Soviet people were protesting and demonstrating on the regular basis but never against their own government. Well, that’s not exactly true. At least a few Soviet people tried to demonstrate and protest against their own government but in most cases were quickly swept up and ended up with lengthy prison sentences, forced psychiatric treatment or, in the best scenario, a house arrest. At the same time anti-American or anti-imperialist demonstrations were encouraged and sometimes mandatory.
An old Soviet joke about a Russian and an American arguing about the freedom of speech, went like this:
American: In America we have freedom of speech, I can stand in front of the White House and yell “Reagan is an idiot!” and nothing will happen to me.
Russian: No big deal, I can go to the Red Square, yell “Reagan is an idiot!” and nothing will happen to me either.
I haven’t done a recipe for some time so here is an easy one for the roasted bell peppers with garlic.
Sweet bell peppers are delicious and good for you, but most of the time they are not cheap. You can usually find them at the grocery store in three colors – yellow, red and orange (green is not sweet and doesn’t work in this recipe) but they almost never cost lest than $1 a piece. That’s why I usually buy them at the City Market where they are sold anywhere from 2 to 4 for a dollar. Today I got 8 peppers for 2 bucks. Pick the peppers that are not wrinkled without discolorations and soft spots. There is a reason why they are cheap so make sure to inspect them before paying. Anyone knows that a soft and wrinkly pepper is no good.
Wash your peppers and remove soft spots. Place in a 375F oven on a foil-lined sheet.
After a few minutes roasting pepper aroma will fill your house. Every 10-15 minutes turn peppers 1/4 turn. You will notice the pepper skin starting to look burned in places. Don’t worry, skin peels off anyway and that’s the way it’s supposed to look like.
The peppers will eventually lose their shape and will turn brown on all sides. Some amount of liquid is normal. 45-50 minutes should be plenty, after that the peppers may start drying out.
Let the peppers cool down, then remove the skin, seeds and separate peppers into medium-sized strips and pieces. Occasional seed or a piece of skin is perfectly normal.
Discard the rest.
In the meantime, peel some garlic and round up some oil, vinegar and salt. Do not use olive oil or fancy vinegar, olive oil solidifies in the fridge; any corn or vegetable oil will do. The amount of garlic, salt and vinegar depends on you. I did go slightly overboard with garlic but you can’t ever have too much.
Press the garlic and mix with oil, salt and vinegar. You should have about 4-8 tablespoons of the mixture. Just mix it wit peppers and adjust to taste. Store in the fridge. Warning: If there is any chance of you making out (with a person), this will definitely ruin it, unless your partner eats the peppers too. Not recommended for work lunches or when you are around other people and pets.
Say you foolishly participated in a weight challenge and now look like a sad sack of skin and bones, or maybe you just feeling a few pounds short of your ideal weight or, perhaps, you just love ice cream. Well, you are in the right place, I’ll have your weight problems corrected and your ice cream cravings satisfied without much effort, expense or experience ( this is what we call “alliteration” in the business).
This recipe comes to us via Russian bloggers in Israel, who saw it in some Israeli magazine, which, in turn, took it from Jamie Oliver, who based it on an Indian dessert called kulfi. After various translations not only from three or four different languages but from left-to-right to right-to-left I don’t think it can be called “kulfi” any longer, so we’ll just call it ice cream. This recipe does not require any special ice cream-making machinery or weird tools, no ice-salt mixtures or whatever else you remember from your long-gone childhood on the farm (everyone knows you made it up anyway); you’ll need a blender and a mixer or something that will do blending, mixing and whipping.
The ingredients: one can of sweetened condensed (not evaporated) milk, 2 cups of cream, fruit of fruit pulp of your choice.
No, this this not a pigeon egg, it’s actually an extra-large egg that I used to demonstrate the size of this Chernobyl-bred strawberry.
I also used pineapple.
Load both into a blender and turn into pulp. You may need a splash of liquid to get the process started, I used some mango juice because it’s good for you.
Add the whole can of evaporated milk (it does your body good, so don’t be skimpy, it’s your body we are talking about here):
It should look like this:
Place into a freezer for 30 minutes to 1 hour until it starts to freeze up on top. Fight the desire to drink it all right away. In the meantime whip about 2 cups of cream (not half-and-half or who knows what) until it looks like whipped cream.
Mix in with the fruit-milk concoction from the freezer:
Back to the freezer it goes for another 6 hours or overnight. You can be creative and make popsicles out of it or make layers or draw Sponge Bob on it, I’ll be eating mine while you playing with your food.
You shouldn’t feel guilty about eating it at all: it has multiple servings of fruit, milk (for strong healthy bones), no fillers, paint, preservatives and it’s probably low-fat, just take my word for it, and every word I say must be true because I have a European accent.
Happy ice cream-making.
Sometimes random bits of information come together nicely. Here is a quote from a local blog…
I attended Kansas City, Missouri Public Schools way back before Kansas City became a hollow shell of a city and before the school district lost its will to live. From the fourth grade on, we were regularly treated to visits to the Nelson, The (then) Kansas City Philharmonic and other cultural treasures of the area.
In the sixties, Corinthian Hall was the herding place for throngs of children, delivered by groaning yellow buses from all corners of the district. We sat, cross-legged on the floor, ready to buddy up and explore, two-by-two, the wonders of the world contained inside the limestone and marble wonder.
