On smug motherhood.

‘I wanna banana!’ said your son.

‘Sorry, sweets, no bananas today.’

The Star frowned. ‘Apple! Me have an apple?’

‘No apples either. We need to go shopping. How about a satsuma?’

‘Yes!’ Cherubic smile of satisfaction. ‘A sat-suma! I yike sat-sumas.’

There are times when you get to feel really smug as a mother, and when exchanges like this happen at top volume on a busy bus, that is one of them.

You feel justified in accepting the accolades that must surely have been rolling in upon you from your fellow passengers. You put a lot of effort into the Star’s food and eating habits. You do a lot of cooking. You do a lot of cooking from scratch.  Junk food in your house is pelmeni, Russian style ravioli. You even make your own hamburgers.

As a result you have a son who will refuse fish fingers*, can’t stand ketchup, has only recently discovered fruit juice is nicer than plain water, prefers the bitter dark Russian chocolate to the exceptionally sweet Cadburys  and whose favourite foods are apples,** brocoli, tomatoes and home-made chicken noodle soup.*** He doesn’t eat biscuits.  Or puddings. Not even with custard. He prefers fruit. He likes smoked salmon, steamed salmon, salmon and broccoli pasta and has never knowingly eaten a chicken nugget.

Of course, given that you can feel anxious about absolutely anything parenting related, you worry about this. Will he, you fret, rebel when he is thirteen, eat a Happy Meal and then consume nothing but McDonald’s for the rest of his life, die at 45 an obese blob as a result of your failure to desensitize him to fatty, sugar laden foods?

But the thing is, it’s not that you ban these things from his life. Every now and again you’ll make a cake and offer him some. He’ll nibble the icing and demand some grapes. You can’t even get him to eat sausages unless you hide them in toad in the hole, which is a shame as you like them.

In fact, it weren’t for the fact that he doesn’t really want to be adventurous, is steadfast in turning his nose up at stuffed peppers and adores ice cream, you’d be tempted to jack in the cooking and buy in a years’  supply of microwavable dinners to redress the balance.

Anyway. This is relevant because, as well as the fact that it doesn’t do to miss an opportunity for a good boast when you are a mother, you are about to wean the Comet.

Which means breaking out the baby rice and having at her with purees and not giving baby led weaning a chance.

Baby led weaning, for the child rearing fashion challenged amongst us, is where you cover the floor, the walls and any siblings in plastic sheeting, plonk a bowl of (unsalted but otherwise unadulterated) spaghetti bolognaise in front of a seven month old, stand well back and let them have at it. And then give them a bath and nuke the kitchen from orbit.

You would find it amusing, and as the Comet already has a good line in lunging for the nearest banana, or trying to face plant in the Rice Krispies, or flinging herself sideways to go after a piece of flying pasta, you doubt you will be able to resist giving her a spoon and a plate of cauliflower cheese sometime very soon, just to see what she makes of it.

But by and large, you don’t want to mess with the magic formula that has produced the Star and his disgustingly well-balanced attitude towards food.

Plus, there is the issue of the mess.

*Unless he’s at his Granny’s. For some reason he likes fish fingers at Granny’s.

**He ate four today. You are not sure this is entirely healthy. And nearly an entire bag of satsumas yesterday. On the other hand, surely this is better than him eating four lots of sweets?

***OK, and crisps. He doesn’t get to eat crisps very often though, so he has stopped asking for them. You save them for situations that call for really big bribes.

On marking time.

You firmly believe that it is pretty much impossible to have too much garlic.

Image via Wikipedia

On the problem with cakes.

Cakes cause a certain amount of dissension in your house.

This comes to a head every birthday, when your MiL and you husband look on in mild bemusement as you wrestle with the latest offering on the altar of declaring your love through home cooking. Why bother? They have learned not to ask.

For in Russia they are not great cake makers. This is not, however, to say that they do not have great cakes. They do. There they are, all lined up in dedicated deli counters in any food shop larger than a kiosk. Here is a picture of your favourite. It doesn’t look that impressive, but that is because you were unable to wait to take the photograph and it is in the middle of being demolished. Yes, it is essentially meringue held together with cream and nuts. Mmmmmmmmmmmm.

Cream. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Of course, when you were visiting a few years ago, there seemed to be experimentation with healthy versions of the classics. Healthy cream does not taste nice. Luckily, that madness had passed by the time you arrived in Moscow this summer and it was back to business as usual with the spun sugar, the cream and the elegant fruit toppings. And more meringue.

So Russians definitely eat cake. A lot of cake. Particularly as Russians actually do afternoon tea. And elevennses. Office birthdays were also particularly spectacular, although as a hostess you always appreciated the habit guests had of turning up with large square boxes full of gooey goodness. These days you tend to get wine, vodka and chocolates instead and it’s just not the mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Chocolates. Really really good chocolates. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Where was I?

Anyway.

You found out why Russians don’t bake when you decided to make B a Russian classic for his last birthday, Bird’s Milk Cake.

It tasted a lot better than it looked.

It took six hours.

Admittedly, at least one of those hours was because you had run out of condensed milk and had to stop and make your own, which you highly recommend by the way as it keeps forever and tastes much better than the stuff in tins.

Still, that’s practically five hours longer than you would expect to spent on an undecorated British cake (although it was very very good).

Russian cakes are, in your opinion, meant to be constructed by professionals under controlled conditions. By contrast, most British classics are meant to be made at home. And for this reason, you very rarely buy shop-bought cakes in the UK, and wouldn’t dream of it for properly special occasions. Why bother? Well, you can do it better and with a surprisingly small amount of effort.

Well, except for the whole decoration aspect. Since you are completely without any crafting skills whatsoever, you do approach the summer months with trepidation due to the fact that you now have to regularly produce themed birthday cakes for your son… and, oh no! Soon you will be doing it for your daughter too. You really did not think this having more children thing through.

Here, for example, is the practice cake for B’s birthday a couple of years ago.

And here is the Star’s second birthday cake. Yes, that is three times the recommended dosage of food colouring in that butter icing in a vain attempt to make it red rather than pink.

Mmmmmmm. Sugar!

(Incidently, you learned a very important parenting lesson as a result of this cake.

Do not save the birthday cake as a surprise for the end of a hard day’s partying.

You whipped it out of its cupboard to very satisfying cries of the Star’s delight.

Cries which swiftly turned to screams when, ten minutes and many candles later, you whipped it away again… in order to brutally hack it apart).

But in the end the problem with the cakes you make is not the reckless use of electricity involved in the baking time, nor the assault on aesthetic standards caused by your decorating skills.

No, the problem is that B just doesn’t really like British cakes at all. Oh he eats them if you put raisins in, but he’s not enthusiastic. And he considers the great British sponge in particular to be one big waste of good eggs, sugar and butter.

This initially came as something of a surprise to you.

Because to your palette Russian sponges, well, Russian sponges taste stale*.

And in one of those misunderstandings that only occur when two cultures collide, you smugly and quite patronisingly assumed that all that when B had a real sponge, he would fall to his knees, mouth foaming in ecstasy and declare he had seen the light. You still find it difficult to believe that B actually prefers the (substandard) taste he grew up with. But he does, and that’s all there is to it.

The Bird’s Milk Cake helped you realise why. The ‘cake’ part of the recipe is made with flour, eggs, sugar and so on… and no raising agent. The flour is plain. There’s no baking powder. Nothing. One recipe you came across called it a biscuit. And it was certainly very flat. And a bit stale tasting.

So your advice to any British person visiting Moscow is stay away from the sponges* and stick to anything essentially held together with cream and meringue.

And if serving cake to a Russian, make muffins. This is the recipe you used, and which inspired this post.

Because B ate them. All. In one day. And demanded more. You have branched out from cranberries and done blueberry muffins and even banana ones. Add cinnamon. Leave out the orange peel.

Galling that the bloody things are actually American though.

*Except the Prague Cake, which is chocolaty and lovely. Although still not terribly light or fluffy. Western versions of the recipe add baking powder.

On office parties.

So much for posting every day until Christmas.

In your own defence, as well as the projectile vomiting, and the associated cleaning frenzy in the aftermath, there were also two Christmas dos to fit in and a morning chasing an appointment all over South London.

You recommend greyhound racing for a works outing by the way. It wasn’t your office party, or even B’s, but B’s driving instructor’s. What can you say? At least you spared them all from falling back on talking shop.

You won £3.50. That’s once.

You lost £24. That’s 12 races. You can conclusively say that you cannot pick a dog. Yours came in last three times.

You do have one tip, however. Wear extra jumpers and two pairs of socks. The viewing gallery stroke restaurant is not meant to be occupied in shirt sleeves in the middle of a cold snap.

But the food was good.

Which is more than you can say about the Argentinian restaurant your school patronised for the other blow out.

You were unsurprised to find that the main course consisted of a very large hunk of beef and nothing else, because you had rather gathered that this is Argentinian cuisine at its best, but you weren’t prepared for the two and a half hour wait that came between the starter and the steak. I mean, how difficult can it be to slap a cow on the barbie?

Very, apparently, given that anyone who had ordered medium rare got it raw. Of course, the funny thing about serving chunks of meat to British people is that British people have often been brought up on Sunday roasts and can be quite fussy about it. You, for example, didn’t appreciate the gristle and fat in what should have been a prime cut.

And in the end you barely had time to drink your completely unfrozen sorbet* before fleeing to catch the last train home. Becuase the other issue with the establishment is that it was almost the opposite end of London to where you work, and therefore to where most of the staff actually live.

Ah well. That’s what happens when restaurants are run by your boss’s former bank manager.

But the company was good, which is really the point.  Almost good enough to allow you to forget your howling stomach. And nobody photocopied their knickers, which is also a plus, and quite surprising given the very liberal hand your boss has with the wine.

* You are suspicious about this. Can sorbet be liquid? Everybody did politely neck it, but unlike the beef, you think that you were had and that the kitchen had run out of frozen pudding and just served what they had. Lemon flavoured water in this case.

On saved by modern technology.

Too traumatized by the failure of the Christmas puddings to turn solid despite being boiled for seven hours to finish the post from yesterday.*

Luckily, a quick blast in the microwave did the trick otherwise all would be merely keening on the blog right now.

*Note to self. Do not add extra brandy willy nilly.

On squeamishness.

And now for something completely different…

I do not like lychees.

They taste like eyeballs.

See?

On Shesh Besh.

Dizzy with the successful contemplation of high art in the Tretyakov Gallery, you have just fallen over on the street*. Or perhaps you were overcome by the heat. Either way you came down a right thump and have retreated to a café for food and tea.

The Tretyakov Gallery

They do exceptionally good tea here. It comes in a vast teapot accompanied by small glasses to sip it from, little rocks of sugar to add and tiny teaspoons to stir contemplatively. You have drunk a lot of those glasses by now, and partaken of, amongst other things, roasted aubergines smothered in garlic, and are feeling quite restored although not quite yet ready to go back out into the furnace that is Moscow at 2pm on what they promise is to be the last day of the heatwave**.

Tea in Moscow is a bit like coffee in London. You take for granted that it will be leaf of exceptional quality and frequently specially blended. And then you are surprised when you get back to the UK and somebody hands you a cup of lukewarm water with a teabag haphazardly immersed in it.

In much the same way you forget that in the UK, when you order coffee outside of the capital, it will be mid-range instant, whereas within the city limits even the meanest greasy spoon will have a go at brewing you something freshly ground. It may not be especially nice, but it can hardly be worse than the cup a five-star hotel gave you recently. Of course, that hotel was a good four hours north of the centre of the British universe.

Anyway, there was an ominous crack as your bag hit the pavement and so you are feeling the need to check over your computer thoroughly. It seems to be working. You hope you will be able to say the same about your camera. Perhaps you ought to give it a test and in this way demonstrate another feature of Moscow life, the theme restaurant showcasing the cuisine of the Caucuses.

You’ve already been to one of these this holiday and very nice it was too, with its English salad and mountain of kebab meat, not to mention the starter of yoghurt, dill and rice drink.

The English salad - it's the pomegranates that give it away.

But best of all was the small fountain tinkling between plastic grape vines, plush and slightly too low couches, tasselled nylon draperies and assorted atmospheric vessels of mysterious purpose.

Vessels

The fountain

Curtains

This one is not quite that impressive, but it does have the same attention to detail shown by the fibreglass walls simulating rustic mud huts. Sadly, the wait staff are not in full national costume today, but you can only hope they haven’t done away with it altogether.

You blame Irish theme pubs, but not too much as in fact, you’ve rejoiced ever since the Shesh Besh chain, which is where you are, opened about 8 years ago. This is because you enjoy unembarrassed tacky, partly because of the aubergines but mostly because it represented a new dawn in lifestyle in Moscow, something for the aspiring middle class. Prior to places like this, there was the very cheap or the very expensive and not much in between that wasn’t McDonalds.

There are only so many plates of pelamini you want to eat standing up and sadly very few of your friends are oligarchs.

*Or not. See What I did on my Holidays Part 1.

**They lied. It wasn’t.

On filling.

And continuing the occasional NaBloPloMo series that is random facts about me, in lieu of an actual post…

I really really like custard tarts.

This is not a euphemism.

On giving away an heirloom.

So next week is the Russian Orthodox Maslenitsa in your little corner of London that is forever Moscow. Pre-Lenten pancakes for breakfast for a whole week. Well, Russia is a tad colder than the UK and clearly just the one day of stuffing their faces isn’t enough to see them through forty days of fasting. And the Orthodox church is pretty big on fasting; we aren’t just talking the very Anglican habit of banning chocolate biscuits for the duration.

Maslenitsa is, of course, a full week before the week when everyone else in the UK will be aiming their frying pans at the ceiling.

Sometimes you think it would be easier all round if you both converted to paganism. At least then you and B would be taking your clothes off and humping the nearest silver birch, molesting Stonehenge or whatever in concert. Although knowing your luck you would accidently join two different sects and continue to be conflicted about when to order the ritual sacrifice for Samhain.

To prepare for pancake week, the MiL has been teaching you her blini recipe. It is a little involved, although slightly less faffy than the ones you’ve previously written about.

First take a four pint carton of milk and put it on a radiator. Which should be on.

Leave this overnight.

When it has separated into a sort of yellowish water at the top with a rather squidgy mass at the bottom, pour the milk into a pan and apply heat. Not too much though, it mustn’t boil. Leave it to cool down.

Pour the mixture into a colander lined with four layers of muslin. Make sure there is a pan underneath to catch the liquid.

Gather the edges of the muslin together and twist them to make a closed bag. Don’t squeeze too hard or everything will come through the sides of the muslin and be lost. Weight the ball of milk remnants down with something like a jam jar filled with water and leave for at least four hours until all the water has been pushed out. Open up the muslin and scrape whatever is there into a bowl.

Congratulations, this is tvorug.

It’s sort of cream cheese, which Russians eat a bit like yoghurt by mixing fruit and such into it. Or make a sort of baked cheesecake out of it by adding raisins. Or use it along with jam to stuff Russian ravioli with. The possibilities are endless.

Unfortunately, one of the few things tvorug isn’t used for is making blini.

No, it’s the by product of the tvorug, the milky water carefully collected during the straining process that is the crucial ingredient for B’s Mother’s Russian pancakes.

The liquid will keep a day or so in the fridge. When it’s needed, heat it until it is tepid. add at least two eggs and beat until frothy. Add self-raising flour and beat, enough to make a fairly gloopy pancake batter. Add two desert spoons of vegetable or sunflower oil.

And that’s it. The resulting pancakes won’t be very good for flipping, and should have little holes throughout. You ate yours with maple syrup, the Star had some with sour cream and B wanted to have his with condensed milk but you were out.

On decking the halls.

Last year you spent the whole of November virtuously not thinking about Christmas. Sidling past the tinsel, the seasonal food aisles, the oversized Santas, the holly themed car and leg waxing sets and the jolly reindeer socks in shops, averting your eyes when the really jingly adverts came on TV, stuffing your fingers in your ears to protect yourself from carolling muzak, and filing any festive catalogues straight in the bin.

You made yourself so deaf to the siren call of Yuletide bacchanalia that before you knew it, it was February and you had barely even had time to buy the Star a musical Rudolf bib. Despite the fact that your twelve days are extremely extended owing to the way that the Russian Orthodox Church stubbornly clings to a version of the Julian calender and celebrates Christ’s birth on the 7th January. You would be more sympathetic to this if they were consistent in refusing to respect leap years, but it’s just the ones before 1914 they don’t admit existed. Still, at least it doesn’t lead to arguments about whose cultural traditions you will trample all over this year. B puts up with the Victorian turkeyfest because he knows you will do it all properly later.*

So this year, you waited virtuously until after the 5th November and then you bought yourself the Christmas editions of some glossy food porn mags and a festive Good Housekeeping. You have found your collection of old cards ready to recycle into new ones. You have bought the Star his first present. You have made a mental note not to hang the glass baubles this year. You have earnestly discussed the production of the family plum pudding with your Dad, who has enthusiastically taken over British Christmas from your Mum this year following her retirement from the match due to a hip operation**, and who has looked out his microwave recipes, lovingly saved from the last time Mum was indisposed. You have started a gift list for your nearest and dearest. You have located your carol CDs, although you did decide that it’s still a bit early for actually playing them yet. You have contemplated the price of cute snowman wrapping paper in the shops. You have browsed your Christmas catalogue from Lakeland Plastics.

But in the midst of all this breathless anticipation there is something you want to say.

There’s preparation, there’s stimulating the market, and then there’s selling fresh festive turkey and cranberry sauce sandwiches intended to be eaten right now for lunch.

Who buys these things? Why in the name of all that’s sacred would anyone decide that the day after Halloween would be a good time to scoff one of these with their breaktime coffee?

I’m sorry Greggs. It’s just wrong***.

*On New Years Eve. See under ‘Communism’ and ‘institutionalised athism’.

**She’s recovering nicely, thanks, and plans to direct from a chair.

***And there should be an apostrophe in there somewhere too.