Welcome to the Bloor West Village Ukrainian festival. If you have time this weekend, head on down to...Bloor West Village around Runnymede and Jane for some more outdoor fun. It's pretty much on for the entire day and features plenty of Ukrainian music, souvenirs and of course their cuisine. It's pretty much russian, but different, just like China or other big countries differ vastly north-south, east to west.

Personally I'm only interested in the food. If the following dishes don't tempt you to go, then nothing will...plus you'll make this little bear cry :(

Do it for me, phueaze!

Ok, first you have your Olivier Salad, which is a cold salad made up of cooked potatoes, vegetables, meats and all mixed well in plenty of mayo. Sometimes called the Boeuf Salad. Beauty of this is that you can make it everytime you have leftovers. Perfect examples are leftovers from soup, drain the remaining liquid and add the mayo, put in fridge. Done. Of course the Romanian counterpart of this salad is much better.



Next you can try their Borscht. Outsiders are completely oblivious to this unbelievable dish, that has a million variations and extreme depth. Fermented wheat bran is the key ingredient, and I often like to drink this one raw before it's put in the soup. Of course the Romanian counterpart has more depth, greatly superior aroma and warms your heart, body and mind on a cold winter night.



Next...Pickled Cucumbers or pickles if you will. First of all if you grew up in the west, then you dont know what those are. If you're from Korea you may have a vague idea. They are completely different then the mass produced, flavourless american pickles. Homemade are best, as you need the brine to be just right and you need patience and lots of it. Many many months require to create just the right flavour, and in a factory the concept of time is money means they take "flavour" and sodomize it with an ugly stick, then sleep with its sister before pissing all over it. Romanian counterparts are out of this world, plus we pickle every hard vegetable we can get our hands on.



Another dish you will be offered at the festival are Cabbage Rolls or holubtsi as they like to call them (crazy people, right?). Cooked cabbage leafs wrapped in various meat fillings. Pretty straight forward no? Sure, in the same sense that the Kennedy assassination was pretty straight forward. However if you dig deeper into it you'll find numerous layers, options, theories on the different spices that one can find in the filling. Was it the pepper and oregano, or the paprika over on the grassy knoll? The Romanian counterpart is sometimes done with grape leaves in place of cabbage and they are the best in the world. Better than the Ukrainian for sure.



Cost: Free