Cooking with Luba

I've struggled a bit with cooking.

I have no cookbooks, which I am a bit dependant upon for variety. The foods I'm used to having around are either hard to come by or there's no chance at all. Tahini? Ha! Are you joking? Fresh herbs? Nope. Romaine lettuce? Forget about it. Gummy frogs? Oh! Great, there they are!

Luba knows what she's doing.

Last month they gathered up some sorrel (!) in a huge potato sack from somewhere (the woods) and then brought it home and stemed every leaf.

We're stemming.

Then she washed it and sauted it.

Then she wrapped them in dough and fried them into peroshki's. What was unexpected was that they were sweet and veryveryvery tasty!

I blogged earlier about the color of the eggs. Someone made the cheeky comment that our chickens were eating our non-biodegradable diapers thus the pale colors. But that was before we came -- now things are looking a bit brighter!

Another night I decide to make one of those Russian mayonaise salads with cabbage and various interesting things. Luba saw that I was about to embark upon something perhaps too ambitious and joined me.

We added to our mayonaise:
-shredded cabbage, of course
-shredded carrots
-shredded apples (!)
-corn
-crab meat
-pressed garlic
-green&yellow peppers

mmmm mmmm good! seriously!

Some Things Stay the Same - Part II

So, Lenin, what's your opinion of the free world?

Podsosnovo, Russia

Random Pics from March/April

They are called shashliks and they're mighty tasty!

There were two shashlik stations one with pork and one with chicken. I made sure we went to both.

She expertly speared her lunch. She's very dangerous.

It wasn't so much that he was pleased with the shashlik but more that he was pleased to have been given one all his own to hold.

Here they are posing with our friend Andre. Nathan met him on one of his reconnaissance trips to Russia a few years ago. He's been veryveryvery helpful and great to us.

Des was quite happy to have harvested some eggs for himself

Just goofing around on a fence.

(doesn't it look like dpj gained 20lbs in this pic? his 20-pound-smile)

The Amazing Family We Live With

A P r o f i l e

The Kondrativ Family

Nikolai and Luba. Married 35 years and still quite happy about it.
(or it could be my mom's creamy broccoli potato soup that they just ate)

Pavel. The malchick magnet (more on that in another post). He's about to brave the cellar to fetch some potatoes for Luba to make borst.

Sweet little Yulya in new Spring dress from Baba Luba.

Yulya and her loving babushka Luba.

(Nikolai has recently been promoting the moniker 'Baba Luba' for the babes to pick up and use -- which I think is very sweet and it also prompts me to break out into song everytime I hear it, "Hey BabbaLubba she's my ba-bay. Hey Babbalubba, I don't mean may-bay")

Here's Yulya putting up with Des and Zoe.

Luba frying fish. They go fishing a lot and I've seen and smelled a fair amount of fishiness to last me for sometime. I do enjoy eating it though.

A fish massacre.

The babes making peroshki with Luba.

(She gave them beer bottles for rolling pins -- handy!)

A early Spring composition.

(zoe in foreground on swing, luba at left and nikolai in middle and pavel on the right, in background)

Luba's tulips! The flowers finally starting blooming last weekend!


Here is the dom sweet dom in March

[I intend to upload a few more pics to the Russia in March photo album in the sidebar -- so avid photo watchers keep checking. done 6.6.08 -- now russia in march&april]

Some Things Stay the Same

Future leader of the free world.

Podsosnovo, Russia

15 Years with Jones

Today is our 15th Wedding Anniversary!

F i f t e e n y e a r s .

When Nathan P. Jones walked into my life we knew within 6months that we wanted to get married (not so unique) but we didn’t get around to it for another 2years (I thought I was the most long-suffering fiancé!) It was nathan’s mom who casually pulled out a calendar one day and flipped through it and pegged us down to a month and a day. She’s cool like that. As it turns out our babes were more long suffering as they waited 10years for us to grow up and decide it was time for them to join us. (love those babes in mylife!)

I am so grateful for my marriage and the way Nathan&I have grown together and the way we will continue to progress together. I feel that’s what the concept of eternal marriage teaches me the most: Progression. With Gods involvement we grow, we change, we improve and in the process our love and commitment deepens and our happiness together is more sure. I have a belief in my ability and Nathan’s ability to live this out and to become more like the type of person the other wants to be with eternally – it’s a way of living consciously with the decision we made long ago to be together and it steadies us when we need to remember.