I love reading restaurant reviews. Maybe it has to do with me vicariously visiting all the restaurants that I will never visit and eat the food I can’t afford through the person of a food critic. Some reviewers are fun and to the point, the other ones are too wordy and their taste buds are long ago killed by alcohol in the drinks paid for by their employer. Couple of days ago Chimpo, who is obviously still evolving as a food critic, reviewed my borscht with just one word. It wasn’t the review I was hoping to get, but it was probably valid for some people (who are clearly clueless). However, I think that borscht-hating s.o.b. stumbled onto something here – one-word food reviews. Think about it: not a review, not a blurb, just one word that completely describes your feelings about a place or a food item or even a movie or a book. No more reading long opuses about tough steaks or overcooked spaghetti, one word is enough. The possibilities are endless -imagine whole Zagat guide on one page! It’s not as easy as it seems – i’s hard not to be repetitive especially with bad reviews. After all the four-letter words are used it’s hard to come up with something descriptive. My one reader can exercise in the comment section below.
The 8th of March is almost near us,
My heart is pounding away.
Don’t let me down, trusty penis
On International Women’s Day. Russian Folklore (Free Translation by Me)
Every spring starts with sunshine, melting snow, more revealing clothes on the most beautiful women and the International Women’s Day on March 8.
International Women’s Day is a holiday for all women; it doesn’t single out mothers or women who have diamond-bearing men in their lives. Instead it celebrates every woman: a woman living alone with multiple cats pets, a woman who doesn’t get invited to romantic dinners, a scary woman at work, a cigarette-smelling waitress at the Waffle House who calls you “hon” and even the woman holding a “slow” sign in the highway work zone. These women may not look like models or be pleasant to deal with, but that doesn’t mean they should be excluded from a holiday based on arbitrary prerequisites such as having children or being in a relationship. That’s why I am surprised this holiday is virtually unknown in the US even though it was first introduced here in 1909.
All kidding aside, women make our lives happy and exciting, they surround us with beauty and give us a reason to go on, they give us great memories and make our hearts pound. Making a woman laugh is one of the greatest pleasures of life and it never gets old.
This year I am posting this a few days early so you can plan your upcoming celebrations, purchase flowers and presents, as well as locate and hug your nearest woman and, while she is calling the police, try to convince her you were just trying to congratulate her with the International Women’s Day.
Public outrage is easy to come by these days. Whether it is signing a petition to remove a statue from the public view, complaining about a store ad being too gay or just clicking on a Facebook page to support or condemn some cause, expressing your views doesn’t even require a trip to a mailbox anymore. And while some comments on these sites and petitions look angry and radical, these people should stand back in awe of the original masters of public character assassination and manufactured outrage – the Soviet Press.
The following page was published in the Soviet Literaturnaya Gazeta (Literary Newspaper) on November 1st 1958. In this issue various writers, artists, organizations, and even regular Soviet citizens expressed their outrage with the actions of Boris Pasternak, the author of Doctor Zhivago, who was awarded a Nobel Prize for his anti-Soviet novel. Famous Russian joke “I haven’t read Pasternak, but I condemn him” was extracted from one of the letters on this page.
If you think this blog is famous for my humor and wit, breathtaking photography or an occasional glimpse behind the iron curtain you’d be wrong. I am now a worldwide authority on pickled jalapenos which is now the most viewed post on this blog. The reader has spoken so I am posting another recipe which will finally propel my blog to the top of the blogging world where beautiful women who like fat guys reside and agents take numbers to offer you a book deal.
This dish is not called salsa in Russian, the actual word is “ikra” which literally means “roe” or “caviar” but if I posted something like “eggplant roe” no one would read it past the title. So “salsa” it is. As always I don’t have exact proportions and you would have to adjust it to your own taste, the problem is you don’t know what it’s supposed to taste like, so you’ll have to go with what tastes good to you. With the exception of putting too much salt, or burning your ingredients you cannot screw up this recipe. So go easy on salt and keep an eye on your oven. Eggplant salsa is a summer dish, it can be used as a condiment or eaten with bread, chips or by itself. In some circles the particulars of this recipe are hotly contested, I don’t claim this version to be right or wrong. I don’t want comments starting with “but my Grandma didn’t do it this way”. I may look like your Grandma, especially naked, but I draw the line at using your Grandma’s recipes. I have no idea how my own Grandma did it, and I really don’t care what yours had to say on the subject.
For Eggplant Salsa you will need eggplant, two make pretty good amount, use one if you don’t want too much final product. The rest of the recipe is based on two medium eggplants, figure it out. You’ll also need a couple of sweet bell peppers, 5 or so medium ripe tomatoes, about one medium head of garlic, tablespoon or two of vegetable oil, salt and pepper.
Heat the oven to 350F and place eggplants and peppers on a sheet (lined with foil if you don’t want to scrub it later) and in the oven. Every 15 minutes or so check on the condition of your vegetables and turn them 90 degrees. Some charring on the peppers is OK, skin will peel off anyway. By the time they are done, eggplants and peppers will look somewhat deflated and shriveled.
Remove from the oven, let cool to room temperature.
In the meantime you can prepare tomatoes. Here is a little known secret: tomatoes are not crunchy. If you are eating a tomato and it’s crunchy, it’s probably an apple. Make sure you get some ripe tomatoes. It’s easy to peel tomatoes, just dunk them in boiling water for a few seconds, skin will peel right off. Cut them in quarters and remove the stem part. On the other hand, if you were cheap and bought a whole box of “seconds” for two bucks and they cannot easily be dunked in boiling water because of soft spots and blemishes, you’ll need to spend the next 25 minutes peeling them with the knife wishing you weren’t so cheap.
Peel some garlic. Here is another tip from Cooks Illustrated which I wish I’d known 30 years ago when I was cursing my life while peeling loads of garlic: slice the clove of garlic lengthwise through the middle. The peel will just fall off. For this batch I also roasted a couple of cloves of garlic, just to be fancy. I am not even sure if I can taste it or not, but who cares, it’s all good.
By this time eggplants and peppers should be cool enough to handle. Peel them too and remove seeds from peppers only. They don’t have to be pretty.
The next step depends on the available equipment. Of course you can use your vintage “Made in the USA” Grind-o-Matic but in the absence of this invaluable tool-device you can use whatever else would evenly chop the ingredients. This is not a cocktail so it doesn’t need to be pulverized; it has to be the consistency of salsa.
You are almost done. When all of the ingredients are processed all you have to do is add oil, salt and pepper and mix.
Just like I said in the beginning, you can’t go wrong with this. Feel free to add salt, pepper and garlic to you liking. If you feel like you peeled too many tomatoes, don’t worry, grind them up; if you throw them away, next thing you know there will be some dumpster-diving “freegan” eating your stuff and your house will be declared a foraging site. There may be some liquid separating when you store your salsa. Just mix it in before you eat it.
Now you are ready to enjoy your Eggplant Roe (I lied about the salsa but you wouldn’t read this otherwise). I will be here, waiting for book offers and calls from beautiful women who like fat guys.
