Life in Cowtown

Fall by Sherlock77 via Flickr

I’m finally emerging from the coccoon that was woven by a new job. You know how the first few weeks at work kind of make your brain hurt, even though you’re not doing anything fundamentally different from your last job? That’s been me. Learning new software, adjusting to new names and faces takes mental juice, and for the last few weeks I’ve been coming home substantially more tired than I normally get at work. At least the weather’s been keeping true to course with cloudy rainy days suitable for all work and no play. I’d have been justifiably ticked if it was sunny and gorgeous while I was too wiped out to enjoy what could  have been our one week of summer. Did you know we’re expecting snow on Thursday, by the way? Just wanted to throw that out there.

So I took it easy on myself – I often came home and had a nap before rising to exercise, dinner and chores. I didn’t plan anything more strenuous than meeting frriends for supper or a beer at the pub, and in general practiced the principle of conservation of energy. On weekends I puttered around the house, and got around to harvesting all my tomatoes which are now ripening slowly on my counter. So far I can confidently say that Sungold tomatoes are tiny globes of pure sweet sunshine, and both Black Prince and Carbon are totally worth growing. Everything else is up in the air for now, and for Christmas I want a greenhouse.

I also tried my hand at canning – my first foray into this venture, and of course I started with pickles that I adore with a loving love. I made a reasonable sized batch of baby dills using two methods – one modern, with proper heat canning, and one old school. The results were telling and phenomenally different. The heat canned pickles tasted totally flat and boring. They could have used triple the seasonings and will need to be amended with further vinegar, salt and garlic. The old style pickles – made by simply pouring hot brine over the washed cukes, and sealed without further processing were amazing. Effervescent with slight fermentation they shined with tang of garlic and dill and smoked with the heat of horseradish. My family, no slouch when it comes to pickes, promptly declared them the best homemade pickles ever. I’m already taking orders for next year, except for the fact that I eyeballed the recipe and it may be hard to duplicate.  

Other than that, the one shining accomplishment of the week involves calling an appliance repair man to fix our limping dishwasher. For months now (don’t laugh, we know we’re lazy and complacent), our dishwasher has been doing a very intermittent job washing cups. For some reason it would leave tiny specks of debris in some to many of our cups in the top rack that if heated dry, would be glued to the cups with a strength that would put gorilla glue to shame. Some days it would leave most cups clean, other days most would be unusable. Of course our appliance manual was worse than useless, leading us down a lovely diagnostics chart that failed to mention such an occurence at all, and full of useful advice to unplug the dishwasher if going in there with a screwdriver, something I was not about to do. Since James hasn’t had a full weekend off since about June, he was adamantly not spending his precious free time taking apart an appliance that was bound to turn into a painful chore. So we seethed at the dishwasher and contemplated buying a new one. But in a fortuitous coincidence I came across an ad on our company intranet advertising an appliance repair company, which I called so fast the phone was smoking. I don’t know why I didn’t do this sooner, see lazy and complacent, above, but seeing that ad triggered an immediate action response and within seconds I had an appointment.

Within two days my dishwasher was as good as new, at the price of a tenth of a new one. Apparently it was the common issue of a clogged trap, clogged with miscellaneous crap consisting mostly of labels that peeled off the cans that made their way in there. According to the appliance guy dishwashers are equipped with a tiny garburator, but it’s so weak that paper gums it right up. Very common problem, he said. Of course there is no accessing that trap without taking apart half the dishwasher, but hey. At least now a major irritant is gone from my life. For anyone in the Calgary area, I can now highly recomment Gavin at GWCM Service Inc. (403) 828-4926.

You know how I said I’d post this on Monday? Well, I lied. I’ve had a cold all week, starting Saturday actually, a nasty sinus one. Since I’m not a person to bravely soldier on when sick, I generally turn into a baby and medicate, sleep and shower my days away. I didn’t even go to work one day, when I was so high on Tylenol Cold I thought watching the news was enlightening. But it’s starting to fade and I can function like more of a human being now, so without further ado, let’s continue exploring the mysteries of the Russian store.

Inevitably somewhere in the store you will come upon a large fridge. This fridge will contain a number of indispensable items dear to the Russian soul. A number of them will have been fermented. This is THE place to come for real sauerkraut. Lightly fermented, crispy and delicious it should be used within a week of purchasing. Try it next time you’re making a German supper or eat as a side dish with a thin drizzle of sunflower oil. No it’s not pretty, but it’s real kraut and it sells fast. You can serve it as a side or make them amazing German meals with bratwurst or go French with choucroute garnie.

Pail of sauerkraut

If you’ve ever been to Montreal and had the pleasure of eating at Schwartz’s, you will fondly remember the barrel pickles served with the mountains of tender brisket. You can find those pickles here, also in a barrel (or pail as the case may be), and they will be just as good as you remember them. Simply ask the nice people behind the counter for ‘solyonie ogurtsy’. To write the name phonetically is difficult as the Russian language has a few indispensable extra letters. You can specify regular or low salt pickles, and while both are delicious, low salt pickles are my personal favorite. Crunchy, dilly, and with a perfect flavor they accompany half of my dinners and make a great snack. They are called ‘malossolnye ogurtsy’ and even if you just copy and paste the name onto a piece of paper, they’ll sort you out.  (This photo did not turn out, so I’m borrowing from http://www.domsovetof.ru/publ/29-1-0-979).

You can see the liberal borrowing of foods from other cultures in these stuffed eggplant slices and halvah on the counter. And speaking of foods borrowed from other cultures, if you happen to spot a container of what look like julienned carrots in the fridge – grab them. They are indeed julienned carrots, but marinated in a mixture of oil and spices. The recipe hails from Korea, brought over by their many immigrants and renders the carrots fragrant, spicy and wonderful. It’s one of my favorite side dishes of all time, and given the fact that the store was sold out, I am not alone.

Russians love their fish. There is a veritable love affair with all sorts of fish – freshwater fish goes into a simple soup called ‘uha’ which is delicious if prepared carefully, ocean fish gets canned, made into savoury pies or smoked, and sprats are considered veritable picnic food. Salmon gets made into a sort of gravlax and tiny fishes are smoked and eaten as a substitute for beer nuts. If you’re not opposed to very rich fish, buy a smoked mackerel below. They are sliced across into thick slices and served with a bland side, like potatoes sprinkled with dill. The fish is tender and very smoky, but delicious. You’ll also see jars of salmon caviar and less often black caviar.

Smoked mackerel

For a single serving snack try a tiny smoked fish – they are literally nibbled on with beer after removing the fins and head (yes with your hands), kind of like peeling a shrimp.

Kinda like beer nuts

A huge draw for me, a person relatively disinterested in dessert, is the sweets section of the store. Call it nostalgia, or simply a call for quality, but I am so bitterly unimpressed with all commercial baked goods and desserts that I typically abstain from them completely. You know the stuff I’m talking about – the gross overly sweet cakes with gobs of fake frosting, the dense heavy pastries that hit your stomach like a brick, the fillings that are thick with gelatin and can pull out tooth fillings. I love quality desserts in small portions, something you can eat one bite at a time and lose yourself in contemplation of life’s goodness. Many Russian desserts fit the bill.

These small ‘walnuts’ are cookies filled with dulce de leche.

A perfect size

This is a honey cake – layers of honey dough and real cream filling in between. The trimmed layer crumbs cover the cake in a fluffy pillow. This version had raisins in it and was not my favorite.

This is my favorite cake of all time – the Napoleon. (I don’t know what’s up with the name….) It’s a layered cake also, with thin crumbly phyllo-like pastry and an amazing cream layered gently in between. It’s texturally a bit similar to baklava which I also adore, if that helps to explain it. It’s usually light, delicious and addictive.

Most homemade cakes in the store are sold by the slice, and some are boxed up and professionally decorated for parties and more formal events.

The pies below need little introduction, they are simply fruit pies with a variety of fillings in tender dough with a sprinkling of icing sugar. These were cherry which are not my favorite flavor and they were still pretty good.

Well folks, this concludes our edition of the Russian store tour, I hope this helps to lift the veil of mystery of the store and entices someone, anyone to venture in and try something new.