Mystery Meat

I hate to interrupt the great job Brandon is doing on the Russia posts since that is his terrain, but I need to clarify and give explanation for a few things.

I hope I didn't make Russia sound like a horrible place. Because it wasn't. It was just different. The fact that we were in a different city each of the 4 days we were there meant that through the night instead of sleeping on a nice comfy bed, we were sleeping on a train or hard seats at the airport.

After a few nights of doing this, it caught up to us (or should I say me?) I'm not afraid to admit that I love sleep. The lack of sleep coupled with the fact that it was really really cold didn't exactly make Russia seem like a trip to the beach. However, it was amazing to see the people and culture. And overall, Russia was a lot better than I expected.

About the food...let's just say that I was grateful we had a hearty stash of Haribo and Swiss chocolate to keep me nourished. Our first couple of days we had pretty good food since we were at the mission home. Once we reached Perm, that's where the story changed.

The family we visited (that was in the last post) was adamant that we had breakfast with them.

The mom brought out a yogurt. I ate it.
The mom brought out Kvas--a drink made from moldy bread. I'm not sure what made me more sick--trying it or seeing the little boy chug it. That was the nastiest stuff I have ever tasted.

The mom brought out pilmini. I tried to to eat it.

Pilmini is a noodle type thing with a mystery meat mixture inside. If there is one thing you know about me, I don't do mystery meat. I rarely eat meats at restaurants for this very reason. Brandon has made pilmini before and I really like it, but it doesn't contain mystery meat.

This pilmini did. The only problem was that in my efforts to be courteous, I had already taken a decent portion. I tried one and almost gagged. The pilmini was very soggy (another texture that is hard for me to do) and contained the worst case of mystery meat yet.

What was a girl to do? My sweet husband would snatch some off my plate whenever he could, but that wasn't going to cut it.

I then remembered something my 6th grade teacher told us about. She had served a mission in Hong Kong and had a lot of bad food experiences. So she lined her pockets with plastic baggies before she ate and then could conveniently sneak the food inside of them.

I didn't have my bags lined with baggies, but I did take a napkin and line my coat. When no one was looking, I would quickly put the mystery meat into the napkin in my pocket. By the end of the meal, I had quite the stash of mystery meat. I waited until we left for sightseeing until I put that full little napkin in the garbage can.

That evening we tasted some very delicious Italian food. I am not sure if it was so good because of my previous encounter with mystery meat or because it was really amazing. Nevertheless, I filled up my little belly like there was no tomorrow.