Honey, herring and hooch
Blini, books and Bykov
By Phoebe Taplin at 01/03/2012 20:19
Http://themoscownews.com/people/20120301/189503509.html
From pancakes on Trafalgar Square to literary lectures in King’s Cross, February was a feast of food and culture.
The last month in Russian London has revolved around two of my favorite occupations: reading and eating. New bookshops and publishers appeared, another Russian restaurant opened in Knightsbridge and two of London’s most interesting Russian cooks set up a partying partnership.
Honey, herring and hooch
Expats are always on the move. After two years as London editor of Snob magazine (http://www.snob.ru/), the talented Alexey Kovalev, is heading back to Moscow. The magazine’s Maslenitsa party in Bloomsbury was a delight. The menu included pancakes made of buckwheat, barley and rye and filled with caviar, cod livers, Baltic herrings and grated beetroot. Add some live folk music and homebrewed vodka with garlic, dill, pepper or honey and you had the makings of a beautifully Russian evening.
The women responsible for this bonanza were Karina Baldry and Katya Kollegaeva. As a follower of Kollegaeva’s delicious blog (http:// www.gastronomicalme.com/), I was keen to meet the Russian Londoner who makes salo and offal sound sexy, while Baldry’s appealing recipe book “Russia on a Plate” (http://www.russiaonaplate.com/) caught my eye in December when I was writing about Christmas shopping. They have recently teamed up to form Russian Revels (http:// russianrevels.co.uk/), an unusual culinary dream team that I hope to see more of.
‘Here to stay’
After the intimacy of a cozy basement in Bloomsbury, the scale of Trafalgar Square’s Maslenitsa celebrations (http://maslenitsa. co.uk/), three days later, was a shock. Several thousand people drank and danced to everything from Siberian throat singing to rock legends Chaif. Billing itself as the biggest Russian cultural event outside Russia, the organizers took a run-up to this iconic fiesta, with a whole week of plays and fashion shows, cookery classes and readings. There was also an exhibition of photos in City Hall near Tower Bridge, celebrating some of the many Russian Londoners: students, journalists, athletes and musicians. London’s ebullient mayor, Boris Johnson, caught the mood, announcing grandly: “Russian culture has arrived in London and is here to stay.”
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