One of the reasons I visit the Russian store so rarely is my complete inability to stay away from Russian candy. They have chocolates, boxed and bulk, non-chocolate candy and other sweets. No matter how much I buy, they are gone within few days and no gimmicks or rationing tricks work to keep me from eating handfuls of chocolates until they are all gone. The only souvenir I brought from my last trip to New York was a suitcase full of Russian chocolates. Russian chocolates are tastier and more creative than their American mass-produced counterparts, they seem to use real chocolate and at $5.69/lb are a bargain. At the store you can grab a few pieces out of every bin, they are all conveniently priced the same.

Another favorite of mine is Zefir. Calling it a marshmallow is a blasphemy but there is no better English word to describe this airy, light, sweet and slightly tart dessert, which doesn’t need to be melted, burned or otherwise abused to make it edible.

There are two Russian stores in the area: European Delights and Taste of Russia. Note that European Delights moved to the shopping center on the Southwest corner of the 95th street and Antioch, pretty much across the Antioch street from where it used to be and Google maps may not be current.

UPDATE: DLC, the eating force behind Kansas City Lunch Spots, visited one of the stores in this post and bravely ate lunch there. Please read his review and my comments there.

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This photo attracted my attention with a sign in the window “Whiskey Sold By Case”:

Then, upon closer examination, I noticed a poster in the window promoting V-Mail.

V-mail stands for Victory Mail. It was based on the similar British “Airgraph” system for delivering mail between those at home in the United States and troops serving abroad during World War II. V-mail correspondence worked by photographing large amounts of censored mail reduced to thumb-nail size onto reels of microfilm, which weighed much less than the original would have. The film reels were shipped by priority air freight (when possible) to the US, sent to prescribed destinations for enlarging at a receiving station near the recipient, and printed out on lightweight photo paper. These facsimiles of the letter-sheets were reproduced about one-quarter the original size and the miniature mail was delivered to the addressee.
I didn’t find the exact same poster, so here are few other ones.

Visit Smithsonian online exhibition about V-Mail.

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The Holocaust Remembrance day falls on May 2 this year and in the few following posts I will publish several documents concerning the treatment of the Jewish population in my hometown of Odessa, Ukraine issued by the Romanian Authority which occupied Odessa from 1941-1944.

At the beginning of the occupation there were 80,000-90,000 Jews who did not evacuate from Odessa. When the city was liberated on April 10, 1944 there were reportedly only 600 left. Somewhere in the Odessa Region my 6-year old Father survived in the ghetto with help from kind people and lots of  luck. The area where he lived with my Grandmother was occupied by the Italians who were not very enthusiastic about being in the war and their relative reluctance to torture and execute the Jews might have resulted in more survivors than in the areas controlled by Romanians who proved themselves to be ruthless murderers.

Many places in Odessa and the Region have memorial markers where the executions were conducted, such as a place where over 25,000 Jews were burned alive shortly after the occupation started. Unfortunately, I never stopped or paid attention to them, probably like most people. I saw more memorial markers today, while researching this post, than I remember seeing when I still lived in Odessa.

The Russian text is found in the National Archives of the Odessa Region, translation mine. If I have time and patience I will also try to translate a personal memoir written by a survivor; translation is a long and tedious process, and even though I start with a machine translation, it still doesn’t always come out right. Feel free to let me know if I can correct some grammar or spelling errors.

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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.

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Apparently elsewhere people will pay forty bucks for a pickling class while I’ve been just giving this stuff away. I am pretty sure this kind of thinking led to the birth of the prostitution, but unlike these enterprising women (and men) I keep doing it for free for the love of the craft. And what’s not to love: pickling transforms ordinary fruits and vegetables that will probably rot in the dark corner of your refrigerator into a delicious food that goes well with everything (especially with hard liquor), keeps well and pretty effortless to make.

If you ever tried revolting, cloyingly sweet, mouth-puckering watermelon pickles you might have seen in the grocery store, you are probably not in a hurry to repeat this horrifying experience, which, if your Mom was right, would have left a permanent grimace of disgust on your face. On the other hand, Russian pickled watermelons are a delicious refreshing treat. Originally watermelons were pickled whole in wooden barrels, but I suggest you start slow before digging up a root cellar in your backyard, buying 100-gallon barrels and stocking up on watermelons.

How many times have you purchased a watermelon that was not so great – pale and not very sweet? You are too tight to throw it away, so you do the next best thing – make your kids eat it, or invite omnivorous guests. Pickling will greatly improve your reputation of an evil parent or a stingy host. For this recipe you will need a jar, a watermelon (thinner rind preferred but not required), water and salt.

By the way, don’t you hate when you buy a seedless watermelon and it’s full of seeds? I guess we differ on our definition of the word “occasional”.

Slice the watermelon in chunks sized to fit in your jar; actually any container will do, pickled watermelon loves creativity. Place in the jar.

Now dissolve 2 tablespoons of (kosher) salt per 1 liter (or quart) of water…

…and pour in the jar until the watermelon pieces are covered. If necessary, make more solution keeping the proportion of salt to water. If you don’t have kosher salt, any salt would work, but iodized salt may affect the color of the end product.

Cover loosely and leave on the counter for 2-4 days; things will start happening, maybe some bubbles, or even a white-looking film will appear on top of the brine. Don’t worry, as they say in the health-food stores: “It’s all natural”; just skim it off the top. After a few days place in the fridge.
Next time you have guests, you don’t have to feed them an unripened watermelon, instead offer them a slice of pickled watermelon with their meal. They will beg to come back again.

If you want to progress to the real thing that looks like this:

Just to think that I just gave this away for free, next time I will ask for a dinner and a movie first.

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