Fall in Review +Christmas

I've been rubbish about pictures this fall- so here is our fall and Christmas in review - Enjoy!

If it has it's own commercial . . . . .

So the Euro 2012 match has been in a state of Limbo the last 2 years - will Ukraine and Poland pull it off or not? Well now it has its own commercial -so it must be happening, right?. Taking bids now for couch and sleeping bag space. 6 min walk from metro - 40 min ride to the arena ; )

Snow

We got our first snow fall the other day and after 3 more days of trying we finally got a small skiff that has stuck around. Not a layer - very definitely a skiff.

Sorry I don't have anything more interesting to say that that - we just haven't had time - our house isn't even decorated for Christmas yet - but having anticipated this to a degree I arranged a cookie decorating party for January 9th with the girls from Church - I thankful for the long holiday at least.

Alister, however will be gone for most of it - dashing off to the UK for a month of studies. He's actually relieved to be missing the traditional 8 weeks of carols that our church sings - but I don't mind - I was ready to sing Carols in November - but Alister said after Thanksgiving and then after 2 nights of carols he said we couldn't do anymore till the house was decorated. Well - the house is still undecorated so family worship singing hasn't wandered to the Christmas section yet. But I've been listening to my own Holiday stash as i've been tackling editing jobs and house work :- )

For new comers who want to know more about a Ukrainian Christmas - check out last year's post on Christmas music and this general letter.

Fruits of the season

Okay you supermarket junkies . . . .did you know that now is the season for
Brussle Sprouts
Pomegranates,
Sharon Fruit (persimmons)
Citrus of all sorts
?

While I still haven't really taken a shine to sharon fruit (male or female)- I do love pomegranates. Last year - when i discovered the easy way of cutting them so you and your kitchen don't end up looking like a crime scene - my appetite for them really took off.

I first became interested in them years ago when I first read The Mouse that Roared. My mom was good enough to buy one - but I was unimpressed - it tasted like corn.

Since then, I have gone on to bigger and better pomegranates - and while there is the occasional one that make you wonder how Persephone could have been tempted - on the whole I like them.

To make your experience with pomegranate better
1) cut off the tip top below the crown - while you might hit a few berries it won't be too many.
2) Take you knife and score the sides, like you would an orange peel in 4 or 5 places - you should be able to see white "guides" from when you sliced off the top.
3) Gently pull the pomegranate apart along the scores
- You can now either pick at seeds, or put the fruit upside down in a bowl of water for about ten minutes. This will further loosen the seeds and make them even easier to extract.

Thanksgivng

Had a wonderful Thanksgiving - here in Kiev - loads of food - loads of friends - and just a great time all over. 6 families participated - and with that many cooks - of course everyone brought their own desert (pumpkin cheesecake, apple, pumpkin, pecan, chocolate pecan pies, and apple crisp) as well- even with a sliver - I think I ended up eating a whole pie. -

Back to the classics

In my quest for classics - I have just finished listening to a Globe Radio Production of Madame Bovary. If you care about these things, and you might one day read Madame Bovary - be aware that this blog post will contain ***SPOILERS***.

Frankly, I thought it was a waste of time and don't understand why it is a classic. True - the author's voice was very picturesque - but the character - Madame Bovary was not sympethetic in the least. She was revolting with no redeemable thing in her and then her husband - who was nice just pines away and dies for no reason at the end of the book even though he learns what a terrible woman and wife she was. In fact - he is still making excuses for her and even tells one of her lovers that he understands!

I don't mind if a character is abit dodgy - I love Flannery O'Conner's stories and her characters are often quite raw - but the differnce is that they are not beyond redemption -- or they at least realize how rotten they were. Emma - in typicall selfish fashion - realizes she doesn't want to die for no other apparent reason than that it is painful and gruesom and not at all romantic - the crowning dissapointment of all of her dissapointments- unrealistic expectations that were not met.

Simultaneously to Madame Bovary, I am reading Crime and Punishment. How I managed to pick two books about morally revolting people, I 'm not really sure - but so it goes. Even before he commited the murder, I was unsure if I really wanted to read about such a character - and Alister can't remember how it ends but says "his conscious tortures him - so how can he be a complete moral rebrobate" So I haven't gone too far past the murder - but in my opinion, someone who can kill someone simply because he fell into a brooding depression and made it worse by not talking to people or seeking work and all of those other things that get yu out of the world inside of your head - well, I'm just not sure if I want to read about such a character if nothing then comes of it - i.e redemption and sympathy are not achievable.

Food, Inc

Lately, Alister and I have been watching a lot of documentaries (partly because PBS and the history channel seem to be the only stations that don't foreign IP addresses).

Our latest find was Food, Inc. We had heard about the movie this summer, and after watching King Corn, and Super Size Me - we had it on our list.

It was excellent. The main thing that keeps going over and over in my head is this one scene where an organic farmer is outside butchering and packing chickens. He says that the big chicken factory tried to shut him down by saying his operations were unsanitary (well, we might think - he is outside!) So he had his chicken tested along with one of the supermarket packing plant chickens. His chicken was 1000 times cleaner!!!!!! than the packing pack chicken - and, he made the point, his chicken hasn't been through any chlorine baths.

While this makes me feel tremendously safer about shopping in our outdoor market - it also makes me thankful not to be in the US buying my food. Based on numerous articles I've been reading this past year - I've already told Alister that we can't eat ground beef when we visit the states unless it comes from my Uncle's farm - and now i'm afraid that I really will cave and go "organic" despite the cost. While food is generally more expensive here in Europe - and even while Ukrainian food doesn't have the best reputation in Europe - many things - such as Genetically Modified foods - have been banned. Here in Ukraine, there still are concerns about chickens who have been pumped up with steroids or whatever - people will tell you to buy beef or pork or buy from a babushka - but in general - I don't think there are the huge mega packing houses and meat plants that there are in the states. While a smaller scale may be seen as inefficient - right now i'm thinking "cleaner" and “safer”.
In the UK - Beef and other products are safer still - because of the Mad Cow scare - meat packages in the supermarket must be labelled with the farm from which the animal came - that means no mixed portions of cows from Uruguay, Texas and Timbuktu - You can even select a piece of meat that came from your neighbour down the road.

And that, I think, is pretty darn cool.