Culturama

I feel a bit (as David Bowie would say) Under Pressure. I haven't posted in awhile cause I've been.. I'm not sure what I've been doing, waiting for the right time I suppose. Because I don't want to write just for the sake of writing, but rather because I have something to say. So now the pressure is on to say something entertaining and/or informative. Uh oh. And now I have David Bowie stuck in my head.

I have a cold. I have had one for awhile. And a few days ago it was much worse. My nose was running all over the place. (errands and stuff) Russians say that their brain is leaking when their nose is running, so I guess I could say my brain sprung a leak.
My host mom caught wind of my brain leakage and called me downstairs. (I thought I was in trouble, and I was right. But not the trouble I expected) I got into the kitchen, where she grabbed me and put a chunk of onions into each one of my nostrils. Now, for the full effect of this story, I think it might be necessary for everybody to get up right now and go put onions up their nose. And leave them there for a few minutes. My eyes started watering, and I started crying from the burning pain. So there I was my brain leaking all over the place.. from my eyes and from my nose.. and my Russian mom and sister are telling me to sneeze, cause after you sneeze that means you can take the onion out. Now, everybody sneeze. Can you sneeze on command? Have you ever heard of anybody sneezing on command? Maybe at the circus you might find people who can sneeze on command. Next to the bearded lady, I'm not sure.

Eventually the onions got out of my nose and I could taste onions for the rest of the week dripping from my sinuses. I'll admit, I did feel a bit better though. Russian Healthcare System.

Sunday, our mom asked me to cook a Canadian meal. I thought this would be pretty straight-forward. I chose Spaghetti. Simple, tasty, and the ingredients are relatively inexpensive. So Val, Galia and I set out for the grocery store. I find ground beef. Galia suggests ground chicken, (which I didn't even know existed) I get mushrooms and broccoli, Galia suggests cucumbers and celery. I get long noodles, Galia suggests crazy curly ones. I grab some parmasan cheese, Galia replaces it with Gouda. Finally, I get some tomato paste to make tomato sauce with, Galia suggests some ketchup with garlic in it. The ketchup was where I drew the line.
I wasn't home for supper that night, so I didn't have to taste the final product, which I knew would taste a bit off (or waaay off). Ekaterinberg/Canada spaghetti. (Galia kept calling it lasagna. Whatever.. what's in a name, anyways?)

I thought about leaving out the meat from the sauce all together, and maybe replacing it with beans, but I knew that I would be labelled a tree-hugging environmentalist lesbian vegan free-loving bead wearing left-wing radical and would get awkward stares for the rest of my days.

The mom watched us cook it up and told us what spices to put in (Is sugar a spice?) and how to do things properly. I guess when they say "cook us a Canadian meal", the really mean "we want to see how you would cook a Canadian meal if you were given the opportunity and then stare and scrutinize and take over and do it for you cause you obviously have no idea what the hell you're doing" It's probably better that way anyways. I probably would have blown up with house with the gas stove. With great power comes great responsability, right? So no power = no responsability. And no stress.

Overall, the spaghetti/lasagna event was fun. I was reminded of Mike, my old roomate who loved spaghetti and ate it pretty much everyday throughout the entire school year. I was also reminded of pre-made tomato sauces that are available in Canada with all possible spices and combinations, even organic if that's what your heart desires. And no, you don't have to be a hippy enjoy organic tomato sauce.