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.
Starting with this post and continuing here, I promise this is the last one using the set of photos from 1938 Kansas City. There are many reasons why I do this, but the main two are: I enjoy it and I feel like somewhat of an explorer, possibly drawing attention to the photos that haven’t been seen for many years if ever. Any old photos of this quality are fun to browse through but I especially enjoy finding the ones related to this area or to my previous life in the USSR. You may find all my previous photo-posts here.
Just like the previous batch, this one ends with some vintage NSFW, not that I am trying to compete with TKC, but the fact that a Life Magazine photographer even submitted these in the end of the 1930’s is in itself amusing. Interestingly enough, this is not a unique occurrence in the Life Photo Archives, I had few more shared in my post about the Persephone.
All the photos are linked to the larger images, feel free to click and look at the detail.
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.
I could’ve used my 800th post on something worthwhile like my thoughts on health-care or bitching about the first day of school moving even closer to the last day of school, but I’ll post another recipe. After all, the health-care is not going anywhere and school already started, but the eggplant season may be over at any time.
This is probably the simplest recipe you will find on this blog. You will need only 6 ingredients: eggplant, tomatoes, flour, (olive) oil, garlic and salt.
When picking an eggplant try to get an evenly shaped one so the slices are similar in size. Slice the eggplant in about 1/4 inch slices.
Dust with flour on both sides…
…salt lightly and place in the skillet on medium-low heat with a pretty decent amount of oil in it. If you salt the eggplant beforehand it will start losing liquid and shrivel.
Cook eggplant on both sides. It doesn’t need to brown, just poke it with a knife or a fork, if it easily goes in – it’s ready. Remove on paper towels and cook another batch.
The eggplant seems to soak up great quantities of oil, keep adding as needed. While the eggplant is cooking, slice some ripe tomatoes.
Assemble the final product-a slice of eggplant, a slice of tomato, pressed garlic to taste.
I ate everything you see on this plate by myself in one setting.
This could be a side-dish, or a Hors d’œuvre, also called “zakuska” in Russian – something that goes well after a cold shot of vodka. Just as good or better on the next day. Keep refrigerated.
Now pour yourself an aforementioned shot of vodka, drink it, eat an eggplant-tomato sandwich. Do you still want to argue about health-care or schools? Repeat. How about now? I didn’t think so. At this point you would start singing a Russian folk song but since you can’t how about this one, it sounds equally stupid.
