Today is by far the most beautiful of the year. It is a gloriously sunny day, in the 50’s and very clear. I decided to take a walk this morning since I had one task that I needed to accomplish. I had purchased two sets of tickets online for the Bolshoi, one on the 14th of May for the Opera Nabucco by Verdi and the other on the 2nd of June for the ballet Swan Lake. These tickets are to kick off the gala two-month celebration of Cindy finally reaching the age of enlightenment on June 3rd. I wanted to bring my two vouchers down to the ticket office and exchange them for the real deal, so I headed to Red Square, turned left before the gates and was at the Bolshoi four minutes later. I presented my vouchers and she asked me for the credit card I had used to pay for them. Well, this started a wonderful discussion about credit thief, the lack of mail coming to Russia from the USA and the fact that that particular card had been cancelled since purchasing the tickets. Fortunately for me, she was a very friendly person and we muddled though lots of the above before I realized I had a trump card. I whipped out my Kartichka - that is the diplomatic card written in Russian explaining that I’m a dumb American, but please treat him with respect. She took a look at the card, then looked at my name on the voucher and bingo, two sets of tickets were printed and we smiled as we exchanged our Do Svidanyas and I was off.
I had left the apartment at 10:30 since I knew the ticket office didn’t open until 11 and now it was 11:20 and I didn’t want to go back the same way so I decided I would walk around the Kremlin Gate. I walked through Red Square and just followed the enclosed gate for about fifty minutes; it really is a lovely walk and the weather was just delightful. I then walked another hour until I reached the Old Arbat street, which now is a pedestrian way filled with western food chains, Hard Rock Café, tons of street musicians, panhandlers and tourist souvenir shops and bars. It used to be the street of diplomats and wealthy merchants, but that was hundreds of years ago. Today there was a lot of construction going on as the cafés and bars were installing their outdoor seating areas. I’m assuming on a Friday or Saturday night that place is jumping.
I ended up walking by our embassy where I popped in for a few items and then headed home having walked for about four hours. I know I’ll suffer tomorrow, but I feel very righteous. You can start to feel that spring will burst on the scene in a few days. Unlike Charles Town where our spring is slow and long, here everything will pop overnight, especially if we have some much needed rain.
And now for something completely different. Who says that the Russian President is too stiff? Here is a wonderful clip and I just know that Elaine from Seinfeld and Medvedev could really boogie all night. Here is an amusing little article; unfortunately it is 100% accurate. Just two weeks ago I got on a packed Aeroexpress and grabbed one of the last seats and the seat back went straight back. I ended up seating on it like a bench for the whole 45 minutes.
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| Chicken and Vegetables |
You are all going to think that all I cook is chicken or chicken parts and this week you would be correct. However, when you see fresh chicken at reasonable prices, you just have to buy it. I found some very fresh and rather modestly priced deboned chicken thighs on sale at the market so I grabbed them. I roasted them with salt, pepper, herbs de Provence and paprika. Next to them on the roasting pan I placed sliced potatoes. In a wok I flash fried broccoli, garlic, onions and red peppers. I kept basting the potatoes with the rendered chicken fat as they cooked and you can see the lovely brown crust that developed. We started with some chicken liver pate that I had made with the left overcooked livers. Without electronic kitchen devices, I was forced to do things the old fashioned way, using two knives in opposition to one another, to chop up the liver and then the hard cooked eggs. I served the pâté on a bed of spinach with a side of cornichons.
Let us talk about hard cooked eggs for a moment since many of you will be cooking dozens of them for Easter. I have, over the course of fifty years, tried every method of cooking eggs you can think of. I’ve pierced them, plunged them in ice water, added vinegar to the boiling water, made them dance in the pan to crack them after they have cooked and let them sit in cold water and yet, I’ve not found a foolproof way to get easy peelers all the time. Someone once said that the fresher the egg the harder it is to peel, but I don’t know if that is true. I’m open to any and all suggestions!
Ciao for now, Cindy and Wm
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