Taking a Train in Russia

Russia is the place to take a train, there is no doubt about it.  I have long had the fantasy of doing a long train ride at some point, on the order of The Orient Express, but maybe not quite so luxurious and not quite so expensive.  As part of my recent trip to Russia, we took an overnight train from Moscow to St. Petersburg.

First of all, the Moscow train station at night is not at all scary.  Thr train takes off at midnight, and so you might be tempted to have second thoughts.   Do not worry.  We checked our luggage with a luggage check service in the basement and went down the block to the Hilton, which is in one of Stalin's seven sister buildings--well worth seeing in and of itself.  The food is expensive, but very good, and erhaps if we were more acclimatized to Moscow we would have found another plae to eat and stopped at the HIlton for drinks.  That would have been a good idea as well.

The train pulls in at 11:30 and each car has it;s own porter.  Lots of pomp and circumstance, but the rooms are really quite nice, and come stocked with  a light midnight snack.  Really cozy and nice accommodations, with 2 bathrooms shared between 16 people.  The train gently rolled through the night, and about an hour before we arrived in St Petersburg, we were served a hot breakfast.  And the whole thing was very reasonably priced.

Chocolate Oatmeal Moon Pie Cookies

These cookies are the right balance of a number of elements of chewy, crunchy, fruity, earthy, gooey, and chocolate.  You an omit the chocolate drizzle, as I think it adds a very nice element of beauty but it doesn't much enhance the overall flavor of the cookie.  And if you aren't used to it, adds an element of difficulty that shouldn't be a barrier to making these cookies.

• 1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 1/4 cups old-fashioned oats
• 1 cup dried tart cherries, chopped
• 1 cup pecans, chopped
• 3/4 cup semisweet or bittersweet chocolate (4 ounces), chopped into chocolate chip-size chunks
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups (packed) dark brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 7-ounce jars marshmallow creme

Chocolate Dipping Sauce

• 1/2 cup
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1/2 cup heavy cream

Cookies

• Arrange racks in upper and lower thirds of oven; preheat to 350°. Line 3 baking sheets with parchment paper. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Combine oats, cherries, pecans, and chocolate in a large bowl.
• Using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar in another large bowl, occasionally scraping down sides of bowl, until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add egg and vanilla and beat to blend. Scrape down sides of bowl. With machine running at low speed, gradually add flour mixture; beat just to blend. Stir in oat mixture with a wooden spoon just to blend.
• Usie one tablespoonfuls of dough per cookie (or smaller--use a scoop to improve uniformity. Divide among baking sheets. Using your hands, gently press down on each dough ball until 1/2" thick.
• Bake cookies for 12-15 minutes.  Do not overbake. Let cookies cool on baking sheets.
• Spread 1 Tbsp. marshmallow creme on bottom of 18 cookies. Sandwich with remaining cookies.

Chocolate Dipping Sauce

• Place chocolate and honey in a medium bowl. Bring cream just to a boil in a small saucepan. Pour over chocolate and honey; let stand for 1 minute; stir until melted and smooth. Drizzle over cookies or serve alongside sandwich cookies for dipping.

Send Flowers

I have been logging a lot of hospital hours this last week and one thing that I never understood before it happened to me is that the flowers that you sent to people when they are in the hospital is not so much for their looks as for their smell. 

There are a lot of indignities that one has to endure in the pursuit of getting over illness.  And on occasion that can entail the leakage of various fuids out of one's body.  Not all of that leakage has a pleasant odor.  In fact, most of them can be identified based on their smell alone.  I was lucky enough to score a private room for my hospital stay, all the more lucky because of how long I had to be there.  For me it is all about the ability to deal with my illness on my own and without a stranger looking on, as well as the ability to sleep when I am able, rather than beign subject to not only my own crises but those of my neighbors, but for my husband it was all about the smell.  Thank goodness your room doesn't smell like urine, he said.  Well, true that. 

Which brings me ever circuitously back to the flowers.  My room smells like a florst, not like a hospital room at all.  If you could only rely on your nose, you would not guess where you were.  I rarely send flowers to people in the hospital and I was a complete moron about that.  To me they were just another thing that you would have to carry home with you.  But in fact, they are aroma therapy.  So be sure to include flowers that smell like flowers.  Asiatic lilies are my personal favorites.

Pamyatnik Petru I Statue, Moscow, Russia

This statue and its story actually seems like a reflection on Russian culture, which I could be completely wrong about.  The statue is said to have been made as a tribute to Christopher Columbus on the discovery of the New World, but whoever it was made for decided against it, and there is was, a huge expensive statue that for the most part, really had not plae in Russia.  So what to do with it?

They retooled Christopher's face and instead put the face of Peter the Great on it.  Voila, now it is a Russian statue.  One has to overlook the fact that Peter was tsar during the Age of Enlightenment and that Columbus was sailing the ocean blue almost two hundred years before Peter was born.  so the ship that Peter is standing on bears no resemblance to the time in which he lived. 

Peter did have a passion for shipbuilding though.  He came to Holland in the late 17th century disguised as a common sailor.  He spent four months in Dutch shipyards learning to build ships from start to finish.  His goal was to be able to found the Russian Navy when he got back home.  He needed more training and technical skills to pull that feat off, not to mention a fair amount of capital, but I think that it is a story that captures some of the essence of what he was trying to do in Russia, to bring them from the feudal ages into what in Europe was the modern times.

Italian Seven Layer Cookies

My friend Ivy desperately wanted to make these, and she clearly lacks my aversion to food coloring, but she was the boss of our recent cooking extravaganza and I let her have her way.  These are actually three quite delicious almost cakes held together by apricot jam, and topped with chocolate ganache and are delicious.  You could probably forgo making them the colors of the Italian flag.  Alternatively, you could make them the color of your own favorite flag.

• 4 large eggs, separated
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 (8-oz) can almond paste
• 2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 25 drops red food coloring
• 25 drops green food coloring
• 1 (12-oz) jar apricot preserves, heated and strained
• 7 oz fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), chopped

• Special equipment: a heavy-duty stand mixer; a small offset spatula

1. Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F. Butter a 13- by 9-inch baking pan and line bottom with wax paper, leaving a 2-inch overhang on 2 ends, then butter paper.
2. Beat whites in mixer fitted with whisk attachment at medium-high speed until they just hold stiff peaks. Add 1/4 cup sugar a little at a time, beating at high speed until whites hold stiff, slightly glossy peaks. Transfer to another bowl.
3. Switch to paddle attachment, then beat together almond paste and remaining 3/4 cup sugar until well blended, about 3 minutes. Add butter and beat until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add yolks and almond extract and beat until combined well, about 2 minutes. Reduce speed to low, then add flour and salt and mix until just combined.
4. Fold half of egg white mixture into almond mixture to lighten, then fold in remaining whites gently but thoroughly. 
5. Divide batter among 3 bowls. Stir red food coloring into one and green food coloring into another, leaving the third batch plain. Set white batter aside. Chill green batter, covered. Pour red batter into prepared pan and spread evenly with offset spatula (layer will be about 1/4 inch thick).
6. Bake red layer 8 to 10 minutes, until just set. (It is important to undercook.)
7. Using paper overhang, transfer layer to a rack to cool, about 15 minutes. Clean pan, then line with wax paper and butter paper in same manner as above. Bake white layer in prepared pan until just set. As white layer bakes, bring green batter to room temperature. Transfer white layer to a rack. Prepare pan as above, then bake green layer in same manner as before. Transfer to a rack to cool.
8. When all layers are cool, invert green onto a wax-paper-lined large baking sheet. Discard paper from layer and spread with half of preserves. Invert white on top of green layer, discarding paper. Spread with remaining preserves. Invert red layer on top of white layer and discard wax paper.
9. Cover with plastic wrap and weight with a large baking pan. I put them back in the pans I baked them in, and put one on top, weighed down with cans.  Chill at least 8 hours.
10. Remove weight and plastic wrap. Bring layers to room temperature. Melt chocolate in a double boiler or a metal bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat. Keep chocolate over water.
11. Trim edges of assembled layers with a long serrated knife. Quickly spread half of chocolate in a thin layer on top of cake. Chill, uncovered, until chocolate is firm, about 15 minutes. Cover with another sheet of wax paper and place another baking sheet on top, then invert cake onto sheet and remove paper. Quickly spread with remaining chocolate. Chill until firm, about 30 minutes.

Cut lengthwise into 4 strips. Cut strips crosswise into 3/4-inch-wide cookies.
 

My Harrowing Week

Last week began badly.  I had been having some symptoms that were not in and of themselves distressing, but persistent, and then I had increased bloating combined with a decreased appetite, neither of which are my norm.  So I made an appointment with the GI doctor who had done my colonoscopy (well, in truth, he was out sick so I saw a locums tenens doctor instead).  He was completely unimpressed with my symptoms and scheduled me for an endoscopu.  I was not convinced that would get to the heart of my problem, or at least it would not reassure me that there was not something else going on, so he ordered an abdominal CT, which I got on a Thursday.  Then on Sunday I got a message in my email that my medical record had an update, and that is how I found out that I had ovarian cancer.  I read my own abdominal CT report, sitting on the front porch of my house on a sunny morning, my husband on an airplane and my parents at church, and no one else who I really wanted to talk to.

So welcome to modern medicine, I thought  The good news is that I found out.  I got an appointment to see a gynecological oncologist on Monday, and had my surgery on Thursday.  The bad news, is that ovarian cancer is really bad news, and it doesn't appear that we get really bad news in a personal way.  I am pretty sure the doctor who ordered the test would not have been a better choice for getting the devastating news, nor would I have gotten care any sooner.  But I do know that  it felt strangely representative of the world that we now inhabit, where information comes to us conveniently but inhumanely.  Wish me luck in the weeks and months ahead, and think about ways that you want to hear bad news about your medical condition in the future, because it is already here.

Traveling Advice from my Chinese Seatmates

Today is the birthday of my second son, and I think he would appreciate this sage advice that I got on a recent trip home.  I was sitting between four passengers from China across two rows and they brought noodle soup with them for the trip.  The flight attendant clearly was familiar with the practice, as she brought them hot water in their bottles on a regular basis as they ach ate one or two servings.  The problem with food in airports is actually improving in all ways except for the cost.  But I have had travel instances that are too numerous to count just this year that involved flights delayed and plans to catch a bite foiled.  Sometimes even catching the flight doesn't go that well!  So ts seems like a great way to have a hot meal at a resonable cost that is easy a nd filling and you could even bring some mix ins if you were ambitious.  I know for sure that Tucker would approve of the frugality and the filling nature of this meal in the air.

Molasses Spice Lemon Sandwich Cookies

These cookies are amazing if you are a fan of the old fashioned molasses cookies, which my grandmother used to make (dating them back to at least the 1940's).
This version is jumped up by having a lemon buttercream frosting holding two of them together.
I made these with a #100 scoop, which is about as small as you can go with an easily encountered measuring device (and since they are sandwiches, you want them to be uniform--no one wants to spend oodles of time trying to find two cookies of the same size!  Just make them more or less the same to begin with), so this is more of a cookie to serve as a solo choice than on a plate of multiple cookies.

Cookie:
2 c. flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ginger
1/4 tsp. cloves
1/4 c. molasses
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 egg
12 tbs. butter, melted
pinch of salt

Frosting:
3 Tbs. butter
3 Tbs. lemon juice
2 c. confectionery sugar

1. Whisk flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and salt together in a medium bowl.  In a separate bowl mix sugar, molasses, egg, and butter together, then add the dry ingredients in batches, stirring each time until combined.  Chill dough 1 hour.
2. preheat oven to 375 degree.  Make equal sized balls, and roll them in granulated sugar, then bake for about 10 minutes, then cool
3. Make the frosting by whisking butter, lemon juice and confectionery sugar together.  Put enough frosting between two cookies so it can be seen from the edges, but not enough that it squeezes out of the cookie when you bite into it. 

Kazan Cathedral, Moscow, Russia

I saw this cathedral early in my trip to Russia and so I was not yet prepared for the vast number of beautiful churches that are part of the landscape.  So I will have to be forgiven for all of the pictures of buildings that I took.  This small but charming Cathedral was built in the 17^th century on the north side of Red Square, near the Resurrection Gate. It was built to commemorate the repulsion of Polish invaders, and in honor of the Virgin of Kazan icon. There are two things that are very important in Russian history.  One is the repelling of enemies--they still have the Monguls firmly in their minds.  The other is the importance of beautiful icons.  One of the most revered icons in Moscow, it has been connected more than once with the struggle to protect Russia from her enemies. In 1812, during the Napoleonic wars, a prayer service was conducted before the icon to plead for the safety of the country, and it was even attended by the great Russian commander, Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov.

The building is a cube topped with a cluster of domes and encircled by a gallery. In the north-west corner there is a bell-tower, and in the north-east the chapel of Averkiy Ierapolskiy. The Cathedral was restored between 1925 and 1933 by the great architect-restorer Pyotr Baranovsky. However, this did not stop the Soviet authorities from taking the decision in 1936 to have the Cathedral demolished.

Fortunately, thanks to Baranovsky, blueprints of the building survived, and in 1989 one of his former students, Oleg Zhurin, took charge of the project to rebuild the Cathedral. This was the first church to be rebuilt in post-communist Moscow. On 4 November 1990, Patriarch Aleksei II laid the first stone of the new building, and three years later the Cathedral was back in all its former glory.

Saviour's Tower, The Kremlin, Moscow, Russia

I love the towers of the Kremlin, which each have a star atop them.  The stars are enormous, over 3 meters in diameter, and they are lit from within so that they glow red against the sky at night. 


The Gothic-turreted Spasskaya Tower, considered by many to be the most beautiful tower of the Kremlin, was built under the supervision of Pietro Antonio Solari in 1491, and stands on the north-eastern side of the citadel, bordering Red Square.

The gate of the Spasskaya Tower has been the official entrance to the Kremlin for centuries. Until the 17^th century the tower was known as the Frolovskaya, due to its location not far from the St. Frol church and monastery. In 1658 an Icon of the Saviour was mounted above the gate facing Red Square, and the tower's name was changed to Spasskaya by decree of the Tsar. It is just a majestic entry to an equally gorgeous space.

The towers are equally lovely from inside the Kremlin gates as they are from afar.

The Russians have apparently regarded the Spasskaya Tower with great reverence over the long haul. According to old legends, the tower was possessed with miraculous powers and was reputed to protect the Kremlin from enemy invasion. People passing through the gates would always observe the custom of crossing themselves and doffing their hats to show their respect, and horses passing under the gates of the tower were said to shy. In fact, legend has it that Napoleon himself could not prevent his horse from taking fright as he rode through the gates, having failed to show his respect, and the French Emperor's hat was said to have fallen from his head.

During the 16^th and 17^th centuries the tower was used by the Tsar and the Patriarch for ceremonial processions and for greeting foreign dignitaries, and even today world leaders on state visits are escorted through its gates on their way to an audience with the Russian President. The tower is crowned by an illuminated ruby-red star, which replaced the double-headed Russian eagle in 1937, raising the tower's height to 71 metres.