SteppeSister's Songs

Please forgive me, Dear Readers, for the lack of consistent updates lately! Life has taken a turn for the "busy" as we begin our season of preparing to leave the Steppe in August. I've recently just finished cataloging and pricing our extensive library and that task alone took several days!

As our hearts turn towards the new adventure that God has in store for us in the States, we realize how important it is now to be intentional about finishing well here. That includes being attentive to photo opportunities, gathering stories, spending times that are sweet and precious with our local friends, and being good stewards of our personal property that we can't take with us. That will all take time.

On top of having less time to write up updates, I have been unable to easily log on. Some of you know this, but some of you might not. Apparently, this has become a banned site for me, so getting on it is vastly more difficult and frustrating. So, in advance, I apologize for not writing as much as I'd like to. Thank you to you who still read, and I hope that you continue to enjoy the photos and stories from Our Lives on the Steppe!

Now onto the task at hand- continuing on with the Nauruz Celebration.

This time, I'd like to share the foods that we enjoyed on this special day. Come along on a journey of the Tastes of the Steppe with me!

No meal, EVER, is complete without a LOT of tea. On this day and every other of the year, the water is boiled in samovars like these:

It was amazing to us that the city government decided to provide free food to anyone who showed up!!! In large tents at tables and benches, hundreds of people enjoyed hot steaming bowls of either rice pilau, or filling bowls of Nauruz soup called "kozhe" Here are the huge kettles used to cook these tasty dishes.

Can you imagine having to cook out in the open in quantities like that?!

I personally LOVE kozhe so much that I made it for supper the next day too. Here's my version:

Traditionally, kozhe is made with 7 ingredients but those vary from cook to cook. I used noodles, potatoes, raisins, beans, corn, meat, and rice. To say it was filling would be an understatement! This soup is white because buttermilk is always added at the end.

Unfortunately, the 2 youngest kids and I did not realize that the food was free, so we went further on to get some shashlik- meat and fat skewered and grilled over a hot wood fire. Shashlik is the traditional street food around here, and used to be quite readily available on practically every street corner. Now most street food sellers have been disallowed to sell their wares as such and now is only available at cafes or in the bazaar. On holidays however, they make an exception and HUNDREDS (literally!) of shashlik sellers set up their little grills, and the party-goers enjoy one big, fat meatfest! This is what a street packed with people hungry to consume vast portions of meat looks like:

Shashlik is always served piled high with raw onions, sprinkled with vinegar flavored with spicy red pepper and garlic, and alongside a gigantic heap of bread.