About cooking

Most of the hol­i­days fall on the cool sea­son from end of Octo­ber to March/​April. And here, Russ­ian hol­i­days are mixed in with Amer­i­can hol­i­days, both in the new style and in the old way, both Catholic and Ortho­dox. And if you add birth­days here, then there are a lot of par­ties in the sum­mer. My grand­son and I also attend these events, Mark espe­cial­ly loves them, because no one restricts him from play­ing on the iPad when visiting.

Here in some stores (main­ly in Cost­co) you can buy already boiled, frozen craw­fish. But they can­not com­pare with our Ros­tov craw­fish. Their shell is very hard, and they are not cooked in our way with dill and spices. I don’t eat them, and the whole group doesn’t real­ly like cray­fish, except for my Valenti­na and Svet­lana, she is also from Ros­tov-on-Don. The two of them both sit down and they almost eat the entire package.

So this week­end we were invit­ed to a sil­ver wed­ding anniver­sary. It so hap­pened that the bulk of acquain­tances are peo­ple from the south of Rus­sia and Ukraine. South­ern­ers and Ukraini­ans can cook well and tasty. Accord­ing to an estab­lished tra­di­tion, a buf­fet table is first served with wine and snacks (sliced​meats, cheese, olives, pas­tries, fruits). Every­one walks, talks and eats, while the men, mean­while, cook meat on the grill (kebab, steaks, burg­ers, and some­times all at once). When they sit down at the table, every­thing is Russ­ian: with meat,Russian sal­ad, mush­rooms, etc. What sort of dish­es are part of Amer­i­can cui­sine! Most Amer­i­cans don’t like to cook. Valenti­na brings home-cooked food to work and is sur­prised that peo­pl say that it takes a long time to cook. For many, a McDon­ald’s ham­burg­er, a Star­bucks cof­fee, and a box of donuts are typ­i­cal meals. How­ev­er, Amer­i­ca is a coun­try with a lot of dif­fer­ent cul­tures and each cul­ture has its own cui­sine, the Mex­i­cans have their own, the Indi­ans have their own, and the Chi­nese have their own. To say that no one cooks any­thing would be wrong.

Does Valenti­na cook when I’m away? Yes, they cook in the evenings or on week­ends for the whole week. Levi helps her. He worked in a pizze­ria after school and cuts with such speed and skill that not every house­wife can do it. They also bought a mul­ti­cook­er and cook in it. Although, I don’t use it.