The Joy of Cooking

As I mentioned before, cooking is a bit challenging at the moment. We finally found cream cheese the other day but it only comes in containers that are about 3-4 ounces. The heavy cream also comes in a very small container, but I successfully made scones with local blueberries for my first tea party. It’s so hot we only drank Iced tea though. My oven is screamin’ hot though, my neighbor gave me an American standard gage and no matter what I set the oven on it climbs to over 500 degrees F. That’s just not going to work for me, the “Martha Stewart” that I am, tee hee.

I wish I could buy and store more fruit from Reenach, but it’s all I can do to buy enough to carry and eat in just a couple of days. The girls and I eat the fruit and vegetables like they are going out of style, which they sort of are. The little grocery stores carry some produce, but there won’t be the variety once farm season is over. My freezer is almost entirely full of blueberries and I will shove as much apple butter as I can in it once I start making that. I’m sure going to miss my strawberry jam this year, strawberry season was over by the time I arrived in Slavutich, bummer!

My neighbor and I have already begun cooking and sharing with each other. I brought her some scones, cobbler from fruit from her trees and homemade applesauce. Of course, the girls (dievooshkee) have helped me with nearly all the cooking! They are so eager to help, and it’s been so fun to do all this with them. The girls and I are having a great time being Suzy homemakers together. Anna (our neighbor), invited me over to see that she was making palmenya. Palmenya is a small round piece of pastry with a pork, onion, beef mixture set inside, then the dough is folded over, sealed and the ends pinched together. You cook these in a pan maybe with onion and butter/oil or a cream sauce, or bacon and

Girls' Palmenya on left, Anna's on the right.

 mushrooms….oh soooo good! When the girls knocked on Anna’s door and saw she was cooking they were eager to help. I went over later and found my girls working away in Anna’s kitchen doing a fine job! Anna was pleased and told her mother in Russia and her sister and daughters in Kiev what a good job the dievooshkee were doing! I told Anna that these we’ll be our best souvenirs, the time that we get to spend learning how to cook new foods and learning other traditions from new friends!

Anna shared borscht with me and it was also quite tasty. Unfortunately, they do not have many recipes written down so it is going to take watching and practice for me to get their recipes right! Even Anna says that some meals are a little different each time you cook it. I can handle that idea with dinners, but with my baked goods I will need recipes.