A long time in the making:

So its been eons since my last update but I assure you I've been working harder than
ever.

With the computer labs and library closed I've found it harder to update my blog but infinitely easier to study without the distractions of the world wide web. I've spent most of my time perfecting my greetings and polite phrases and working on translating my dinner speech thing. That has been going a bit slowly due to the lack of internet resources but it is still moving along.

Here are a couple of recipes I've found, including the "authentic" russian deviled eggs recipe.



Description
Eggs are considered the best item for breakfast and for appetizers. But it is not easy to diversify the dishes with them. This one is very good and rich dish. It is easy to make, but looks and tastes exclusively.
Method
Cut eggs in halves, take yolks out. Blend yolks with butter, greens, salt and cream.. Put the filling back into the halves. Put two halves together like a whole egg, sprinkle with cheese and butter. Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes. Before serving pour mayonnaise over and decorate with greens.


Ingredients
# 8 ea eggs hard boiled.
# 3 tb parsley and dill finely chopped.
# 1/2 c cream.
# 1/2 c cheese ground.
# 3 tb butter.
# mayonnaise.
# salt, greens.
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Description
Stuffed tomatoes is a great attractive appetizer. The only shortcoming is that it takes time to make it, but perfect taste and guests' approval will compensate your work.
Method
Wash tomatoes, cut off the tops and take out the flesh. Combine peas, grated apples and carrots, chopped egg whites with mayonnaise, season to taste. Stuff tomatoes with the filling and put on large dishes. Place a lettuce leaf under every tomato and sprinkle the tope with grated yolks.


Ingredients
# 3 kg strong equal tomatoes.
# 400 g peas.
# 2 ea boiled carrots.
# 3 ea lightly salted cucumbers.
# 3 ea apples.
# 250 g mayonnaise.
# 2 ea hard boiled eggs.
# lettuce leaves.
# pepper.
# salt.
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Description
Cheboureki are small fried pies with meat filling. It is a Caucasian dish. Russian peopl love cheboureki especially with a bottle of beer.
Method
Grind beef and pork twice in a mincer. Then add finely chopped onion, salt, pepper. To make mincemeat more tender and juicy, add mayonnaise. Stir very well and knead with hands. Reserve.
Mix flour with eggs and milk, salt and oil until a soft dough forms. Knead on floured surface until dough is elastic. Take some dough and make a "sausage" (1 inch in diameter). Divide into pieces (1 inch thick). Roll each piece so that they are 1/16 inch thick. Take a little plate ( 4 inches in diameter) and make rounds with it's help on the dough. Fill each round with the mincemeat evenly, fold into half-moons. Pinch edges together and connect the opposite sides. Pour oil into the pan and heat up. Put two Cheboureki on the pan at a time and fry until golden brown on the average heat on two sides.
Cheboureki are served with beer.




Ingredients
# 2 c flour (more if needed for stiff dough).
# 1 c milk.
# 1/2 ts salt.
# 2 tb vegetable oil.
# 2 ea eggs.
# 1 c beef.
# 1 c pork.
# 1 ea small onion.
# 3 tb mayonnaise.
# salt and pepper to taste.
# oil to fry.

The Final Countdown:

Alright, I've only got three weeks left. Which means I've got to start focusing on my final presentation.
I'm working on a speech, a pretty lengthy one at that, and i'm continuing to look through Russian recipes too and i think I'm going to be able to make quite a meal.
As far as when and where we have the presentation I only have one opinion; that it be later in the afternoon. If I'm going to make food I'm going to need an hour or two (or three) to prepare it and everything. Hannah also mentioned that its her birthday on the 19th so we might have to push the date for the presentation up to Monday. I have no problem with that and neither does Arthur. Or I guess the other option is that Hannah does hers another time, there's no reason to rush her i guess.
We'll discuss it more later I suppose.
Only three weeks left!

Over the Weekend:

Over the weekend I decided to spring for a Russian book. It's supposed to teach Russian in ten minutes a day but I don't know how it expects me to do that. You could read the lesson once in ten minutes but to really learn it takes a great deal of time. On Sunday, while procrastinating other homework I went ahead and started on that. I seems pretty fun but I suppose I'll spend my presentation time telling all the details.

Forgot my IPOD today! Major disaster!

The First Week Back:

Its been a pretty busy week back. The internet was down on Monday, as you well know, so I just spent the time reviewing through my audio lessons and looking over the notes I took during my tutoring session. Tuesday everything was up and running so I checked out
my Russian websites since I was disconnected from the internet since last Friday. Sadly Spoonfed Russian is still not updating as Nadia, its author, is focusing more on her own studies, thats alright though, there are plenty of lessons that I haven't even looked at yet. Sadly, I spent the whole day reviewing and completely forgot that I was supposed to present on the Tuesday, I don't even know how, after doing it every week for the entire semester. Anyway, Wednesday I spent feeling bad and working extra hard. I spent lots of the time researching Russian cuisine and restaurants in Russia. It turns out that the only good Russian restaurants serve foreign food. All the forums I've read said you can either get cheap, awful, native food or expensive, good foreign food. Thats a little disappointing, seeing as how I wanted to make Russian food for my final. I think I can do it. The Forums said that Russians bury the taste of their awful food in vodka but i figure if I just make the Russian food well we won't have to do that. Thursday and I was back to the Ipod lessons, alot of the ones I listened to upodated over the break so I downloaded those and listened to them. I might have to be a little more selective in the future though, my Ipod is rapidly filling up. Today, I tried to think of a lesson to do with David but its pretty hard to think of a lesson he can do on the go.

Tutoring, sort of:

I talked with David today. He seems like an upstanding kind of guy. He's no teacher sure but he does know Russian and more importantly he knows how Russian is spoken in Russia. He corrected me on some of my phrases, which he said could be construed as rude or childish and gave me the phrase he would use instead. I only talked for about ten minutes but I dunno, I didn't really know what to say and he sounded like he was doing something when I called so...eh.
Next time I call I'll make sure to have a lesson or questions prepared so I don't just awkwardly babble into the phone. I guess I'm just nervous.
Anyways.
It was a great experience and I really like the idea of getting help with my Russian from a native speaker not just a teacher or a audio program. I guess I'll start preparing for the week after spring break.

More interactions with David:

David hasn't e-mailed me back so I guess that means he is okay with me calling him tomorrow. I hope at least. I spent today going over pronunciations again. Lots of freshmen have been in the library being incredibly loud as they goof off and do nothing so thats been a bit of a setback, hopefully they will be gone by tomorrow.
If they're not I guess I can always go to an industrial plant, it'd be quieter than this.