Eat less, weigh more!

With apologies to Dana for the play on words, eat less, weigh more is exactly what is happening to us.  Let me explain. Russians eat three meals a day with lunch mostly being the larger meal. At  lunch and dinner it begins with a salad and the three main ingredients are cucumbers, tomatoes and yellow peppers. Additions to all salads are mayonnaise or sour cream and dill.  Soup follows and there are only 3 types of soup in all the Russian Federation--  Solyanka, a mixture of spices, several types of sausage, potatoes, and pickles.   Borscht , a  beet based soup with mystery meat, cabbage, potatoes, onions and dill.  And, chicken noodle soup, an American favorite. These two courses have not changed at any meal and I must say, cucumbers are the favorite of the people. For salt lovers there are several ways that cucumbers are prepared and they all have to do with salt. It is common to order a full plate of salted cucumbers, or pickled pickles or salted and pickled vegetables, well, you get the point.  Plates of assorted cheeses and cured mystery  meats ( I swear there was tongue on our last plate) are common as well, eaten without bread or crackers, just naked. I don't know about you but I need a Triscuit and some Dijon to get that mystery meat down. In other news, Katherine has developed a very convenient "allergy" to fish. We weren't very descriptive with the allergy and it didn't translate to Russian well, but it saved me from eating the pre-planned meal, which included dill, dill and a little bit of dill. Shishkabobs are popular dinner entrees. Lamb, pork, beef, mutton, chicken. I have eaten several types of grilled kabobs and they were quite tasty. But, chewy, very, very chewy. I kept wondering if my chicken  had free range in a small village called Chernobyl.  The fish has been very good, but dill is added to almost everything except coffee and I think I am developing a dill phobia, which is a little like Williams's aversion to curry from living next to the kitchen in his freshman dorm at Georgia Tech.  Because of my new found aversion, it has been difficult to find enough to fill us up unless we ordered dessert. Or, we resort to our stash of Pringles and peanut butter and  cheese crackers directly from Nabisco. Therefore, eat less but my pants are  definitely  snugger than they were before I left. Ugh! Now, to caviar! It is on every menu to some degree and mostly served with a pancake/blini. Sturgeon have been fished almost to extinction and are now widely regulated which means that black caviar prices are through the roof, even for Russia. Red caviar is what most locals are eating now. I, of course, ordered the black caviar at a fabulous restaurant, which also  has locations in NYC and Paris,  called Cafe Pushkin. One heaping tablespoon of the most delectable, melt in your mouth, black caviar. Neither Will nor Katherine wanted any so I felt like I had won the lottery. No, the Powerball. The only downside is that I ate about as much as I would win in the lottery. Sadly, We won't be bring any caviar home, my friends, and if we did, we wouldn't tell anyone. Shout out to Liz G. and her sister and brother- in-law, Tricia and Rob, for the restaurant tips. Bon appetit! P.S. we just got our bill and instead of mints or fortune cookies, we got doublemint gum.