Of Love and War and Broccoli Salad (reiteration)

Once again, I am reprising a guest post written for the best friend of all bloggers, dear Renard of https://renardsworld.wordpress.com. Contrary to George Bush, we love broccoli. Thus we are sincerely grateful to the Etruscans, the famed horticultural geniuses of the ancient world, who “engineered” this “flowering crest of cabbage” – broccolo in Italian – almost 3…

Wondering What Life Is For: Broccoslaw (reiteration)

There is much talk in the blogosphere about post-holiday diets and weight loss goals. Here is a reprise of my guest post, published by our gracious host Renard of https://renardsworld.wordpress.com, describing one of the most effective ancient diets, as well as a new recipe. Zeus was in a quandary. The supreme and most powerful of…

Hot Chicks Salad

Once again, our gracious host Renard of https://renardsworld.wordpress.com has published my guest post. Enjoy, Beautiful People!

Count Your Blessings – Quinoa Pomegranate Salad

The Holiday of Sukkos is called Zman Simchoseinu – The Time of Rejoicing.  We are commanded to rejoice for eight days, and to do it outside, open to elements. For the duration of this holiday, eight days, we dwell in the sukkah – a booth, or tent, erected outside. Some people actually sleep in the sukkah, but we only eat there. During this…

Smashing Cucumbers

Once again, our gracious host Renard of https://renardsworld.wordpress.com published my guest post: This marvelously smashing story starts in the very beginning of twentieth century, when a U.S. naval officer Pinkerton, stationed in Nagasaki, Japan, temporarily marries a lovely fifteen-year-old Japanese girl Cio-Cio-san. Her name means Madam Butterfly, and Giacomo Puccini’s opera is called, in Italian, Madama…

Florentine Salad

We were supposed to go to the opera today, to see Rigoletto. My husband, AKA The Boss, and I are both from Odessa, which means we are huge opera fans. When The Boss hears Verdi, he becomes ecstatic, and Rigoletto is on top of his favorite Verdi operas. You can imagine the anticipation building after…

My Grandmother’s Recipes: Part 8, Quinoa Pomegranate Salad.

This post takes us to the last two of the four holidays: Sukkot (Sukkos) and Simchat Torah (Simhas Torah). It also concludes my story with the celebration of Simhas Torah in Moscow Synagogue. *20. Leader of All Peoples – one of the multitude of epithets Stalin constructed to refer to himself. *21. The Big Brother of All Workers – see *20. *22. Expert of All…

Ponce de Leon, Diamond Lil, and the Secret of Eternal Youth

There is a quaint little town on the East Coast of Florida called St Augustine. It is considered the oldest continuous European settlement in the continental United States. But that’s not what makes it famous. Tourists flock to St Augustine because they are dying to stay young forever. According to the official Fountain of Youth…

Happy New Year to the Trees with More Pickled Veggies!

This is a re-post, Beautiful People. Tomorrow is Tu b’Shvat, the New Year of the Trees in the Hebrew Calendar, and I thought this post was worth repeating. We are celebrating yet another New Year – the New Year of the Trees. In the old times, in ancient Israel, this day, 15th of the month…

Vinaigrette – a Russian Winter Salad

He is called Father Frost or General Frost. He lives in Russia, and he could be very cruel, especially to those who do not show proper respect to him. He has defeated many invaders, from the khans, to Napoleon, to Nazi Germany. He likes to decorate fields and forests, covering them in pristine snow and…

Five Thousand Years of History and One-Minute Cucumbers

This was originally published as a guest post on https://renardsworld.wordpress.com. For some reason unbeknown to us humble bloggers, the Reblog button disappeared from several blogs, Renard’s and mine included. As a wonderful gracious host and a great blogger, Renard has suggested that I “do it the old-fashioned way” by offering the title and link to…

Anything You Can Get Away With, Including Quinoa and Kale

When Oscar Wilde, at the age of 36, published his one and only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, society was disturbed and the press was outraged. “Unclean”, “poisonous”, and “heavy with the mephitic odours of moral and spiritual putrefaction,” pontificated The Daily Chronicle. In the midst of the strait-laced Victorian age, Wilde calmly responded,…