eCTb, eCTb, eCTb

In case you were wondering, eCTb is "eat" in Russian. This is the word that we heard most often here. They would ask if we wanted chai (tea)? We would say yes, and the next thing we knew there was a 3-4 course meal in front of us. Then Lida would come up and say "eat, eat eat!" The thing was though, it was all so good. All made at home food. The word Mcdonalds was not known among our family. My favorite? I don't know if I could name one! There were so many unique and oh so tasty things. Some were favorites that I grew up eating and had no idea were traditional Ukrainian dishes. Some others were ones that Oksana created on her own that I immediately would write down so I could try to recreate.














Lemon with sugar, coconut, and chocolate. (from Lena a cousin).
One of Darilyn's favorite.















Meatballs wrapped in puff dough. (Oksana original).















Oksana would make fancy jello! With fruit, ice cream, chocolate.

I could go on and on with all the food. One of my favorite days though was making kurtoflaniki. Ok this was spelled pretty much phonetically with the help of Anya. This dish consisted of thinly grated potatoes fried in thin layers and then you put a cheese mixture and fold it over. Lots of butter and oil, but oh so good. Lida allowed me to help and had me do the last few batches with her close supervision. After that I was allowed to help clear and set the table for meals. During the preparation process Anya and I danced around the living room singing "kurtoflaniki, kurtoflaniki" to the annoyance of my napping sister and mother.