karla, i'm beginning to think that you may have exceptionally fast typing
skills. am i correct?

> wrote in message
oups.com...
Time for unabashed epicurean fun! Try not to take the post below too
seriously. Don't get insulted. Try to enjoy reading it as much as I
enjoyed writing it...

Actually, I love the hills of Appalachia.

I wrote this tongue-in-cheek. Fish tongue and cheeks, to be exact.
Which, together with fish eggs and liver, happens to be among the
most valued food in Tsar's Russia and Emperor's Japan.

On Jul 13, 3:59 pm, Brookski "xolodilnik" > wrote:
> "captain." > wrote in message
>
> > "xolodilnik" > wrote in message
> ...
>
> >> Russian cuisine is in the same league as Canadian,
>
> > up here we eat the exact same crap that you do [in USA]
>
> You kiddin' me cap?
>

Brookski is right, Captain: the food in the Pacific Northwest is
orders of magnitude better than the hillbilly crap that Brookski eats.
Salmon, sturgeon, crab, oysters, other seafood, Indian (Squaw) candy,
all kinds of berries, fresh fruits and vegetables all year round,
authentic Japanese and Chinese foods - Seattle and Vancouver have it
good. Just as good as we south of you in California.

>
> I'll be driving the neighbors crazy tomorrow morning with the smell of
> fresh
> baked bread. I just haven't decided whether to do sweet dough with
> cinnamon
> and raisins or maybe somethin' else.
>

Wow... Maybe even with some nuts? In addition to yuorself, that is...

Bread is as American as .. as apple pie and motherhood, right?

I wonder what the rest of the World did before the Americans finally
invented bread, apple pie and pregnancy...

>
> The difference between me and Karla is, Dyadya Karla couldn't cook a meal
> to
> save his life. He couldn't even pour a glass of water from the tap without
> it ending up with a burnt taste. That's the down side of being a macho
> moozhik.
>

Even macho moozhiks like food and can cook. Let me tell you what I
have cooked/eaten recently. For your education, I will indicate
whether this is typical food people eat in Russia/East Europe or if it
comes from another region.

Prepared myself:

Rotisserie fish - sturgeon, catfish, etc. (bought live) - [Russian]
with my signature hot sauce: pomegranate extract, selera hot chili
sauce, lemon, mayo, tom yum paste [my own creation].

Steamed live dungeness crab [Californian] with the same signature hot
sauce sans pomegranate

Red Thai curry with scallops, giant tiger prawns, and live New Zealand
mussels. [Thailand, Far East]

Rotisserie quail with my signature white sauce with porcini mushrooms
[Russia, Europe]

Seared duck foie gras with a sour cherry liqueur sauce [France]

Salmon kulebiaka (salmon en croute) with white truffle sauce
[Russian]

Fried chanterelle and morel mushrooms [Russian, French]

fresh low-salt Russian-style herring garnished with sour crème, onions
and baked potatoes [Russian]

Russian rak (tiny lobster, langoustine) "Olivier" salad with cooked
peas, mayo, lemon, onions, eggs, spices, etc [Russian]

Various sushi rolls, with homemade calrose rice, mirin wine, rice
vinegar, maguro tuna, fresh salmon, unagi eel, fresh hamachi, chives,
tomato strips, cucumber strips, green onions, avocado, steamed
asparagus, wasabi, and capelin roe. [Japan]
///////////////////////////////////////

I also went to a few Chinese, Japanese and Thai restaurants for
lunch. Chinese restaurants in the Bay Area are just like Chinese
restaurants where you live, except they use spices and sauces and
feature meat instead of your beloved cardboard. So, you won't like it.
Nor will you like our sushi: it's fresh and lacks the dirty sock aroma
that you cherish. Plus we have 50 times more seafood choices here and
500 times more varieties of sushi rolls, so your mind won't be able to
digest so much choice. And the term "thai(tie) food" here doesn't
refer to the Armani or Hermes labels, so you won't like it either.

Being a simple mouzhik, I also microwaved German-Canadian wieners for
lunch, served with tomatoes and hot chili sauce

I also microwaved excellent American-style BBQ ribs (with beer, of
course) [Texas]

I also bought Russian-style soups: thick porcini soup , lamb borsch,
veal schi, green summer sorrel schi/borscht; and cooked the thick
split pea soup with smoked pork ribs. [all popular Russia]
/////////////////////////////////////////////
In terms of cold food, I have had:

fresh buffalo mozzarella from Sicily, [Italy]
fresh truffle cheese from Alba, [Italy]
overripe Munster Fermier cheese from Alsace, [France]
smoked Adygeia sulguni cheese from Russia [Caucasus, Russia]
California goat cheese with herbs [France, California]
German feta [popular in Russia]

Russian hot smoked sturgeon, [Russia]
a spoonful of beluga caviar with a Russian blin (crepe) [Russia]
salmon caviar with French bread and Vologda butter; [Russia]
Jewish "forschmack" herring salad [popular in Russia]
smoked Russian semga salmon [Russia]
Riga sprats [Russia, Baltics]
smoked baby eels [Holland, Baltics, Russia] (of course, in Spain they
have those baby eels in their infancy)
Odessa bullheads in tomato sauce [Russian] (I use "Russian" to mean
"Russian cuisine, which means not only the country of Russia but other
countries with the same cuisine, like Ukraine and Belarus and even
sometimes Poland)
Russian calamari jerky (with beer of course)
Russian cod liver
Salmon mousse [France]
sturgeon in aspic [Russia]

tender Russian veal tongue sausage
Ukrainian blood sausage [popular in Russia]
mild salami from Finland [popular in Russia]
Armenian soudjuk and basturma [popular in Russia]
Various cucumber, tomato, cabbage, garlic and other spicy vegetable
pickles with dill. [popular in Russia]
Various Korean pickles, like cabbage kim chee, marinated carrots, etc
[very popular in Russia]

I drank:

fresh raspberry juice, [California]
home sqeezed apple, mandarine and carrot juices,
draft wheat beer from Germany and Belgium,
California cabernet and sauvignon blanc,
French and Russian champagnes/bubblies
French cognac
French sauterne and Italian Muffato dessert wine (with foie gras of
course)

For dessert:

Tiramisu and panna cotta from an Italian cafe in North Beach
Raspberry and mango mousse pastry [French]\
Russian chocolate-glazed cheesecake candies
Polish marmalade in chocolate
Riga's giant Prosit liquor candies [popular in Russia]
Polish and Russian "zefir" and "bird's milk" candies in chocolate
Greek divinity paste with cashews [popular in Russia]
Turkish rakhat loukum with pistachios [popular in Russia]
dark bitter-sweet Swiss orange-flavoured chocolate
Haagen-Dazs ice cream and imported ice cream bars from Russia and
Lithuania
Russian almond cookie pastries
Sugar-coated ripe Siberian cranberries
Russian kefir and riazhenka
Greek/Bulgarian yoghurt
daily morning Cappuccino

I have also had many boxes of fresh strawberries, mangoes, pomellos,
cherries, fresh figs, watermelons, tangerines, and nectarines. In
season, I also love persimmons of both kinds and fei joa.

In other words, I eat the usual foods they like in Russia plus all
kinds of seafood goodies from the Far East.

Too bad US customs don't allow the import of special Pirie mangoes
from Hawaii and mangosteens from the South Pacific.

>
> You can find just about any cuisine anywhere in the USA... but not
> Russian.
>

As you can see, I can find the Russian cuisine as well. But then I am
not a hillbilly like you.

But I do miss all kinds of inexplicably delicious fruits that I used
to eat in Russia: sweet, juicy and aromatic melons from Central Asia
and the Caucasus, sweet lady finger grapes, gigantic juicy
pomegranates, big sweet gooseberries of all kinds, red, yellow and
black currants, wild strawberries, giant Moldovan peaches, bull's
heart tomatoes, mulberries and alike, as well as "pomadka" candies,
torts, pastries, Crimean Black Rock dessert wine, and alike... and
beluga caviar is much less expensive there... plus Chinese restaurants
in Moscow are staffed by top Chefs "imported" from Shanghai and
Beijing. One dish - sizzling lamb and sea cucumber plate in a
delicious sauce - was especially great, accompanied by draft Leffe
beer... right next to my office... with no crowds at lunch... yumm...

>
> Italian and Mexican are of course favorites
>

Yes, I live in California. We have authentic Mexican food. It's not
too bad. Amazing how many dishes they create from the same miniscule
list of ingredients: meat, shrimp, rice, cooking cheese, beans,
tortillas, sour crème, tomatoes, avocados and peppers... Simple yet
gaseous. Sure beats the Far Eastern cuisines with their thousands of
years of experimentation and excellence and tens of thousands of
ingredients. :-)

How about Mexican food in your neck of the hills? Does it mean beans,
refried beans, re-refried beans, or do you accompany beans with over-
fried rice wrapped in flat corn cardboard thingies?

>
> I must have farted and saw multiple Karlamov's in the bubbles.
>

So, it's mostly beans then?

>
> but you can find Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, etc, etc, etc.
>

I shudder to imagine what these 3 terms mean to you in Appalachia.