Christmas is a very nostalgic holiday, probably more so than any other. It’s the time when people realize that another year is left behind, kids have grown older and now want an iPhone instead of a barbie, and everyone else is sporting more and more gray hairs. People remember their own childhoods, old presents, relatives who are now gone, and the time when Christmas dinner meant killing your own goose.
Recently I was watching one of the most popular Soviet comedies of all time Ivan Vasilievich: Back to the Future for the millionth time, recalling how almost every phrase in that movie was enshrined in the pop culture. In the movie a home-grown scientist sends a regular Soviet bureaucrat to the past where he just happens to look like Ivan The Terrible, who in turn travels back to the 1973 Moscow. In one of the scenes the fake Tsar is having a feast and the dishes are being announced as they arrive: “Black Caviar” (huge bowl), “Red Caviar” (huge bowl), “And from overseas, Eggplant Caviar” (a small drop of supposed delicacy).
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPfTAX590Wg
This is a tongue-in-check reference to the Soviet food supply system where the real caviar was hard to find and was resold on the black market while so called “eggplant caviar” and “zucchini caviar” where sometimes the only items on the mostly empty shelves and were frowned upon by the Soviet people. That’s why I don’t recommend most Russian comedies to an unprepared American viewers they need to be thoroughly explained.
Needless to say that I didn’t miss these not-so-good vegetable concoctions, but when I read this recipe it sounded good enough to try.
For this recipe you will need about 3-4 lbs of zucchini, 3 medium onions, 2 large red peppers, 6-8 tomatoes, 4 oz of tomato paste, 1 pepperoncino (this lady lives in Italy, I used some pepper I grabbed in the Mexican aisle), salt, pepper and olive oil.
Cut zucchini into small cubes, put in a separate dish and sprinkle with salt. Cube peppers and onions. Heat up some olive oil in a skillet, add chopped pepperoncino (or whatever you are using) and red peppers and saute on both sides. Remove to another dish, I used my enameled cast iron pot. Add more oil to the skillet and saute the onions until translucent; when done, move them to the pot. Squeeze the liquid from zucchini and saute in the skillet, add to the pot. Cube the tomatoes (I removed the seeds), saute them in the olive oil adding the tomato paste. Combine with the rest of the vegetables. Add salt and pepper to taste and cook on a medium heat for about 20 minutes stirring occasionally.
It’s probably a good thing that this zucchini caviar doesn’t taste like the stuff I remember from my childhood. Sometimes the memory is good enough to satisfy the food nostalgia without having to subject the taste buds to the horrible taste of the past.
To call this a recipe is an overstatement, nevertheless I like it and so does my kid. It will pump your levels of vitamin A so high you’ll get an X-ray vision.
Here goes: peel some carrots (I used 2 lbs) and shred them using any available method (I used food processor). Here is a hint: if you are planning to shred carrots by hand, do not buy a whole bunch of small ones, you will regret it. Add salt, maybe a tablespoon or two of mayonnaise and as much pressed garlic as you can handle. Bam!
P.S. Mayonnaise haters need not comment; it’s French and, therefore, delicious.
On my rare visit to Barnes and Noble, a store that encourages consumer to buy books online, I discovered a new batch of books containing vintage photos of Kansas City and other nearby places of interest. While I admire the effort to collect and annotate enough historic photos for a book, I don’t see myself paying over $20 for one of them. I am afraid many of these will be read at the coffee shop upstairs.
Luckily there are plenty of old photos online to entertain a cheap person like myself and even some books that can be read and downloaded for free. For example, check out A Birthday Book Of Kansas City 1821-1921 by Charles Phelps Cushing (obviously you should do it at work). The following photos and captions are taken from this book.
The Past and Present, on this block there is one of the newest and one of the oldest buildings in Kansas City. At Tenth Street and Grand Ave. arises the frame of the new Federal Bank Building. The oldest church building still in church use in Kansas City is the Catholic Church of St.Peter and St.Paul. southwest corner of Ninth and McGee streets. SarventContinue reading →
