Babushka's Basement Vodka
Misha, Tatiana, Some Girl, Some Dude, Evgenni, Fyodor.I know there was only six of them, but I still managed to forget two of their names. To be fair, I was only given them once, and not even in formal introductions - Misha kind of just showed up with me as if I were his "Show and Tell" object for the day, which technically I was. The entourage included Misha (with headlight), Fyodor (the Russian Dutchman), Evgenni and his girlfriend Tatiana (47% of all women between the ages of 20 and 55 are named Tatiana. At least thus far in my research.), along with some other guy who’s name I can’t remember along with his girlfriend whose name I also couldn’t remember. They were all extremely welcoming and friendly. I was quite touched that I would be invited to join this small group of friends to celebrate a somewhat important event for a guy I had only met once before. Apparently it is the Russian way, and I'm glad that this cultural rumor turned out to be true.
Follow your moonshine shot with an immediate bite of shish, and this crooked look will be your only suffering.Russian birthdays are a big deal. We drank homemade vodka that Fyodor’s grandmother made in her basement. Fyodor brought it in a plastic water bottle, and we had to water it down before drinking it to assure our esophaguses wouldn’t melt. The meal included chips, cuts of a pepperoni type sausage, cucumbers and tomatoes sliced, a ‘salad’ made by Fyodor’s mother (which consisted primarily of beets, carrots, celery, raw fish and mayonnaise), and shish kabobs piled with onions and smothered in, to no surprise of mine (anymore), cilantro! As it turns out, its one of the more prevalent herbs in Russian cooking, which has been a welcome shock to my Tex-Mex sensibilities. I thought I would never see it again, that last time at Boca Grande in Coolidge Corner. Here they serve it in Chicken Soup. I figured with a name like cilantro! it had to be the kind of thing that only grows in Mexico and the Spanish Mediterranean Coast. I love cilantro! I feel like it should be written in italics and an exclamation point every time its written. Its even fun to say: cilantro! cilantro!
Misha always gets in the pictures before Evgenni, as you can see.So we ate and drank and ate. We ate so much that we couldn’t tell we were drinking. The guy who’s name I can’t remember (Lyosha) opened the trunk of his ’03 Russian Lada (think ’83 Honda Civic) and played some Euro-pop-house-dance garbage. And there was much rejoicing.
posted by Майлз Г. Смит @ 12:32 PM
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