Pryaniki and pig fat

This weekend I'm going to visit a friend. When I asked her what to bring (a pizza?), she suggested some Ukrainian food instead. Love this idea! :)

Marie, if you read this- borsch was on the menu, but our borsch chef has fallen ill and suggested a replacement of pelmeni instead. The fun part was that this meant visiting one of Portland's Eastern European food stores.

It felt like going home!! Even just pulling up outside the store was exciting! (To be honest, this is probably the least exciting picture you've ever seen in your life, but I was super-psyched to be there.)

Overseas Taste is a tiny, tiny shop. There was one bored кассир behind the counter- you could barely see her between the hanging sausages and the bins of shiny candies- and she immediately greeted us in Russian. It didn't take long to look around the whole place and pick our choices from the 5 food groups (candy, pickled things, oil, tea, and smoked meats).

Buckwheat (which sounds way more appetizing as "grechka", yes?) and sunflower oil.

I know, it's more tea. But we got once this in a Kharkiv supermarket and it was AWESOME. This memory made me physically incapable of passing it up yesterday. Plus, I have a plan for it...

Pryaniki! Spice cookies!

I grabbed a local newspaper for language practice. It turned out to be 90% religion, ads, and lonely hearts. Cool.

At the end, my non-salted-pig-fat-loving husband decided to buy himself a big chunk of salo for dinner. Yum, yum!

Marie, I can't wait to share pelmeni w/ sour cream & dill with you this weekend!
And grechka.
And wine.
And tea and pryaniki.
(But will spare you the salo. This time.)
:) :)