Passion For Russian

Russian Winter Festival

It’s been a busy holiday season (so far) but I’m never too busy to squeeze in another Russian festival! This weekend, муж and I attended the Russian Winter Festival at the Hillwood Museum.

I am not ashamed to admit, the part of the festival I was most excited for was the “special art activity where visitors of all ages can create their own kokoshnik, a lady’s headdress”. What do you think of my special art? 

And do you recognize the musical group from the bottom picture? (Hint here.)

In the middle are my two favorite artifacts from ‘the Estate’.

The festival was fun, but I’m not sure I’d pay the $18 admission to go back next year. Most of the festivals I went to this year were just as jolly of a good time and were also free. 

What Russian events have you been to this holiday season?

Matryoshki of the World Unite! (A Revolutionary Show n Tell Party)

Something really cool happened last week. As you might know I am accumulating quite a collection of Matryoshki, and they have been nagging me to leave the house, so I finally packed them up and took them out for a night on the town!

…to an event sponsored by Russkiy Mir: Matryoshki of the World Unite! It was a matryoshka show and tell party! One of the highlights was the huge matryoshka, pictured above, with a giant bottle of vodka inside instead of the traditional 5-15 dolls. Not to brag too much, but I’m pretty sure I had the most on display (even though I didn’t bring everything I had - I didn’t want to be too overzealous!)

After the show and tell, there was a presentation about different matryoshki and then we sang songs. :) It was a small event, but I think it’s great that Russkiy Mir tried to do something unique while getting people together to celebrate Russian culture.

I’ll definitely be checking out their events in the future and adding them to my calendar. What’s the most unique Russian event you’ve been to?

Another great Russian Festival! St. Nicholas Cathedral’s Annual Fall Bazaar 

This festival also has a great selection of food and entertainment. As you can see from the picture there is a lot of space and room to spread out, which is very nice. You can even get an Orthodox priest to cook you some shashlik! ; )

Something unique about this festival is that they combine it with their annual rummage festival. And this year, I made an awesome find! I am so excited that I have to save it for a separate post, so stay tuned!

What did you do this weekend while I was gettin festive?

Here’s a quick look at the great time I had at the 35th Annual Baltimore Ukrainian Festival 2 weeks ago… definitely looking forward to going again next year: September 8th and 9th 2012. (These people are organized!)

Had another Meetup at Cafe Assorti this weekend. Today I ordered the Assorti Blueberry Pancakes, and they were delicious! I’m not sure how Russian they were, but they definitely aren’t the traditional American style - they were thicker and and denser. I seem to remember my roommate making something like these in Volgograd (although I don’t seem to remember her sharing them with me).

Yum!!

Are there any Russian/Eastern European restaurants you’ve been checking out in your area?

Napolean Cake at Cafe Assorti

I wanted to write a simple post about a wonderful Sunday afternoon I recently had at Cafe Assorti in Arlington, VA. But as I did a little research, I kept finding more and more tidbits of information I wanted to include, so let me break it down like this:

1. As part of the Russian Meetup I organize, I recently had a wonderful Sunday brunch at Cafe Assorti in Arlinton, Va. 

2. More on Cafe Assorti - If you are in the DC area, you must check out Cafe Assorti. Self-described as “a fast-casual restaurant featuring homemade food from European, Russian and Kazakh cuisines”. The food is good, reasonably priced, and they serve alcohol. Service is friendly. And one of my favorite things: they did not mind doing separate checks for around 40 people!!! Also, everything we ordered came a la cart. They just brought it out as it was ready. This was perfect for the open house-type gathering we had.

3. My take on Napolean Cake -  Not wanting to miss dessert, I ordered a пирожок с картошкой (potato pirozhok) and a piece of Наполеон (Napolean Cake). A friend of mine had ordered this cake the last time we were here, and I just had to try it. It wasn’t really what I was expecting - the layers were crispy and there was creme in between them. (Kind of like a giant piece of baklava without the honey and not as sweet.) I thought it would be more soft - like tirimisu or something. Either way it was quite tasty, and caught the attention of the whole table when it arrived. (It was huge - this picture does not do it justice.)

4. More on Napolean Cake - I was a skeptical, and am still unsure if this cake is actually Russian or French, or something else, but it seems that the Russians have at least claimed it. Here is a blog post I found that gives more details on the issue, as well as a recipe.

5. Irrelevant Tidbit about Mille Feulle - I found it funny that another name for the French version of this cake is Mille Feulle, which means ‘a thousand layers’ because I just happened to remember that that it is the name of the type of dress that Carrie Bradshaw wears in an episode of Sex and the City. (Sorry for the non-Russian related tidbit. I couldn’t resist.)

6. A new Russian cooking blog - I just wanted to mention that the writer of the blog where I found this information has started a new blog: Gastronomical Me, about Russian Cooking, which seems really good, so check it out!