This blog is so well-known in certain marketing circles that I almost feel obligated to bring up a subject which may be of interest to them. Today I will showcase talent, fresh approach and marketing savvy of creative geniuses who brought you this innovation:

♥Fine Print On Billboards♥

Lets say you are driving North on I-35 around 127th street overpass and you notice this enticing billboard. “GasoLean“, just what you always wanted, but something is not right and no amount of squinting allows you to see just how “GasoLean” this vehicle is. Is it closer to “GasoBulemic” when it actually throws up most of the gas it consumes, or is it bordering on “GasObese”?
It’s simple. All you have to do is drive up to 127th street, park your car at the nearby apartment complex, walk up on the bridge and read the fine print.

Still can’t see? You must be getting old, have a closer look. That’s all, just a quick drive and a short walk away.

Who are the ad wizards who came up with this one?!

Next: Why I dropped my subscription to the Consumer Reports Magazine.

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Nineteen years ago today an otherwise routine TWA flight landed in the Kansas City International Airport with me, my family and all of our possessions on board. We walked out into a 70F day wearing winter jackets and fur hats to start our lives in this country with a few hundred dollars and our broken English.

To mark this date I will answer the question I’ve been asked the most during these years – How do you say “fuck” in Russian? What part of Russia is Ukraine? Do you miss the old country?

Do I miss the old country? The short answer is no. I really don’t. I don’t long for the streets and the beaches; don’t miss the sound of a familiar language; don’t care to mingle with the people; don’t feel like I belong there.

There is a long answer though, to a slightly different question: do I miss the old country between 1969 and 1992? Yes, I do.

I had plenty of time to think about nostalgia and even test it out by going back several times. I think that places don’t mean much without the memories. Memories is the difference between the place that means something in one’s life  and just another tourist attraction. You walk down the streets and remember a place where you first walked next to a girl; or a spot where you stood on your first day of school with a giant bouquet of flowers; a storefront that used to sell the best ice cream in the city; a toy store where you wandered in without any money; a street where you got punched in the nose (and still have a crooked nose as a reminder); a park you used to go to with your parents; a place where you learned to ride a bike; a building where you first love used to live; a street where you walked wearing a gas mask to win a bet; many other things, probably not that important in the big picture but still somehow stored in your head all these years. These things I miss, but they are no longer there, they were just a brief moments of my life and there is no way to go back and relive them. Maybe it’s better that way; that’s what makes these memories unique and a huge part of who I am.

I don’t have to go back to a specific place to reminisce. The place since moved on anyway – rebuilt, reinvented, repainted, renamed, refurbished, re-branded, repopulated, recycled and replaced. I no longer feel like I am a part of it. I feel like I am going back to the old country when I talk with my childhood friend in Argentina, or call my old neighbor in Boston, or catch up with my army buddy in New York. Old country is us. Old country is our memories. Old country is these photographs. Fuzzy and oddly vivid, just like I remember.

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So you come home with 20 pounds of apples in a bag. No need to panic, I am here to tell you what to do. In about an hour or two you could be eating the best apple cake you have ever tried in your life. In fact, it so good that you will try to eat it all while declining tempting offers to exchange some of the cake for money and/or sexual favors. The cake is called “Sharlotka” and yes, there will be people who will tell you that this is not the right way to make it. Tell them to go f make their own Sharlotka, because this is the one and only way to make it and they don’t know what they are talking about. I would also like to warn “the creative types” not to post here with comments like “I added a pinch of salt to the recipe, some chicken, vegetables and a pie crust and now it’s a chicken pot pie”. I will ban you from this blog without regret.

For this recipe you will need a baking dish with flat bottom, some apples, 6 eggs, 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of flour. That’s it.

Peel, core and slice the apples. If you are a lady, cut the apples into uniform cubes of about 1/4 inches. If you are a gentleman, reach for your favorite (apple-peeling) tool-device.

This machine cores, peels and slices the apples in one smooth motion. There is no excuse for not having it. Women and small children love it. Hack processed apples into smaller pieces. Peeled apples may brown after sitting on the counter. If you care, you can sprinkle them with lemon juice; I personally don’t care – it’s a cake,not a painting.

Place the apples into your baking dish. Here I clearly went overboard, peeling them was so much fun (unless you are a lady) that I went through a few too many. Don’t worry, you can never over-apple the apple cake.

Now proceed to separate the yolks from the whites. Whipping egg whites is easier if they are cold and no particles of yolks were accidentally mixed in. However, I did just that (not on purpose) and everything turned out OK. If you are an older person like me you would remember that back in the day we whipped egg whites with a whisk.  It was tedious, boring and exhausting process. Fancy households had mechanical egg beaters, still a hassle and lots of cranking. Then came electric mixers and only here my dream to own a stand mixer finally came true. If you have one, place egg whites in the bowl and slowly raise the speed to “high”. If you don’t have the right equipment you can use any of the lesser tools.

You will need to attain stiff peaks (not my stripper name) but it doesn’t have to be perfect. Slowly add sugar and continue whipping. The foam will become shiny and you will not be able to feel sugar crunch on your teeth. This may take 5 minutes or so.

Add egg yolks and whip some more.

Add flour and get it to blend in, no one likes unbaked chunks of flour in the cake, you won’t get any points for a crappy product. Pour the mixture on top of the apples and spread it evenly.

In a 350F preheated oven it goes for an hour. Leave it alone.

In the meantime you still have your apple peeler out and plenty more apples to use. Add a small amount of apple juice, Sprite, water of other tasty liquid to a sauce pan and place it on the medium-low heat. Peel and slice as many apples as will fit.

Pour some honey on top. Do not go crazy with it unless you like it too sweet.

Cover and cook on medium low until apples look and feel soft.

Use potato masher to make some apple sauce of the desired consistency.

Let it cool, it really burns when hot.

Now get the cake out of the oven. Test it by sticking a toothpick in the middle, if it comes out clean, you are done.

After the cake cools, get your favorite bottle of Homewood Hooch from the fridge and enjoy the cake.

And this (to quote John McCain), “my friends”, is how you bake “Sharlotka”.

Update: My blogger friend Johnna made her own gluten-free version.

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A recent clip of a base jump from the 404 ft. spire of the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St.Petersburg was widely discussed on the Russian-speaking internet.

httpvh://youtu.be/1cVRD0x_ask

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Cue the soundtrack:

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp-ATy9tkrg

By the way, I can watch the girl on the right for hours, something hypnotic about her dancing.

El Camino Real in Kansas City, KS was recently listed as the number one on the Kansas City’s Top Ten Cheap Tacos list, which I am following as if it was a list of the 10 commandments of cheap food. After several visits to the place  I would agree that it’s undoubtedly one of the top taquerias in the metro. I usually avoid the word “authentic” because, as I have mentioned before, I have never had a meal in Mexico outside the feedlots for the pasty fat people otherwise known as resorts in Cancun. However, if I had to imagine what the Mexican people eat at home, it would be something like what’s served at El Camino Real.
Over the past several years my idea of the “real” Mexican food has evolved to exclude anything with puddles of melted cheese and mountains of lettuce, not that there is anything wrong with that. The type of Mexican taco I came to like is a simple mound of filling on a small corn tortilla with cilantro, onions and pico de gallo served with it or on the side. Sometimes you will get a lime but that’s as fancy as it goes. The secret is in simplicity which is what I appreciate in any food.
At El Camino Real the kitchen area is open so I was able to annoy the cooks hanging around and taking pictures. This is the first place where I saw the tortilla-making contraption and was able to capture its operation on-camera.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bVCsBijFHA

The process is pretty simple. After tortillas are rolled…

…they go on the griddle…

…some pork “al pastor” is cut off

the spit and mixed with pineapple you can see above it …

…few more minutes of cooking…

…and done!

On the left-hand side you can see al pastor, on the right side is asada – steak and on the top is the lengua – tongue.
Here is another photo slightly turned:

You can see the rest of the taco selection in the menu:

The place is clean and has plenty of seating. I was able to park right outside of the door but there is plenty of non-metered parking in the area. On both of my visits, there was at least one English-speaking person in the restaurant, usually the waitress. If you dine in you will get complimentary chips, salsa and pico de gallo. Carry-out didn’t come with chips or pico de gallo, but I didn’t ask. They did send plenty of chopped cilantro, onions, salsa and limes.

3 tacos and a Mexican Coke (which is now sold at Costco, at least in Midtown) ran up to $6.48, a little price to pay for what the greatest restaurant critic of all time (to be left unnamed) called “the best tacos I had in my entire life”

*I used Google Translate, I am not exactly sure El Camino Real is The Royal Road

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