Friday, September 11, 2009

GBC: Not the gumdrop buttons!

I still haven't completely figured out the interwebs situation, but I HAVE figured out a way to give you a Daily Dose of Frozen Icarus™!

Just don't drink it too quickly, now, or you'll get an ice cream headache.

I've written a couple of posts as they've occurred to me, and scheduled them to go one-a-day, so you won't miss me.

Now, to resolve the last post: I searched three more stores around the dorm, and didn't think I'd ever find a chainik. I then entered the dorm, met a Swedish girl who is also studying at MARKhI, told her my problem, and she promptly took me to where I needed to go -- a Russian variation on the theme of IKEA, wherein I got a chainik for 500 r. (divide by 32 for dollars, I'm feeling lazy). AWESOME.

I realized that really...I tell no one anything.
You talk so much, and yet you never say anything.
You know what - that's a seriously important quote in my life. A for real-real gift to someone who gets it. No cheating with google searches, now. Well. Maybe after a couple of days.

Wif's post about Dos Amigos made me seriously miss their $5 burrito Mondays, in which I took great pleasure participating.

To reassure you against the negative stereotypes about Russian cooking, and for the general good of humanity, striving for greater education for all (the "39 Step Plan" of Obama's, one might say...tee hee), I present: Gourmet Bachelor Chow IN RUSSIA!

(Think: "Pigs in SPACE (space space space)")

BREAKFAST

If I'm heading over towards Tverskaya (which isn't entirely out of my way, but to which I usually only head if I'm hanging out with some of the other possible recipients of the grant, who live nearby, or going to the gym, then I'll go Kofe Haus. They have a good deal, there: for 125 r. one receives an Americano, an orange juice, and a rather large croissant with chocolate syrup on top. For some reason this KH does not have the three breakfast options that are in their menu...I really want bliny...

Otherwise I've been getting Chudo, which is a cross between a yogurt smoothie and a gogurt. 36 r. Very filling.

Or I'll have leftovers from the night before. Cf. DINNER

LUNCH

I go to the stolovaya (dining hall) of either the Institute, if I'm on that side of the center, or of Leninka (the Russian State library). The former is very slightly cheaper than the latter, but both offer the same: a small salad, some kind of chicken breast in a mushroom/cheese sauce or else a hamburger patty (kotlet) with a side dish of pasta or kasha or what-have-one. (I guess that's a situation where one really needs to say 'you,' isn't it.)

Lunch has some good variation. Today, for example, I had a very delicious meal of salat Oliv'ie (a potato-based salad with ham and peas and mayonaisse, dill for flavor) and borshch po-ukrainski (beet soup with hamburger and vegetables). Sometimes I get weird looks when I have such meals because I'm not eating a "full" meal. Really, I should be getting a salad, a soup, and then the meat/side dish combo described above. I get even weirder looks when I only order the pasta. Today's lunch, which I got with tea, was 76 r. Usually it's somewhere around 125-175 r.

DINNER

Dinner is interesting because it's the most fluid (in structure, not content - breakfast definitely wins the latter, if it were a competition). Sometimes I'm eating v gosti at someone's house, which means it resembles LUNCH; other times I'll have a hankering for bliny (crepes, of a sort, which I usually get with cheese and ham) from Teremok, or some other kind of quick food; else I go to the produkty by the dorm and get a one-shot and/or non-perishable deal (I don't have a fridge). Yesterday, for example, I had a handsome dinner of a -- I actually forget the word, now. It's a type of white bread from the Caucasus, which I had as the base of an open sandwich with cheese and turkey breast. Those food stuffs, and a nectarine - 156 r. If I get a lot of bread and/or cheese, I'll eat the rest the next morning (it gets cold at night. I'm not worried about food poisoning, at least from that practice, and neither should you!), as I mentioned in BREAKFAST. Again, usually dinner's about 125-175 r.

A food group close to my heart that I haven't mentioned is COFFEE, which gets a separate section all to itself.

Again, it's best if I'm at Leninka or MARKhI, because there I can get a "cappuccino," "americano," or "kofe" for 15-20 r. Kofe Haus also has a pretty decent americano for 125 r., which, coupled with the buy 1-get-1-free offer, is worthwhile. I use the quotes, however, because as I'm drinking them in my head I have to think:

"This isn't a cappuccino, it's hot chocolate." It's Nescafe - which means that the recipe is something like this:
50% sugar
40% water
5% espresso
5% other flavorings and/or crack
Usually I get by with only wasting another 30-50 r. on caffeinated beverages. Sometimes on tea.

So this is supposedly a blog about what life is like for me in Russia, and about what I'm doing here. I welcome questions, because otherwise I might not think to describe something that is otherwise incomprehensible.

ROD (Russian Of Day - which seems appropriately poorly translated):

Mozhno kofe bez sakhara? -- May I have coffee, no sugar?

3 comments:

Snooze said...

I don't know if Russia has them but Bulgaria did. Get a Nescafe frappe. Btw the advertising for Nescafe is EVERYWHERE in Bulg. A 4 hour drive to the sea put us on a highway that had only nescafe billboards for about 30 kilometers. Also any blog post that somehow makes a reference to Gogurt is a winner in my book.

Jess Cote said...

mmm nescafe. *cue pavlovian respone*

i figured you would get this faster if i commented on your blog rather than an email or FB msg:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/43014

hehe.

Andrew said...

I might have been tempted to try said frappe, Pat, but you see...frappes were the bane of my existence this summer. I don't know if I'll ever recover, fully. I might check it out anyhow. I've already had a drink with ice in it before I realized that little microbes were dancing in my esophagus...you can tell that to the coroner.

And Jess, I *literally* laughed out loud when I saw that headline. You'll want to get Yossarian on the line, I think; he can give the CIA pointers, so they don't lose so much valuable information. Just articles, conjunctions...