Thursday, November 22, 2012

Borscht Art and Vending Machine Caviar


Roasted Beet Garlic Soup

I am not claiming this to be an authentic borscht, it is probably quite far from it. I am hesitant to call this borscht for my own safety!

None of the authentic recipes I came across use roasted beets. I preferred roasted beets since it adds more flavour. Some versions use cabbage. I excluded it since I ate cabbage yesterday. And I excluded potatoes because I wanted a stronger beet flavor rather than have the flavour diluted with potato. With these variations the soup was not quite authentic. It tastes quite different from the versions I tried in different restaurants. The recipe is available here. You will also find more examples of amateurish half decent attempts at borscht art.

Roasted Beet Garlic Soup

 
Today's Favourite Photo
The Best Sea Salted Chocolate-Caramel Tart



Today’s Favourite Blog
The wait is finally over for LA residents, caviar vending machines have arrived. They are located in Westfield Century City, Westfield Topanga and Burbank Town Center. The good news is that caviar from all over the world is stored. And there’s more, you can also get truffles, escargot, bottarga blinis, gourmet salts and caviar accessories.

It comes at a price, of course. Imperial River Beluga Caviar is priced at $500 an ounce, and a pink mother of pearl spoon is $4.

Los Angeles is not the first to have a caviar vending machine. Not surprisingly Moscow’s had it for the past two years. 

I wonder how appealing it would be to eat $500 caviar that comes out of a vending machine. It would taste just as good, and probably would be cheaper compared with the restaurant, however the environment is missing, maybe. It would be interesting to see whether this concept survives. And whether it attracts drunkards looking to splurge. 

Considering the value of the stock, it might be more lucrative to rob this vending machine instead of the bank or gas station. 

20 comments:

  1. You must be bored ... :)
    But then, I think the 1st attempt of borscht art is pretty good (I doubt I could do that) and the 2nd one really cute!
    Caviar atms, eh? Now why didn't they have that when I was there? They need a champagne vending machine next to that to make it complete.

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    1. I was actually looking for distractions - unfortunately the soup and sour cream were at the receiving end:)
      The pictures are not in chronological order!!! The first few attempts were quickly consumed to destroy any evidence:)
      I am sure if you tried this it would turn out far better, I have no doubts about that. I can't paint/draw and my hand writing is terrible.

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  2. Hehe presumably the caviar is for you to take home with you, not eat at the vending machine :)

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    1. I hope so, that would be sad eating caviar while standing next to a vending machine

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  3. I like your artistic experiments! Especially the first one. I have no idea how you have obtained such a pattern (and please don't tell me! let is stay the big mystery). I was always wondering why is it written this strange way... The best spelling to obtain the closest to the Russian pronunciation at least would be "borshtch" or maybe "barshtch"?... I'm hopping to your recipe! (In Warsaw the beet barshtch doesn't contain potatoes or cabbage and often without beet bits either; it's a clear fiery soup served with mini-dumplings (2 cm max) filled with sauerkraut or with meat, quite elegant actually! sometimes it's served only to be drunk, not eaten, of course it depends on the region and household I suppose... I know that in some regions they add potatoes and of course I have no idea how it's served in other countries)

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    1. Thank you.
      The spelling is strange since its pronounced a bit differently.
      That Polish version sounds really good, I have yet to come across it. There are so many versions. I also had a green version once, really really nice. But each time I went back to the restaurant they had run out.

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    2. I LOVE the patterns! move over coffee art ;) Anyway, I also prefer using roasted beets in making soup. I shared that on my blog a few months back in summer I recall, with beet crisps. They jsut add much deeper flavour and sweetness.

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    3. Thank you Shu Han. I will check the recipe on your blog, I missed it

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  4. pretty designs! it reminds me of those coffee milk swirls!

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  5. You are a true artist :-) I prefer the beets roasted first too. OMG, caviar vending machine? What will they thin of next.

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    1. Thank you. The inventions get interesting by the day!

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  6. Maybe one day I will prepare it and post it... the Polish one! (But I will not make the dumplings... They are really too fussy).

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    1. Looking forward to it. I searched on the internet, looks interesting, never came across this version

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  7. Great looking borscht 3C (even if you say it's not traditional)! - it's actually something I've been meaning to make myself for ages. Really must get around to it. I wonder if one could make a borscht with golden beets, and how it would turn out etc.

    Caviar vending machine... seriously, what the hell? What people are gonna drop a bunch of cash and then hang out on a street corner slurping up beluga?

    "Over here, over here, get a pack of smokes, a coke, a Mars bar and a can of caviar, all for the bargain price of $515!" :p

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    1. Thank you. I have never heard of golden beets. Without knowing what it is, I am guessing the soup will turn out fine.
      That $500 caviar makes all the rest of the items sound like a real bargain:) I guess next to the caviar they can sell cigarettes etc for 2-3 times more and it would still seem cheap

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  8. Hi, very creative design! Both look cute and pretty.

    Have a nice weekend.

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  9. Thats so creative of you, nice soup

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