Zakuski Time

We've noticed that, perhaps due to the damp ocean air on our block, carrots don't last long once out of our farm box, going from crisp and sturdy to soft within a day. I made a pledge to tackle this week's carrots as soon as possible, and lunchtime yesterday found me paging through my Russian cookbook for options. An entire page of the book is given over to small illustrations of various examples of zakuski - hors d'ouerves or tapas, Russian style. Many called for ingredients I didn't have, but the simplest one seemed to be nothing more than grated carrots, lemon juice and oil. The book didn't offer a name for the dish or any specific directions, but how difficult can it be to assemble grated carrot with lemon juice and oil?

The carrots were beauties. They were promptly peeled and beheaded, with the remains headed for the compost bin outside.

Then came the grating. The results were fantastic - soft and fluffy. Yet as I worked up a sweat reducing crunchy carrots to silken strands (having just done the same to half a dozen beets earlier in the week), I remembered that cooking is not for weaklings. Laugh all you want, but you need to put your back into grating sometimes.

The lemon juice came, as always, from our lemon tree in the backyard.

I chose safflower oil for flavoring, although I think the preferred choice is sunflower.

And although there was no mention of it in the book or evidence in the picture, I decided to add some chopped dill. Partly for color, partly because you can't get more Russian than dill, and partly because I love it and we had a surplus.

The finished dish was about as simple as a dish can be. I found the flavors to be mild yet notable. The carrots dominated at first, but slowly the dill and the tang of lemon juice asserted themselves. I left out the typical Russian topping of sour cream - unnecessary for somebody like me who gets plenty of fat in their diet.

I held off chasing the dish with a glass of ice-cold vodka. The Russian soul in me was disappointed, but it was only noon on a Friday, after all.