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Last Friday, I was honoured to be a guest blogger over at Waegook Tom's, a kindred travel and food blog from an ex-Korean-expat. Check out my article about reconciling Korean cravings in Eastern Europe, featured as part of Tom's series "Food Porn Friday."

Розкололось серце на дві половини.

In the past month I've taught at a seminar in the capital for teachers and volunteers, and I've also begun working on a section of a team-teaching manual for all teachers in Ukraine. However, most excitingly I've joined a group of Cossack singers. They sing songs native to the Zaporozhian region of the country (the most westerly river on this map), so everything we sing is in an archaic Ukrainian dialect (yuck), but the music is very beautiful and surprisingly eastern influenced. Here's one of the songs we're working on currently, and as soon as there's video of me in full Cossack garb belting bass and shaking tambourine, I'll be sure to post it.

Edit: As promised, here's a group shot of our folk group "The Outskirts." Let's play "Guess Who's American!"

Camp MAKE

Peace Corps (in Ukraine at least) hosts a lot of summer camps. Some focus on English ability, some on HIV education and prevention. While many cover a broad swath of interests, others isolate a particular sliver of nerdiness like Model UN or Roman history. Girls only, boys only, debate camp, and soccer + AIDS testing: the choices are as varied as they are numerous. To staff these mega camps can be, by some reports, a stressful nightmare week filled with misbehaving children and headbutting with Ukrainian directors, or it can be my experience.

Camp MAKE (Multiculturalism * Action * Knowledge * Empowerment) is one of those camps painted in broad strokes. Over the 10 days, we taught everything from East Asian dance to Simon and Garfunkel, water colour painting to CPR, environmentalism to speech writing, improv comedy to American football. We also rocked their collective socks with a series of team building challenges, making them perform acrobatics in the linguistic, scientific, logic, physical, engineering, and artistic fields.

While the classes were great fun, it was only because the people were so awesome. The 90 students at this camp came from all over the country, and they were some of the best Ukraine has to offer. The level of enthusiasm, creativity, and intelligence was simply astounding. If Ukraine weren't so politically...shady, I would say there were future presidents at this camp, but suffice it to say that all these kids will be playing important roles in their country's future.

Enough blathering, you can tell just how much fun it was from the pictures!
There were dress-up days:

America and Ukraine Day

Super Hero Day 

Dead Day

Twin Day

There was learning:

Still-life Painting

Geography

Human Anatomy

There were team challenges:

People to People!

Team name/poster/chant creation

A murder mystery

Field Day

And there was just wholesome fun:

Humiliation for Russian speaking

Dorm cooking night

Funky Chicken

Trivia night

Babushkas sticking out their tongues

Camp games

Card game night

A big thank you from all the staff and students to everyone who helped make this camp a home run! Your donations helped these kids have a wonderful 10 days that they won't soon forget.

Okroshka (Окрошка)

It's too hot here to eat soup. Everyone agrees. Sweating in our homes or at the lakeside, the idea of a muggy bowl of borscht is wildly unappealing. Since lettuce is hard to come by and I'm tired of the go-to Uke "salad" of chopped tomatoes and cucumbers, what's the next best cool-down meal? Cold soup. Cold dairy soup. It's really much better than it sounds.

There are several variations of okroshka broth. Some are made healthily with kefir or with yoghurt. Others embrace their inner trailer park by using mayonnaise. Still others mix in beets for a lavender, bridal shower look. The following is the classic recipe: sour cream diluted with water and zested with lemon juice. The result is extremely refreshing, crisp, and not entirely unhealthy.

You need to do a lot of boiling and cubing, so it's best to make a lot at one time. If you keep the broth in one container and the contents in another, it'll last several days in the fridge without getting soggy.

• 4 boiled eggs
• 2-3 boiled potatoes
• 2-4 cucumbers
• 250 g of ham
• 150 g of radish

Everything gets cubed up, about peanut-sized. 

Stir it all together with a handful of minced dill, parsley, and green onion.

The broth is easy. For every cup of sour cream, you need a litre of water. An average amount would be about a cup and a half of sour cream and 1.5 L of water, but some people like it chunkier. Add salt and lemon juice to taste. I don't know about other countries, but here it's possible to find citric acid powder (лимонная кислота), which is commonly used instead of lemon juice.



No matter how you prepare it, okroshka is a brisk summer treat. Spice it up with mustard or horseradish. Serve it with ice cubes. Use kvas instead of water. There's no limit to the number of variations! Enjoy, and stay cool.

New Music Video

These past few months, my friends and I have been helping a film student build her graduation portfolio. Last week, we were filming her latest work: a music video. Though I myself am not actually in the video, I was the cross-field bed schlepper, a synchronized candle extinguisher, and the curtain skirt undulator. Despite all that, I could not have predicted how eerie the final product would be. The song was so lyrical and I only worked on the sunshine scenes. What a surprise!

Health Concerns

To an American, lots of countries approach medicine and health in ways that seem...well, foreign. Koreans believed that if you left a fan running overnight without opening the windows, the closed circulation would literally kill you. Eating dog soup was considered holistic Viagra. In major hospitals, open containers of blood and urine samples would sit next to each other, but sitting on a desk was dirty.

I'm only able to speak with any authority on Korea's idiosyncrasies because of the extended time I've spent there. Just passing through a country isn't enough to unearth these traits. More time is required before the peculiarities of health beliefs present themselves. After 15 months in Ukraine, I've been educated in some of the unexpected effects on my health that I would never have expected. Here are 8 things Ukrainians wig out about.

Sitting
Seemingly harmless, sitting can lead to serious consequences. A Ukrainian would never be caught sitting on the ground or on any concrete for that matter. This stems from the belief that such cold surfaces will render you infertile. Interestingly, neither the season nor your gender seem to be a factor. Ancient and unfamiliar women have no qualms about admonishing you for breaking this tenet.

Cold Water
As with most other countries, it's difficult to find liquids at a sufficiently cold temperature. Ice is a luxury, and in the summer even grocery store refrigerators may be used as simple shelf space to conserve electricity. I've heard echoes of the same widespread belief that cold water hinders digestion, but that's not its most interesting health property. Ukrainians believe that ice water is an immune system booster. One of my neighbours pours a bucket of cold water over himself every evening, and he's not alone. On the cover of our school's health text book is a man doing just that. The permeation of this belief was best seen during the Epiphany ceremony in January, when several dozen townsfolk baptised themselves in our frozen lake. Even those who eschewed the privilege averred that no one could possibly get sick after such a plunge.

Wind
Anyone who has taken public transport in this country can attest to the aggravation this health concern causes. I say wind, but the Russian word is separate from typical wind, being more correctly translated draft. Whereas Koreans believe that the closed windows will kill you, Ukrainians believe the exact opposite. When I first moved in to my apartment, the men who were helping me were reluctant to place the bed under the window. Small cracks in the window will let in drafts, which would kill me. Numerous times on buses or trains I've opened windows, only to be barked at by someone behind me. There are children and the elderly on this bus! Are you trying to kill someone!

Chalk
It's a common occurrence in Ukraine to brush against a wall in a stairwell or public building and later find that your whole shoulder is dusty and white. Until several months ago, I believed Ukraine was using chalk as a cheap alternative to paint. Only recently was I corrected. It hadn't dawned on me that the cheapest alternative to paint is nothing. So why rub chalk on all the walls? Locals tell me that this coat of chalk acts as an antibacterial. I think it begs the question: why have we got bacteria all over our concrete walls?

The Common Cold
Three things that I love to ask people from other countries: what do you put on pizza, what do you do to fight hangovers, and what is your cure for the common cold? Well, in Ukraine we add ketchup and mayonnaise, we drink cognac to beat the headache, and if you feel a head cold coming on you need, you guessed it, vodka. Not just any vodka, however. Ukrainians drink a hot pepper and honey infused vodka, slightly warm or at least at room temperature, chased with a lemon slice, followed by a good sweat. This is usually induced by immediately burying yourself in all the blankets in the house.

Hats
This is another touchy subject for the grandmother police force that patrols the town. Your hat must appropriately reflect the weather conditions and is, naturally, their business. Warm winter hats are a must if you don't want every person in town to inquire as to its whereabouts. What I find really interesting is this: the hat doesn't have to cover the ears. Covering up my ears was always one of my mother's winter bundling priorities, yet here it needs only to be on top of the head. Leaving the house without a hat in winter is a recipe for your death of cold, and it is every woman's job to prevent you from coming to such an end. Don't make the mistake, however, of wearing an even partially winter hat into the warmer months: that will kill you, too.

18:00
Something mystic and esoteric occurs at six in the evening. Common dieting wisdom in Ukraine tells us that anything consumed after six will become fat, regardless of what you do in the evening or how late you stay up. For whatever reason, lots of women in my town believe and follow this commandment: после 18:00 не жрать (After 6, don't scarf). In fact, I've seen it more then once as a refrigerator magnet, warning off would-be late night snackers.

Jogging
This applies to most aerobic exercise that isn't folded in to sports like soccer or basketball. Ukrainians can not comprehend why we exercise using transportation. Running is for going places, but you don't go anywhere. You just go in circles. It can't be good for your heart to move so fast. I have actually heard people tell me this. Lots of other volunteers jog around their towns, and they will support me in this. The staring is ubiquitous and consistent. I guess no one explains to them that the accelerated heart rate is exactly what causes the weight loss, or perhaps Ukrainians simply don't support detaching the process (sport) and the goal (exercise).

I'm always interested in uncovering new oddities about this and other countries. If you're reading from Ukraine or any other foreign country and have another strange health story you'd like to share, leave me a comment! I'd love to read about it. 

Kulesh

Kулеш (pronounced cool-YESH) is a camp fire soup. It originated as an army food of the Cossacks in Zaporozhye, but has since spread to camp sites everywhere. It's simple, cheap, and comforting, much like chicken noodle soup. Let's learn how to make it together. A Ukrainian will tell you that it is mandatory to make this soup over a fire, but honestly there's no reason why you can't make this on the range. Well, maybe there's one reason, but it's not a deal breaker. We'll come back to that in a minute.

Starting at the beginning, you'll need:

• 1.5 kg Russet potatoes
• 500 g cooked meat (Feel free to use any sort of leftovers you have around the kitchen. We used pulled pork, but chicken is also very popular.)
• 1 onion
• 1 carrot
• 200 g millet
• 3 bay leaves
• salt/pepper
• 1 cup greens (parsley, dill, green onion)

To hang the cauldron, Sergey cut some green branches, two with forks in them to be pounded into the ground and one a bit sturdier from which the pot could reliably hang. That metal wall was set up to protect the fire from the wind. We got the fire up, then started to boil the water. The onion goes in peeled but otherwise inatact. The bay leaves should be added as well.

Once the water is rolling, it's time for the potatoes. They should be peeled and cut into small cubes.

When the potatoes are done, It's time for carrots, cut julienne, and millet. If you are like me and have no clue what millet is, you could use a comparable grain like barley or even oatmeal. If you do know what millet is, good for you, but you're probably one of those gluten-free loonies, so bad for you. If you live in Ukraine and want to find millet, ask at your rinok for пшено (ударение на втором слог).

When the millet is soft, add the meat and greens. Boil for 5 more minutes and then serve. It's that simple. We actually used this seemingly disgusting boiled-pulled-pork-in-a-jar product. It's not as bad as it sounds. Or looks.

The only reason this must be done on an open flame, other than tradition of course, is the final step. Sergey took another green branch, peeled the bark off it, and then put the raw wood in the fire. Once the wood was blackened, He actually stirred the soup with the charred branch. It didn't make everything taste like cigarettes, as I expected it would. It just added the illusion that we had grilled the meat. Therefore, if you actually grilled the meat that you used, I think you could approximate the smokiness fairly well.

So, that's kulesh! Of course there are lots of variations. One of the more popular ones involves less water and a few beaten eggs at the end, yielding porridgy results similar to Korean juk. We, however, just stuck with the original, and it was both fun to make and filling to eat. I hope you guys enjoy it as much as we did!

Cossacks

Map time! Here we have southern Russia, western Kazakhstan, the Caucus region, and eastern Ukraine, where I live. As you can see, my little green arrow is dead in the centre of the pale yellow shape. That shape indicates the territory most heavily populated by Cossack hordes.

These nomadic horsemen once thrived in the rich steppe and river basins of this region. The Cossack people have disputed origins, but they are likely a blend of Turkish, Mongol, and Slavic peoples and gained prominence around the 15th century. They were semi-autonomous and integral to the Russian border defence for hundreds of years. However, with the mechanization of the first and second World Wars, the Cossacks (and cavalries in general) became obsolete.

No longer instrumental to the protection of the Soviet Union, the Cossack subculture fell on hard times. During the Bolshevik period and the subsequent famine, the state redistributed many of the crops grown in this region among urban centres. As a result, the Cossack population dwindled.

In recent times, Ukraine, Georgia, and even Putin's government have taken measures to increase protection of what few Cossacks remain, now mostly poor farmers or peasants. In eastern Ukraine, however, people identify closely to the Cossack heritage and keep it alive as their own. Festivals celebrating the culture, conquests, and music of the Cossack people are frequent and spirited. More than half of the collectives performing in our House of Culture are dedicated entirely to maintaining and performing Cossack folk songs.

I often hear from volunteers in western Ukraine the misconceived notion that only in their regions can you find culture and history. While it may be true that Lugansk lacks synagogues, castles, or cities older than 200 years, ours was a nomadic and oral history and is not to be discredited. It may not be as photogenic as the West, but we do have loads of this: I give you Казачья молитва, the Cossack's Prayer.

2nd Cross-Ukrainian Open Competition

My collective and I were recently featured on the town culture blog for having come in second place in a major competition in Lugansk. Google translates the page pretty well, but that one sentence pretty much covers the gist of it. We sang not in Russian but in Ukrainian. It was a traditional a capella piece called "Hermit." Enjoy!

Kharkivshchyna: Constructivism and Cablecars

"Of Ukraine." It's a typical occurrence to hear someone describe a city, holiday, or custom as "the ________ of Ukraine." The intention, of course, is to convey that there are places worthy of fame here, that this country is just as high-quality as Western Europe. You should totally see the fountain in Vinnitsa! It's the Bellagio of Ukraine! Over time, however, this particular tagline more lowers expectations than raises them. Instead of picturing the Paris of Ukraine, you can't conjure up more than the Ukrainian Shadow of Paris.

This past week, I had the opportunity to return to the Boston of Ukraine, to a city with historical roots and a lot of universities, to Kharkov. I was last there during the 2012 Euro Cup, and the city was fine. The people are prettier, or at least not as beaten down by the world as the locals in my area of the country (the Rust Belt of Ukraine). The buildings aren't the same drab bloc apartments and factories as in Lugansk. Overall though, Kharkov didn't leave a deep and lasting impression, and I doubted I would return. When our regional safety and security meeting was relocated there, however, I found myself back on Freedom Square.

The seminal difference between this trip and the prior one was the decision to couchsurf. The decision was partly economical, but most important was the chance for a deeper understanding of the city. Zhenya Dudenko accepted my friend Andrew and I for a weekend of touring, history, home-made wine, and great stories. Zhenya showed us a series of ancient cable buckets, built as a way for factory workers to commute across the marsh (the Amtrak of Ukraine). He knew the names and stories of all the monuments, and the locations of the best pints. He took us to parks off the beaten path and knew the best places to get shish kebab or hummus-stuffed rolls. Thanks to Zhenya, we saw a remarkable version of the city that was unmemorable the first time around. Some of the highlights included the statue with a beating heart, the eerily abandoned megalith bazaar, the miniature water park where locals fill up on potable water and the obese bathe in Speedos, and the architectural style known as constructivism, exclusive to Kharkov.

As for the safety meeting, we got to meet the chief of transportation police, try on his Soviet hat collection, poke his tarantula, visit his jail cells, and tour the yard where people used to be executed by firing squad (the Lethal Injection of Ukraine). We later went to a meeting with the actual chief of police and several of the higher ups. It was a very formal and serious affair. We were being escorted by the PC director of safety and security Sergei Pashynsky, but while he was parking the car around the corner we got sucked into the meeting. 

As soon as we started climbing the stairs, fellow volunteer Dawn and I were already being photographed and videotaped. We reached the conference room on the 4th floor, where everyone was already seated and waiting impatiently. The aide continuously spoke to me in Russian about who else was coming, where we should sit, and how I would be translating. It was only after seeing the name tag on my chair that I realized he thought I was Sergei, the 50-some year old ex-SBU (the KGB of Ukraine) bruiser with the cop lingo of De Niro and the penetrating stare of Rip Torn. Needless to say, I did not want to fill those shoes. While we were waiting for him to park the car, we followed the lead of the people across the table by talking under our breath and making emphatic hand gestures.

In the end, it all turned out fine. I didn't have to translate between Dawn and the police. I didn't even have to translate between Zhenya and Andrew, who studied Ukrainian and should by rights have drowned amongst all the Russian. The food was good but not unaffordable, the trip was relaxing but not without a sense of adventure, and the company was tolerable even sober. I doubt a third trip to the Boston of Ukraine is in the cards for me, but a year is a long time and I know better than to say I'll never return somewhere. 

Fine Arts Camp

With my first week of summer, I conducted a day camp for kids in my town. Tired of the same old family tree project and discussion of sport, I planned a camp that used English to teach music, skits, and dance. With the help of a few other volunteers and community members, 30 kids learned step, Elmo's song, the gingerbread man, and others. Parents were happy with the performance, it was great to have some friends in town, and the students were happy to be part of something different. Here are some performance pictures.

 Step

 Hip-hop

 The Ants Go Marching

Gingerbread Man 

 Who Will Bell the Cat?

Last Bell

In my school, I teach the whole spectrum of students: 4th graders all the up to seniors (11th...). There are several groups, however, with whom I have a special relationship. My 5th graders and I meet 3 times a week, for instance, whereas most other groups will only see me once in that time. The seniors, however, have been my absolute favourites. I almost never see the 10th graders, and the 9th graders are obnoxious, but my upperclassmen are just the best. We meet regularly, including after class for advanced work. It was from this group of students that I snagged my cooking club boys. They are the most capable and motivated students in the school, which is what makes it particularly difficult to say goodbye to them.

Ukrainian schools bookend their academic calendar with First and Last Bell ceremonies. While the September event is a celebration of the new first graders and the promise of a new year of learning, the Last Bell is full of mixed feelings. All students officially go up a grade on this day, which is exciting. However, we say goodbye to the 11th graders. Draped in "Graduand" ribbons like at a beauty pageant, each school-leaver rings a golden hand bell, and the younger students shower them with flowers and best wishes.

Several of the young teaching staff gathered for lunch that day at the swanky (read: bechristmas-lighted) 999 Café in the centre of town, but I had the great honour to be invited to the private end of year stag party. In my school, there are 3 other male teachers. First, there's Boris Paulovich, the ancient and totally awesome chemistry teacher. He always makes conversation with me, usually about drone strikes or nuclear weapons history, which is so much more fun than small talk. The wood-shop teacher is named Andrey Boot, who helped me build and install my balcony shelves. Naturally, the PhysEd coach Constantine Nikolayevich is the third, a fellow kulinar but only in the most manly ways imaginable.

Together with these three gentlemen, I gathered at the no-girls-allowed club house: the weight training room in the gym. We enjoyed Constantine's home-made pickles, sausage, and vodka, while jamming to the radio station "America Hits Music." Then things got interesting. When the basketball came out it didn't seem like the best idea, but it was certainly more advisable than the BB gun. Well buzzed, we picked off ping pong balls and balloons on tables across the gym. Nobody shot their eye out.

The actual graduation ceremony didn't occur until almost a week later. The girls were decked out in prom dresses, the boys in suits. With a team of snare drum majorettes rented from Lugansk, all the graduands and their teachers and parents marched from the school to the town square, where other students and interested onlookers had gathered. The students did a choreographed catwalk while being introduced to the town as the freshest batch of adults. We then went inside the House of Culture for 3 hours of concert, diplomas, speeches, gifts, tears, and a personalized poem from the principal to each graduand. After night had fully descended, we stepped out onto the square once again for 15 straight minutes of fireworks and acrobatic dancing. The kids (who range in age from 17 to 18 years old) left the square for Korsar, a café their parents had rented for the evening, to enjoy dancing and champagne. These parents pulled out all the stops.

The downside of a school as small as this one is that while it's not hard to teach every student, it leaves no surprises for next year. I already know exactly who my kids will be, and these 11th formers have left them some big shoes to fill. They will be missed, but now I can pour my attention into a new group of children, who will hopefully prove to be just as special as the last.

Ouroboros

A few weeks ago, I and the rest of my cohort passed our one 1 year mark in country. This heralds a lot of good news, not the least of which is the end of winter. It wasn't the load of bricks we were led to believe it would be, but that may be due to the combination of it having been a relatively mild winter and my Michigan blood. Now the town is waking up again, shaking off its crusty hibernation. I feel a sympathy for the other half of volunteers, who arrive in winter. Whereas their first impression of their site was a cold, grey ghost-town, I have fond memories of a green and vibrant community. The end of a year means I finally get that back again.

Riding the dual high of sunlight and warm weather, my past week was very productive. I drew up some plans to put shelves on my piddly balcony. The labour training teacher has agreed to help me assemble and install them. In anticipation of the shelves, I got a summer herb garden started: basil, cilantro, watercress, and spinach. I've even got some cherry tomatoes and petunias going (The Russians call this sudden planting of a space озеленение or "greenification"). I completed both my taxes ($2,377.42 for the whole year, woohoo!) and the behemoth Volunteer Reporting document. I tried a new pizza dough / BBQ chicken pizza recipe. I knocked out a presentation with facts on all fifty states. Oh, and let's not forget that the notorious "not soon" sofas have returned, so at last my house has all its furniture.

The end of the first 12 months also concludes several other things. For starters, school is almost out. With the slew of orthodox holidays in the run-up to and aftermath of Slavic Easter (May 5th this year), classes won't even be in session for a full 2 weeks next month. What little school we do have left is a never-ending cycle of test prep and graduation dance rehearsals. The end of the '12-'13 school year means I will soon need to reboot my culinary club. Replacing these boys won't be an easy task, but I am excited about reaching out to a fresh audience.

Throughout Peace Corps orientation and training, the powers told us to be patient: spend the first year at site becoming a member of the community, then make waves during the second half of your service. I have faithfully stuck to this principle, integrating like a beast for the past year. [Status update: Russian now surpassing Korean at its peak; Expanding to direct communication with parents of students; Strong friendships in multiple social circles.] Now it's time to put this network to use, which demands a fundamental shift in my service priorities and my lifestyle. As of now, my school is floating the idea of overhauling one of the older, more dilapidated classrooms to transform it into a school newspaper. First, I have to make it through a very active summer, but I'm not opposed.

On the point of summer, if you're interested in supporting the camp in which I'm participating, you can donate online in a matter of minutes.*** Your donation will help fund the transportation and camp costs for needs-based scholarship recipients, as well as the materials we need for lessons and projects throughout the camp.

***Edit: The camp has been fully funded! Thanks to everyone who helped us get there! :)

Happy New Year

You have to skip forward a bit through the Russian, but this totally happened. This is what my life is like. Every day.

Солянка (Solyanka)

It's the middle of winter, the heat in your car doesn't work, and you don't want to go to the grocery store. You have some left-over meat lying around in the fridge, some root vegetables, but no remnants of the summer harvest. A can of olives stands in the pantry next to some tomato paste. What do you cook to beat back the chill? For many Ukrainians, the answer is solyanka. Quite literally meaning "hodgepodge," solyanka is left-over stew for those times when nothing fresh is available. One Ukrainian told me that this soup is not correct without at least 4 types of meat, but other blogs claim as many as 7 types are required for flavourful solyanka. I submit to you the Solokhin Family Recipe for Solyanka Ukrainskaya.

5 or so kinds of pork
1/4 of a chicken
3-4 potatoes
2 finely grated beets
1 finely grated carrot
1 diced onion
4 dill pickles
4 tbs of tomato paste
2 tbs of vegetable oil
lemon, black olives, and sour cream to garnish

1) In the biggest pot you got, start boiling the chicken in about 2 litres of water (fill the pot halfway).

2) Start chopping meat! All your bacon, sausage, hotdogs, salami, smoked ham, and bratwurst need to be chunked into dice-sized bites. Set all that aside.

3) Peel and cube your potatoes. After the chicken has been boiling for about 20 minutes, pull it out and throw in the potatoes.

4) Throw your onion and carrot on the skillet with your oil. When the onions are translucent, add the beets. While all that's going, dice up the pickles and throw them in too. Add your tomato paste and mix it all around.

5) In the meantime, we're keeping an eye on the potatoes. Are they half done? Throw in your meat, including the chicken that you were boiling. Just strip it off the bone and chop it up first.

6) When the potatoes are completely cooked, dump the contents of the skillet into the pot. It should be just about topped off with ingredients, so dump gingerly. Salt it to your taste.

7) Serve it up, not being stingy with the meaty broth. Top it off with a quartered lemon slice, a few halved olives, and a big dollop of sour cream.

Woah, 200th post!