This question was on my mind every time the light rail in Kansas City was discussed. While the light rail in Kansas City is pretty much a done deal, I don’t remember trolley buses ever being offered as one of the options. My interest was renewed after a recent trip to the West Coast where I was surprised to see perfectly working trolley bus systems in Seattle and San Francisco. As recently as last year, Seattle’s trolley bus network was evaluated and shown to be superior to an equal system using diesel hybrids.

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I had to do a double-take on this billboard today, it looked too much like graffiti frequently seen around the area.

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Ernest Hemingway is thought to have said that you must do four things to be a man: plant a tree, fight a bull, write a novel and father a son. My life didn’t follow Hemingway exactly but I think I am pretty close: I am raising a daughter, write a blog, planted a sunflower which grew to the size of a small tree and if a bull ever shows up on my doorstep willing to fight, I’ll have only two words for him: “steak dinner”.

This spring I planted some mammoth sunflowers on the 0.00034 acres of land that I own and it proved to be a source of constant amazement and comments from my neighbors. The tallest sunflower is now 9 feet tall and is crowned with a huge flower.

At first is was taller than me…

…than way taller than me.

Soon it was ready to bloom…

…and then it did.

But the most amazing thing is what’s inside.

Sunflowers in front of my house inspired me to get out, play my guitar and sing.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCMy7w3lkL8

Next year I will probably plant corn.

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When I was growing up© there were 2 kinds of cooking oil: refined and unrefined sunflower oil. Until the 1970’s all the oil was unrefined, but eventually the more expensive refined oil was introduced to the Soviet People. Sunflower was the main source of cooking oil in the USSR which is amazing, considering that the sunflower plant is native to the North America, where it’s currently not nearly as popular. Olive oil was so rarely available that I don’t recall us ever having it at the house. The oil came to the store in giant metal 55 gallon drums, the hand-pump was installed on top so the oil could be dispensed. An oil-seeking customer had to bring his own jar or a bottle – the store couldn’t be bothered with the packaging.

As a matter of fact, there were hardly any prepackaged foods at that time, store clerks weighed and wrapped everything to order, which contributed to the long lines.

At the time the unrefined oil wasn’t my favorite because of its pronounced smell and taste of the roasted sunflower seeds, but a few years ago I tried a salad dressed with it and realized how much I missed that taste.

Unrefined oil is pressed from the sunflower seeds with minimal processing allowing it to retain its natural taste. The byproduct of the oil production used to look like this…

…and is normally used for feeding cattle. During the starvation years of the WWII it was considered a treat for the people and my parents recalled eating it in their younger ears. I tried it once, it’s just compressed sunflower seed shells and solids and it tastes accordingly.

Locally the unrefined sunflower oil can be purchased at the Russian store (as much as I advertise for them anonymously I should never have to pay for anything there, ever!).

Look for the similar words as I underlined on the bottom of this label “нерафинированное” which means “unrefined”. There is usually an English label as well, but the one I have didn’t say if it was unrefined. Refined oil has no taste, so there is no point of making a trip to get it there. 1 liter bottle is $4.19.

This oil is good on salads as well as for cooking; pan-fried potatoes are my favorite. However, I want to emphasize that it has a fairly strong smell and taste, which may be too much for some people, but if you don’t mind extra virgin olive oil you shouldn’t have a problem with the sunflower oil either.

On your trip to the Russian store make sure to pick up some smoked fish, a jar of pickled tomatoes and, of course, some candy.

And now we dance – Natasha Koroleva “Sunflowers”

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNm3X76FXD4

*photo of the Soviet store was taken here.

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The Jewish Federations of North America are conducting a campaign under the title “What’s your #ish”:

Being Jewish means something different to everyone. Whatever it means to you is your #ish.

(For those who are not familiar with Twitter, “#” denotes a tag that they can easily track and display the content on their website)

Cutesy marketing but the question is something I think about often. What does it mean for me to be Jewish, or Russian-Jewish, or even Russian-Jewish-American as the top of my blog announces to the visitors? This post has been stuck in my head for a couple of weeks, I thought how to make it non-offensive and given up; I made some mental notes, then some written ones and I am still not so sure what it will look in the end. All I know at this point that it will contain a lot more “I dont’s” than “I do’s”.

Here we go:

• I don’t believe in God, I don’t do anything religious, I don’t attend a synagogue and when I do on some occasions like weddings, I feel uncomfortable seeing how people are asking and thanking God for things. I don’t feel superior, I just don’t get it. I grew up with the notion that the “Religion is the opium of the people” and so far haven’t seen anything to change my mind.
• I don’t cover my head, I work every Saturday, I go out on Friday nights (if I am lucky); I spend most of the Jewish Holidays at work, and fast on Yom Kippur mostly to see if I can stay away from food for a day. Long time ago when I still lived in Ukraine, I went to a synagogue with a group of friends during a holiday, I think it was Simchat Torah; a group of men was dancing there like it was the best day of their lives. We looked at each other and left. Since then (late 80’s) I only visited a synagogue once (without being invited to a wedding or Bat/Bar Mitzvah)
• I eat whatever I like. My kitchen is the opposite of kosher. At any time I have enough pork in it to make a small pig. My Dad used to pack a slab of salt-pork when I went on trips – it didn’t require refrigeration. I like ham and cheese sandwiches; I mix meat and dairy at will. I have no interest in finding out which foods are kosher and what’s not allowed and why. If it’s tasty I’ll eat it, kosher or not.
• In my whole life I’ve only dated a Jewish woman for two months; I never made a point of looking for one (which cast a lifetime of not-so-well hidden-sadness on my Mom). My short experience was filled with drama, but I am sure both of us being Jewish had nothing to do with it. Sometimes I think it would be neat to try, but so far it didn’t work out this way. Lately, I’ve been thinking that only a Vietnamese woman who knows how to cook Pho can be my true love. Every week I go to the Vietnam Cafe hoping to get noticed.
• I don’t get conversions to Judaism. Things like this (watch the clip) don’t make me tear up with joy. To be fair, I don’t get any religious conversions; sometimes I try to guess the reason, most of the time I just shrug. Maybe we need someone to observe the rules we don’t like, pass around those righteous “I stand with Israel” emails and fight our battles on Facebook and Twitter. Whatever.
• I don’t stand with Israel, I don’t feel that it’s my country even though I have relatives and friends there. Israeli Independence day does not invoke any feelings in me. Let me correct that, I don’t stand with Israel automatically because I am a Jew. I stand with Israel because I am a thinking person who can see through the provocations and lies which are so transparent, you have to be an idiot not to see what’s really going on. I can go back through the last 100 years reciting episodes like this for hours. There are less and less people like me even among the Jews. It’s everybody’s loss, not because I am so smart but because the rest of the world may see it when it’s too late, but what’s new. In the meantime, I do what I can, just little things.
• I still prefer the sound of the Yiddish language to the Israel’s official Hebrew. I remember my Grandma speaking Yiddish with her friends in the little town where she lived and although I don’t speak and hardly understand either, Yiddish with its schlimazels and meshuggeners sounds like music to my ears, while Hebrew sounds foreign and cold.

That should be enough for now. The “I do” part is not nearly as extensive:

• I like Jewish food, more precisely Eastern European Jewish food, and even more precisely my Mom’s cooking. I am sure some of these recipes were passed down through generations, others were made up on the spot to use what little food was on hand, but it’s my comfort food. I don’t think I ever identified it as Jewish, just like I never identified spaghetti with Italian. And most of the time there is a box of Matzos in the house.
• I play the Jewish national sport – guessing who else is Jewish. It was a lot more fun in the USSR since many famous people hid their Jewishness as well as they could and during movies and concerts every Jew in the country was pointing them out.

I can’t think of much else. In my childhood it was easy, my Jewish nationality was stamped right there in the “fifth line” on my passport. Tens of thousands of people strove to have this line changed to something else, so their kids would not be subjected to the antisemitism and discrimination. Then the same people paid big money to change it back so they can emigrate to Israel or the USA.

I think about it a lot. Do my multiple “dont’s” betray the memories and dreams of my ancestors, who carried their Jewish identities through a lot tougher times than I could imagine? Would they be proud of me? I don’t know. When I think about my connection with my people, there is no place where I feel it more than at the Jewish cemetery. I wrote about it before, but the Kansas City cemetery I was writing about is faceless and sad. The Jewish cemetery in Odessa, Ukraine where some of my relatives are buried is full of life; it has faces, it tells the stories. Life stories, love stories, tragedies, achievements, accidents, births, deaths, emigration, relationships, memories. My Dad took me there once or twice and we walked around visiting our relatives, his college professors, famous restaurant singers, doctors, teachers, criminals; he knew many people there, too many. Now during my rare visits I walk around as well; I don’t know anyone, but it doesn’t matter: I come to feel my roots, or as some marketing schmuck would put it “my #ish”

Maybe it’s better that my parents let me figure this out on my own. It’s taking me a long time but some day I’ll get there. My daughter is a lot more decisive with these things, I never push her one way or another but she seems to have a pretty good idea who she is.
Maybe this #ish thing is just skipping a generation.
*I knew this would turn out long, and I didn’t even get to include the video of dancing Jews.

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