Can anyone spell arugula?

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Let us, for a moment, talk about lettuce. That marvelous green substance, the chlorophyll standard of life. How I miss you, sweet green sustenance; iceberg, spinach, watercress, arugula, and broccoli and zucchini and squash and artichokes and peas in their pods, and celery and… all that there is now, and therefore all I can think of is potatoes. Not that there’s anything wrong with potatoes.

The other night I actually had a dream that I was at a buffet and saw some artichokes… but they were not fully cooked, and still had the white and purple leaves attached. In my dream, I tried to explain that the white and purple leaves could not be eaten, nor could the thorns, but all I succeeded in saying was, “Those are poisonous! They have not been cooked properly!” For the rest of my sleeping morning all I dreamt of was how explain that cooking occasionally leeches out the undesirable elements of some food. Needless to say, it was a very weighty dream.

Please send me some green. To Russia… with vitamins.

The food is still milk fat, animal fat, potato and bread. Insert tomato, cucumber and chocolate as necessary.

I am not unhappy with the culinary options available here (ok so maybe I miss mozzarella, parmesean , feta, and cream cheese)… but mainly because I would like to cook my host family a nice dinner… and quite frankly, I find myself at a loss as to what to cook without vegetables or my favorite cheeses. I could make a sausage braid… but we don’t have croissant dough (although hopefully I could figure it out), cream cheese, or ground sausage (the way I am used to buying it). I could make pizza, but we don’t have mozzarella. I could make my potato-mushroom-leek soup, substituting onions and green onions for leeks… but in Russia, a meal is not a meal without meat. I am out of my element, and have limited options because the general requirement is some kind of meat plus relatively mild flavor.

Curry, turmeric, cilantro, parsley, oregano, chives and chili pepper, I dream of you at night. I also dream about sliced deli meat (in delicatessens that have choices… well at least choices that don’t include 50 different kinds of kielbasa), and American spice aisles. If America can be proud of one thing in this world, most certainly it is its supermarkets.

As it is, I have decided to attempt a chicken alfredo of sorts to prepare tonight. The “less fat” sour cream combined with chicken breast, garlic, green onion, gouda, salt, and noodles will probably be as close as I can get to the real thing.
Here’s to hoping my family enjoys it, and that I can pull it off in the metric system.

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Photos

Lomonosova 67
A good old fashioned Soviet apartment building
(aka: home)