2019 Eurasia Adventure - Finale By Food

Wife and I are now back in the comforting embrace of home in Albuquerque...luxuriating in the comfort of beds that actually account for our sadly arthritic bodies. As is my custom, I am throwing myself back into the other aspects of my transitioned life...namely the earning of income to allow me to continue my globe trotting lifestyle. Of course it is not quite as simple as that but more on that in a future post. For now I am not quite ready to let you leave our Eurasian adventure quite so soon. There will (of course) be the traditional 'navel gazing' analytical post soon. But I also decided to assemble the foodie highlights of the second half of the trip in a single post. So for your gastronomic pleasure the Ukraine and Greece

Ukraine

Family Food Memory Tour

To understand my feeling about eating in Kyiv, you need to understand that I am 100% second generation Eastern European Jewish of background with a family that loved their food traditions. I ate this food growing up and loved it. Coming to this part of the world was this opportunity to go right back to my roots...AND in the most economical way one could imagine! LOL.

Cured Fish of all kinds was a major part of what my family thought embodied "living" when I was a child. These types of things are extremely hard to find in the high desert Southwest and if they are available, are very expensive. I indulged during my time in Kyiv.

Salt cured mackerel and herring

Smoked salmon

Sturgeon Caviar

The Emperor's dish

For 20% of what it would cost in the US

There were also foods that Wife's family grew up with because they immigrated from the same area

Vareniki 

A dumpling with a pasta like dough filled with all kinds of fillings such as potatoes, cheese, cabbage, etc.

Wife remembers family and church members making these on Sundays when she was growing up

Green Borscht or Schav

A soup made from sorrel

In my family it was served cold and meatless

This version was served hot with meat in it

Eating out with the Two's

A cheese baked in a bread

Who would guess they would serve the foie gras pate in a tin!

It was still damn good

This was just a steak but also pretty damn good

The corn...not so much

Chicken Kiev

 

I wish I could remember what these two cakes were because we devoured both of them up!

Greece

A lot of our eating was outside enjoying the Mediterranean enviornoment

Cooking at our rental was a pleasure because the quality of ingredient we purchased locally was so high

An "Easter" pork stew made by yours truly for our 'third Easter' of the trip

Some Greek appetizers

Meatballs

Saganaki

Fried Cheese

Fried zucchini balls

What the Greeks call a 'Greek' Salad

Marinated Octopus

The culmination of weeks of celebration of Wife's 70th

Official birthday cake (click here)

Happy grandchildren celebration

The Cake