Like many people, I’ve had my summer travel plans severely disturbed by COVID-19. My upcoming trip to Hungary has been canceled, and unless I want to spend fourteen days quarantined in a…

When I wrote about my recent trip to Lake Lacha, I mentioned the abundance of wild game in the area and the many alleged health benefits of consuming bear meat and bear…

Since I first wrote about Pomor cuisine here, I’ve already posted two cod recipes from the Russian Far North: a cod fish soup, and cod and potato fritters. But the Pomors aren’t…

I’ve been reading Culinaire Saisonnier, a Belgian magazine geared towards chefs, for almost fifteen years. While I don’t always have the time for their articles on regional products or their lengthy chef…

Reading my post on Arkhangelsk a couple months back, you might’ve been wondering: “What the hell is he doing in that sh**hole?” Especially for someone who’s been all over Russia dozens of…

If you’re an assiduous reader of this blog, you might remember my first recipe for ukha, the traditional Russian fish soup: a yellow perch ukha with perch fritters and perch roe croutons.…

When my partner, tasked with finding a Russian-ish dessert recipe for me for a recent quarantine weekend, unearthed a rye bread cake in Joyce Toomre’s English translation of Elena Molokhovets’ A Gift…

In my last post, I talked about my trip to the wilderness of Lake Lacha, outdoor adventures in the surrounding woods and swamps, and meals at the Kolokol tour base – burbot…

Limiting one’s trip to the Russian Far North to its major cities (Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, Petrozavodsk) would be a little bit like going to a beach or ski resort and never leaving your…

In my recent post on Pomor cuisine, I mentioned that the Pomors were known as “cod eaters” because they consumed codfish, in various ways, with impressive regularity. At the Arkhangelsk market, the…