Food

One thing I certainly miss most when I'm here is the foods that I'm used to back home. Some of you might remember my stories of various parts of cows and horses and moose being served to me. Those are actually delicacies here and people rarely eat them on a day-to-day basis. Most days its just soup, pasta, rice, chunks of canned beef or chicken legs sent from the US. The chicken legs they call "Bush's legs" because they were first sent during Bush senior's presidency. They sell fresh vegetables in the wintertime, but they're expensive and they're very watery. The best veggies to eat are cabbage, beets, carrots, potatoes and onions. Everything else, you might as well not buy.

Living by myself now, rather than with a family, I have to cook for myself--which, honestly is quite a chore. I love to cook in the states, but here, finding any ingredients that I know how to cook with is difficult. And furthermore, you don't get much time to think when you go the stores. They are not like supermarkets in the US. You're typical "grocery store" is quite small and everything is kept behind the counter. You have to think before you go in what you want to buy and ask one of the cashiers to grab it for you. Almost without fail I forget something in the process. You don't really get a choice of brand either. And you don't necessarily know what they have and don't have. More often than not, all the stores will be out of bread or some other really common staple--you'd think it was still the Soviet Union.

But things are changing here. There are one or two bigger stores that let you wander around, but the constant police presence is slightly menacing and furthermore, there's not much greater of a selection. Things there are more expensive anyway. The most pleasant place to shop is the outdoor markets, where local farmers come to sell their wares, or "entrepreneurs" set up stands to sell things they import from China or elsewhere. Even in -40 degree weather the market is open and the sellers are there. Although fewer farmers and more hunters, with frozen fish, rabbits and squirrel beseech you to buy from them.