, and delight at being proved so very right. I slunk back to the kitchen to get a towel, and have not brought up the whole egg thing all week. OL, on the other hand, has mentioned the incident repeatedly, with quite an emphasis on the words 'right' and 'junk.' I'll have to email the son tonight, and tell him that this week, well...this week I guess the egg is on my face. *

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* Man, I've been waiting the whole blog post to pull that one out.

Chicken & Rice Pilaf

So I'm sick. Yes, again. Yes, that does make three times in as many months. Sigh. Clearly my bragging about not getting sick all of last year has caught up to me. Anyway, being sick means chicken soup, and chicken soup means left-over boiled chicken (I'm picky, so I only ever eat the broth and the noodles). I've already blogged about one use for left-over chicken in the Russian kitchen, and now I'd like to present a second.

This is a recipe for my grandma Regina's very delicious Chicken and Rice Pilaf...or as the Russians like to say, Plov. My grandma calls this a 'southern' recipe, by which she means it comes from someplace in the Caucuses, or maybe from one of the many Stans of Central Asia. All I know is that wherever it's from, they sure know how to cook rice. You would think that with 3 cups of rice, this recipe would make about 6 servings, but you would be wrong. In fact, with everyone taking seconds, I've barely had leftovers when feeding 4 people.

So then, here's what you'll need for 4 large servings:

• 2-3 cups white or brown basmati rice (uncooked)
• 1-2 cups boiled chicken (about 1 lb raw chicken), shredded
• 1 large carrot, grated
• 1 medium sweet onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1/4 - 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1-2 bay leaves
• 1 tablespoon whole peppercorns
• 1-2 teaspoons Vegeta seasoning mix
• salt and pepper

Steps:

1) Cook rice according to package directions in lightly salted water.

2) While the rice is cooking, shred the chicken, grate the carrot, dice the onion, and slice the garlic.

3) Liberally drizzle olive oil into a large skillet on medium high heat. Add the onion and saute for about 2 minutes. Add the carrots and saute for another minute. Add the chicken, mix well, and saute for 2 more minutes.

4) Lower the heat to medium, and add the rice, garlic, bay leaf, and peppercorns. Drizzle more olive oil, then mix everything together. Add salt and pepper to taste.

5) Allow to fry for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally and adding olive oil as necessary. The pilaf should become crispy and light brown. Mix in the Vegeta seasoning. *

6) Continue to fry for another 10 minutes or so, again adding olive oil as necessary, until dark brown crispy bits are distributed throughout the pilaf. Mmm, dark brown crispy bits. Taste before serving, the pilaf will probably need a little more salt and pepper.

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* Vegeta is a very common seasoning blend found in Eastern European cooking. A little goes a long way, I've had that big can for several years now, and it's only about half empty. I know that you can get it on Amazon if you can't find it in your local Russian or European food mart. I highly recommend it for soups and rice dishes, however, if you don't have any on hand, the above pilaf still tastes good without it...not the same, but good.

A Conversation With OL

The scene: OL and I, sitting down at a crowded little restaurant with a marginally overpriced menu. The waiter is hovering to get our drink orders.

OL: "I vant a hamburger. How much is the hamburger."

I consult the menu, and unwisely blurt out the real price. "Nine dollars."

OL: "VAAT? NINE DOLLAS?!? FOR A HAMBURGER???"

The waiter snorts softly.

I glance at the waiter apologetically, and then hiss at OL: "We are at a restaurant, that is what a hamburger costs at a restaurant."

OL, completely unmollified: "NINE DOLLAS???"

I look at the waiter again. He's trying really hard not to laugh. "We'll have some water."

"No problem! I'll just give you a minute to...err...go over the menu."

The waiter taken care of, I return my attention to OL. She's still both indignant and disbelieving. "I betchya it isn't nine dollas. That crazy for a hamburger!"

I pretend to study the menu again. "Oh, you know what, you're right, I made a mistake, it's cheaper than nine dollars." At this point, I glance at her for some sort of guidance to a proper hamburger price.

OL, gleeful to be proved right, obliges me right away. "I bet it's five dollas" she says.

"Wow, you've guessed exactly right! It's five dollars."

At this point, OL senses that things are a little too good to be true. She tries to trap me. "How did you make a mistake like that?? Saying it was nine dollas instead of five!" But I am too canny to be tricked by such an easy ploy, and use her own prejudices against her.

"Oh, I was looking at the cheeseburger price."

OL makes a disgusted face, and then nods sagely, ready to believe anything terrible about the abomination that is a cheeseburger.* Lunch proceeds more or less smoothly.

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* Although she doesn't keep kosher, OL hates mixing meat and diary products. I've never been able to make her coherently explain why.

Trivia Update

I stopped mentioning trivia here several months ago, as the constant updates made pub quizzing seem like our only social outlet. This is categorically untrue…we also play long and complicated board games with The Pit’s friends, as witnessed by my sister, who whimpered through one bout of Shadow of the Emperor while visiting here last week. But we’ll get back to Dina in a bit. For now, let’s focus on trivia.

Trivia…well, let’s just say there have been some ups and downs since I last reported to you in early November. We had one glorious week of winning with our usual team of three after I drove away various annoying hangers on, and then The Pit had to go on a series of business trips. Left to our own devices, A and I placed 3rd one week, giving us completely unwarranted confidence in our Pit-less trivia abilities…a confidence that was promptly shattered the following week, when we plummeted all the way to 6th place. It goes without saying that we were less than pleased at having to pay in full for dinner:

When The Pit returned, he lectured us about doing so poorly without him, but apparently the fates don’t like his tsk-tsking any more than I do, as that week we got 4th place. Witness a very grainy version of The Pit’s agony:

The following week we were joined by my friend Eric, in DC visiting family for the holidays. Eric helped us recover a little momentum, and we placed second. The joy, it is self-evident:

Unfortunately, this momentum was apparently lost somewhere in Switzerland, because last week, with my lovely sister in attendance, we once again placed fourth. Sadface:

Fortunately, the evening was redeemed by a long, politically incorrect, and decidedly adult story describing A’s escapades on New Year’s Eve. I won’t go into the details here, but let’s just say he finally made his bachelorhood pay off.

This week…well, this week things have returned to normal. Dina flew back to California, A is once again being ignored by various eligible young ladies, and The Furious Sporks have regained our spot at the top of McGinty’s pub quiz hierarchy. It came down to a tie-breaking question, but I’m pleased to report that we claimed first place last night.*

The only pictures taken were of A's triumphant face, so I cannot post them here, but trust me, the thrill of victory was well represented.

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* That makes ten 1st place, two 2nd place, two 3rd place, two 4th place, and one sad 6th place finish in seventeen weeks of playing.