And, while you're basking in the glory of the theater and the artsy fartsy movies you can enjoy whatever food you desire because you get to bring in your own snacks (which my family does anyway, but it's kind of nice to carry a milkshake in proudly instead of shoving it in your purse. Go Rebecca). Oh, and the movies are cheap. Even I might start going to the movies.
So I saw "The Broken Circle Breakdown," which was incredibly lovely even though it was in Belgian with Latvian subtitles.
I was lucky to have Zanete who could whisper the scripts' sweet nothings in my ear but I'm pretty sure I would have cried even if I hadn't understood the dialogue. For the record, I don't cry during movies, so this one must be special. It’s about a
Belgian couple that sings Bluegrass music and, spoiler alert, their daughter has
cancer. Talk about a whirlwind of beautiful music, incredible camera work, and,
oh wait, actually talented acting?! It was the perfect evening of milkshakes,
movies, salad, wine, and unbelievable company that got me ready to get older.
I woke up the next morning and spent the day doing all of my
favorite things and only my favorite things: exercising, cooking, eating, going
to the market, and spending time with genuinely wonderful people. I awoke for
the first of many “long runs” in my training for the Riga marathon (stay tuned
to see how that works out…) and found out what it feels like to run in 9
degrees Fahrenheit/-10 degrees Celsius. Besides the involuntary eye tearing and
nose running, not too bad. After my run I started the real marathon of the day:
cooking. I was honored to be invited as a guest chef after sharing a glass of
rhubarb wine with a nice bartender, who conveniently turned out to be the owner of what turned into my favorite cafe. It pays to be overly friendly and outgoing and a tad too talkative. Kafe Trusis
(which means Bunny café, a nice shout out to Granny Bunny) is a new,
blossoming café one block from my apartment. Besides being convenient, it has good food (finally!) local
products (including rhubarb, plum, apple, and dandelion wine because Latvia is
too cold for grapes), and the nicest staff I’ve ever met. At this point, I go
there so often I try desperately to work there for free and most of my friends are sick of
me suggesting we meet there. What can I say, I try to support people I like.
Anyhoo, so the aforementioned owner and I decided I should cook all Jewish foods to introduce the local community to something new. I decided that would be the best way to celebrate my birthday, especially since the Latvian and Russian style of
birthday celebrations is nice but not something I was quite ready to buy into
(literally, it’s expensive, man!). They celebrate by preparing and providing an elaborate table of
food for friends, family and coworkers. So people come, eat, chat, and that's about it. Apparently, like everything else, the tradition comes from Soviet times, when it was so rare to
have nice, fancy food that people went all out for their
birthdays and shared/showed off for their friends for their birthdays. Since I'm one of those people that likes celebrating others' birthdays more than my own, I was not interested in throwing myself that kind of a party and I was really really not interested in giving myself a cake. Calories don’t count on your birthday when they
come from other people, but buying yourself a cake just breaks all the rules! So, instead, I decided to kind of sort of blend the traditions by cooking a lot of food but, since I was doing so in a cafe, I could tell people to come celebrate the food instead of me. Plus it costs the same to buy this meal as it does to buy a present or bring food to a party. Plus I wanted to help the cafe. It made sense to me.
So after my run, I ran over to the café to start a kind of
overly ambitious menu of some essential and actually tasty Jewish delicacies. I picked some of my specialties and something things I’ve dreamed about attempting
but have not yet had the ingredients, equipment, or courage. Until my 23rd
birthday in a café restaurant, that is. I wrote the menu back when I thought the cook was going to help, but, when that didn't quite pan out, I called in some reserves and powered through. Here is the rundown:
Vegetable stock from scratch (a dream of mine) for matzo ball soup (which,
apparently, ground up matzo= matzo meal)
5 challahs (I tripled the recipe. Talk about a lot of kneading. By hand.)
4 babka (doubled recipe. yes I did more kneading. Whoops.)
40 hamantaschen
1 Pineapple challah kugel
Homemade hummus
Shakshuka to order
Israeli salad
Thank goodness my incredibly kind friends Lauren, Nat, and
Ulla were around to shape the hamantaschen and that Lauren and the owners could
help with the hummus and salad or a few things never would have made it out. BUT, about 10 hours and an unbelievably dirty kitchen later, it not only got done but it might have gotten done well. There was definitely a little dancing when I first discovered that I made babka! Just NEVER ask what's in it. I even
had an hour or so to go dance and celebrate outside with the rest of Riga, as the city opened its Cultural Capital celebrations with a "taste" of Riga 2014 in the market. The event included very little actual tasting and it was a little smaller and more underwhelming than I had expected, but I'm glad I saw it. One pavilion had amber exhibits (because that’s a thing here), which
mostly consisted of posing behind a big amber mabob and some video with nature. There was also supposed to be a cooking
demonstration but all the food was gone. And the line was long. And it was
crowded. One pavilion had a famous local DJ with some visual art exhibits. Another
pavilion had a video of the 1989 Baltic Way, a peaceful demonstration of two million people making a
chain 600 km long across the three Baltic countries. And finally, the meat
pavilion had a microphone for the meat packers to tell their stories on. So
that was cute. The best part of the events was the book pass.
In another human chain, that was a tad smaller than the one in 1989, volunteers physically passed books from the old national library to the new one. Not only was the pass incredibly
well organized, with time and placement assignments fairly well coordinated, but it was fun and festive too! There was music and dancing and an incredible amount of happiness for people standing in the coldest day Riga has had so far.
Anyhoo,
so after this short interlude of sunlight and celebration I returned to the
kitchen to cook until my back ached and it was time for a birthday cocktail. A few of my friends
even showed up to try my food! And I tried a tad too much babka. When my belly was stuffed and I could barely stand anymore, I sat down with the wonderful workers who were left to enjoy their fine company and the best cocktails I've had in a while.
The day was certainly an unconventional celebration but a nice reminder that I am older and maybe almost wiser. I usually get overwhelmed in the kitchen and have trouble managing multiple things at once while giving instructions but, somehow, there were no freak outs and no screaming. I might have made an epic mess that looked like I ooze flour and dough, but I stayed almost entirely calm and, most importantly, I knew when to ask for help. I'm learning.
After that whirlwind of a day I also got to celebrate like a normal person when, the next day, the teens ushered me
into a room, covered my eyes, and spoke over and around me in Russian while I waited,
thinking they were about to douse me in a bucket of water or something.
Luckily, they brought out a cake and candles instead. And it was even nut free! So we ate and I was reminded of how incredibly lucky I am for the friends I've made, the company I've found, and the fact that I myself am no longer a teenager.
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