Anticipation

Our family time in December was spent mostly adding ever-more decorations to our house, playing outside for brief periods at a time, and listening to our Christmas music classics (thanks to Misha, who has been playing them steadily since early November). Here is a barrage of recent photos:

The boys proudly display our Christmas chain:

Our count-down to the 25th has all of its doors open ... so we made another week-long calendar that goes until New Year's Eve!

Misha and I cut out snowflakes, and he helped me tape up the cut-out letters for our "Merry Christmas!" message. Misha has since made origami bells as well.

Sebby has been pretty good (most of the time) about just picking up and moving around the presents without opening them. He pretends to read the labels, running his finger along the paper and saying, "To Sebby!" And instead of saying "Christmas tree" or "Merry Christmas," he simply refers to everything as "Merry Christmas tree!"

Through the stomach

Perhaps the way to the heart of a culture is through the stomach. If that's the case, then we are doing an amazing job. Not only have we been enjoying national dishes at the restaurants, but we have been cooking them at home (with lessons from our friends) and accepting invitations to neighbors' feasts  - all of which have been keeping our bellies full and our hearts content.

A few weeks ago, an acquaintance who lives in our area invited us to his home to have an evening meal with his family. When we arrived, we were promptly led to a table packed to the brim with salads, fruits, cookies, and tea. The boys nibbled and played with a new friend, the four-year-old daughter, while we drank tea, chatted, and obediently followed the commands of our hosts to eat more. A short while later, out came the main course - even though we were already stuffed! Of course we ate more anyway, as it was delicious manti, a type of steamed dumpling stuffed with meat and onions.

Jyldyzbek and his daughter.

Sebby at the feast.

On to the cooking lessons! In this photo is the gan fan that Saule and I made. Since I used to cook with Saule last time we were in Kyrgyzstan, it's about time we did it again. Gan fan is one of my favorite Kyrgyz dishes. First, you fry lamb (or beef) in a generous amount of oil. Later, you add the veggies - peppers, carrots, onion, garlic, raddish, cabbage, or whatever you like. Add a bit of water and season with a bit of tomato paste, salt, pepper, and hot peppers if you like. Serve over rice. Delicious! We've been making this at home a lot lately.

Then Anara taught me the Kyrgyz way of making plov, something I've attempted to recreate but haven't gotten quite right. Again, you fry meat in oil, later adding rice, onions, carrots, and garlic. It's delicious served with a salad of tomato, cucumber and onion.

Anara also makes fabulous manti. On a cold snowy night, we happily walked the short distance to her house to eat finger-scalding manti taken straight from the mantejnitza - a cool stacking manti-steamer (like this).

Anara's manti, waiting to be gobbled up along with spicey salads and hot tea.

Misha and I enjoy the meal.

On another occasion, Anara showed me how to make samsa, made from triangular-shaped, layered dough (rather like filo) filled with your choice of meat (chicken, in this case) and onions.

Fold them up ...

Bake them until the kitchen smells wonderful ...

and enjoy!

Misha and Alihan dig in.

Another of my favorite Kyrgyz dishes is uchpuchmaki. Not only is it fun to say, but it makes a perfect portable snack. The uchpuchmaki that I buy on the way home from work look far more professional, but mine still turned out pretty well. The dough is bready, which I made from a rather arbitrary mix of milk, yeast, egg, flour, and salt. For the filling, I prefer lamb (or beef) with potatoes, green onion, onion, garlic, salt, pepper, red pepper, and a bit of oil or lamb fat. Brush a bit of beaten egg on the tops before baking to a golden brown.

Of course, we don't eat Kyrgyz food all the time. We make our fair share of pancakes, crepes, French toast, Ramen noodles, pizza, chicken with broccoli, omelets with hashbrowns, and stew, lots of stew. And now that we have brown sugar (thanks to my parents' care package), we are back to making cookies! Our oatmeal-peanut-butter-chocolate-chunk turned out so satisfyingly American that they disappeared in two days. We may need more brown sugar ...

Misha and Sebby are always quick to volunteer to help with the cookies!

Let it snow

Oh, the weather outside is frightful,

But the fire is so delightful.

Since we've got no place to go,

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

After a few teases of snow which melted within a day, we finally have a white world. The grass is no longer visible, and the sidewalks are covered with icy patches that no one shovels or salts, making for interesting walks around town. Misha is always thrilled to look out the window and see the flakes swirling down, and snow always makes me feel nice and cozy as well, especially as snow brings the promise of Christmas.

Misha got a head start on his letter to Santa; he wrote it in November! He cleverly asked for two laser flashlights so that Sebby would have no excuse to steal Misha's.

We have been busy with all the fun traditions of the season. First up, sugar cookies! Mix, roll, cut, bake, cool, frost, sprinkle. They turned out pretty good, although not exactly like my American version.

And of course, Misha and I have an annual tradition of making a Christmas-tree shaped calendar with doors counting down to the big day. This is our third ever Christmas calendar. It certainly helps motivate Misha to wake up in the morning. I simply say, "You can go open another door!" and his eyes pop open. Off he runs to the calendar - even though he's the one who drew all the pictures behind the doors in the first place!

The big, bright stockings that arrived in the mail from Grandpa and Grandma really make the house feel Christmasy. And this week, Josh and I went to the bazaar to get a (fake) tree, so now we are in full Christmas mode.

Misha eagerly decorated our tree. We used our play-dough snowmen and hearts, as well as a few origami things and some ornaments we bought at the bazaar.

Misha's play-dough snowman.

Sebby's star

After Grandma mentioned that walnut shells could make great turtles, Misha decided we should try it out. Our turtles turned out super cute!

The only logical follow-up was to make a few Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Sebby is delighted with the Christmas tree. He keeps running over to it, shouting out the color that the lights are glowing at that moment. "Bluuuuuuuuue!" he cries, jumping up and down. He also keeps touching the ornaments to make them move. "See dat? See dat, mama? I make it wiggle!" He has already opened one of his presents, which I had to re-wrap. So far, he has tipped the entire tree over only once.

Misha has been busy creating his own projects and games to wrap up and put under the tree. He made a top-secret origami present for me, but he needed a bit of help with step 4 so I gave him a consult. And again for step 6, and 7, and 8. So I unintentionally saw the final product, but as Misha said brightly, "At least you won't know what I'm writing on it! How do you spell 'Happy Merry Christmas'?"

Holiday celebrations at the boys' school are in full swing now as well. Both boys come home singing "yolochka" (little pine tree) songs in Russian and Misha has been showing me the dances they practice for the New Year Show they will soon perform. 

In Kyrgyzstan as in Russia, New Year is the big holiday which includes the tree, opening gifts, and visits from Dyed Moros (Grandfather Frost) and Snegurichka (Snow Girl, the granddaughter who helps deliver presents). A huge, towering yolka (pine tree) has recently been erected in the downtown plaza of Bishkek, and soon Dyed Moros and Snegurichka will be there to visit with excited children. 

I really appreciate how the New Year holiday here encompasses the fun children's traditions as well as the generosity and good will of the season without binding itself jealously to one religion or another. The Kyrgyz people are generally Muslim, though not in a very strict sense, while the Russians are generally Russian Orthodox (they celebrate their Christmas on Jan. 7) -- but everyone celebrates a joyful New Year. 

A Shashlik Picnic

Our Kyrgyz and Turkish friends invited us on a shashlik grill-out last month, just in time to enjoy the last bit of fall before colder weather crept in. We drove out of the city, not far from the mountains, and set up camp. The three guys set to work on the shashlik, while the kids played soccer and ventured down by the river to toss rocks.

At long last, it was time to dig in! Alihan tested it out for us first. The verdict: very tasty. We had chicken, lamb, and liver shashlik, with salads and fruit to complement the meal. We all ate to our hearts' content and still had leftovers.

A perfect fall day!