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The next book on my Soviet-Jewish Decade Top 10 list is Anya von Bremzen’s culinary memoir, Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing, which brings fresh meaning to the food on our tables.
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It starts, as these things so often do, with food. My (non-Jewish) partner and I, recently reunited after a short separation, in the sad bachelor apartment where he had temporarily landed. Where familiar, lonely kitchen things still glared at me woefully, bereft of their mates that had landed up in my kitchen. Where we bumped into each…
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I finally made the kompot. What’s kompot? Russian kompot is essentially a homemade fruit juice. It’s been around for centuries and is popular in Russia and the former East Bloc. I only recently learned that what I always thought was kompot was actually compote, which is also made with cooked fruit, but has less liquid…
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Park yourself at a dinner table of Russians, and inevitably, as the eating part winds down and the drinks are doing their thing, someone says “And the kompot?” And everyone else laughs uproariously and the kompot rarely, rarely ever appears. It’s a line from an old Soviet movie. And, since it’s a line from every…
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If I had a Russian food blog, it would be something like The Gastronomical Me, by Katrina K., a transplanted Russian who lives in London. And, if I loved in London, I would be crashing her monthly Soviet brunch club. As it is, I may have to start my own version in Toronto. In the…
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Today’s peek into the immigrant home comes from Anna Tarkov, a journalist and blogger from Chicago. She’s been published in the Chicago Tribune, Time Out Chicago, and others, and her blog, THE OUTSIDER… and the rueful dilettante, is full of insights on the state of journalism today. Though she left the USSR much later than…
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Please check out my recent post on the Forward/Jew & Carrot blog, as part of their Shabbat meals series. Previous contributors include Claudia Roden, one of my kitchen heroes, and Joan Nathan, so I was very flattered to have my kharcho, a Soviet Georgian soup, included among such company. If you are Russian, then you…
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Breaking news, people. That coffee you’ve been storing in your freezer is really what’s wrong with society today. According to Coffee Common, a coalition of coffee roasters and farmers, based out of the US: Once more consumers understand that coffee shouldn’t be stored in their freezer like a bag of corn; it opens up the…
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Someone once told to me that denial is the cornerstone of civilization. Being a “glass is actually three-quarters empty” kind of person, I’m inclined to agree. And when denial meets obesity meets well-meaning studies, that glass is woefully empty. Two obesity studies blaming mothers have come out in the last few weeks. Both make a strong link between…
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Things recently noted on the food front, all courtesy of the New York Times… (The short version, if you don’t want to scroll down – we have issues around food poverty and authenticity.) Exhibit A GROWING up in Montreal, Noah Bernamoff had an issue with his mother’s kasha varnishkes. “My mom’s had so much kasha…
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