Turkeyday in Turkmenistan

Well, my fantasies of making a huge, traditional Thanksgiving feast here for my friends has evaporated in the mist. I'm heading to Turkmenistan Tuesday, thanks to (that's 5 words that begin with T in a row!) some ministers that have approved my not only coming into the country (thank you, minister of internal affairs) but also traveling to Mary to visit maternity homes (thank you, minister of health). Wow, what a run-on sentence. I'm not editing my work, so you'll have to suffer through that syntax.

I did spy some cranberry jelly in Stolichniy, the best supermarket in town. I'm imagining it as a mix between Whole Foods and Wegmans, though I've never been to Wegmans. They have a huuuuuge booze department, it runs nearly the entire length of the store. And the only meat I'd consider buying in town. A raw split chicken breast costs $5, by the way. This store is not a bargain. But instead of running around all over town looking for turkeys and figuring out how to convert gas mark ticks to degrees F, I'll be visiting some maternity hospital somewhere, teaching two wome the Ministry gave us to do accurate data collection. Truth be told, I'm somewhat relieved at not having to make this meal. If they didn't like something, I would be tarnishing the reputation of our country. Too much responsibility. It's a lot of pressure to be the representative for an entire country. If I do something, people are constantly projecting it to mean that all Americans do that. That is not always the case...but very difficult to explain to people. What can you do?

I have a new food obsession, thanks to Stolichniy. They have an outdoor area set up where you can buy chebureiki, manti, plov, and bliny. Their bliny ROCK. You stand outside in the cold air, all bundled up, waiting patiently for a woman to work her 5 skillets and make you 250 grams, 1 kg, however many you want....The standing and waiting reminds me of my Russia days where you had to stand in line for stuff like bread. The smell is deeeeeelicious. The bliny are divine. Here they eat them with smetana, which is a type of sour cream that is like crème fraîche but heavier. I like them sweet, so have found this Nutella-like choco-hazelnut paste that kicks Nutella's ass, because it actually has these teeny, tasty nuggets of hazelnuts in it. The bliny are so good that you can eat them plain, however.

The good news is that the store is a good 20-min walk from my place, so I don't go there often. The bad news is that it's 5 min from my favorite wifi cafe, so I generally go there on weekends after hanging out at Caffe Delia. Then I get my bliny fix.

Our cook at work, Natalya Fyodorovna, sometimes makes bliny for us. They disappear verrrrrry quickly. :) They are really quite good. Then again 99% of what she cook for us is really quite tasty...