F is for Food (and Faberge)

I have been very fortunate to have visited two traveling exhibitions of Faberge eggs.  The first exhibit was in Cleveland in 2008 and then in 2012 I visited the exhibit in Detroit.  I already discussed the eggs in my first post, but wanted to mention them again.  In addition, I wanted to show some of the food I enjoyed, so two for one letter.
My father's side of the family had Polish roots.  I think we only ate Polish food in their homes.  Stuffed cabbage, kielbasa, sauerkraut, pierogies, borscht (not my favorite, but had some decent stuff in Russia), cucumbers and sour cream...  Russian food was much the same.

Here are a few photos of food I ate, when I remembered to get out the camera.

One night in Moscow we had dinner with a young couple in their tiny apartment.  Seven of us crowded around this table, which was in the living room.  I am guessing that the apartment was no more than 500 square feet, tops.  I did not want to be rude and take pictures while we ate, but we had wild pig that had been shot by the host, who takes people on wild game shoots around the world.  The food was excellent and for dessert we had caviar and crepes.  Yum.

In the town of Tver I had chicken in cream sauce for lunch.  

A restaurant in Novgorod where we had lunch, above.  Below is a serving of cold slaw.  No little plastic cup here.  This is classy.

These are kolaches, a pastry stuffed with cheese, or you can use any fruit.  My mother made the best ones ever, but I never turn down dessert.  Below is one of the buffet bars at a Saint Petersburg restaurant.

And here is my plate with the salad course before I ventured to the hot food bar above:

In the top right corner is Salad Olivier.  It is a fancy potato salad.  Read through the various articles online and you discover that you can add just about anything.

The interior of a restaurant in Saint Petersburg above and my dinner of veal and eggplant below.

A typical salad of cabbage, tomatoes, cucumber, olives and feta cheese.

Below are two interior photos of a restaurant in Saint Petersburg that hearkened back to the cold war era.  Occasionally, air raid sirens would go off.  I think I ate a salad while I really wanted to try the potato pancakes that our guide was eating.

I do have to mention the piroshki that we had in Moscow and Saint Petersburg.  There is a chain of restaurants called Stolle that made pies that were out of this world.  So, so good.  Yet, I forgot to take a picture.  I guess I was just too busy eating.
As for desserts, they make sweet piroshki filled with fruit and of course the ever-popular poppy seed filling.  Our guide told us the most popular dessert in Russia is, wait for it, watermelon.  Go figure.
Check out the watermelons piled in the fountain in this photo of GUM department store.

While I ate no reindeer meat in Helsinki, I did go to the Hard Rock Cafe.  I had a burger.  Actually, it was the first time I ever ate at one of their restaurants.  The best part of that meal came home with me and ended up on my grandson:

Tolkien Bonus:  F is for Fangorn Forest, guarded by an Ent named Fangorn, who will arouse the other Ents against Saruman.