Liankacreations

  It seems I got into a pattern of bad baking. Well, I am an ordinary person after all. Last year I didn’t grow any sorrel. My last plant died a year before. We bought seeds on Amazon, and in late summer I planted sorrel. Surprisingly, it didn’t die over the winter. However, It shouldn’t surprise me. The  winters turned out to be mild. My sorrel grew out well, and I craved for pies. Small sweet & sour pies.  The thing is, I'm not good with dough, just at all. A friend of mine showed me the process of preparing dough a few times but I didn't get it.  Honestly it’s not that difficult. Just beyond my ability. I bought dough. The only problem was that I couldn't find the pie dough. I bought pizza dough. What is the difference anyway? So, I had dough, made the filling (cut sorrel, mixed it with sugar, crushed it a little with a pusher). Here, if I had pie dough, I would bake them.  Here is a short video. But I didn’t, so I fried.  Well, I got my pies, dirty ...

  When to read memoirs … impression of the book  “A backpack, a bear, and 8 craters of vodka” I thought that the best time to read biographies and memoirs was retirement. It seems I was mistaken. Very soon after February 24, 2022 I received an announcement in my work email. Bridgewater University (or their bookclub) invited people to talk with the author about a book  “A backpack, a bear, and 8 craters of vodka” by Lev Golinkin. The  book is about the immigration of a Jewish family from the Soviet (back then) Ukraine. Everything about Russia and Ukraine is on air now, so I decided to read it. At the very beginning, the author told non-Russian readers about the life of a Soviet kid. And I, who grew up in the October-pioneer childhood, was bored to read about it. I knew perfectly well what Octobrists, pioneers and even the Komsomols were. With the zoom meeting date approaching, I pulled myself together, checked out the book again and made myself read. And, surprisingly...

  Recently I read a book. Can you imagine I still read books?   It said: “Life changes you, even if you don’t realize it while it’s happening…”* Many things have changed in my life and head since the beginning of the war.  Yesterday was May 9th and it's a big holiday in Russia. It's a Victory Day for people who fought in World War II. It seems like I feel slightly different about that now. I still grieve for all the dead and missing in that war, I still cry when I watch Soviet war films (that's why I don't watch them), I'm still proud of the feat of the Soviet people.  The Soviet Union lost some 27m people in the Great Patriotic War, and no family remained unaffected. Some people fought on the front lines, some worked three shifts a day to supply the army. The Victory Day was and is a sort of reminder of the importance of peace.  But now, the word “peace” is prohibited.  It started in spring 2022 when thousands of people were repressed for their anti-w...