Manic Bookstore Cafe

Check out the window, lower left. NOTE: THIS POST WAS WRITTEN IN MID-DECEMBER AND REMAINED IN DRAFT FORM. TIME TO RELEASE IT AND GET BACK TO BLOGGING. Wednesday night we did our first public reading of Russian Cuisine in Exile in Milwaukee. Tom Feerick -- formerly my undergraduate student, now a second year grad student at Northwestern -- drove up from Evanston, while I drove over and up from my dad's house in Barrington. (On Thursday we met in Hyde Park for round two.)  In brief, translators on tour. What can I say? It was terrific fun. We were in "dialogue" with Joe Peschio, the brilliant and funny Russian prof at UW-Milwaukee who helped set up the event. Boswell Books is fantastic -- a large space with really well-curated offerings. I will make it a destination in future for stocking up for my own library and for gifts. The manager, Daniel, was gracious and sweet, and the audience settled right into comfy chairs and sofas to listen to us chat. As we were p...

In my class, we have spent the last two weeks talking about shchi . We learned proverbs, looked at different recipes, contemplated "fasting" or vegetarian shchi versus shchi with meat. We read essays about shchi , discussed the history of shchi  in old Russia, and looked at images of shchi  in power point presentations. Or at least I did. Then one of the students -- whose Russian vocabulary seems extraordinary (she's the one who knew how to say "polar vortex" in Russian) -- asked a question. "What are shchi ?" I had decided to check in with the students about the pace of reading, degree of comprehension, etc., so we were speaking English. "Cabbage soup," I replied. "But then why is it plural?" This, of course, is the great question of Russian cuisine. Why is  a soup plural? The students were not convinced by my first suggestion: because the declensions are that much more fun: add some smetana  [sour cream] to your...

My course on cuisine is off to a good start. The students seem to be in shock from my expectations -- class in Russian, reading at home in Russian, lots of new vocabulary -- but I am encouraging them and taking my inspiration from Alexander Genis and his cabbage soup. Cabbage soup, Shchi , was our focus last week -- we read essays about it, talked about its history, looked it up in Russian culinary dictionaries, thought about how to slowly cook it in a traditional Russian stove, and of course practiced pronouncing it. We compared recipes: soup with mushrooms and sauerkraut; cabbage soup with pearl barley; "rich" cabbage soup. Cabbage soup with chicken, cabbage soup with beef, vegetarian or "fasting" cabbage soup. We contemplated whether it's worthwhile to eat cabbage soup without smetana , or sour cream. We also learned a proverb that will facilitate American students getting their tongues in the right position for those hushing sounds: Shchi da kasha, p...