Sunday, November 25, 2018

Cocoa and Tomatoes

Hmm you're thinking. How do these two things go together?

First, yes I am talking about shopping for food again. I have devolved to a hunter-gather state in my quest for food. It is time consuming and really at the top of my list of things to do and get used to as I settle into living in Riga. Part of the issue is I am completely reliant on help to find supplies. Either it has to be in English, recognizable, a brand I know or there is someone with me who knows where to buy it or what it is. Or the clerk at the store speaks English. Or I am sniffing packages. I am sure there are Latvians wondering what the crazy Canadian is doing sniffing everything. I now get emails from helpful friends that contain sentences like, "Rimi has icing sugar!" with a picture of it with the Latvian word on it so I recognize it when I see it. Yes, while I am appreciating the gorgeous architecture, great coffee culture and plethora of museums, I can't enjoy it as much as I would like while I try and find all purpose flour and whole wheat flour (rye flour is everywhere.)

So cocoa and tomatoes.

First, I did not ship myself very much in the way of baking supplies. Chris was less than helpful as he just said, "What do you need?" And I would say, "Well what type of baking soda do they have?" And it went downhill from there. Very difficult to explain to a non-baker. So at Gemoss, with the help of Jenn Richards, I found this. Cocoa. This will be going into my Latvian/English baking list.
Now I am a person who loves Fry's cocoa. It makes excellent cocoa, brownies, fudge pudding, tortes and cakes. I buy a lot of Fry's cocoa. But I did not ship any. Because I thought, in my ethnocentric Canadian way, that if it is good enough for the Queen, it would be everywhere. Sadly, this is not so. 

However, I opened up this cocoa and had a sniff and it smelled right. And I made my first cup of cocoa since I have been in Latvia. The large crystals their regular sugar has doesn't matter when you are making cocoa since they melt during heating. The cocoa was rich, smooth, chocolaty with a nice nutty after taste that I can really see enhancing anything with nuts in it. It was delicious. Cocoa in Latvia is good to go!


Sadly, tomatoes in Latvia are not. In the summer, when we were here finding our place to live (more about that another time) tomatoes were succulent, perfectly ripe and flavourful. Not in November. And yes, I am spoiled. I know this. In Canada, during the cold winter months, we have hothouse English cucumbers and tomatoes, grown in either Canada or Mexico. On the vine tomatoes can be left on the counter to ripen, which is what I do in Canada. Thinking the same trick would work here, I have now bought tomatoes on the vine twice, to let them ripen on the counter.

An epic fail. This is after two days. And they were as hard as rocks. Canned tomatoes during the winter from now on. Lesson learned.

Thursday, November 22, 2018

Grocery Shopping Part II

Honestly until you've lived in another country you don't realise how much you take things for granted. I know in a few months everything will just flow- I'll know all the little tips and tricks for navigating in the grocery store, where to go and when for specialty items etc., etc. But right now if it wasn't for the kindness of the community I'd still be scratching my head, muddling my way through not even knowing where the stores are let alone how to shop there.My haul of soft light and brown sugar from Gemoss though I am going to try using Demerara sugar I got from Rimi (which I think is an Estonian grocery chain store. I've been told Tops is the Latvian grocery chain store) in the butter tarts. White sugar here has much larger crystals than I am used to as well. More mixing perhaps might take care of it? 
Promo was awesome with a lot of items for making Asian and Mexican food many if them labelled in English or easily identifiable. They had huge boxes of spices. And when I say huge I mean this:
So I succumbed and bought a few. We'll be eating a lot of curry and having ginger cookies for many years to come.

In the meantime, went to a store called Avokado and got the spices above. They will be bringing in cornstarch and corn syrup in the next few weeks so I may actually be able to make gingerbread cookies and cheesecake. In the meantime I need to create an English Latvian list so I know what to look for since Google translate is not working!
Document, document, document!

Wednesday, November 21, 2018

Shopping for Food in Riga- A big Google Translation Failure

So one of the hardest things to do right now is shopping for groceries. I am starting from scratch after all. And everything is labelled in Latvian-or Russian Cyrillic. Few brands are identifiable or known to me. If they are recognizable by name, they are different in content- except Kikkoman Soy Sauce. So far most of my trips have been with Chris and we've kept it small in terms of purchase. Some olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Pasta. Flour took me four days to figure out because Google translates kept telling me what I was looking at was whole wheat flour when I wanted white. And here, glory be, they actually number the grade of flour! So I have inadvertently bought pastry flour when I wanted all purpose. But I've volunteered to bake butter tarts for the Canadian Embassy table at the International Woman's Club Riga charity fundraiser for December 1 and so I need supplies- baking supplies.

Today, Jenn took Denise and I to Gemoss and Promo. Jenn and Denise have been here for three months already and I am just catching up. Much better to go shopping with someone who has done it already than go it alone. Jenn navigates the streets like a pro and I haven't even got behind the wheel of the car yet (knowing Chris he'll have to be comatose to let me get behind the wheel with him in the vehicle.) Gemoss is a store for restaurants that has a good selection of items- in Latvian of course. Ever tried to buy a bag of cloves, cinnamon, mace, ginger without knowing what the word for it is Latvian? The app Jenn had was good but not that good. We ended up holding plastic bags of spices to our noses at Gemoss and saying I think this is.....! No pecans bagged- you had to go upstairs and pay 25 euros a kilo! So no pecans in the butter tarts. And corn starch and corn syrup? None to be had. I know they have molasses I just haven't been able to identify it yet. And brown sugar? Soft brown sugar means a hunt for it as well. Icing sugar? I think I have bought some but I have to rip open every  sugar packet I bought to make sure. Fruit /Caster sugar? Same mystery needing to be solved.

So I'm going for an old fashioned butter tart recipe. I managed to score soft brown sugar, they have great butter and I found a small container of heavy cream. I still need a few more ingredients and then I am good to go.

And Google Translation? It doesn't like Latvian. Cumin came up as ķimenes. I am now the proud owner of a packet of caraway seeds.

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Flowers

I've been living in Latvia for 11 days and writing about it on Facebook for 10 days. Many of my friends have suggested I write a blog about it so I hope this proves useful for people.

I am married to someone who moves constantly, which means I move constantly.
This year's destination? Riga, Latvia. I live downtown in Centrs in an apartment with my husband Chris and my very old but spry dog, Pumpkin.

Today I was going to write about grocery shopping (which is a challenge!) but am instead going to go back to writing about the flower stalls just down the street from the apartment. The first morning I took Pumpkin out, over a week ago now, it was 8:00 am and the flower stalls were going full tilt because people were buying flowers to put on the monuments for Remembrance Day. All week long, as the city prepared for Latvia's 100th Birthday, everyone seemed to be carrying flowers. On November 18 people were lined up at different monuments to place more flowers. In fact the city had actually built rows of wooden shelves to place the flowers on at the Freedom Monument at the entrance to Old Town.

I have already bought flowers for the apartment because who can resist brightly coloured flowers? I know I can't. These are the ones I bought last week still going strong. 21 Euros!


I just took Pumpkin out for a walk (really just a smell fest because we didn't go far.) It is 10:30 at night, the streets are quiet with some pedestrians still walking around. And the flower stalls are still open. At 10:30 at night! The women who run them stay outside all day long. It is -1 Celsius. Some of the women were cleaning the glass of their stalls, some have already gone home but there are still some open. As I walked down the street, first one man and then another walked out with enormous bouquets. A couple went in and came out with flowers. Is this a Latvian thing? A European thing?  If I go out at midnight is there still going to be a flower seller open? And the answer is yes. The Saktas Flower Market is open 24 hours a day.

So if I need an emergency bouquet I can always get one!

Travelling in Latvia

Latvia has a wonderful train system that allows you to move between the major cities close to Riga easily and cheaply. It's not the VIA...