Let's talk about some fun things I ate and drank. Gin Long Drink in Finland (sweet G&T on tap or in a can). Delicious "Russian" pierogi filled with fried onions and potatoes in Poland (not quite the same as the blander soggier version they actually serve in Russia). Shredded cabbage baked between sheet of rich buttery yeast dough in Russia (seriously, go to Stolle if you ever have the chance). Carrot cutlets. A salad of beets, walnuts, dates, and enough mayonnaise to make you slightly queasy bite after bite. Sour cream on everything from pizza to curry to borsch to blintzes. Overwhelming amount of dill on EVERYTHING - potato chips, pizza, dumplings, salad, soup, "garnishes" on unrelated dishes, you name it - dill must be one of the region's major cash crops.
Raspberry and ginger foam served in a champagne glass to cleanse my palate.
Every country's own brand of pale tasteless beer. Lithuanian Black Balsam, a foul burning mouthful of herbs and licorice - far and away the worst local liqueur I've ever had the bad luck to swallow. Buckwheat fried with carrots and onions. Fresh Finnish bread-cheese (charred disks of semi-soft cow's milk cheese) on torn pieces of painfully sour black bread. Fresh salted cucumber, what I wish pickles were. Juicy strawberries and cherries imported to Latvia from Poland. Caraway studded cheese the consistency of extra firm tofu. Stuffed cabbage with spicy tomato sauce.
And the crowning glory of it all, Georgian food - by far the best cuisine I've never seen in the States - naan-like bread filled with smoked cheese and baked in the shape of a canoe to hold an egg cracked on top while scalding hot out of the oven, dumplings filled with cheese and potatoes that have a convenient stem of dough so you can pick them up to eat them, spicy pepper pesto, hot red bean and cilantro stew. Someone needs to open a Georgian restaurant in San Francisco ASAP!
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