Stahlke Adoption

Purple Flowers and Greens

Since we lived in Germany in the early 1990s, Jonathan and I have the custom of Kaffeetrinken every afternoon. We've continued this with the children, which for them is their after-school snack. We've been tremendously helped by our good friend Susan, a gourmet cook who has provided us with a wonderful dessert nearly every week since we returned with the kids in August 2005. Her gift is often an "adult" dessert for Jonathan and me.

Yesterday, we were feasting on some delicious chocolate cake. Most of the children, however, decided on an apple for their snack. And when they eat an apple, they eat the WHOLE thing--all that is left is one tiny stem. Apples are a real treat for Ukrainian children. A day or two after we met our kids, they took us off the orphanage grounds to an apple tree and filled several bags with fruit. They got in trouble with the orphanage director, and we learned from her that such trips are not allowed. I learned the Ukrainian word for "green" very quickly, since their term for this fruit was not yablucko (apple) but zeleni (green).

The children have continued to scout out apples in Forest Park. A few days after we arrived from Ukraine, I had run out of fruit and needed to make a trip to the grocery store. The boys realized that we were in need of food, so they went out and found a fairly large number of apples. While their intent was laudable, we had to find out which of our neighbors had an apple tree. We had lived in our house for six years without recognizing the neighbor's apple tree, and the boys had spotted it in only a day or two!

Ukraine is known worldwide for the richness of their agriculture, and our children show this by their love of fruits and vegetables. For the first several months after their arrival, I had to store all the fruit on the very top shelf of the panty. The bananas were even more tempting, so they were completely hidden in a bag. We also eat a lot of vegetables, with tomatos and cabbage as their favorites. Misha, however, has asked me not to send red cabbage in his lunch for school. Even though he loves to eat it, the other children tease him about eating "purple flowers." We are slowly moving from a diet of only raw vegetables to a few that are cooked. Jonathan and I have missed eating old favorites like green beans, asparagus, and cooked carrots! But I do have to admit that eating lots of raw vegetables IS pretty healthy.

posted by Stahlkes @ 10:22 AM