Aunty Alyssa!

I have been neglecting this blog and I apologize to the 1 or 2 people who ever even read it (if it is even that many). I could make up a bunch of excuses but I'll spare you the bullshit. Since I have not posted since May (dear god!) I will try to catch you up to speed on my life, because a shit-ton (yes that is an actual term of measurement) has happened since May, most notable of which is that...

I AM GOING TO BE AN AUNT!!!
Yep, my brother and his girlfriend are expecting. I will admit that when my brother spilled the beans back in June I freaked out. Imagining my baby brother, who had been in and out of rehab for a good portion of his teenage years, as a father sort of scared me shitless. But since June I have seen this crazy transformation take place in him. He has slowly transformed from the dirtbag selfish teenage kid who snuck out in the middle of the night to get loaded with friends, stealing money from the family to pay for drugs, and taking my car out for joyrides before he even had a license, to the kind of guy that buys baby books and goes to parenting classes to learn how to change diapers and has conversations with me about getting a job that will allow him to take time off to see his future child's hypothetical soccer games. I fully expected my parents's brains to explode when they heard the news, but after the initial shock, they took the news surprisingly well. And really, no matter how unplanned this pregnancy was, there's no point in staying angry and upset about it because it is happening, and there is going to be a pooping, crying little human in the world pretty soon whether you like it not. So Brayden Curtis Goldberg is due in February and I can't wait to hold that newborn bundle of joy in my arms and spoil that kid rotten, but he better not be expecting cousins anytime soon.

Thats all for now. Sorry to those of you expecting a food post. I have been cooking a lot and will try to get some recipes and pictures up soon, And will make an effort to post more regularly.. I promise :)

Baby Eggplant

Aren't these cute? I found them at the market and just had to get them. The guy at the veggie stand at Pike Place said to cut them in half and grill them, but I don't have a grill so I took a bit more of a creative approach.

Baby Eggplant Topped with Tomato Olives and Basil

Ingredients:

5 baby eggplants

one cup tomato sauce

one medium tomato

one small can of pitted black olives

fresh basil

olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Slice eggplants in half lengthwise. Arrange on baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Bake for 10 minutes or until just starting to caramelize.

2. While eggplants are baking heat one cup of tomato sauce in a sauce pan over low heat. Dice the tomato and olives and mix into sauce along with a pinch of salt and pepper.

3. Remove eggplant slices and top each slice with a spoonful of the tomato olive mixture.

4. Top with chopped basil a sprinkle of sea salt and serve.

8 Hours in Rome

I have been back in the US now for about two weeks, but I am just getting around to finally posting my pictures and updating WorldSavour. The second half of my trip was a whirlwind

starting with my 8 hour layover in Rome.

The day I flew to Barcelona, I woke up in Minsk, Belarus around 5am and had a quick breakfast of toast and tea before heading to the airport. I flew into Rome, where, because of how my flights worked out, I had an 8 hour layover. I had never been to Italy before and 8 hours is certainly not enough to even begin to explore, but I was determined to take advantage of what little time I did have.

I took the train into Rome, and with my huge backpack in tow I stepped onto the streets of Rome-without a map or any idea where I was! I just started roaming with the goal of finding lunch. There was no way I was going to spend an afternoon in Rome without eating some Italian pasta.

I eventually came across a cute lunch spot. I won't lie and say the pasta was mind blowing. Unlike Julia Roberts in Eat Pray Love, I was not "having a relationship" with my pasta... but it was pretty darn good. After lunch I set off to explore, finding the Basilica di San Giovanni in Lateran and the Coliseum. I finished off my afternoon with pistachio gelato before heading back to the airport. Exploring a city completely by myself was such an amazing exhilarating feeling.

Not knowing the language or where I was, was an exciting challenge and I would love to do some more traveling by myself.

I landed in Barcelona around 9:00pm where my friend Michelle greeted me with some Pan con Tomate for dinner. Breakfast in Minsk, lunch in Rome and dinner in Barcelona- one of the best days I have ever had.

Scenes from Minsk

Huge outdoor market in Minsk where hundreds of people were shopping and Belorussian babushki were selling produce from their gardens.

Decorative flags in honor of May Day.

Wedding lock attached to a gate in Minsk. When a couple gets married they engrave a lock with their names and toss the key in the river, sealing their love forever.

The oldest neighborhood in Minsk spared the destruction of war.

Memorial to commemorate the soldiers lost during war.

The Red Church and the Rigged Election

For years I had heard about the poor economic and political situation in Bealrus, but it was not until I arrived in Minsk on Monday night that I fully understood. Upon checking into our flat, the owner of the apartment specifically told us to not open the door for anyone - even police. Not even 2 hours had passed before we heard a loud knock on the door and sure enough it was two police men inspecting the building for guns and accounting for residents. We tried to ignore them, and after a while they stopped knocking, but as were were leaving the building for dinner later that night they caught up with us. After hearing so many stories about the corrupt Belorussian police and KGB we were all a bit scared but after writing down all of the information on our passports they let us go. So now the Belorussian government has my information... hey maybe the KGB could send me a present on my birthday!

Belarus KGB Building located just a few minutes from our apartment in Minsk

One of the girls in our group who goes to school in Minsk showed us around the city. It is a beautiful city with many parks, gorgeous theaters, statues and monuments. Yesterday she took us to the Red Church, which has a very interesting history but is most recently known as the site where about ten thousand people gathered on Dec. 19 to protest the outcome of the 2010 presidential election in Belarus. Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1996, won 80 percent of the vote, while his closest competitor, Andrei Sannikov, received just 2.5 percent. Those protesting claimed that the vote was rigged. Shortly after the election, the Belorussian government shut down the European Organization for Security and Cooperation that monitors the fairness of the elections. Five candidates who ran against Lukashenko were arrested for "helping organize the mass disturbances" and 19 others who attended the protests were arrested and are now serving extended jail sentences. Flowers, candles and photographs had been placed at a monument at the Red Church to commemorate these events and those who are still being held by the government.



Read more about the election and protests and view photographs of the actual protest.

Chernobyl- 25 Years Later

25 years ago today the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine exploded, spewing clouds of radiation into the atmosphere which was quickly spread by strong winds throughout Western Russia, Belarus and Europe. It was (and still is, even after Fukushima) considered the worst nuclear power plant accident in history. Over 500,000 workers ultimately helped contain the contamination, many of which were not told the full extent of the dangers of working at the disaster site. Some were told it was simply a fire they had to help put out and others were sent in with little or no protection. The general population on the Soviet Union was not informed of the disaster until days later and even those living in the direct contamination zone were told very little about what was going on, continuing to play outside and eat contaminated food because they did not understand the risks. Some citizens were told to wear a scarf over their head for protection, which we now know is absolutely meaningless to protect against radiation poisoning. Only those directly working for the government were immediately told the full effects of the disaster and soon buses full of children in school uniforms, mostly from upper class families were being evacuated to the South.


From 1986 to 2000, 350,400 were evacuated and resettled from the most contaminated areas of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. At first citizens were told the evacuation would only last three days and to only bring what was necessary. Most had no idea they would never return home.

Abandoned Ferris wheel at an amusement park in the deserted city of Pripyat. The park was scheduled to open on May 1, 1986, but the city's 47,000 residents were evacuated shortly after the Chernobyl nuclear reactor explosion on April 26.

I arrived in Belarus on Sunday night and am living in the capital city of Minsk for the next 4 days. Minsk appears to be a fairly affluent city and the effects of Chernobyl and nearly invisible, but once you start talking to the local people, you hear story after story about how the disaster effected them personally. Twenty-five years later, contaminated soil and waterways have contributed to poor nutrition and weakened immune systems in people living in the areas around Chernobyl, especially the children. One of the most predominant physical effects of the Chernobyl radiation on children is the profound increase (over 100%) in Thyroid Cancer, a disease rarely found amongst children elsewhere in the world.

Abandoned classroom.

A nuclear safety poster from a classroom near the Chernobyl region.

Commemorative services and events are being held in many parts of the world and the importance of this anniversary holds special significance after the Fukushima melt down last month. Because of strict laws and political restrictions limiting the number of people that can gather together on the street in Belarus, it is difficult to hold any sort of protests or commemorative gatherings for the event but here, but we are trying to find something to participate in and honor those who died. Later this week we will be visiting an orphanage in a town outside Minsk where many children are living whose parents died due to the fallout of the disaster and radiation.

Ukranian's Hidden Holocuast

I have been learning so much about the history of Eastern Europe over the past few days. I vividly remember learning about this history of Western Europe in history class- the rise of Rome, the French Revolution, The Protestant Reformation, and Nazi Germany, but other than a few brief lessons on Soviet Russia, I really don't remember studying the history of Eastern Europe at all. The Soviet influence is still very prevalent in the architecture and culture in both Ukraine and Belarus and there are many monuments to commemorate their history.

In Ukraine we ran across a gorgeous monument located in a park overlooking the entire city that was build to commemorate the millions of citizens of Ukraine who died of starvation between 1932 and 1933.

Here is an excerpt from our travel guide describing the horrible conditions and political situation at that time that lead to these deaths:

" Between 1932 and 1933, some three to five million citizens of Ukraine died of starvation while surrounded by fields of wheat and locked government storehouses full of food. Stalin had collectivized Soviet farms and ordered the production of unrealistic quotas of grain, which was then confiscated and stored under protection of the government."

"As Soviet collectivization began in the 1930s, combining individual farms into huge state-run communes, those who resisted were deported or starved into submission. By 1932, Communist Party activists were seizing grain and produce and erecting watchtowers above the fields. anyone caught stealing was executed or deported. As entire villages starved, people committed suicide and even resorted to cannibalism."


"Many historians believe this famine was part of the Soviet leadership's wider plan to solve the 'nationality problem' within several republics. Ukrainians were especially hard-hit and documents released recently suggest the Ukrainians were deliberately targeted. for example, Ukraine's borders were reportedly shut to prevent its people leaving. At the time Soviet authorities denied the famines existence, but it is now recognized by the Ukrainian government as genocide"

"A total of seven to ten million people died throughout the USSR. Russia remains firmly opposed to any 'genocide' description and the true scale of the disaster has rarely been appreciated in the West."

Hearing this story and seeing this monument was really moving. We are now in Belarus, where the history and politics is even more interesting (our flat is only a few blocks away from the KGB building), but I will have to write about that later.