Cozy home and tasty dishes for New Years

[alex330]

It's funny how many of us make fun of the "cozy home" and "tasty dishes" myth, yet as I worked a bit online at night this past week I could not help but notice my wife's fingers furiously typing away on her iphone.

Apparently there are battle plans being drawn up for the most important event of the year.  Recruits have been pulled into service to make the traditional dishes and required salads. Duties delegated to the Russian and Ukrainian women all across the county. Fireworks, champansky, vodka, salad olivier, herring in fur coat, wine, and tasty desserts are being assigned to each of the women. Fine china and the silver is being broken out and from the sounds if it I am not sure the Allies had D-Day planned as carefully as these women with New Years.

Social media sites are being studied for the latest ideas on themed salads for the New Year. Apparently the upcoming year has something do do with monkeys so multiple fruit salads and table centers shaped like our primate cousins are in the works.

The funny thing is that most of the women we know are not what you would call traditional at all. They are all very modern, many owning their own business even, yet there is still an element of truth to the stereotype.

I cannot imagine our group of FSUW are the only ones feverishly planning the holiday. What does everyone else have planned for the biggest holiday in your women's lives?

[ML]

It's the time for football games, not silly complicated eating.

[cc3]

It's the time for football games, not silly complicated eating.

+1000 

[mendeleyev]

Nice post, Alex.

We celebrated the new year along with aunts, cousins, and special guests from the town of Kaluga at the family dacha just outside Moscow. The guests from Kaluga had been a part of our wedding many years ago. Their daughter who was just a school girl then, is now married and has a baby boy. My, how time flies.

She put on a "Snow Maiden" costume and her dad Sergei put on a "Grandfather Frost" outfit and thrilled not only the two children present at our celebration, but they passed out candy to the neighborhood children too. That was a big hit!



Around 11pm we sat down for a formal family dinner with lots of vegetables, salads and fish. It is still the Orthodox fast until Christmas day on 7 January so except for the fish there was no other meat. At the stroke of midnight the national anthem played on all stations and broadcast a brief message from President Putin. This is traditional from the Soviet period.

We made toasts and then bundled up and walked the neighborhood. This is an affluent country dacha area and there are many lights and festive decorations. Fireworks are not regulated here and so at almost every intersection (mainly gravel roads) there was some sort of a home grown fireworks display taking place.

This is the year of the monkey in the Asian new year, and there were lots of monkey faces on trees outside. Russia is the largest country in Asia (6.6 million square miles), almost double the size of China. India is about half the size of China. To put that into perspective, Russia is also the largest European country, with over 3.8 million square miles of Russia sitting on the European continent. Not only is this a matter of geography, but it influences everything from the beautiful blend of Asian and European features on people, to the foods Russians eat which are taken from Asian cultures.

I made my mother's traditional candles using pineapple rounds, with a banana as the candle, and red cherry on top. For "snow" I added a small dollop of vanilla yogurt. There is a lake nearby within 2 minutes walking distance and last night our nephew and niece went ice skating for about an hour. Also nearby is an Orthodox monastery and there we will go for Christmas eve liturgy celebration for 7 January.

[alex330]

Thanks Mende.

As we sat around the table we each gave toasts, something the Western half's seemed to stumble through, but the women made up for with their grace. Thanks and reflections on the years past and hopes for the New Year to come. It was reminiscent of Thanksgiving dinner in a way. Money, family, and health were popular themes, but among the single FSUW at our table there was on priority - 

Finding love.

[2tallbill]

My home is very cozy (and sparkling clean) Angel Eyes prepared a cornucopia of
tasty dishes and sweet treats. All I made for the New Year was potato salad. Mini-me
and I played with trains on the floor along with a dozen games with blocks.

[Jumper]

What does everyone else have planned for the biggest holiday in your women's lives?

 With a wee one , we were just hoping to be in bed by 9pm and get some real sleep.Mostly hoping any fireworks wouldn't awaken her.
We are pretty boring I guess. lol

Christmas , Thanksgiving and birthdays are definitely bigger celebrations here  than New Years.

Sounds like you had a good New Years and the toasts are often elegant and meaningful from the FSU contingent. It's one of the things I admire from that culture.