Dolmas and diets

So I actually wrote a lot at the beginning of the month, but I'm not posting it because it's about time I took a break from documenting the political and social games that have made winter very long. Instead, I'm going to say that there are flowers blooming despite the snow. Neta that I may be the same way. Let's talk about something more interesting. Like food.

When Maguala makes vegetarian dolmas, I always try to watch. Finally, I think I have the recipe figured out. She simmers pepper strips, tomato pieces, and carrot pieces in a frying pan. Meanwhile she boils rice. When the rice is done, she drains it and adds it—with black pepper—to the vegetables in the pan. She stirs it often for a few minutes, and then removes this pan from the heat. Then she takes cabbage leaves and boils them. When they’re soft, she cuts out the middle stalk. These leaves are stuffed with the rice and vegetable mixture to make the dolmas themselves, but this isn’t even half the work. She also simmers chopped onions in a big deep pan. When the onions are soft, she adds pulped tomato and an herb paste—presumably of dill, cilantro, and parsley. She salts this, and then she lays the stuffed cabbage leaves in the juice. Extra rice gets added to this pot also. She sprinkles freshly chopped dill and cilantro on top, salts this again, and then does something curious: she puts a plate upside-down into the pan so that it covers the dolmas. Then she covers the pan and lets it simmer for 3 or 4 hours. They’re delicious, but it’s a process that takes her all morning. We have dolmas on Saturdays. Since the fast started, we’ve eaten pretty much exclusively potatoes and macaroni the rest of the week. I was really sick this past week, so it worked for me. I ate yogurt and toast for breakfast and then baked or boiled potatoes for dinner each day. It’s been pretty miserable. What’s worse is I feel my body begging for vegetables and less sunflower oil. I know that a week of eating spinach, broccoli, brussel sprouts, kale, asparagus, and bell peppers would make me feel so much better. I actually had a dream about eating bagels with my sisters. I ate it the way my dad does, with cream cheese and then blackberry jam, and it was glorious.

Seriously, though, the ideas here about diet and illness are making me worry about my body. When I was sick, my co-teacher told me that I needed a strict diet. The other teachers all chimed in and told me what I was allowed to eat: bread crust, dry old bread, boiled rice, boiled potatoes, baked potatoes, jam, tea, cheese, yogurt, boiled macaroni, crackers, apples, boiled raisins, and granola. They told me to stay away from oil, butter, margarine, milk (because it’s mixed with oil here), eggs, cabbage, oranges, and soft bread. They also suggested half a dozen medicines, mineral water, or spending all day drinking water with salt and sugar added. When my co-teacher and I went into a pharmacy to get her medicine for something, the drunk pharmacist was pretty useless. Then a second lady came in and told me that I needed to buy two medicines and take them together. I don’t like meds anyway, and everything here is in Russian so I never know exactly what’s in the medicine, so I declined. Instead I went home to diet, drink water and sleep.

Even that was a bit of a problem though. In the US, when someone is sick the usual attitude is that the poor dear needs to relax and sleep. Here, Jumberi pressed me to drink coffee or wine or vodka, to eat lobio or fried meat patties…essentially the opposite of what I wanted to be putting in my body…and people kept trying to get me to go run around in the cold. My friends texted to ask if I wanted to go out, and I said that I was sick. They asked if that was a yes or a no. I said it was a no, that I wanted to stay home until I felt better. They texted 5 more times to ask if I was coming outside to meet them, and one got upset that I wasn’t up to wandering in circles in the snowy streets. I get off easy because I’m a foreigner. Eka and Nona were sick too (apparently there’s a virus going around). Nona got teased. Eka and her parents just yelled at each other non-stop. I can set down strict rules for myself and explain that I’ll buy and prepare my own food and everything…yet it’s still a constant battle to control my body. Almost everything said (to me and to each other) is a (well-intentioned) order to sit her or eat this or drink this. I hate arguing to begin with, and when I’m sick it’s really the last thing I feel like doing.

On an unrelated note, there were re-runs of that old game show “Double Dare” on TV and I decided that the world needs a TV station devoted to the ‘90s. It would play game shows like “Double Dare” and “Legends of the Hidden Temple” and whatever that Nickelodeon one was that had the big pink head with words in it. It would play old episodes of “Doug” and “The Munsters” and “Angry Beavers.” From time to time it could even play music videos…from Nirvana to the Backstreet Boys. I would appreciate it.