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I cook Russian and more here: Yulinka Cooks.
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Using Kefir-Your ideas?
Yay, kefir! I love the stuff. I eat it plain with a little sugar or honey, or pour it over thick yogurt. Try it with cereal or granola. Cucumber/tomato/radish salad with kefir dressing would be good, too.
Russian lore says that kefir is very good for digestion (which I think is backed up by medical research, hence your doctor's advice.)
yulinka
Yulinka Cooks
What is your best low-calorie recipe?
Svekolnik, also known as cold borsch. It's basically beets, cucumbers, scallions, eggs, dill/parsley, eggs and potatoes (you could just as easily leave out the last two). I wrote about it here. This is excellent in hot weather.
Best Food to cure a cold??
Tea! Loose-leaf tea, properly brewed in a tea pot. With lemon or honey. Gallons of it. That's what gets me through a cold.
Yulinka Cooks
What's your favorite way to use Thanksgiving leftovers?
Turkey, eaten cold, with gobs of mayo and mustard, while standing around a kitchen counter. Also, picking at the turkey carcass for those last bits. Delish.
(Slate had an amusing article the other day arguing against elaborate recipes for turkey leftovers.
And I agree with ajeys about eating those leftover late at night after the relatives are gone. Thanksgiving dinner tastes better at night, or the next day.
So, what did everyone have for Thanksgiving?
My family is Russian, and no holiday dinner is complete without a Russian-style appetizer spread. So we had homemade sauerkraut, marinated tomatoes and pickles, beet salad, smoked herring, smocked mackerel, smoked salmon and Uzbek carrot salad. (See my blog for a smocked fish canape write up).
The dinner was perfectly American: turkey, mashed potatoes, roasted butternut squash and sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts sauteed with garlic, and the famous no knead bread.
Dessert was a homemade apple pastry-like thing, and a Syrian pumpkin cake that I made (recipe on the blog Desert Candy).
What foods warm your heart?
Soup, almost any kind. Black tea, brewed the right way (loose leaf, in a warmed tea pot), with lemon and fruit jam. Milky coffee--fancy lattes and cappucino, sure, but also just home brew with some warm milk.
Give me your winter soup recipes
Middle Eastern lentil soup is one of my favorites. It's easy to make, requires very few ingredients, and is great cold weather food. I tried to recreate a local restaurant's soup here.
Eating Alone . . . Cheerios vs. Chevre
I always feel like I should mind eating alone, but I usually don’t. Sometimes the best companion is last week’s New Yorker. (I once knew a man who said that the best dining companions are a good waiter and a damn good sommelier.) I like cooking for myself—it’s a chance to make exactly what I want, exactly how I want it.
I’ve yet to find someone who enjoys butternut squash soup or roasted cauliflower topped with a poached egg, two of my favorite comfort foods. I never just eat cereal or take out over the kitchen sink. That’s not to say that I break out the good china or make five-course meals, but I honestly like cooking for myself and always sit down and use real plates, silverware, etc.
Do you blog? What's your URL?
Blog name: Yulinka Cooks
My URL: http://yulinkacooks.blogspot.com
What's it about: It used to be about cooking Russian (plus food from the former Soviet republics), now it leans toward cheap and healthy. Come for the borsch, stay for the butternut squash and mushroom salad.
Responses to Comments by yulinka
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Matt The Butcher
www.mattthebutcher.com
brand new food blog by a butcher,soon to have recipes, money saving tips on buying meat and any meat related questions answered
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@foodlexi.........regarding dry mouth - it happens when you're nervous and not breathing normally. Try to be conscious of how you breath during normal conversation and focus on breathing like that when you're being interviewed. It does help to have a piece of hard candy handy just in case, but it could garble your words. Best of luck!!!!
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Chew on That
http://chewonthatblog.com
Chew on That serves up daily food for thought, all fresh to the blogosphere. Our menu includes a wide range of choices from recipes and restaurant reviews, to disasters in the kitchen and more! Keep checking in with our cooks to try out the latest catch!
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The idea of being interviewed on live radio could definitely make a person nervous. It is wonderful that it is happening though, and a good thing not only for you but for all food bloggers - for it shows that the concept is being taken in a serious way as being worthy of public interest.
Could be that your interviewer has an agenda or a list of questions, yes. But if you want to direct the conversation to "scrumptious edible things" then perhaps the best way to do that would be to bring along the exact scrumptious things you wish to talk about, in a big bag which you'll keep at your feet. To direct the conversation, simply pull out one or the other and hold it in the air facing your interviewer. What can she do? She must react. "What is that lovely scrumptious edible thing?" she'll say, and off you'll go to explain it. Inbetween you might allow her to ask her something she might want to ask but then pull out the next thing and hold it before her eyes.
As far as dry-mouth goes I have no suggestions except that water might be better than either champagne (too bubbly) or whiskey(can make a person cough).
If all else fails, think of Julia Child. She made the most wonderful mistakes on the air and everyone adored her for it. :)
Bon chance and thanks for taking this risk for food bloggers everywhere!
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Thanks for the advice Karen! I will definitely bear it in mind. I am petrified. However, I am also exaggerating a little. I am being interviewed by someone called Jean Feraca for Wisconsin Public Radio where she has a programme called Here on Earth. She is a very serious person and I am just nervous that I will want to prattle away about scrumptious edible things while she may wish for more of a socio-economic, or anthropological line! If it goes well, her programmes are sometimes put out on NPR in a wider sense, which would, of course, help me hugely with getting my site noticed. I am genuinely nervous and wish that I could put something into my mouth that would give it liquified on the day. Noting worse than a dry mouth on the radio......
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How very exciting! I'll be looking out for it, Foodlexi.
The only advice I can give you is to not eat pizza on the way to the interview for given the laws of the universe it will be sure to drip tomato onto your nice clothes.
Aside from that I'm sure we'll love you, merely due to your British accent.
So you really can't go wrong! :)
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@Karen
I have - In fact, completely by mistake - I have started two! I will learn!
I was looking at your blog again this morning and am really grateful for the prominent link. Many thanks indeed.
Better start thinking about packing. I am in a state of high nervousness as I have my first ever radio interview with NPR about my site next week. Gulp. Any tips?
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Yes, you should start one, Foodlexi. Soon, too - to allow everyone to post their favorite places then argue about them. :)
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@Karen,
Oh - Thanks so much. You write beautifully and how uncommon it is.
I labour away at this in Cambridge but travel a lot and, wherever I go, I speak to food producers and marketeers. They *always* love to talk and, even without full understanding of the language, I can learn an awful lot, from China to Mexico, from Calcutta to Lisbon. I hope you will find it useful and I am delighted you enjoyed what you saw.
Browsing your blog today I remembered that I want to ask friends in Finland, Portugal and Mexico to send me images of meat cuts marked up in the appropriate languages, so that I can add them to the site - It was the cuts marked on the frog under the Devil's Food Dictionary that did it.
If anyone else can help with meat cuts it would be great. Maybe I'll start a new thread! In the mean time, if anyone can help, I can be reached through http://www.whatamieating.com.
I am coming to New York next week and would love some tips on where to go but that seems like another thread too.
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P.S. @Foodlexi - I just had a moment to browse your blog and am in awe. I love the entries - the information-style/level is happily that of The Oxford Companion to Food but not as dreary-feeling cat-nappish as The Cambridge World History of Food but with a hint of the charm of Waverly Root running through it which makes one smile while supposedly doing research.
Priceless. Bookmarked. :)
Website: http://yulinkacooks.blogspot.com
Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
About: I cook Russian and more.
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