…well, I usually eat 3 or 4. I don’t eat them for health benefits or because they are cheap or for whatever other reason – I just like the apples. I like them fresh, cooked, in a pie, in a cake, baked, in apple sauce, with caramel or honey, sliced, peeled, unpeeled and I like most of the varieties. Every year we try to make a trip to a local apple orchard to pick some fresh fruit. I was a locavore before it became trendy and people started doing it to feel good about themselves.

We are surrounded by many apple orchards. There is Vaughn’s in Weston, we were going there for years, Schreiman’s in Waverly, it’s not u-pick but is very nice and in a beautiful historic area; and for the last couple of years we are picking apples at Pome on the Range orchard in Williamsburg, KS. Besides apples and pumpkins they also sell fruit wines some Kansas-grown produce, jams, honey and other things that are good for you.

Today they had their annual fall festival but it looks like they still have plenty of apples to pick for the next weekend or three. If you are in Kansas, especially South Johnson County, you are just 25-30 miles away. Not only you will keep the doctor away, you will be able to brag about eating local and catch envious looks of your not-so-hip friends. While you are at it, mention that you only drink Shatto milk to completely crush them with you locavorness.

For the next year I am keeping an eye on the Wagon Wheel Orchard which was picked out early this year due to being very young. They seem to have a great variety – something I am always looking for.

Eat an apple!

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Yesterday marked 35 years (very old I am) from the launch of the Soviet-American joint space mission Souyz-Apollo.

And now we dance: “We will leave our footprints on the dusty trails of far-away planets”

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KM_rhyqE40

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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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I can testify that some of these jokes are pretty authentic. I grew up at a time when nothing like this would ever show up in print and people almost whispered these, as we called them, anecdotes to each other at home, at work or at school. Later on, thousands of these jokes were published in books and on the internet but the spice was gone, although some still remain pretty funny.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN3z3eSVG7A

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xjv082CPz9g

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Contrary to what some people believe I don’t own the idea of posting old photos from the Life Magazine Archives, but I do enjoy doing it, so here comes another set. These are combined under the tag Kansas Wheat and where taken in 1939. Some of the faces on these photos look like there were taken straight out of some Jimmy Stewart movie.

Here is a page about the flour sack dresses.

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