The Grocery Store

I'm currently baking cupcakes for ds2's official birthday party tomorrow. So, while they bake.... I thought I'd do a quick recap of our grocery experience and our attempt at being frugal by cooking our own dinner.

Chris found the grocery store the first day. I was down for the count from the plane ride and something that I ate. So, I decided to rest in our apartment while he did some reconnaissance of the area. He had to locate someplace to copy our entry cards and stamped Visas. He also went to get some water, and exchange dollars for rubles. He was awesome at all of this, and certainly my hero that evening! So the next day we headed to the grocery store he found.

**Sidenote** I have to say, I had walked most of the day and my feet were killing me. Reminder to all: Wear comfortable shoes in Moscow, you have to walk everywhere! Don't try to blend in with those high heeled wearing Russian gals! Especially if all your used to wearing is flip flops all summer long! Even a small heel just about did me in! So, I was pretty tired by the time we got to the grocery store.

We walked in what seemed like circles looking for spaghetti sauce and spaghetti. We found the meat section and it all looked quite good. Not speaking any Russian myself, and who the heck learns the word for "ground beef'" when you go to Russia. Especially for those endearing words you want to share with your new child. Bravo, Spiceeba, Ya te bya lu blu and Ground Beef (insert Russian word there). Anyhoo.... so I point to the leanest ground beef and motion that I want about 1/2 a lb. Kind of making a square with my fingers and thumbs. Evidently he got it, as all he asked (pointing naturally) was "this one?" to the one I selected. I gave him the old thumbs up, and I felt like I was on my way to fluent communication. (In sign language naturally).

We left the store and went back to the apartment. That evening we had dinner with some friends who had just picked up their daughter! yay! So, as we talked throughout the evening my friend shared that on one of her trips she picked up some baby food at a Russian grocery store. (This is their third child they adopted over a 5 year period.) What she got was beef and carrots. However when a friend translated it she found out it was actually horse and carrots. Thankfully she had not fed it to the baby..... (Do you know where I am going with this?)

It dawned on me that I wonder if that was actually ground beef that I purchased? I mean, I don't have a clue....... it looked lean, but I don't read Cyrillic. Plus the guy behind the counter did give me a questioning look as he pointed to the one I wanted. I never questioned if it was ground beef or not, and just gave him the thumbs up! Hmmmm..... so a few nights later we decided to cook the mystery meat up or it would go bad. Oh my word! I'm just gonna tell you now... that it did not smell like ground beef! It smelled Horrible! And it made our apartment smell horrible!! I swear to you I was ready to barf, it was that bad! We ended up cooking it completely and putting it in a ziploc bag and throwing it away. Chris swears it was so lean that it couldn't be ground beef. From then on... even my burger at Fridays was questionable. Nope. I had to stick to chicken... all the time! Since then we have found that ground beef in different countries, is just different. I truly have no idea what we had, but I won't make the same mistake again.... :-)

So, check that baby food, and be sure you know what your purchasing if you decide to be frugal and cook for yourself. We should have stuck with plain old Ramen noodles or just spaghetti and sauce! Hmmm... next time I'm bringing canned Chef Boy R Dee!! :-)