Eat, Sleep, Love: The 3 most important verbs I have learned in Russian



I was in charge of folding the napkins...eat your heart out Martha ;)

 



The masa spread







Birthday gal (my host sister) Diana with her Godparent's grandson, Lucas



During my first meal with my host family my host mother motioned with her hands, “Kuchite, Kuchite”, so I knew off the bat what it meant. I thought I would focus most of this post on the food I am enjoying here in Moldova thus far. Again, my first word was dill (ukrop) and first verb: EAT!

"A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body." -Benjamin Franklin

Fun new foods. The foods that have made it into this post are sweet, of course. The first is chocolate flavored butter, or butter with cocoa and sugar. Spread on a piece of hleb (bread) with a cup of tea or cofee…heaven! The coffee situation is improving. Myself, an on and off coffee drinker, while learning Russian and adjusting to a new time zone, I have found that it is now indeed an “on” time for coffee. At first my, and all of my classmates families, were giving us instant coffee. This seems to be the norm here in Moldova. So we went with it. Considering Starbuck’s new move into instant coffees we knew this stuff existed. What we didn’t know, but soon became quite aware of, was that these instant coffees (particularly the green-labeled stuff that seemed to be served in every household AND at our Peace Corps hub days in Chisanau) didn’t have much, if any, caffeine. What were we going to do?!? WELL…talk about thought power, the very day our Russian teacher, Dasha, told us of this issue, I came home and as I washed my hands at the kitchen sink caught of glimpse of something very promising on the counter: a French press! Eureka! My host sister informed me that her mother had picked it up at the bizarre that very day. Sometimes you really do get just what you need.
 
On to the halva. A tradition food in many cultures, the halva here in Moldova is made of sunflower seeds.  Sunflowers are one of Moldova’s main crops. Moldovans proudly use sunflower oil in their cooking (a step up from Canola oil if you ask me), crunch on sunflower seeds, and have this ridiculously delicious sweet hunk of sunflower heaven halva. It seems to be just seeds ground with sugar and made into a thick, dry paste. Eating it alone reminds me of the inside of a Butterfinger…only with no artificial flavors or colors and the sweet nutty flavor of the seeds of sun. I asked Diana if they were cubing this stuff and dipping it in chocolate. She didn’t know and hadn’t ever seen it. I have now confirmed that if there is no one doing this we have a business plan to get working on (#2 next to the tea shop idea which I will discuss in another post). I am not sure where else you can get your hands on the stuff, besides Ukraine and Russia. Seems like a pretty good reason to visit Moldova to me…?


Yesterday was my host sister, Diana’s, 20th birthday. This meant preparing LOTS of food to share with guests. One of the most famous Moldovan dishes is plachenta (Pa-Russki is pronounced: plats-yenta) which is a thin, layered dough stuffed with savory or sweet fillings and baked.  It reminds me of a Dutch treat my grandmother makes with almond paste called bonket.  My host family seems to make it mostly with cabbage and dill or cheese and dill (maybe they are skipping the meat for me...) but for the party made it sweet with the halva and veeshnya (sour cherries-very good).

Cpot*.  Sleep.  So very important. My sleep has been tak cebye or so-so. Sometimes I have trouble to fall asleep because it is light here until about 10pm and then once the sun is down, the dogs throughout the neighborhoods seem to like to flex their barking skills. And then there are the dreams pa-Russki. My dreams filled with Russian words I am learning. I toss and turn, "Spasiba, Pajowlsta"….Sleep is when we are restored. Our cells and replaced, our organs detoxified. It is important and so I list it here. Eat, Sleep and….


Lubyet*.  Love. Of course. Do I really need to explain this one?


Om tat sat.

*Do note that these are transliterations and I do plan at some point to start using the cyrillic alphabet for my Russian words (also followed by transliteration of course!)




Platcentya with veeshnya & roll with halva