Fancy Grilled Cheese Family Project: #2

This is the Distant Eastern European Relative (Hungarian) fancy grilled cheese sandwich. It’s a less lavish option than the grilled cheese #1, but you must understand that eating thick slabs of cheese – however tasty – is not a good idea. So this is a “healthier” and a very filling alternative. This Eastern European fancy grilled cheese sandwich is simple, redolent of the geographical area it imitates, but still is exotic. Our Hungarian relative here enjoys a good wine and Dutch cheeses (his first wife was Dutch, too).
My grilled cheese project is coming along and here’s another sandwich I prepared and share with you. This is the modest result:

List of ingredients:

• I used a thick slice of Beemster cheese from Leslieville Cheese Market.
• Two slices of Edam from the Kiev Moscow Vilnius Russian store near my house.
• Wine salami (as many slices as you want)
• A dash of Hungarian paprika
• A bit of non-salted butter
• And dark rye bread. I got it from the Euro store and this is the proper Borodinsky slab of bread. I don’t know what it’s in English. I just know that this is the bread I loved as a kid back in Russia. Still love it!

You know what to do. Order is of no particular importance here, as long as the salami is in the middle. This grilled cheese sandwich tasted more like a regular sandwich that I grilled on the pan instead of being a grilled cheese creation.  The wine sausage played well with Beemster and the Hungarian paprika really made itself known against Edam. All in all, a little spicy creation, definitely savory, and great for a cold night outside.

I will put more cheese in next time. And will hopefully feed the other half to my roommate or nearby friend. Wanna have a grilled cheese date?

TIFF10: Krai (Край) – Edge (Rus, 2009)

This post is cross-posted to my foreign film review tumblr:

Today I watched an awesome Russian film called Edge (Krai, aka Край) by Alexei Uchitel. World premiere took place at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 9. This movie isn’t even out in Russia yet, hehehe. It is a post-war steam-punk business as Slava put it. It was an awesome and enjoyable film.

The story line is relatively simple. August 1945. A former war frontliner and eventually a war hero (Vladimir Mashkov) – formerly concussed, hurt, injusticed, pardon the creation of a new word – is sent to a far away outpost and a village of people who used to be the prisoners of war. This is a settlement of Russian people who were caught by the Stalinist regime and sent to Siberia (actually, the Ural mountains – where I was coincidentally born – to keep building railroads and such) because they were traitors. One of the characters said, “Who knows what secrets they were passing on to Germans? You never know if thanks to them a bomb explodes in Moscow”. Something along those lines. Our war hero is a very manly and stern guy. Gets a local chick (Yulia Peresild) real fast. He is obsessed with steam trains, and finds out that on a nearby island there is a train guarded by an “undead girl”. He ventures out to uncover it, in the process meeting the “undead girl” who is actually the daughter of a German engineer who was arrested and shot before the war broke out. She spent the whole war in the forest, living in the steam train. They build a bridge over the river and get the train back… More happens, then some more. Watch it!

Oh, I forgot to mention. There are bears too!

Now, onto the details I really enjoyed. I found the dialogue to be silly and witty. Moreso witty than silly. There was a lot of action. There was sincerity. A lot of Russian expressions that made me laugh. Stereotypes. The stern Russian nature covered by the fuzz of the home-brew vodka (moonshine). It was a pleasant movie, a feel-good flick typical of the Hollywood. I think it was made with a specific global audience in mind: it was meant to largely please and to put the best foot forward on behalf of the Russian cinematographic community. It struck me as a sort of a reconciliatory extended arm on behalf of the formerly communist country. This film renounces communism (although that may be a bit of a strong word). Stalin is not a fun guy. People suffer. Moreover, the good and suffering guys get a chance to punish the authority.

It was fun. There was a lot of tension. Some of the most fascinating scenes (and displays of the creativity and human spirit) were those of the German girl and our war hero building the bridge for the “Gustav”, our steam train. Another fascinating scene was the bear feast (you’ll get it when you watch it). The frenzy that followed was a bit repulsive, but understandable.

It was a great film. I really hope it gets the Oscar next year. I enjoyed watching it, I enjoyed laughing at the jokes and stereotypes and I loved appreciating where Russian cinema is going. I hope they produce a lot more interesting stuff.

Books I Read This Year

December is for summaries and lists. I’m not doing any music selections (yet?), but I’ve been keeping track of books I’ve read. I had to recreate the list from memory this November, so I am sure I am missing a 2 – 3 books that I forgot about (not memorable enough? Too much information to remember?)

• Economics of Strategy was definitely for the Industry Analysis class I was taking in January. Again, this book features a picture of a pretty painting on its cover. Reminds me of the times I took a statistics class and each chapter in the textbook featured a fragment of this or that modern art work.

• -(Clickable image) Bukowski’s. Way too repetitive, sad and overflowing with erotic scenes. Got boring halfway through.

• – Ghosts, not a bad book by Cesar Aira. A poignant story about young and impressionable hearts, lots of magic, ghosts and hardships.
• I wish Someone Had Told Me That – girls were making fun of the author photo, and I  understand them. The author seems like a solid square, but his publisher and people he interviewed for the book, have both been helpful. Great kernels of experience.
• Housekeeper and the Professor – great book, a lot of math and humanity. I wrote a review.
• A Whole New Mind – positively inspiring, set me on a quest to find a masters program with the perfect blend of art and business. Daniel H Pink is really good, supports his ideas with references, and is an all around fun and important non-fiction writer.
• – DeNiro’s Game was not bad, mostly a boys’ book about badass youngsters in a struggling part of the world, salvaging what they can.
• The Sleeper Awakes – the classic. Interesting vision of 2100. What the heck, Wells was great.
• – Bonjour Tristesse was a little self-indulgent, but an important book nevertheless. It’s like an overpoweringly cliche French movie you watch on a Sunday afternoon in bed
• Pride & Prejudice & Zombies – hilarity!! I wolfed the book down, especially because I couldn’t be bothered to read the original Pride & Prejudice. Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters are next on the list.
• the medium is the massage – confirms my belief that McLuhan was seriously ahead of his cohort by many, many decades. His statements still ring true. Amazing.
• Choice Theory: A very short introduction – purchased at the Harvard store with the intention of learning to make better, rational choices. I make more rational choices now, but can’t 100% say they’re much better or worse. They’re just rational choice. (Which probably implies that they are indeed “better” than the irrational ones)
• Pnin – and thus my love affair with Vladimir Nabokov started.
• Lolita – serious lust, for little girls, for language. Best written book, ever. Nothing can compete. I felt all kinds of emotions when reading it, deeply, painfully and ecstatically. I’ve yet to write an actual post about it. and I will.
• The Eye – not the best work of Nabokov, but luckily it is short.
• Lunar Park – Bret Easton Ellis did really well in this one. If I read it in 2005, when it came out, I’d probably feel like everyone else who read it then and expected yet another repetitive party story (like his other books); or worse, expected something of an American Psycho saga (since so many people only read that book by him and know nothing more). There is an American Psycho presence there, btw, but also a good blend of real and unreal, of true and false. An intense and rapidly evolving downward spiral that gave me nightmares and even made me terrified of a potential toy in my hallway. Lulz, I told you I was an emotional reader.
• Miro: A life of passion – wrote a blog post about this. An inspiring story.
• Meditations in an Emergency – I can’t believe I let Frank O’Hara slide by for this long. He’s inspired me to write a new series of poems.
• How to talk about books you haven’t read – Pierre Bayard treatise for those who actually love reading. It makes a great gift for someone who loves reading and has a sense of humor. I also felt like I read a lot more books than just one because each chapter explores a particular literary issue in the context of this or that novel.
• Crush It – Gary Vaynerchuk’s high pitched to-do list for a successful persona-driven online enterprise. I was pleased to know that I already knew or did 75% of the things listed here. Learned about new services that I could employ and felt energized. Good guy. Fellow USSR-born import.
• White Out, pt 1 – Consumed this in 1 hour on a plane. I wish I brought part 2 with me, because I spent 3 hours watching TV on a plane instead of exercising my reading muscles. Dang. And on that note:
• White Out, pt 2 - Will read it before the year is over. Just an hour of my life, right
• Speak, Memory – Nabokov’s autobiography. Masterful renewal of Russia lost, of innocence gone, of the society that will never appear again. I love it. I fell deeply into it, and don’t want to raise my head and blink at bleak reality right here. I’ve 40 more pages to go, but I’m positive I’ll complete the tale before the clock hits 12 on Dec 31.
• Eating Animals – hurrying to finish this startling, well-supported case by Jonathan Safran Foer (fiction writer, eh), before the year is over (100 pages left), so that I could dismiss meat in the new year. In fact,  this Christmas I’ve been dealing with agonies over cruelty-full turkeys and cows. Bah. An illuminating read.

Note 1: I am utterly terrified that I haven’t read anything in Russian last year (besides e-mails). Really? This cannot be. I’ve half a shelf of Russian classics in my home, and I better get to them come new year.

Note 2: I may be missing a book or two, because I forgot I read it this year. Some books aren’t as memorable as others, and I’m sure I’m forgetting something.

What have you read this year?

Attitudes Toward Sleep

It occurs to me that many brilliant individuals had trouble sleeping, or simply slept less. Or, perhaps, were tainted by insomnia as an affliction and became really vocal about it. Vladimir Nabokov offers his startling confession about sleep (from Speak, Memory):

All my life I have been a poor go-t0-sleeper. People in trains, who lay their newspaper aside, fold their silly arms, and immediately, with an offensive familiarity of demeanor, start snoring, amaze me as much as the uninhibited chap who cozily defecates in the presence of a chatty tubber, or participates in huge demonstrations, or joins some union in order to dissolve in it. (Love the jabs here! – KA) Sleep is the most moronic fraternity in the world, with the heaviest dues and the crudest rituals. It is a mental torture I find debasing. The strain and drain of composition often force me, alas, to swallow a strong pill that gives me an hour or two of frightful nightmares or even to accept the comic relief of a midday snooze, the way a senile rake might totter to the nearest euthanasium; but I simply cannot get used to the nightly betrayal of reason, humanity, genius. No matter how great my weariness, the wrench of parting with consciousness is unspeakably repulsive to me.

Food for thought indeed.

Absence and Literature

For the n-th time, I am back in a Terminator-like fashion. There’s been a lot of exciting developments and changes; as always! In my modest experience, people stop writing in blogs when life becomes a whirlwind of excitement or enchanting and intimate events that are better kept secret. Or they stop writing when life gets so rough and tough that the only modes of expression are profanities in a personal diary or one’s mind. Maybe Twitter.

Point is, there are several new things that are on my mind. For example, I’ve become seriously obsessed with Vladimir Nabokov and am on a mission to read all of his books, in English or Russian. The love affair started with one of those bluesy days courtesy of my sprained ankle (I enthusiastically jumped up and down the stairs in my house, and slipped), when, after having finished dinner with Vaneska, I wandered into a BMV Bookstore in the Annex. There lay Pnin. The Literary Encyclopedia considers Pnin to be the most accessible of Nabokov’s works. “It is a campus novel that concerns the misadventures of Timofey Pavlovich Pnin, a Russian émigré whose struggles with America and its language make him a figure of fun at Waindell, the (fictitious) university were he teaches Russian.”

As a Russian myself, I was very curious to read about the professor; and then there is an issue of memory, and language barriers, and foreigner’s view on the American life. Basically, everything about Pninian adventures breathed excitement, humour, sadness and vibrant imagery. Not once but at least a dozen times have I burst out laughing in public places while reading Pnin. Nabokov’s descriptions of professor’s English pronunciation, his excellent memory, phenomenal knowledge of literature and history, and the grouchy relations with some of his university colleagues all contribute to an engrossing read. Do yourself a favor, GO GET THE BOOK!

And now I’m reading Lolita. I find that, among those who read, this book signifies some rite of passage, coming of age type of a thing, on par with having a puppy, participating in beer gardens in university, backpacking across Europe, having a long distance relationship and possibly failing your first university midterm. The novel evokes the “Aaah, hehe” response from those who are familiar with it. But more on Lolita in the next installment of my blog saga

Update: Wow, I totally made a spelling mistake in the blog title. I wrote “abscence”, not absence. Yikes! Fixed now.

Six Things That Make Me Happy

Below is my happy 6 in alphabetical order, as I wouldn’t be to assign numbers anyway:

• Baths: When I was a child, living back in Russia, I used to love two things the most – books and water. Combining the two led to Fridays and Saturdays spent in the bath tub, reading. Those were the epic nights: 4-hour bath marathons, sometimes with bubbles, but usually without (dealing with foamy things is so burdensome when you have a good book to worry about), snacks, tea, whatnot. I’m starting to revive the tradition, but alas, the bath tub at my Toronto abode is not the best, so I resort to bathing in my Vancouver home or at friend’s (yes, I know…)

• Bugs Tomato: He’s three years old, and I still call him a puppy. I wrote a post about this wonderful, smart, handsome and loving chihuahua here.

• Good conversations: I value a great debate, or an emotional discussion, confessions, dramatic monologues, lively dialogues, and really, any conversation that does the intelligence of my fellow debaters justice. I feel rejuvenated after a really good talk, be that a discussion of the latest scientific discovery, the welfare of silverback gorrillas in the Virunga valley, the next hotshot DJ, Martin Margiela SS 09  or the economic environment of Mauritius. As you can tell, I like to learn a thing or two when talking to others.

• Style: this encompasses doing activities in style, to living in style, to keeping it real, to dressing oneself well, to being the person one truly wants to be. That’s what style really is. It’s not just about the latest clothing item or the pink Juicy Couture jumpsuit (eek), it’s how one carries him/herself. It makes me really happy to see people expressing themselves in whatever fashion that would be. Just do express yourself tastefully.

• Seafood: I’m the master devourer of oysters, sashimi (particularly fatty tuna and west coast salmon). I adore octopi, including their effects on my tastebuds as well as on my mind – those cephalopods are smarty pants, too. Some of you know my endless love affair with caviar (another post of mine) – my nickname is Behemoth is for the same reason. Mussels are never a no, and so is swordfish, and even red snapper brightens my day. I’ve written about lobsters, too, and would delightfully consume them all day, every day, followed by a great dose of niacin to battle the cholesterol.

• Travel: New places, new people, discoveries of the self and of the culture of others. I thrive on being someplace new, getting out of my comfort zone and jumping into the unknown. I travel well alone as I don’t have to adjust my own schedule to anyone else’s and can maintain my ‘get up early, do cultural things, eat local foods, snap lots of pictures, go out and be social till the wee hours’, then rinse and repeat.  As for the airports: given the weather is not ruining the flights and angry fliers aren’t in my face, I am always excited to be in these shrines of constant departure and arrival. Flying is the best for me, driving – the least exciting.

I would be interested to see what the following people would include in their lists:  Tara, Kevin, Vaneska, Slava, Kat, Danielle.

Literary Escapades

“Equal parts biting satire on neo-Russian consumerism, drug-fuelled muckabout, sci-fi adventure, love story, literary in-joke and mystico-shamanic treatise on the nature of enlightenment. Disruptive, transporting and very funny, it’s one of his best.” – The Daily Telegraph

I started reading Victor Pelevin’s (more about the author) “The Sacred Book of the Werewolf” (NY Times review, read if you don’t speak Russian). I wolfed down 330 pages in two days, and I am sad to say that the book will be over today by 1pm PST. Not only is the main character a red-haired fox-woman (who looks like me on the cover of my edition), there is also an irresistible wolf, and myriad other crazy events all over Moscow and the north, from ketamine-taking guards to howling at the skull of a cow to discover oil, from thousand year old foxes hunting occult-loving English aristocrats to silver bullets. I suppose by an apt stretch of imagination, I can say it’s the 21st century Bulgakov on LSD. Something like that. The book is engrossing not only because of its characters, but also because of a healthy dose of political discussions, social issues in Russia and in the capitalist pigsty, as well as a handful of Eastern influences. Pelevin at Amazon, take a look please.

The next book I will be tackling is Dostoevsky’s “Demons”. I cannot wait. Reading Russian literature, as well as reading anything in Russian, makes me so much more susceptible to learning and taking the work seriously. It’s funny, whenever I read something in English, I take it half-heartedly, as if it was a comical thing, reading in English. To me, English is such a technical language that I cannot believe I can enjoy Jane Eyre in the original (I read it in Russian). Hence reading marketing texts and Michael Porter’s Competitive Strategy is very educational, but only in English.

Russian language is so poetic. I find the best poetry is written in that language, as well as the most obscure linguistic acrobatics are possible in that language. Love it. Reading Russian literature makes me feel so much more alive, much more… thinking. I think I understood that this April when I was reading Dostoevsky’s Humiliated and Insulted and really felt the author’s love for the less fortunate people in this world, as well as his healtfelt kindness for them. Same way with reading Pelevin these past couple of days, I felt sadder for my mother land, for my fellow Russians trapped in there, for this dirty world in general. Sigh.

Моя Семья

I absolutely love my family: my parents plus Bugs Tomato. Mom and dad are some of the coolest out there, with so many stories to tell, so many places to have seen. They always took me with them no matter where they went (except that one time when they went to Thailand alone), always kept me in the loop and always made sure I had maximum fun.

When I was a kid mom always made me do puzzles, complete various projects and whatnot. Now I think it had something to do with her developing my problem-solving, spatial skills and what not. Thanks! Dad was focused on me developing my memory – he’d make me memorize words from the dictionary and other stuff before I go out and play in the yard with other kids. Pretty smart, too, dad. And if my mom hadn’t forced me to read White Bim Black Ear, I would have never really gotten into books!

The above photo is from the night my parents and my uncle went to a new restaurant opening in the city, and some psycho tried to stab my dad. Thank god for sporty bodyguards. And this photo is from a day on my parents’ friend’s yacht somewhere in the Far East. Pacific Ocean on the other side from LA.

Master & Margarita

“One hot spring, the devil arrives in Moscow, accompanied by a retinue that includes a beautiful naked witch and an immense talking black cat with a fondness for chess and vodka. The visitors quickly wreak havoc in a city that refuses to believe in either God or Satan. But they also bring peace to two unhappy Muscovites: one is the Master, a writer pilloried for daring to write a novel about Christ and Pontius Pilate; the other is Margarita, who loves the Master so deeply that she is willing literally to go to hell for him. What ensues is a novel of inexhaustible energy, humor, and philosophical depth.

The novel”s vision of Soviet life in the 1930s is so ferociously accurate that it could not be published during its author”s lifetime and appeared only in a censored edition in the 1960s. Its truths are so enduring that its language has become part of the common Russian speech.”

Get it at Amazon or Chapters Indigo

Penchant for Caviar

Originally uploaded by Tatters

I love caviar, what can I say. Caviar is important. Caviar is good for you. Caviar should be eaten all the time. With almost anything. Preferably by itself. When I was a kid, back in Russia, I’d always eat it by the tablespoonfuls. I’m the Behemoth from Master and Margarita.

I also enjoy it with bliny. Don’t like the beluga caviar so much. I mean, it’s all right, but I prefer the red one better. I can also consume much more red caviar than black. Hence my red hair.

My two most memorable instances of consuming caviar are from 1997 and 2007. In 1997 I remember celebrating the Day of Fishermen back when we lived in Magadan. My dad and I went with his boss and friends on this massive boat and for lunch I consumed a whole bowl of caviar. I remember just sitting there with a big spoon in my hands and taking my time with the product. Yum Yum. Later on that night I got to control the ship since everyone except me, my dad and the dog were drunk. (Someone woke up eventually ) In 2007, I went home to Vancouver for Xmas holidays and my parents managed to get half a pound of red and black caviar for my visit. That was the first time I ate so much caviar since we moved to Canada.

You can buy it in bulk in Russia (and that’s the way it should be!) for $50kg in Sakhalin. Sigh.