December 03, 2024

Herring Without a Fur Coat?


Herring Without a Fur Coat?
Herring under a fur coat, a timeless Russian holiday delicacy.  Pannet, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Rising sunflower oil prices in Russia have led to a rise in prices on 21 popular brands of mayonnaise, a Russian holiday staple.

Individual brands predict upticks in cost between 2.9 and 15 percent. According to one official, the wholesale cost of sunflower oil, the primary ingredient in most mayo, has risen 40 percent in the past year. This price increase comes right before New Year's, Russia's biggest and most popular and holiday. Mayo plays a crucial role in many staple holiday dishes

Other household ingredients including milk, butter, and tomato paste have also seen price increases in the past year.

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This compact, yet surprisingly broad look at the life and work of Tolstoy spans from one of his earliest stories to one of his last, looking at works that made him famous and others that made him notorious. 
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The Life Stories collection is a nice introduction to contemporary Russian fiction: many of the 19 authors featured here have won major Russian literary prizes and/or become bestsellers. These are life-affirming stories of love, family, hope, rebirth, mystery and imagination, masterfully translated by some of the best Russian-English translators working today. The selections reassert the power of Russian literature to affect readers of all cultures in profound and lasting ways. Best of all, 100% of the profits from the sale of this book are going to benefit Russian hospice—not-for-profit care for fellow human beings who are nearing the end of their own life stories.
Turgenev Bilingual

Turgenev Bilingual

A sampling of Ivan Turgenev's masterful short stories, plays, novellas and novels. Bilingual, with English and accented Russian texts running side by side on adjoining pages.
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