The Frozen Tundra

It is another seven-degree day and the temperature hasn’t really moved all day.  I walked to the embassy and thought I might just have to have a skin transplant from my ankles to my waist and from my neck to my forehead.  I was dressed like a little down dumpling, but the wind was fierce and found ways to penetrate my protective barriers.  Goodness I now remember why I hate places that have extreme temperatures!  I felt like an astronaut going on a spacewalk as I started dressing.  I had to make sure everything was in place before heading out the door and it takes a full five minutes to suit up. It is, however, still more interesting that walking up and down a stairwell.

As I was walking through the living room listening to the wind howling, I stopped to consider the fact that no windows were open, so how was I hearing the wind howling?  It turns out that the rubber thermal gaskets around the door to the little balcony were installed incorrectly and they don’t seal when the door is closed. There was a cold wind blowing the entire length of the seven-foot door at the spot where it hinges on the wall. This was a job for DUCT TAPE!  I found some fabric that we had left over from altering the curtains and got the roll of duct tape and started winterizing.  It is a temporary fix until the Green Guys can get a work order, but it has made a big difference already.  I had mentioned in early writing that we were told the apartments could get stifling hot in the winter, but this is not the case in our apartment.  If you sit near a window, you’ll feel a breeze and I’m typing now with a fleece vest zipped up over my long sleeve shirt.  Poor Cindy had to sit with her hat on in her office since the heat there doesn’t do the job.  I think I’ll make sizzling curry pasta tonight to get us though the dark hours.

Last night I made a salad of shredded beet and cabbage with diced tomatoes, garlic and ranch dressing doctored with olive oil, balsamic, tarragon and parsley.  I let it sit for about two hours to let the flavors blend. Cindy wanted a hot turkey sandwich with dressing, cranberry sauce and gravy.  Not being much of a hot sandwich type of guy, I didn’t quite catch on and thought that if the gravy was hot enough that would qualify. It did not and Cindy has dropped one of my star ratings!  I had a cold sandwich, which is so much easier to eat and harder to screw up.  The salad was swell and I’m told that if dinner is okay tonight, I might get my star back.  From CC:  I think he has forgotten that I have a cold sandwich for lunch every day – but I’m glad I could finally teach him something culinary, i.e., that a hot turkey sandwich contains hot turkey!

I’m feeling doubly sorry for the boys, there are only boys now, in The 54 Club. Not only does the Clubhouse (bus stop) not provide adequate shelter from the cold and wind, but also the price of vodka is about to jump yet again. In an announcement today it was stated that the minimum price for a half-liter of vodka was set to go up 10% to 98 rubles ($3.13). This comes one year after a similar increase in price and at a time when you can no longer purchase vodka from 11pm to 10am. The boys just can’t catch a break!

That’s it from the frozen tundra,  Cindy and Wm

Frigid Moscow

It was seven degrees this morning when Cindy left for work at 6:45. By 8:30 when I went outside, it was all the way up to eight degrees.  My face froze before I got to the gate, my toes went numb within five minutes but the rest of me was fine and I tried to enjoy as much of my fifteen-minute walk as possible.  I came back happy to know that I had several loads of laundry to do while waiting for the water man to come and make a delivery. I went out again at about one and it was a balmy thirteen degrees, with a slight breeze. Winter is here and I do believe it is here to stay. The good news is that it has been a bright and sunny day and my indoor plants are just loving it.  I think I heard the sound of photosynthesis this morning as the first rays hit the plants and gave them a lovely green glow.

The Thanksgiving Feast last night was a riot, lots of laughter, lots of food and wine and tons of fellowship.  I must say that I’ve done bigger Thanksgiving dinners with lots more people but this was the hardest one I’ve ever done due to the size of the kitchen and the crappy range/oven.  I could have adjusted the temperature of the oven better if I had been using an EasyBake Oven with a sixty-watt bulb.  I cooked the two little sweet potato/ginger pies first, but even though they were only eight- inch pies, I couldn’t get them onto one shelf, the oven is so narrow.  Trying to keep an even temperature is also a trick since it vacillates plus or minus twenty degrees at will.  They came out okay, but took much longer to cook than I had anticipated and I had only about six minutes to get the temperature up to 400 before placing the turkey in the oven at one o’clock.  I got a ten-pound butterball, which just fit into the roasting pan that I had purchased to just fit into the oven.  I had the bird stuffed with cornbread and herb stuffing and resting on a bed of carrots that I had cut in half. I filled the corners of the pan with onion quarters and sprayed everything with olive oil and sprinkled it all with herbs de Provence.  In it went for 20 minutes at 400 and then I wanted to get it down to 325 for the remaining cooking time, which the package said would be three hours and forty minutes.  I couldn’t keep that temperate at 325 to save my life.  I’ve mentioned before that the temperature setting on the oven goes from 1-10; no correlation between numbers and temperatures seems to exist.  At one point the temp got up to 375 and I turned the dial from three and a half to two and a half.  Fifteen minutes later when I went to check the temperature the darn oven had turned itself off!!

Luckily I was in the kitchen all day so keeping tabs on the bird was possible, but this wasn’t one of those set it and forget it days.  I had to move the dining room table to the middle of the room since we were going to be six and that was the only way to do it.  It was a tight fit, but as I mentioned, we are all friends.    They all arrived on time, which was lucky since the bird got done almost forty minutes early.  We had Champagne and nuts and conversation for about thirty minutes. I stayed for a toast and then got back to the kitchen to get everything ready.  I hate having some foods hot and others merely warm simply because the timing couldn’t be figured out.  I was bound and determined that everything that was supposed to be hot would be very, very hot.

Since our table is too small to hold platters of food, everyone brought his or her plate to the kitchen where I had laid out all the goodies. The first tray, really a cutting board, had all of the turkey sliced and ready to go. Drumsticks up top, dark meat in between and white on the lower two thirds. There was dressing, garlic smashed potatoes, carrots, onions, baked cauliflower florets, fresh bread, piping hot fresh gravy and whole cranberry sauce (from a can this year).  I served three different wines, a Sav. Blanc, a deep dark South African merlot, and a Pinot Grigio. Everyone ate with gusto and all had at least seconds with a few making valiant attempts at thirds. For dessert I decorated the pie with a ring of whipped cream and then sprinkled the whipped cream with pomegranate seeds; it looked real purty. We didn’t tell anyone that it was sweet potato pie and of course everyone thought it was pumpkin, and they were very surprised to hear what it really was so they all had to have seconds to make sure it still tasted good.

We were at the table for two hours and like I said, it was a hilarious evening with almost no talk of school. Everyone had funny stories from their youth and Thanksgivings past and it was vastly entertaining. Everyone left at about eight and by nine I had cleaned up the kitchen.  I think I used every glass we own, all of my knives, all of our cutlery and most of our dishes.  Goodness my hands were like little white prunes by the time I had everything cleaned up and put away.  I sat down at nine with a generous pour of Chivas and Cindy had her Remy and we watched BBC news for a half hour before heading to bed. I’m not sure if I placed my head on the pillow or if it just fell there but I was one exhausted puppy and so happy to be warm and cozy and heading to the land of nod.

Time to arrange dinner, Best to all, Cindy and Wm.

Our Moscow Thanksgiving

The sweet potato and fresh ginger pies are cooling, the stuffed bird in cooking, the table is set for six (just enough room, good thing we all know each other well), and all the side dishes are set to go.  This would be the time when I would go and watch a football game and drink beer and eat Fritos, but here I’ll settle for a small Kir and read the news online.

The wine tasting went very well.  It took us nearly an hour to get there due to heavy traffic and stupid drivers when it should have taken 20 minutes.  The event was held in the Director’s apartment and my what a lovely apartment it is. It is on the tenth floor of a twenty story modern building with views that seem endless.  The sun was setting and it illuminated all of the glass buildings in the distance with a bronze glow.  The apartment is decorated beautifully, a tribute to the director’s wife I’m sure. Tons of gorgeous carpets collected over their years overseas set off the lovely wooden floors.  It was a beautiful place to have a party.

When I went to set up the computer I noticed that the connection was not the right one for the Mac so all of my lovely slides and photos were not going to be available.  Luckily, I’ve done this a lot and my old grey matter actually was working well and I could remember all the exact dates and details of my two-hour presentation without the aid of the computer.  We sampled seven Chardonnays from six countries, starting in Australia and moving on to Argentina, Chile, California, Italy and two locations in France.  I started with the basics of tasting, the five S’s, see, swirl, smell, sip, and savor - and then proceeded to go through all of the Chardonnays as I talked about the history, cultural, religious, moral and ethical implications surrounding wine.  It was a lot of fun and everyone seemed to have a grand time.  At the end I brought out two bottles of the Nouveau Beaujolais, gave them a brief history on the marketing of this wine and allowed everyone to just sit and mingle and finish off the rest of the wines while enjoying marvelous appetizers that were provided by the school. 

From CC:  An aside is needed from a semi-neutral party:  He was brilliant!  The Director introduced him as a “Renaissance Man” – how did know?!  Wm was all dressed up in a blazer and slacks with a beautiful tie with matching pocket scarf, and the lack of a computer didn’t faze him a bit.  There were a few times when a photo would have been a nice adjunct to the presentation, but overall we didn’t miss a thing by just listening (and tasting).  Everyone was so impressed and I am so proud to be his wife!   And by the way, I was an excellent wine fairy, pouring samples with my well-practiced quarter-turn (learned from the master renaissance man) and also collecting the dregs and giving them a bit of water to rinse their glasses.  It was so much fun.

Back to Wm: We got home around seven and I was too beat to go out to dinner so I changed clothes and made a quick, but rather delicious pasta with a tomato, garlic, basil and butter sauce.  We stayed up for as long as we could be I’m sure we were sound asleep by nine-thirty and stayed that way for the next eight to nine hours.  We woke up to a blanket of snow with the temperature at 17 degrees. We dressed for the occasion and headed out on a neighborhood walk, which lasted only about thirty minutes since we hadn’t counted on the rather brisk northerly wind.  I started working on tonight’s dinner while Cindy braved the elements and went out to get us fresh hot croissants and bread.

From CC:  The croissants went directly from the oven pan into my little sack, thanks to the really nice young baker at this store. The bread was too hot to handle – I had to wait a few minutes before she took it out of the oven.  Timing is everything.  Wm’s pasta last night was superb – it tasted like it had cream in it when I knew without even asking that there was no cream – the mix of butter and olive oil with a little cheese was absolutely dreamy and reminded me of being in a really fine restaurant in Italy.

So, since this is our Thanksgiving Day Feast and your all eating leftovers, I’ll bid you adieu with best wishes for a lovely Sunday.  Cindy and Wm.

Saturday Shopping

This will be a brief blog since I’m getting ready to head out for my wine history/tasting class this afternoon and don’t expect to get back until late.  I’m looking forward to this since I’ve not taught it since I left SDSU.  Back then I had “people” - competent, and caring people who took care of all the details. All I had to do was tell them when I wanted to offer the course and what wines and food I wanted and it was all taken care of.  I would leave my office ten minutes before the course began, confident that all the AV equipment was up and running and loaded with my presentation. I knew that all the wines were properly chilled and opened, and that the glassware and course materials were all distributed.  I would walk in, introduce myself, and we would be off.

I don’t have “people” here. I’m the “people” and that means that I have to sit in traffic, do the shopping, do the schlepping, set up the materials, bring my own AV equipment and get to the venue an hour before the presentation to do all the set up.  I really, really liked it the SDSU way.

Same Salads, different angle

Four Salads

Dinner last night was a lot of fun. We had two AAS singles over to finish off the remains of the eggplant moussaka.  Earlier in the afternoon I made four salads, one with chopped cabbage and a creamy curry dressing; one with beets with cumin and Greek dressing; one with carrots that I shaved with a potato peeler so that they looked like strips of pappardelle, flavored with ginger, tarragon and a touch of Dijon and mayo; and finally a tomato, basil, garlic salad.  I took a long serving dish and covered the bottom with spinach and then mounded the four salads on top. It looked fantastic and it was devoured with gusto.  I’ve placed two pictures on the online version of the blog.

Today we had to do some errands. First was filling up the car with gas, and now that we know our numbers it was a piece of cake and very satisfying.  Cindy marched up to the window and told the lady what pump number, how many liters she wanted, and gave her the pin on the school’s credit card, all in Russian. Last time she had to use a pen and paper but today, I’m sure they mistook her for a native speaker.

After that we headed to the embassy to do some American shopping.  They had the turkey I had ordered back in October, which is very good since four people are coming tomorrow expecting a turkey dinner. It is a good old Butterball, filled with chemicals, water and other nasties, but I’m looking forward to cooking it. No pumpkin to be found but I got yams and will make a yam pie and see if I fool anyone.  I’ve got all the other ingredients I need so I’ll be up early tomorrow - well not too early - cooking up a storm.

Happy Saturday, Cindy and Wm

PS Yesterday was the 100th posting to this blog.

Two Approaches to Learning Russian

Let me start with two quick apologies. First off, I’m terribly sorry to have filled your email with all those photos. You would think that by now I’d have the hang of it, but for some reason you got a whole lot more moussaka than I intended. From now on I’ll limit photos to postings on the web as opposed to attachments to emails. My second mea culpa has to do with forgetting to wish grandson Aidan a happy birthday yesterday. You would think that with two other relatives sharing the same birthday, I would have remembered that I had a third, but my mind has reached new dimensions in dementia!  Happy Belated Birthday Aidan.

We had our latest language lesson last night and at the end of the seventy-five minutes my head was hurting again.  We love our tutor; she is smart, has a sense of humor and really knows how to teach people Russian grammar and syntax.  If we were scheduled to live here for the next ten years, we would be throwing ourselves into the finer points of hard and soft consonants.  However, all we want to do is learn how to order in restaurants, get gas, navigate public transportation, shop in stores and be able to meet and greet people.  Last night she started by having us repeat, endlessly, ‘Do you know what this is?  Yes (no) I do (don’t). It is xxxx.’  I started to write down in Byxbee phonetic spelling what she was saying and got yelled at. I was supposed to just listen to what she said and repeat it back, with no visual reference. I have a hard enough time trying to speak Russian when I have the words in front of me, but trying to be a parrot just doesn’t work for me. In fact, I think I sounded worse than Joey did learning French in that long-ago episode of “Friends.”  We’ll work on getting her to do some basics with us over the several sessions.  (From CC:  Wm is right – I’ll settle for being able to remember and say the nouns she is teaching us; it’s way beyond me to say the whole sentence with proper verb endings.  OK, you try it:  Da ya znayu shto eto – or better yet, да я знаю что это.)

After our lesson and after some Skype Thanksgiving sessions we headed to the Georgian place for our Thanksgiving dinner. We had a new waiter this time who spoke some English but was only too happy to work with us on ordering in Russian. In fact, he provided us with lots of good new words that he wrote down phonetically.  We had our usual appetizers and Cindy ordered the quail and I had the lamb kebab.  He reappeared a few minutes later telling us that the quail was gone, which happens every other visit.  Cindy instead had a very lovely salad, which she enjoyed immensely. When the waiter brought the bill I asked him if he smoked and he said yes.  I still had Marlboro cigarettes that I had purchased in Duty Free for the driver who never showed on a return trip to Moscow some time ago, so I gave him one pack. He looked shocked and read the package and said, ‘From the USA?’  I said yes and he grinned like a little kid at Christmas.  We hope we have him again!

When we arrived we noticed two gentlemen sitting at the next table with huge platters of meats and veggies and a big plate of parsley.  They were drinking beer and vodka like it was going out of style and continued to do so the entire time we were there. They were having a grand old time and periodically Cindy and I could even understand some of what they were saying. Since we had just practiced our numbers we heard them talking numbers and while we didn’t have the context, we did have the numbers.  As we were leaving one of them said to us, in Russian, ‘You eat too little’.  We smiled and said thank you and he asked us if we were English. We said no, we were American and he stood up and shook our hands as his friend stood up and ordered us to sit down and have vodka with them. Cindy was tired and had another early morning but this was the first time we had been asked to join Russians and we decided we (I) would have one vodka and then leave. The older of the two, who spoke a bit of English and a bit of Italian, took Cindy’s coat and said ‘Made in China’, which we thought was a bit odd. We said no, made in the USA by Land’s End. NO, he said, Made in China!  I took the jacket and found the tag, which said, Made in China.  I was surprised that Land’s End would have clothes from China but I guess everyone does.  It turns out this guy - Vladimir Dormidontov - deals in fabrics for furniture and clothing and he knew just by touching the fabric that it was made in China.  These gentlemen were from Minsk in Belarus and were waiting for their train to head home, so they were killing time eating and drinking.  They offered us some of their food, which I had and loved, and then came the carafe of vodka and a red wine for Cindy.  We all toasted, and the men threw back the vodkas, my first time doing that, and I must say I enjoyed it.  As soon as we placed the empties on the table they passed around the parsley, which I guess is a custom, and it tasted really delicious and according to Cindy, really covered the smell of the vodka.  I did limit myself to one drink and we spent about fifteen minutes with these guys, having a grand old time in Russian. Cards were exchanges, promises to come and visit made, and then we were out of there.  It is this kind of exchange that is delightful and unexpected and if we could do that every night, we would learn Russian really fast.

Here is an interesting, if somewhat disturbing, article on how the Moscow Metro is going to the Dogs. Thus far I’ve only seen bums, who exhibit the same skills as these dogs, but I’m sure the dogs smell better.  And just to make sure all of you cat lovers have something to look at, check out these wimpy felines.

I’ve been told we’ll be four for dinner so I have to go get creative!  Happy Weekend, Cindy and Wm

Thanksgiving in Moscow

Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Birthday Brother Bobby, Happy Birthday Brother-in-Law Frank.

While it might be Thanksgiving in the USA, here in Russia it is Look At Your Car Engine Day.  Actually, I’m just guessing, but there is a so much evidence out there that it has to be true. In our parking area along there were three cars with their hoods up and two men (I think this is a team sport) looking carefully at the engine. Each team seemed to be doing the same thing; one would wave wildly at some part of the engine while speaking with a very animated tone, while the other would shake his head in the most dismissive of manners. They would then change sides and the whole process would start again.  I saw this happen no fewer than a dozen times on my ninety-minute walk.  Mine you, there are no tools in sight, no attempt to fix anything, just animated conversations about something under the hood.  Perhaps it had to do with all the rain yesterday, and then again it could be LAYCED.

Flat Stanley being Frisked

I can count to one hundred in Russian, I can say turn right, turn left, go straight, I can even sing a pretty good Russian Alphabet Song with the best of the three year olds, but apparently what I can’t do in Russian is explain to a police officer why I’ve attached a cut out of Flat Stanley onto a Russian Monument!  Cindy received Flat Stanley from some friend of a friend who is a teacher in Indiana and wanted photos of Flat Stanley in Moscow. Having done something similar for my granddaughter Kalie, I was only too happy to try and do this here in Moscow. When I did it for Kalie I was always greeted with smiles and a helpful attitude when confronted by authorities, but not in Moscow.  I suppose it is a crime to deface, however temporarily, any monument in Moscow, however in good weather I’ve noticed the area where I had Stanley, filled with young kids with beers and cigarettes so I didn’t think Stanley would be a menace.  Oh well, I did get some good shots of him in the Children’s Park near the Embassy and I’ll try and Photoshop him into some other Moscow pictures.

Stanley in the Children's Park happy to have escaped the law

Aside from my run in with the law, the walk today was just lovely, just getting out of the apartment was lovely, but the day was brisk, not to cold and the rain held off for the entire journey.  I left the house at 9am, which seems to be the height of rush hour and there were tons of folks heading to Metro stops or offices. I still can’t figure out the workday here. It appears to be somewhere between 9:30/10:00 to 5 or 6 pm.  During the walk I was trying to read Russian signs to test my new skills. There was on large billboard that had a picture of Bruce Willis on it and I kept puzzling out the letters.  I finally determined that it said something about Trust Me … Bank.  When I got home I was reading the Moscow Times and there was an article about Bruce Willis doing this ad for Trust Bank. What it says is “Trust, its just like me only it’s a Bank.  So, I did get most of it.   I also spent a lot of time on a sign on top of a large building in the distance. I kept sounding it out, trying to get the letters right and then all of a sudden it hit me, KinoCenter.  I raced to the building to see if I was right and there were all of these ads for movies playing at the KinoCenter and I felt like a little kid who had just gotten a gold star in grade school. 

Since the rain kept me indoors yesterday, I decided to spend more time on dinner than usual.  We had some leftovers from the chicken dinner and I had two eggplants so I decided to make a modified moussaka. I cut the eggplants into four slices, the long way and brushed them with olive oil and sprinkled them with salt, pepper, and oregano and baked them for about thirty minutes. While they were in the oven, I took all the chicken off the bone and cut up the leftover carrots, potatoes and onions into small bite since pieces.  In a bowl I combined about a half a cup of Parmesan, two eggs, a small carton of tofu and some herbs and spices.  I greased a small baking dish and when the eggplants were done, I place one layer of them in the baking dish, added a third of the tofu mixture and then all of the chicken mixture. I smoothed things out, added the rest of the eggplant and topped it all with the remaining tofu mixture.  I sprinkled more Parmesan on top along with three cloves of crushed garlic and placed it back in the oven for thirty-five minutes.   

Eggplant Moussaka

The Remains of the Bread Salad

I took the pan out and placed it on the top of the stove to let it blend together and cool for the next two hours.  I then prepared the base for a salad using carrots chopped two ways, one for crunch the other for maximum flavor.  I chopped up some tomato and garlic and mixed it all together with a bit of Ranch dressing and balsamic and let it set for a while.  When we were ready to eat, I heated the oven and placed the moussaka in to get it hot once again.  I cut two nice pieces of ciabatta bread that had gotten a bit stale.  I rubbed them with olive oil and garlic and placed them into the oven until they were crisp and brown.  I tossed the salad with some spinach and then took the hot bread out, place the pieces on salad plates, topped it with the salad and brought it to the table.  It was declared a new favorite salad.  The moussaka wasn’t half bad either!  I’ll post the photos.

Try as I might, I can’t seem to get the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on our TV, not to mention any NFL games.  It’s ok however since we won’t be celebrating today due to Cindy’s work and the fact that my turkey hasn’t yet arrived.  We are hoping for a Sunday celebration.  Speaking of Celebrations, “On October 29 Ambassador Beyrle hosted an Enchanted Ball at his residence, Spaso House, to mark the 75th anniversary of Ambassador Bullitt’s legendary 1935 Spaso House Ball. The ball inspired Bulgakov to write one of the most fantastical scenes of his renowned novel, “Master and Margarita.”  We were certainly not invited to this Enchanted Ball.

We hope you all have a marvelous day, while we might not be eating turkey, we are certainly thankful for a host of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that the sun has come out and the sky has some pretty blue patches.  Best wishes, Cindy and Wm

Endless Rain

The rains have come and this morning there was no sign of any of the snow or ice that covered the ground and cars for the past four days.  It is a balmy 35 degrees but it is a driving rain and has grounded me thus far today.  That has given me a good excuse to get back into my Russian lessons and if necessary, I could go out onto the wet streets of Moscow and ask some, “ Where is the pharmacy?” Whether or not I could figure out the answer will be resolved in the next lesson.

There was some excitement at The 54 Club Clubhouse last night.  Cindy called me to the window when she noticed an ambulance, lights flashing, stop at the clubhouse and haul away two members in good standing, or falling, they are both equal in this club.  We hope it is nothing serious and this morning I can report no black crepe surrounding the clubhouse, so perhaps all is well.

Last night’s soup turned out really well, the egg really made the difference. Well that and the three cloves of garlic I had added to the soup.  I cracked an egg in a ladle and then gently lowered it into the boiling broth, tipping it gently to allow the broth to start to cook the egg before plunging it into the soup.  That really sets the egg and allows it to poach as one package instead of having lots of white spreading out all over the place.  The salad was a simple shredded carrot, diced tomato, tarragon and garlic delight, tossed with oil and balsamic and then covered with fresh spinach and tossed again just before serving. I had purchased some fresh ciabatta at the bakery section of one of the supermarkets, (I can also say “Where is the Supermarket”) which went very well with both courses.

I never got around to posting photos from Nice so here are a few that will give you a taste of the South of France.  I need to start carrying the camera to restaurants so I can snap some photos of great meals. I’ll place that on my to do list.

http://gallery.me.com/wbyxbee#100142

Cindy won’t be home until late this evening so I’ll send this now without the benefit of our editing skills.  Best to all,  Cindy and Wm

The Bloom is off the Rose

I think that the honeymoon with Moscow is over.  It has been very, very hard to come back here from Nice.  I so enjoyed wandering around a place filled with smiling faces and sunny skies.  Even though I really don’t speak French, I was able to talk with everyone and was even able to give someone directions. (Cindy says I have an open face, which is why people are always stopping me for directions.  I think I just look smart!) I started reviewing the Russian Alphabet again and relearning some phrases and then just put it away since it sounded so harsh and it seemed so pointless.  We leave in three weeks and will be gone for three weeks, which means I’ll have forgotten everything I learn now, so what’s the point?

Shopping today really sent me to the edge.  I’m doing my wine history/tasting on Saturday and I had to go and get the wines. It took forty-five minutes to get there and one hour and fifty minutes to get back. The traffic was as ugly as my mood, which wasn’t nearly as ugly as the mood of the other drivers as they cut people off, drove on the shoulder and in one case, on the sidewalk. What major city decides to block a lane of traffic to wash the inside of a tunnel at rush hour??

Once I was at the store it took me ten minutes to try and convince a sullen clerk to let me have two empty wine boxes so that I could fill them with my purchases.  She was breaking them up so they would be flat, but the thought of giving me something for nothing challenged her something fierce.  When I finally got though the check out process and had my cart loaded, I was escorted to a quiet corner of the store by two security stooges who demanded to see my passport.  I guess it is illegal to purchase two cases of wine in Moscow.  I handed one of them my diplomatic ID and after some handing it back and forth they decided I was entitled to my wine.  Meanwhile it appears you can purchase as much vodka as you can carry, but wine, well that must be decadent.

In rereading this, it appears I’m quite upset so I think I’ll take a pause and go for a walk.

What the walk didn’t do, the news did; I mean you just have to laugh at some of the things you read.  Isn’t it great that we can get duped by an Afghan who claims to be representing the Taliban at three peace meetings, takes our money, and then disappears?  And how about those funny folks at TSA with their new luggage tags that celebrate their growing power to harass? (See attachment). 

Or how about this headline from today’s Moscow Times: Russia to Sell Stalin-Era Builder of Moscow's Subway System. The guy has to be about one hundred years old, how much do they think they can get for him??

Dinner last night was a baked chicken with veggies and garlic gravy. Lots of onions, carrots and potatoes browned from the chicken fat dripping on them during the baking process. It was just right on a cold Moscow night.  Tonight we are having the chicken and vermicelli soup that I made from the chicken parts that didn’t make it to the oven. I’ll serve it with a nice salad, fresh bread, and at the last minute I’ll poach two eggs in the chicken soup and then serve it piping hot. Must run to the kitchen to make all this happen.   Ciao, Cindy and Wm

TSA Luggage Tags

Snow, Ice, Grey, I don't think we're in Nice any more Toto!

Happy Birthday Olga. Of course if I said that in a crowed room in Moscow, half the woman would stand up and say thank you.  However in Charles Town, I do believe there is only one.

Departing Nice was very difficult.  We had tried to cram as much stuff in on the morning of our departure and by the time we got into our taxi at 11 am we were exhausted.  We had run/walked along the coast and then stopped for a quick but delicious coffee. We got back to the hotel and started to pack and clean up before our 10 am coffee meeting with Roberto and Maria.  We failed to realize how long it would take us to pack, since we purchased far too many things in France and getting them all safe and sound into our bags was a logistical nightmare.  We did it; everything arrived in good shape and each of our checked bags weighed forty-four pounds.  However we now have Chablis, Ricard, Vecchia, Cassis, herbs, mustards, cookies, and sausages - enough for a two-day feast of France.

We had a fantastic time with Robert and Mary and it was so nice of them to come all the way down from Milan for just a quick visit. We did manage to squeeze in three meals, two snacks and more than a few bottles of wine.  On Saturday we went to a restaurant they know called Olivier, which as the name suggests, features lots of olives and olive oils in their dishes.  In fact every dish comes with special olive oil that is supposed to compliment the food.  We had lots of dishes and lots of olive oil, all of which was delicious.  There were dishes made with avocados, apples, fresh tomatoes, eggplant, rabbit, sausages, pastas, lentils, and the list goes on and on.  Very earthy, very Mediterranean. As we were walking home from this restaurant the skies opened up and the rain came with a vengeance.  Luckily, you are never more than five steps from bar or café so we were able to nip into a bar/restaurant for a little nightcap and we watched in amazement as families and friends arrived at 10:45 to have dinner! What a city!

Our flights home were on time and comfortable. We were on Air France for both flights and since we had a bit more time to make connections, we were actually able to walk to the gate in Paris instead of running.  The sun was shining brightly as we sat in the Air France Business Lounge overlooking the Med sipping our glasses of Champagne, having just made it in time for them to count as “elevenies.” The shuttle flight to Paris was smooth and packed, but AF still managed to distribute wines, juices, coffee and smiles during the seventy-minute flight.  We walked to the AF club in terminal 2E and had time for Champagne before getting onto the plane to Moscow. This was another packed plane and we had been assigned seats 7 D/E.  When we got on the plane I noticed that the curtain that usually separates Business Class from Coach was all the way back at row 12.  I thought perhaps they would move it closer to the front but that is where it stayed. I looked at our boarding passes and noticed the word Premium where it normally says Coach.  I don’t know how this happened, I suspect it was the winning smile that Cindy gave the gentleman who checked us in in Nice, but there we were. 

It appears that AF has a three-class cabin on their long intra Europe-flights, which is really weird.  All of the seats on the Airbus 320 have exactly the same amount of space, 32 inches of pitch, the distance between seats.  So what AF does is block the middle seat for Business Class travelers, which last night was rows 1-6. Starting in Row 7 and going back to row 12 was Premium, which is still three/three seating, but we get the same food, wine and service as Business Class.  We were thrilled as they came by and handed us menus and cold cloth towels, and then served us on china with real glassware and silverware.  They came by with ice cold Champagne, white wine and two choices of red, as well as a tasty dinner with fresh rolls. It was a lovely service and certainly did much to make the four-hour flight more enjoyable. I’ve posted the menu for those that care.

AF Menu

We landed on time at 9:35 pm and the first thing we noticed was SNOW.  Oh how I hate snow.  It took a very long time to get through customs and immigration and by the time we found Cindy’s driver it was 10:15. We had to walk through the snow and slush to get to the bus. I was wearing my dancing shoe loafers with leather soles so that I could get though security quickly, but as it turns out, you don’t need to take your shoes off so I should have had on my sturdy walking shoes with rubber soles for the walk to the bus.  The snow looked very pretty on the pine trees but it was cold and the snow does not improve the quality of the Russian drivers. Despite all that we still made it home by 11 pm and managed to unpack, have a quick nightcap and head to bed.  Cindy had a very early meeting this morning so she only got about five hours sleep.  However, she said that those who had taken the early morning flights from Nice were held up in traffic for hours yesterday afternoon so I guess it all worked out ok.

Today, it being a Monday, was laundry day so while the first load dried and the second washed, I went out to clean Cindy’s car. It appears that there was rain before the snow since the car was caked in a sheet of ice.  I must say, standing there in the cold grey with wet cotton gloves, hammering away at ice and covered with the snow from the roof all I could think about was the Flower Market in Nice, with the colors, fragrances and the delicate beauty of the flower petals.  It is never wise to trade brilliant blue skies, soft thyme-scented breezes and a golden sun for a cold grey sky and freezing winds that only brought the scent of boiling cabbage.

I did a little shopping for dinner tonight. Tomorrow I brave the traffic and go shopping for the week at Auchan. I also need to get a case and a half of Chardonnays from around the world for my wine class on Saturday afternoon.  We have about twenty people signed up and it should be great fun. 

On a lighter note, here are some videos regarding TSA and the ‘enhanced’ security for the holidays. Glad we are staying in Moscow!    Best wishes, Cindy and Wm.

http://www.elliott.org/blog/these-tsa-videos-will-make-you-laugh-until-you-cry/

Nice is too nice

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Roberto and Maria, too much fun!  No Comment needed! wm

Nice Nights

It appears that my experience with the new Beaujolais yesterday morning was only the beginning. As we walked around the old part of the city last night, there were four or five locations that were set up to give everyone a taste of the wine along with some canapés.  One wine merchant had hired a small trio that played music like “Roll out the Barrel” while giving away glasses of wine. I went past this shop this morning and there were twenty-five empty cases of the new Beaujolais, so I guess their free wine was a good marketing technique.  We were also plied with glasses of wine near the Flower Market where one restaurant had a kiosk giving away wine, salamis, patés and breads.  They were very cute with special straw hats, straw on the sidewalk and lots and lots of friendly banter.  Nice way to walk around the city.

One of Cindy’s colleagues, Patricia, joined us for dinner last night. She is a French Canadian and therefore speaks fluent French, which is a plus here in Nice.  We started at one of our favorite bars that serves a very cold and very good cheap Champagne.  Cindy and I ordered our two coupes and she ordered a red wine.  The name of the bar is Crazy Bar Socca, Socca being a local favorite snack food in Nice.  Since we were back for a second night, the bartender presented us with a plate of snacks: paté en croûte, salami en crouton, cheese and bread and a little anchovy.  We asked what Socca was made from and Patricia asked the bartender if we could sample some.  He left the bar and walked across the alleyway to the Socca stand and came back with a big plate of hot Socca. (These French are so nasty!!) It is made with chickpea flour, water, and olive oil, and then baked in a big pizza pan until bubbly and crusty.  It is a finger food that is without doubt one of the best things I’ve ever had, especially with Champagne. http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2008/06/the-best-socca/

Socca from the wood oven

We ended up eating at a restaurant that specialized in BBQ, which is very different from what we call BBQ.  Cindy had duck breast, I had lamb chops and Patricia had a huge four-cheese pizza.  Everything was really well prepared and the wine was very cheap and well chilled.

Cindy left early again for her conference and I started a three-hour walk that took me all the way around the coast of Nice and then into the old city for a coffee before heading back to walk along the water.  Today is a magnificent day and I tried to take complete advantage.  I walked to the top of the mountain park and took in the spectacular 360 views of the Cote d’Azur. This is a very livable place but I would not want to be here in the summer when I’m sure it is a complete zoo.

Cindy was able to get away for almost an hour at 13:30 so we made arrangements to meet for lunch at an outdoor café. It was a very French and a very romantic lunch, two people sneaking away for a quick tryst.

Our dear friends Bob and Mary will be arriving tonight, having driven from Milan, and we’ll meet them for a very late dinner and pack as much fun into 40 hours as possible.   Ciao for now, Cindy and Wm.

le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivée

Cindy was up and out to the conference pretty early today so I was up and out right behind her, but heading in the opposite direction.  It was going to rain today, so I wanted to get in some walking before it started.  I headed for the Quai des Etats-Unis, which wraps around the Mediterranean. It was an overcast day but the clouds were still high and the visibility was pretty good and I could see all the way to Cannes.  There is a monument to the French who died in the wars carved into the side of a mountain, all in white marble and very heroic and symbolic.  There were still lots of flower displays from the Armistice Day celebrations, which added a touch of color to an otherwise white on white monument. 

It began to rain rather hard just as I was approaching the Marche des Fleurs (Flower Market), which is more veggies, olive oil, olives and herbs than it is flowers, but nonetheless a marvelous market.  I could smell what was coming up before I got there, especially the mushrooms, which were fresh and dried and smelling like a fungi risotto.  Since there were lots of umbrellas to protect the stalls, I was able to stay rather dry, but the rain was heavy for about fifteen minutes and it was impossible not to get wet.  I started to head into the old town through all the winding narrow streets and was looking for a place to have a coffee before heading back to the hotel for breakfast.  The streets were rather empty at that hour, especially with the rain, so it wasn’t hard to make good time though the alleys and passages.  I stopped to get Cindy the IHT at a little store we had found the day before, which is right across the alley from a huge butcher shop that was filled with people lined up to get their meat for the day.  Just beyond that was a little square surrounding a lovely fish fountain, which appropriately held the fish market with the fishmongers calling out their fresh catch. It was a lovely place and it was worth getting a bit wetter just to linger over the various fish displayed on ice - some cut, some whole, some still moving. 

I came to a narrowing of the street and noticed five butchers sitting at two small tables under an awning, all smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. Their white aprons were streaked with blood, but their white jackets and white hats were impeccably clean. I decided that I’d pop in there for a coffee since I always like the atmosphere of a working man’s bar.  Inside this small four-table bar were two baker’s assistants, their hair and aprons dusted with flour, huddled over small glasses of red wine. At the bar with me were three delivery guys who were done for the day and were drinking coffee in big mugs before heading back to their trucks.  As I ordered my coffee, the door opened and in walked an older man, dressed to perfection, hugging three-liter bottles of red wine, no corks or other stoppers, just three bottles of open wine.  He announced to the assembled clients, but mostly to the owner, a big burly man, le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivée, as he placed the bottles on the bar, leaned over to kiss the owner and scurried out with greetings and goodbyes to all

The owner yelled something to his wife in the little kitchen and proceeded to produce small wine glasses, filling them with the new Beaujolais and then starting to distribute them, first to the butchers sitting outside and then to all of us in the bar.  By now his wife had come out with a big platter of still warm olive bread spread with some type of soft paté that she began to pass around.  The bar was suddenly a very different place, solitary conversations gave way to group celebrations as we all toasted the new wine and ate our little canapés.  Now that is the way to start your day! . http://www.beaujolais.com/beaujolais-nouveau/

I returned to the hotel and read the paper while I had a little breakfast and then came up to the room to shave and shower and get ready for my long walking day. By now the rains had come and gone and for the next three hours I just walked and walked and walked. One of the folks who is here from Cindy’s school had asked me to try and find a restaurant called Villa d’Este, which she wanted to go to this evening.  I marched up and down the old town looking in every alley, passage, nook and cranny but came up blank.  I went into a café and had a coffee and asked the owner if he knew the restaurant. He didn’t but he asked the other three men standing at the bar if they knew it.  One pulled out his iPhone and in seconds had the information as to where it was. I was given the directions, but alas, I couldn’t find it so I must have heard incorrectly, but I was so pleased that they all cared enough to try to help me out.

This is a lovely city and there is so much to see; there are great architecturally interesting museums, monuments, grand old buildings like the Opera and Theater and modern buildings like the library.  It was very easy to lose track of time but I was able to sneak peeks at clocks on some of the hundred or so churches that seem to be on every corner, so when I discovered it was 1:15 I started to head to a restaurant I had noticed earlier on the walk.

Today’s special was oven-roasted rabbit, Lapin au Four.  I was shown to a small table on the covered patio and I ordered a pastis, the rabbit and a glass of red wine. This is not only a restaurant, but also a bakery and patisserie and the little basket of bread rolls that they brought me were some of the best I’ve ever had.  Crispy crust, moist middle and the smell was divine.  Soon came the rabbit, piping hot and covered with fresh sprigs of rosemary and parsley. There were three pieces covered with a light mustard and cream sauce that was heavenly.  The meat was moist and delicate and the sauce as light as a feather.  There was also a large mushroom cap filled with a type of rabbit sausage – delicious - and also a mound of veg-all but that didn’t do anything to enhance the meal.  It was just a great lunch and gave me the energy to get up and start walking again for the next hour or so.

Yesterday we had a rather long and confused wait at the place we chose for lunch and we talked about how if this had been someone’s first experience in France, they would be justifiably upset and most likely not keen on the French.  Today, however, was a quintessentially positive French day.

A bientôt,  Cindy and Wm

Nice is nice

We finally made it to Nice, arriving at about 8 pm and getting to the hotel at about 8:45.  The flight went well and the service on Air France was lovely for the short flight. They offered us wine and soft drinks and water and were very gracious despite a completely filled Airbus 320 configured in all economy, which meant about 175 passengers. We were very hungry by the time we arrived at the hotel but managed to unpack and get organized before racing out to investigate the closest restaurants.  We had passed Garibaldi Place during the taxi ride and noticed that there were lots of restaurants surrounding the square.  We chose an oyster joint and sat down in the middle of a lovely old space with a zinc bar.  We immediately ordered a half liter of sauvignon blanc and a bottle of water and finished those off almost before ordering. We shared a dozen of the biggest freshest oysters you can imagine, a plate of great fries and a seafood salad that was made with calamari, octopus, mussels and some dressing that was out of this world. Another half liter of wine and some dark bread and butter made it a spectacular meal and we were sure we were indeed in France.

This morning we woke up late and headed out to explore the town before breakfast. Cindy had to be at the convention center by 10 am so we had a few short hours to get to know Nice.  It is a spectacular day today, the only one they expect for the next five days, so we took advantage of it by walking along the water and soaking in all the beautiful smell of the south of France.  The boat harbor has pleasure boats the size of small Coast Guard cutters, all of which are registered in tax havens like George Town, Cayman Islands, Monaco, Malta and Delaware!  Here are some photos of the third largest boat in the harbor, imagine the others! http://www.google.fr/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=lady+christina+yacht&oe=UTF-8&redir_esc=&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=APvjTJ6CHMiC4Qb28JCGBQ&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=2&ved=0CDMQsAQwAQ

The hotel I found is a basic one, but has all the things you need for a nice stay and they are all very pleasant.  This is the type of hotel where buses disgorge passengers for one-night stays on one-week tours that take them to seven cities.  There is no place to store cloths since no one ever stays more than a day, but it is ever so conveniently located between the old city and the convention center.  I was not expecting much when it came to breakfast but I was pleasantly surprised by what they offered.  Great French bread, fresh croissants, jams and good butter, ham and cheese, yogurts and cereals and fresh juice that you made yourself from oranges and lemons. The coffee came from those machines that allow you to push buttons for espresso or café de lait, but this was the weak link and we stuck with water, having had a love café noissette at a nearby café before coming back from our walk.

While Cindy worked, I walked and got the lay of the land. It is a great place and the old town is a warren of narrow streets, each of which seems to house a treasure, a grand church here, a fish market there, herbs and flowers at the end of what appears to be a tunnel but is just a narrow passage between two buildings.  It is filled with the smells of spices and grilled meats, flowers and soaps, candles and soups, an olfactory overload.

For the next four days Cindy is busy from dawn to dusk, with a few dinners or receptions in between so I’ll be on my own and plan to really do this city up right.  I’ll bring a camera with me and try to record the experiences.  Until later,  Cindy and Wm

Air France Lounge

Sitting in Charles De Gaulle Airport having missed our connection to Nice. We were late arriving and we ran about eight miles to get to the gate but we were one minute late and they had closed the flight!  We are booked to leave in two hours so here we sit in the Air France lounge, yep, talked my way in once again.  I’m sipping a Ricard and Cindy is enjoying lovely Burgundy white, so the world is a good place.

Lots of Light, Lots of White

Ricard and snack, I'm happy

Last night I made a clean-out-the-fridge dinner, which turned out great.  I sautéed a diced zucchini with lots of garlic until everything was nicely browned.  I added some parsley, mint and oregano and cooked it a bit more adding a ladle of the pasta water.  When the spiral pasta from Zagreb was cooked I tossed everything with some Parmesan and served it with the last of the French bread that was toasted in the oven.  Not half bad.

This morning we did last minute packing and then walked over to the train to go to the airport.  It was a very quiet day and we scored an exit row seat with an empty middle; travel doesn’t get much better in coach.

Time to focus on serious drinking before the flight.  Will write more tomorrow from Nice, I hope.  In the meantime we can’t help but notice that in Paris at 4:30 pm the skies are blue and bright – it’s pitch dark by now in Moscow.  Bon voyage to us – missing that connection was not fun but all is well!  Cindy and Wm

A Sunny Day, In Moscow Town

 Happy Birthday Dr. Brent, Miss Emily and belated by a day to Maria.

We didn’t get much sleep last night and we can’t figure out why. Perhaps it was in sympathy with Katy and Craig who had a 4:30 am pick-up for their flights back to Costa Rica, but whatever the reason, we are both very tired today.  At least I don’t have to pretend to be wide eyed and bushy tailed at work.

Dinner last night was fun and it was great to meet Craig. He has had a whirlwind trip with non-stop travel and work, but he seems to like it and it looks like they will be coming to Moscow next year. They will be most welcome additions to the expat community here. The Bavarian Beer joint was in top form with a new fall/winter menu with excellent soups and hearty wurst and meat dishes to go with their spectacular beers.  Cindy had the grilled veggie platter that she declared to be one of the best she has ever had, and she’s had lot of grilled veggies. It is nice that there is consistency in some of the restaurants here.

I woke up thinking about Dr. Brent’s birthday today.  There was a time in the late 80’s and early 90’s when our paths would cross on a regular basis on his birthday, usually somewhere in Asia where we were attending conferences.  We have had many a lovely celebration with great exotic food and drink from Baguio to Bangkok and Tokyo to Taipei.  I remember one memorable meal we had once while we were waiting for a plane in Baguio in the Philippines.  We had a very early flight at 0630 and we were at the airport - well what passed for an airport at the time - at about 0515. Nothing was open at the airport; in fact the airport wasn’t even open, but outside on the sidewalk was a little street vendor heating up his wok and starting to make garlic fried rice with egg.  We wandered over and got two plates of the fragrant, hot and delicious fried rice and washed it down with two almost cold Heinekens. My but that was a breakfast of champions and by the time we were done eating, things started to come to life at the airport and we were soon on our way.  The memory was so strong and pleasant that I made a plate of the fried rice for my breakfast today.  I skipped the beer but did toast Dr. Brent with some rather cold water.

After getting laundry cooking, I decided to take advantage of the marvelous weather and go for a walk. The theme today was, “ Tracking the Elusive 54 Bus.”  I started at the 54 Club Clubhouse and just started walking in the direction the bus was going. There are a lot of them so when I lost sight of one, another would pass me and I was on my way. The bus goes right past my lovely 1905 Park, but I had never noticed it since I stick to the middle of the park and not along the street side. The park looked lovely today in bright sun with all the leaves packed into bright blue plastic bags that looked like so many wayward oversized beach balls.  The trees are bare but beautifully shaped and the ground glistened from yesterday’s rain. 

The bus took me out of the park and headed towards a series of manmade ponds and paths that Cindy and I had walked before.  There it seems to turn around and head back to our apartment, but I couldn’t be sure and it will take another walk to figure out all the details. I have a feeling that it crosses the Moscow River before turning back to our neighborhood.  We hope to ride it some day, just for the fun of it. I must say that no other bus stops that I saw seem to host a clubhouse.

I doubled back and headed for the embassy, staying on back streets to see some of the non-touristic sites.  On most of them what I found were cars parked on the sidewalks so that it was impossible to walk without getting your shoes filled with mud or having to walk in the narrow streets where cars do not yield to pedestrians.  Not one car had a ticket! Must be the norm here and the hell with those of us who walk. As I’ve said before, the rule in Moscow is: If it is convenient, do it!

I finally reached the Children’s Park, which is across the street from the embassy.  The joint was jumping since the weather was so spectacular and the park was filled with little kids and their nannies, parents, and grandparents. The park workers were doing a wonderful job of boxing the delicate rhododendrons to protect them from the heavy snows, which can snap the branches. They made A-frames around them and then covered those with burlap.  Snow seemed a long way off today, with temperatures in the high fifties. Everyone is worried that this has been the warmest November on record so obviously we’ll pay dearly for this come January.

Crossing the street to the embassy I noticed that the church they call The Church of a Thousand Ears has begun to take down the scaffolding that was up for the renovations.  This church is right across the street from the embassy and the story is that the renovations included adding many more listening devices.  In this day and age it is good to know that we still participate in Spy vs. Spy just as we did in Mad Magazine days. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fifItoMPTw

Church of a Thousand Ears

I noticed that the ambassador’s car was at the front door, along with about six other convoy vehicles.  All of these were American made, the ambassador’s is a specially modified Cadillac with bullet proof everything, and the others were all SUV types from GM.  However, looking in the parking lot of the housing area, I didn’t see one American made vehicle, all Asian or European.  There ought to be a law!

I’ll leave you with a picture of today’s sunset from my office window.  Notice how I captured the flying saucer in the middle left of the photo.  Best to all, Cindy and Wm

Sunset from the Office

Mozart and Mayhem

 We just returned from an afternoon concert, which enthralled me for the first half and disgusted me after that.  I’ll not even talk about how dissonant and contrived the piece was, I’ll simply say it was a piece of quasi-intellectual hubris and let it go at that. 

Click this before starting the next paragraph:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc0J-mGoKxI

The concert was in an older hall, small but intimate with a magnificent chandelier. The first two pieces were Mozart, featuring flute and harp. The chamber orchestra was from the Moscow Music Conservatory and they are the most magnificent group of young people I’ve ever heard. So intense, polished, accomplished and each one looked like they were having the time of their lives.  What you are listening to now, the Andante in C Major, was the first piece and as you can hear, not easy, but our soloist did a bang up job.

The second piece was Mozart Flute Concerto in C, click here to listen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M20tPT4PVoA

The soloists for this piece must have been teachers at the conservatory. They were really polished performers and the flautist and harp player have obviously played together many times. At the end of the performance they were literally covered with bouquets of flowers from their adoring students. It was really fun and it should have ended right there.

Last night’s Turkish Dinner was a grand event.  Everyone brought something for the meal. I made Glafko’s famous Cypriot Eggplant (I didn’t tell anyone it was from the Greek side of Cyprus) and stuffed green peppers.  I baked the pepper shells until they started to get soft and then stuffed them with the leftover pasta from the night before. I carefully ensured that the crumb topping stayed on top. Once stuffed I baked the peppers again to get the pasta hot and the crust crisp.  I arranged everything on a nice wooden platter and up we went with our appetizers and a loaf of good bread and a bottle of wine.  Others brought great soup, salads and the hostess made a Turkish stew with chickpeas and beef flavored with lots and lots of Turkish spices, really wonderful.  Most everyone avoided talking about school and focused on the important things like travel, food, wine and more travel.  Lots of fun.

We are about to head out for dinner at the Bavarian Beer hall with Katy and her husband Craig. We are looking forward to meeting him and finding out what they have decided about moving to Moscow.  They take off for Costa Rica, via Madrid, tomorrow. I don’t envy them that long trip but I know they’ll be happy to get home to the warm.

From CC:  OK, that piece on the second half of the program was pretty modern (1975) and had some odd sounds and combinations, but the musicians did a fine job.  The crowd had thinned from the first half, but those who were left went wild with applause at the end so apparently others appreciated it more than we did.  Afterwards we noticed that the neighboring music store was still open – I’ve been dying to go there to buy a proper music stand, so in we went.  Turns out that even though 2 people were working, only one could possibly have anything to do with selling a stand and we had to wait for her since she was busy with another customer.  After 15 minutes I was ready to leave and she miraculously freed herself in the nick of time and sold me the stand.  Describing the search for the two halves of the stand (the display model was not for sale) and then packaging them and so forth could take another 3 paragraphs but I’ll spare you.  She finally had it ready and asked me whether I had a car (one Russian word I know) and I promptly said yes because I could only begin to imagine what she’d start to do with wrapping up the darn thing and creating carrying handles or whatever if I said I’d be walking nearly 2 miles with it.  Wm my favorite Sherpa schlepped it home for me.

Happy Sunday, Cindy and Wm