Normal is Subjective

It is a bright, clear and cold day and Moscow seems to have recovered from its shock at the events at the airport.  Everything is running normally and I suppose denial keeps things together here.  Of course there are always those who will seek profit from tragedy and the gypsy taxi drivers were the first to try and cash in on people’s panic.

I actually went for a long walk and didn’t fall, so this is a good day.  My knees and arms were a bit achy from the fall yesterday but I seem to have worked all of that out during the walk and I very much enjoyed the sunshine.

With all that has been going on I forgot to mention that we went out to dinner on Monday night and tried the other Georgian restaurant that is close to our grocery store.  Just walking in we knew it was going to be a much better culinary experience.  The first thing that you see is a large tank with trout and carp swimming around unfazed by the fact that they might be dinner within the hour.  There were two smiling - I’ll repeat that since it is worth repeating - SMILING hostesses. One took our coats and winter gear and the other showed us to a table in the spacious and smoke free restaurant.  Like the other Georgian restaurant, this one has lots of exposed wood, but it is really done nicely with tables that are set with real tablecloths and real napkins. There were all manner of deer heads and horns adorning the walls and best of all was a great big open grill right in the center of the dining room so that we could watch what was being grilled.

The menu confirmed the fact that this was a bit more upscale.  Everything was perhaps ten to fifteen percent more expensive, but as we would find out, it was well worth the extra rubles. The only downside was that the wine was twice as expensive for half the wine, but it was good wine and served very cold, so once again, we really didn’t care.  To be fair in our comparison, we ordered mostly what we always order at the other restaurant. Cold grilled eggplant rolled around a knob of crushed walnuts and spices, a hot dish of local cheeses between layers of pasta, and the grilled quail.  Everything was wonderful, but the quail was simply superb. It was cooked to perfection and was meaty and spiced just right.  We also had a lavash, which is a Georgian loaf of bread that is tapered at both ends grilled just before serving.  We shall surely return for the food and also for the fact that they have the cleanest, brightest and most delicately scented bathrooms in all of Moscow. They even have earth music: frogs chirping and water falling.

Dinner with the new director and his wife was lovely last night. They got here about forty minutes late due to the hectic schedule and the traffic, but I had anticipated that and the meal didn’t suffer.  After cocktails we started with smoked salmon on hot crispy broccoli blinis with sour cream and dill.  It was a big hit and it is so easy to make.  I had made a very large vegetable lasagna the day before and just before heating it up I added slices of mozzarella that I sprinkled with herbs du Provence and let it all get bubbly hot and brown on top.  I had decided to make this more of a Provençal dish as opposed to Italian so I alternated layers of pasta with layers of sliced roasted eggplant.  I mixed cottage cheese, ricotta, Parmesan and pecorino with three eggs, spices, two cloves of minced garlic and a half pound of chopped raw spinach.  I spread this on the various layers of pasta and eggplant, which had already been slathered with my rich tomato, garlic, carrot, red pepper and mushroom sauce. I baked it hot, 400°, for about forty minutes and it rose up like a soufflé.  I let it cool completely - it of course fell - and then covered it and placed it in the fridge. 

After it was reheated for dinner, I served it with a side of the thick sauce and some extra Parmesan and crusty fresh bread.  I was all swelligent. The new director is a big fan of technology and will be a wonderful addition to the school and a strong ally as Cindy continues to move the school further along the path of innovative technology.

I would like to figure out how anyone who has lived in Moscow for one winter could design a structure with a flat roof.  My walk today had lots and lots of little detours as workmen were on top of large building shoveling the flat roofs covered with snow. There were times when it was like a blizzard with all the snow coming down from the roof.  If the icicles don’t get you than the big chucks of snow will. With the weather clear and crisp, there is a lot of snow removal going on all over the neighborhood. Large dump trucks filled with snow were processing across the main street like so many elephants in a circus parade. Someday I’ll have to follow one of these trucks and see where they dump all the snow. I’m guessing the river. 

Best wishes to all, Cindy and Wm.

Bombs, Bullets and Bruises

It is an inescapable fact that we live in dangerous times. The bombing here in Moscow yesterday, less than a year after the Metro bombing, goes right to the heart of the issue of security. If it can happen in Moscow, where there are more police, secret militias and security agents than anywhere in the world outside of Israel, it can happen in any country.  Any free society that allows people to move about without constant checks is going to have the potential for serious acts of terrorism.  The real issue is what will nations do about it.  I can assure you that Russia will not allow the terrorists to win. They will not close the airports, they will not limit flights, and they will not impede the free movement of people on trains, buses or the Metro because of this act.

I would suspect that there will be more delays as a direct result of more security in the USA than there will be here in Russia.  I’ll let you know next Monday when I attempt to fly to Stockholm to connect to Paris to connect to Washington.  I’m going to walk over to the Metro later today to see what the security is like there, which will give me some hint as to what it is going to be like at the airports.

It is no secret that the bombing was timed to coincide with the arrival of international passengers from Italy, England and Germany.  As I mentioned before, one of the aims of the terrorist is to try and prevent events like the Winter Olympics and the World Cup from being successful. They hope to engender fear and a sense of foreboding on the part of international visitors to Russia, thinking that the Russians will negotiate with them to protect their economic interest and their sense of Russian pride.  I personally do not think that this will be a successful strategy, but I think we can look for more and more of these incidents to occur the closer we get to these major international events.

Since March, when the bomb went off in the Metro, there have been waves of anti-Muslim attacks here in Moscow.  Roving gangs of skinheads and other disenfranchised youth have violently attacked anyone who looks different.  Very few prosecutions have taken place, which of course gives a green light for expanded violence. 

Speaking of violence, what am I missing?  When six people are killed in Tucson and many others injured, the NRA uses that as a reason to argue that more people should be armed!  There were three bystanders at that event that we know were armed.  Only one had time to draw his weapon and then he almost fired at one of the two men who were trying to get the gun away from the nut job. Even he admits that it would have been horrible to have shot the wrong person.  These things happen too fast for any citizen gunslinger to respond. If highly trained law enforcement officers can’t prevent these events, yahoos with pistols that they have only fired at static targets don’t have a prayer.

Thirteen law enforcement officers have been shot since Thursday and yet in three states they want to make it legal for professors to carry guns in the classroom.  Having been a professor for thirty-five years, I can assure you that these are NOT the people you want carrying a gun!  The USA is just upside down on this issue and it is another example of political/social polarization, which will not allow common sense to prevail.

I don’t know what the big fuss is over the fact that China has been able to develop a stealth jet fighter having salvaged parts from a downed US stealth fighter.  This seems like a good situation if we play our cards right.  We’ll fill in the gaps for them if they promise to sell us the finished product. You know it will cost half of what it would cost to build in the USA.

Later today:  I would like to report that there seems to be no evidence of any tightening of security around embassies, train stations, Metros, banks or other public places.  I walked all around for ninety minutes and everything and everyone seemed quite normal.  The most dangerous things that I saw on my walk were icicles hanging from the top of tall buildings getting ready to fall. They cordon off about three feet from the edge of the building in hopes that gravity will take the six-foot ice spears directly down.  Last week a six year old boy was killed by an icicle falling onto his head.

According to the airport web pages, all flights are running on schedule. They do recommend arriving at the airport a bit earlier for departing flights, which suggests to me that there is some increased security.  Let’s hope things settle down before Monday. One of the best ways to keep informed here in Moscow is to watch Russian Television, RT, in English. You can also take a look at it online. Quite good and well balanced, from what I can see with lots of information on the bombing. http://rt.com/on-air/

With all my pious preaching about people walking while distracted on the slippery sidewalks of Moscow, you would think I would be the last person to fall, but fall I did.  I was just walking down a gentle hill and the next thing I knew I had fallen on my hands and knees and was sliding down the sidewalk like a big blue walrus sliding down a beach heading to the ocean.  No real damage, just sore knees, but I did feel stupid for a little while.

Again, thanks for all the concern, Cindy and Wm.

Clams and Blue Light Specials

Cindy promised she was going to take the late bus this morning and I thought, yippee, we could sleep until 6:30 or so.  It was not to be.  She decided she needed to wash her hair so she was up at 5:50 and I proceeded to fall right back to sleep until 6:15.  I got up and made her coffee, got her breakfast, made her sandwiches and lunch items and she was out the door at 7:10 and I was back in bed at 7: 15 where I stayed until 8:30. It’s not that I’m tired but it doesn’t get light until 8:30 and I’ll be damned if I’m going to wander around outside in the dark.

Most of today has been involved with organizing a dinner for tomorrow night.  The new director of AAS is here this week with his wife and they are coming here for dinner tomorrow night.  I wanted to get everything done today so that we’ll have time to sit and relax tomorrow as opposed to me running around the kitchen doing last minute cooking.  I also wanted to get it done now so that when the cleaning lady comes tomorrow, we can keep everything looking fresh and clean.

Spaghetti Vongole

Dinner last night featured spaghetti vongole (clams).  It was supposed to look like this, however here in Moscow I have no access to fresh clams in the shell - in fact I don’t even have access to canned whole clams.  I did get a few cans of chopped clams from the commissary and I had to make do with them.  While the pasta was cooking I sautéed in butter and olive oil some freshly chopped garlic and parsley, seasoned with chili flakes, pepper and salt. When they were nicely cooked I added a quarter cup of white wine and let it cook off the alcohol. I then added a ladle of the cooking water from the pasta and the juice of a half lemon.  At the last minute I added the can of clams, with the broth and a pat of butter.  I tossed in the drained pasta and let it all get hot before serving it with a sprinkle of cheese and fresh parsley.   Before the pasta we had a shaved carrot and arugula salad with whole grain mustard vinaigrette.  Here are some photos and you can see that my vongole did not look like the real thing, but it wasn’t half bad. 

I’ve written before about the Blue Buckets, a group of people who are fed up with anyone with money or power being able to place a flashing blue light on their car and ignore the rules of the road. There was yet another incident this weekend where this reckless behavior caused more death and injury.  I’m going to follow this one to see if the politicians gather round to protect their own.

On a lighter note, or should I say ringtone, here is one that would make J. M Barrie ever so happy!

Finally done with all the cooking for tomorrow and have the kitchen cleaned up and dishes put away. Looks like we’ll be going out for dinner tonight since I’ve not had time to make anything other than tomorrow’s meal.  Can’t wait to see where we end up.   Wherever we go, you can be sure that we are not going to take a pedestrian overpass or underpass.  Just too darned dangerous!

Ciao,  Cindy and Wm

Perky Partner

I woke up today and decided to be perky all day.  I’ve been letting this place get the best of me and now that I realize that, I’m taking action.  Cindy was a bit surprised at my perkiness since she said that yesterday I was a pain in the extremity, which is one of the reasons I decided to be perky today.  Things just seem to go better when you are perky.

We had a lovely little morning stroll before coming back for coffee. Cindy made some marvelous French toast with bits and pieces of bread that we had laying about.  Due to my perkiness, she threw me out of the kitchen and did all the clean up without my assistance, which gave me time to do a few loads of clothes.  We had planned on driving to Auchan but there is fresh snow and silly drivers so we’ll walk over to the grocery store and get what we need for the next several days.  I’ll be doing heavy commissary shopping on Tuesday; I’ve mentioned that they have free delivery if you buy more than $100 worth of stuff, which isn’t hard to do there.  This way someone else can carry all the heavy stuff and I’ll just bring back the light stuff and some of the frozen goodies.

Last night I used up the last of what was fresh in the larder and made a Salmon Spanish Tortilla.  I pan fried sliced potatoes, onions and garlic until they were nice and brown and crisp. I added six small eggs that I had whipped with a little bit of ice water.  When it had set up a bit I did the old flip over and turned the heat off and let it finish cooking from the residual heat of the pan.  While it sat there I spread crème fraiche on the tortilla and topped that with chopped bits of smoked salmon. If I had had fresh dill, I would have used it with the salmon but I didn’t so I used parsley.  I cut the tortilla into quarters and served it on a bed of spinach along with some toasted dark bread and a lovely bottle of Vinho Verde.  Here are a few photos.

I’m going to have to learn how to think through events here in Moscow. We went to the grocery store today at about 1:30 figuring everyone would be done shopping by then.  Quite wrong!  It seems that everyone took two weeks vacation and they all came back to Moscow last night or this morning and the store was jammed!  We managed to get what we wanted but there was a lot of bumper car mentality with the carts and I was happy to get out of there still feeling perky as opposed to pestered. 

I was still thinking about all the wedding parties we saw yesterday. It appears that a part of the wedding mentality here is overt conspicuous consumption. The outfits I’m sure are expensive, but they are expensive everywhere. What the Russians do is rent the largest, longest, gaudiest limos and drive all around town for photo ops at all the popular attractions. These cars are enormous and always covered with flowers and filled with drunken members of the wedding party.  Outside the Kremlin Walls yesterday there must have been fifteen of these chariots all lined up and waiting, while on the main drag going into Red Square there were five or six more loading and unloading their passengers for photos and drinking experiences. I hope we are invited to a lavish Russian wedding before we leave so I can see what goes on at the reception.

Hope your weekend was a good one, Cindy and Wm

Red Square in White

More snow, more grey and more bleak. I’m beginning to understand why teachers don’t last very long here as they do, for instance, in Nice!  We took a stroll in the snow this morning before breakfast and once again no matter what direction we took; the wind and snow would be blowing directly in our faces.  It is uncanny how many times that happens to us. 

We had a nice long breakfast, reading papers and catching up.  We were going to go to a museum or something but the day got away from us so at two we got back into our snowsuits and took the Metro to Red Square to look at the ice sculptures.  We were told that people looking for good luck place the coins there. They rub the coin between their hands and get it hot and then place it over the ice and it melts into the statue, really quite cool.  We wandered around the square waiting for three o’clock so we could listen to the bells from the Kremlin Tower.  Then we headed into GUM to wander around and get warm.  Everything is still decorated for Christmas and I must say it is getting old.

You couldn’t swing a dead squirrel in circle without hitting a bride and her entourage having their photos taken in GUM.  Outside in the square we had seen about six wedding parties but there must have been twenty or more in the store.  The brides outside were cavorting in their long white dresses and the slush was making the hems extremely dirty… also they looked COLD because they only had short fur jackets over their dresses and it was under 20 F.  (Read on; the condition of the revelers probably was a warming factor.)  On several occasions I noticed a couple of the brides checking each other out.  I was amazed at how young they all looked and at how drunk they all were.  The bride carries the flowers, the groom carries the bride and the wedding party carry the Sovetskoye Shampanskoye lots and lots of bottles of Sovetskoye Shampanskoye.

Fortunately, no one was protesting today outside Lenin’s Tomb as they did on Friday. It is hard to imagine that anyone can still get so worked up over his remains.  We decided to walk home and managed to get back just before it got dark. It is slow going even with lots of light; darkness only increased the probability of injury on these sidewalks.

Dinner last night was served in two courses, with a long break in between for me to participate in a conference call with the Foundation Board at NBCC.  The first course was curried chicken salad served on thin toasted dark bread.  The salad had about a cup of chopped chicken, a cup of chopped green grapes, a handful of crushed walnuts, a handful of raisins and one chopped green apple.  The dressing was just mayo, whole grain mustard, pepper, olive oil, a bit of garlic, curry power, cinnamon, nutmeg and crème fraiche.  I mixed everything together and let it all sit for a day so that the flavors would meld.  The hot course was roasted stuffed peppers.  The stuffing was just a mixture of the carrot/cauliflower mash from a few nights ago, with some cooked rice, five cloves of chopped garlic browned in butter, a nice big tablespoon of yogurt and two whipped eggs.  I roasted the peppers first and then placed them in a bread pan that I had lined with the rest of the cooked rice so that the peppers wouldn’t fall.  I filled them with the mixture and let them bake for about forty minutes.  Just before serving I sprinkled the peppers with grated pecorino and served them very, very hot.  Here are a couple of photos. Tonight’s dinner will be far less elegant.

Best wishes, Cindy and Wm

From CC: I’m happy to report that I’m not jaded quite yet … as we walked through Red Square and approached St. Basil’s Cathedral with its many colorful towers covered with snow, I had a little catch in my throat thinking how fortunate I am to be able to see things like this for real, not just in photos.  I’ve already seen St. Basil’s several times since moving here, but each time it’s almost as impressive as it was that first jaw-dropping time last August.

As Bleak as Poe

It has been a rather bleak day, no sun, no warmth, light snow and more slippery than it was yesterday. I took a ninety-minute walk but it certainly wasn’t fun. It was more like an exercise in excess caution. I chose a route that had too many streets to cross that didn’t have lights.  Cars have the right of way here and even though there is a crosswalk that only means that the pedestrians are grouped together for a more efficient kill.

No matter how bleak I thought today was, our dear friend Yuri found it bleaker. Now Austria has denied him a residence permit despite the fact that he and his wife own a chalet and luxury hotel in Austria.  This guy is getting the bum’s rush wherever he goes.

I didn’t get to see much of Cindy yesterday. She got home earlier than usual but she went to the Russian lesson upstairs at 7:30 so we had an early dinner and I didn’t see her again until 8:30. She said the tutor has finally listened to everyone and is teaching the kinds of things we all need to know.  I had made a chicken, vegetable, and rice soup with all the leftovers so that we could eat whenever we wanted. It was very good, quite flavorful and filled with goodness. 

Here is something to brighten up the heart.  There are a series of ice sculptures in Red Square and this little video gives you a good sense of what Moscow can be like in the winter when it is bright and sunny.

And this little animated cartoon can be skipped by anyone how has never been an English major, professor, or doctoral candidate.  It is however very, very funny and ever so true.

From CC:  A word or two about the forest.  The trails and roads are cleared after every major snowfall – well, a few days after; first they do the real roads.  They even clear the benches and a wide area around them.  Every so often I’ve noticed a bird feeder hanging on a tree near a public street, and someone has hung a feeder in the forest near a clearing where two roads intersect.  I’ve seen an elderly couple there who stand very still with an arm outstretched and the chickadees eat out of their hands!  It’s amazing.

Happy Weekend, Cindy and Wm.

Slipsliding Away

We woke up to a fresh few inches of snow and yet it is still very cold. I had hoped that we would get some warmer temperatures as the clouds moved in but it is not to be.  I had to go out and clear off the car since Cindy is taking it to school tomorrow for maintenance. Once that was done I figured, well I’m all dressed for the cold so I might as well go for a walk.  There is an old Russian expression that says, “On the ice, we walk like bears.”  I took that to mean carefully, but with a new layer of snow to cover all the ice on the sidewalks, I think it means that they walk on all fours.  I’ve never seen so many people slip and fall. Part of the reason is that they always seem to be in a hurry and they are always distracted, either by using their cell phones or reading messages, or talking with their friends. In any event, I understand the expression better now that I’ve seen so many Russians on all fours.

Dinner last night was a lot of fun and we really had a chance to get to know the principal.  Our first course was grilled broccoli blinis topped with salmon that I had cured in lemon and fresh pepper and then covered with homemade crème fraiche and thin slices of lemon. It was fantastic if I do say so myself and we all loved it. The main course was a variation on my Basque Chicken.  In this version I rubbed the chicken pieces with sweet paprika that one of Cindy’s colleagues brought back from Budapest.  I then seared the pieces in a little peanut oil so that I could get the temperature really hot without smoking me out of the kitchen.  My goodness, the smells from the paprika cooking in oil were divine and it gave the chicken a wonderful deep rust color, which held up throughout the cooking process.  Once the chicken was seared I removed the pieces and then added the cut up sausage to the same pan and cooked them until brown.  Once removed, I added all the chopped up vegetables, red and yellow peppers cut in long strips, onions, garlic, and chopped tomatoes and softened them for about five minutes.  I almost ruined the meal at this point.  I went to add a little salt and the entire top of the container came off. I quickly scooped out as much as I could by grabbing handfuls of hot vegetables and throwing them into colander.  Luckily the vegetables had cooled the oil a bit and I wasn’t burned but I was very upset.  I rinsed the saved vegetables and added them back to the pan and tasted everything.  I was vastly relieved that it wasn’t too salty.  I looked at the container and could not, and have not, figured out how that could have happened, but given the fact that I failed to close Cindy’s commuter cup this morning, I suspecting that I’m to blame.

I added a half-cup of red wine, normally I would use white wine, but with the paprika I was going for a deep ruby sauce.  I then added all the meat and let everything simmer for an hour.  I drained the liquid and thickened it with a butter roux and added it back to the pot for the last fifteen minutes as the turmeric rice cooked.  The smells were filling the kitchen and seeping into the dining room and I couldn’t wait to get everything to the table. The colors alone were worth all the effort.  Bright yellow rice, covered with a ruby sauce and chunks of chicken, sausage and brilliant peppers made it, according to Cindy, the best effort at Basque Chicken yet.  I had fully intended to make an apple crisp for dessert but when I was buying the bread for dinner, they came out with small apple strudels that were still hot from the oven. I couldn’t resist and served that with some cinnamon crème fraiche.

As Starbucks moves in one direction, it appears Wal-Mart is willing to take some baby steps in the direction of health and nutrition.  Speaking of forward steps, the Russian government banned 100-watt bulbs as of January 1^st in an effort to promote the sale of energy efficient bulbs. The problem is that the new bulbs cost 10-15 times more than the old ones so no one is buying them. Stepping in to fill the gap, two companies are now selling 95-watt bulbs, perfectly legal and they are flying off the shelves. 

That’s it for today, tune in tomorrow. Cindy and Wm