Steve’s coworker and her friend came over last night to cook a wonderful Ukrainian dinner for us. I had met them a couple of months ago at the appreciation event for Oracle Open World, which Steve’s company attended. There was food galore, drinks for all and some skinny guy singing:
Our new friends decided to share their culinary expertise and make delicious, traditional food for us:
They treated us to borscht and Russian salad – which in Russia/Ukraine they call
Olivier salad, after the Belgian chef who invented it in Moscow. I love hearing about the origins of names of food, in Peru we also have something called “ensalada rusa”, i.e. Russian salad, which was very, very similar to what we enjoyed last night. Also, because you need to know this ;D nutmeg in Ukrainian is muskatnyy̆ horikh and in Spanish it is nuez moscada. Muskatnyy̆ – moscada, similar word roots.
The borscht was, for me, the highlight of dinner. It was so fragrant, so complex in taste, so full of texture, that I’m sorry to say Steve isn’t going to find any of the leftovers when he gets home tonight. We also had some roasted chicken drumsticks made by Steve (our oldest LOVES drumsticks), all-American apple pie, and I made some cupcakes, which we decorated with the colors of the Ukrainian flag in honor of our wonderful guests/cooks.
So thank you, gracias, and spasybi to our Ukrainian friends, for a wonderful evening and amazing food!
Casa de Berry 