Moscow Is Back To Work

Moscow is back to work today and just in the nick of time.  The grocery stores haven’t been replenished in a full week.  Russia, and especially Moscow, shut down for the first ten days of January. Today was the first day of work for adults and school for kids since the last week of December and the traffic confirms that all is back to normal. This afternoon at two, the side streets around the apartment were cluttered with fifty thousand dollar SUVs all idling while waiting for kids to get out of school. There must have been twenty of them, all angled and double parked, blocking access to three streets, oblivious to the needs of other motorists who actually thought that they were streets, not parking lots.  In one precious moment of gottcha, there were three tow trucks and five police supervising the removal of cars that were illegally parked outside the grocery store.  They were harvesting them like apples; in just the time it took me to shop I noticed that they had removed five cars.  I’m imagining that it will cost the owners plenty to retrieve them.

We had two more inches of snow last night but by noon either the workers or the weather, it being a comfy 33 degrees, had dispatched most of it.  There is quite a bit of brown slush but if the weather holds, we might get rid of that in the next several days. There is a strong wind that helped and then hindered my efforts to remove all the snow from the car. The wind seems to blow in two directions at the same time, which confounds me to no end.

I got back into cooking since coming back to Moscow.  On Sunday I made a simple roasted chicken with trimmings, while at the same time making a stock for the soup we had last night.  I made a rather interesting chopped cabbage salad with a fun dressing made up from bits of stuff we still had in the fridge or pantry.  The base was equal portions of whole grain mustard, mayo and olive oil, to which I added a bit of prepared ranch dressing and sesame oil. Mixed that all together and then added fresh black pepper, a handful of raisins, a touch of honey and a sprinkle of tarragon.  I mixed it with the cabbage and let it sit for an hour, mixing it up every ten minutes or so.  It was quite tasty with lots of flavors and textures.  The soup was delicious and filled with chicken, carrots, onions, garlic, herbs and pasta. Nothing like soup and salad to get the New Year off to a good start.

Speaking of good starts, our dear friend Brent started the New Year where he ended the old one, in a hospital.  He, like most men - myself included - don’t like to be disturbed when sick so we keep a low profile. The other day however he was on Skype and we quickly called him and I’m delighted to say that he looks great and sounds chipper.  I know he is still in a lot of pain that will most likely last for weeks, but his spirits seem strong.

We are looking forward to tomorrow when we can celebrate the fact that we’ll have seven and a half hours of daylight, tepid light for sure, but much better than the six hours fifty when we left. We like to celebrate the little things in life!  Speaking of celebrations, here is why Aeroflot doesn’t serve alcohol on their flights. Delta didn’t even let them on the plane!!

Happy days, Cindy and Wm

PS The pictures of the two cassoulets were before shots. They needed to be covered in a slow oven for three hours then taken out and topped with garlic laden breadcrumbs and olive oil and then placed in a hot oven uncovered until the crust is golden brown and crunchy.