Russian mom? No kidding! I’d love to hear more. That plus the other side being Italian makes for a very interesting fusion cuisine at home I would imagine. The foods in both places seem quite disparate. My entire fam is Russian - Odessa. I grew up with so many pickled and preserved things. My American husband likes but doesn’t love Russian food. To him, there is not enough fresh, but he recognized that that’s life in a cold climate.
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Yes to the noodles with cheese and sugar. For us it was Farmers cheese and not cottage, but major yum as well as nostalgia.
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That’s kugel for sure!
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Building blocks of kugel, but not kugel, which is bound with eggs and baked. Bonus points for adding pineapple. Ours was just noodles, farmers cheese, sugar.
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Growing up in a Russian household, pasta was not really a thing for us. Sometimes - rarely - we had it with some jarred red sauce or some farmers cheese. Mostly it took the shape of filled pasta - vareniki with potato or cheese or pelmeni with meat.
As an adult running my own household, we have pasta all the time, every which way. Our biggest challenge is a kid who hates cooked tomato, so I’m always looking for something interesting to sauce with instead. We had positive responses to using the Moosewood carrot soup recipe as a pasta sauce, particularly when we also added in some crispy bacon or sausage bits.
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Pasta to me will always be a blank canvas awaiting an artist
And though i have never made it, this one for fun (and btw great movie with the best, and possibly only, making-of-scrambled-eggs scene):
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I have a few.
- Marcella Hazan’s onion/butter/tomato sauce, to which I add either Trader Joe’s Vegetarian Balls, or sauteed mushrooms, shrimp, or squid rings.
- I like cacio e pepe.
- And spaghetti alla limone.
- I also keep frozen pesto cubes in the freezer, which melt down and there’s your sauce, right there.
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Not at all. We are a very diverse family in more ways than food history which has made us curious to learn from each other. I consider my access to family recipes a great gift. We celebrate all holidays with equal respect and cultural curiosity. So whether we are baking Mandelbrot or biscotti; noodles or ravioli, chicken soup or fish stew we also find common ground prepping stewing or roasting and enjoying meals over wine/spirits. Too many examples to type but I was raised to be very open to all kinds of cultures and food was/is one gateway.
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You’re right --it was Farmer’s cheese. I switched to cottage cheese when I couldn’t find Farmer’s cheese.
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Fwiw, I recently stumbled across Farmers cheese in a Whole Foods. I had always thought I needed a “Euro” market.
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I like what you’re saying, and of course people of all cultures can happily meld if they want to. I’m just saying I don’t see a lot of overlap between lasagna and farshmakh (herring dip/spread).
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Much easier to compare herring dip with tuna mousse though 
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And it was my great and grandparents who made whatever bridges were necessary to create our family by being the first examples. Which led to my parents finding each other.
Imagine all of them playing bocce ball together at the local park sharing picnic fried chicken, pork ribs, vino and watermelon and you are just a tad inside my tribe.
Or playing cards over jewish deli and Italian baked goods. . There is no reason for similarity when you love your family as is.
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Great suggestions. My daughter is a little militant about her cacio e pepe so it seems like a good time to do the proud father thing and show her link from a couple years ago.
The Shop Rite in Wall will often have farmer’s cheese. Friendship brand I believe. It comes in a brick wrapped in plastic.
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Netcost has farmers cheese; several brands and sizes.
Thanks for the tip. I need to get to NetCost one of these days though probably not for a while. I’ve not been “leisurely” shopping in quite some time.
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Seems Netcost knows because they are delivering to certain towns. My Aunt placed a delivery and then I grabbed my stuff from her order.
I miss the days of walking up and down the aisles, especially in store I don’t know well and happening upon some obscure product. I’m starting to get antsy for something new.
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I hear you. I’ve really taken my time shopping carefully where I used to go to dozens of shops since retiring I now plan out all shopping. I still wind up with plenty of groceries.
Alcaparrado sounds right up my alley. Going to try this one.
Give me a savory kugel over a sweet every time. Delicious.
Should probably stock some ricotta. Can also use it for rollatini.
