Darkness on the Edge of Town

I've sort of given up on notifying Beet Fans every time I post something because it takes longer to assemble the email than it does to write the blog entry. Not conducive to quick and dirty blogging. You'll have to just check in regularly, I guess. I'll notify when I think of it. Or when guilt wracks me.

It's been dark when the girls leave for school in the morning. But today was the first day it was dark before we got home. Skittles announced, "It's 3:59!" And it was pretty dark. In the next few minutes the street lights came on.

I've had some Fun With Cyrillic moments this week. Also known as Honey, What Did I Buy? Seems the face wash gel I bought is for oily skin, something I no longer have. (I have that charming peri-menopausal wrinkles-with-zits and where-did-that-whisker-come-from? melange). Okay. It can be backup face wash gel.

Then I could not identify what, if any, package held the plastic wrap at the grocery store. I identified the imported $12 attach-it-below-your-cabinets plastic wrap and dispenser combo. But I didn't want a $12 attach-it-below-your-cabinets plastic wrap and dispenser combo. I've been looking all week, but no additional stock. I finally found what I was looking for (plastic wrap on a cardboard tube, no box) at the bigger Sedmoy Continent over by the kids' school. I also found a package of decent toilet paper there. Even The Spouse has commented that some days we are stocked with what looks like paper I must have stolen from a gas station washroom.

The third thing (these events always come in threes) was the fruit dumplings.

Russian cuisine is full of items in dough that are boiled. The fillings range from sweet to savory. The dough comes in myriad shapes. The resulting combinations, and there are many, all have different names. Pelmini. Variniki. Piroshki. Think ravioli, Russian style, garnished with sour cream. The freezer cases of every grocery store are filled with bags and boxes of the things.

I'm up to speed on the savory ones. The girls eat the meat-filled pelmini at least once a week. I can even read what type of meat is inside or if they are "home-style" or "traditional," although I cannot say what those distinctions bring to the product.

A year ago I bought a box of the dessert dumplings. But I never got around to cooking them and eventually, perhaps it was June, I threw them out. Today I bought a replacement. I promised the girls they could have some for dessert.

The box the dumplings came in shows raspberries and blueberries along with the pelmini. So I assumed I had purchased fruit-filled dumplings. After all, the Slovaks have fruit-filled dough balls that are boiled (they can be lumps of lead or sublimely light). Surely there was a Russian equivalent of this Eastern European delicacy.

I cooked them. They were strangely . . . white. I served them. I took a bite.

They were filled with tvarog, which is a cottage cheese type dairy product. It is used in all sorts of dishes (I make a savory spread with it). This was lightly sweetened, and very nice. Just . . . void of fruit.

Ever observant, Skittles says, "Well, it did say 'tvarog' on the box."

The 8 year-old reads better in Russian than I, the Provisionista, do. Sigh.