Manic Bookstore Cafe

It's that time of year. The semester is almost over, and everyone is desperate for spring (today is 75 degrees and windy, more snow expected on Monday). Our forsythia has given up trying to bloom. Жаворонки But as I was preparing for a talk I gave this week in Missoula, Montana, I was reminded of my lark buns. These traditional Russian buns can be made with milk and butter or according to the "lenten" recipe, with oil and water. Depending, of course, on whether spring is due before or after Orthodox Easter or, if you're just a regular American, on whether you are vegan. It seemed appropriate to end my Missoula talk on Russian cookbooks and cuisine with this slide -- especially as I had been invited to campus by my PhD student (who coincidentally is actually  vegan). It was such fun to stay with her family, to dine with my old grad school chums who happen to work at the University of Montana with her, and to meet many of her students and colleagues. My for...

On Tuesday, April 15, it snowed. Needless to say, this plunged many of my students, coworkers, and family members into despair. Never mind that spring has  to come some time -- they remained convinced that the winter would never end. So I decided to pull out all the stops. Oddly, this week has been Passover as well as Easter Week for both Orthodox and other Christians. Can't remember the last time that happened. For Russians, this should mean the last week of "fasting" foods, i.e. foods without animal products. I went to one of my Russian recipe go-to sites, gotovim-doma.ru, to find a recipe for the lark-shaped breads that are guaranteed to usher in spring weather. On Wednesday, I baked twenty  zhavoronki . (I meant to take pictures, but apparently did not.) The dough was a "fasting" dough, i.e. used water, yeast and flour, but no eggs or milk, and was phenomenally easy to manipulate into little birds. Just doing my part to make spring arrive -- and now i...