As the spring comes, it is easy to rush into the green goodness of the season and forget what has been nourishing us the whole winter. But the beginning of the spring might be deceiving: warm days end with cold evenings, wide open windows turn into drafts and thinner clothes means unpleasant colds. That’s why taking care of your immune system is so important at this time of the year, and one of the ways to do so is through taking care of your .. gut because this is where the majority of the immune cells in our body are located. And one of the best things you can treat your gut to is lacto-fermented food, like this Russian fermented cabbage.

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I have not seen my friend Yulia for exactly a year, and what a year it was: I got married and she gave birth to the twins Anastasia and Sofia. There was occasional catching up over skype, and I even got to see the girls - yet the proper meeting was overdue.

When we stopped by Yulia’s in Moscow I did not know what to expect. Has my friend changed after her family doubled and she took on much anticipated yet a completely unknown role of a mother? And most importantly: does the change in her life mean I have to change something in mine?

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I am often asked what Russian food I miss most. Well, Turks confident in abundance and superiority of their food may not be so curious, but everyone else always asks me this question hoping to learn more about the exotic Russian fare. Also, folks back home seem to measure my patriotic feelings by the culinary longings: during my latest visit I left someone speechless when I claimed I did not to miss a very special taste of Russian potato that must be (according to that person) impossible to find in Turkey.

More often than not I am puzzled when asked about the Russian food I miss. I used all my cross-border moves to learn more about the cuisines different from my native, and I took it to the extreme when I moved to Turkey solely for its food. I also tend to think that if you cook you can replicate most of the foods you might miss.

However the recent trip to Russia proved me wrong: I could not get enough of the foods I thought I was fine without. I guess appreciating your roots comes with age, and I am happy to have gotten there. So here is my far-from-exhaustive list of the Russian foods I miss in Istanbul.

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I have kept wondering how come that Turkish cuisine has absorbed so much from the countries it borders with in the West, South and East but the influence from its northern neighbors (Ukraine and Russia) has been barely noticeable. I understand it may be harder to import food traditions by sea than it is by land but it did not seem a problem when it came to importing beautiful women from the North to populate the Harem. Besides such random occasions as the Black Sea ravioli - piruhi that look a lot like Ukrainian vareniki you don’t see Ukrainian- Russian food heritage around much. Or so I thought until I made blini..

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