Saturday night in UB

Greg and I just finished eating a scrumptious meal; tofu over polenta for me, chicken picatta with mashed potatoes for him (leftovers are wonderful). Greg did taste my tofu creation and commented that it was quite good. I am slowly introducing him to the culinary possibilities of tofu. It's amazing to me how inexpensive tofu is here, 1000 TG per package which is about $.70, but we pay 15000 TG about $15 for two kilos of chicken.

I have no idea what we pay for the beef since I don't actually.......pay. We order our pastured, organic beef through the ISU kitchen and it just goes on Greg's food card. In fact, anything I order out of the cafeteria goes on Greg's card. The cashier knows now, so she doesn't have to ask, "Mr. Greg's Card?" anymore, she just assumes like the good woman she is. It is a point of pride and satisfaction that I have never properly activated my card, you know, two for the price of one. I like to buy bananas in the cafeteria then bring one to Greg in his office. He always says 'thank you' and I always reply, "no, thank you!"

My last blog referenced the weather lately. The morning after our thunder and lightning storm we had hail the size of jaw breakers and the high temp that day was about 41 F. Today, however, was absolutely perfect weather for grocery shopping and running and couple errands.

We went to Mercury for fruit and veggies and noticed that the butcher shop had another turkey in the window. I had already bought one for Thanksgiving and put it in the freezer. Last year there were no turkeys to be found in UB, the year prior Greg paid about $200 for his to be cooked and delivered. We discussed buying a couple to sell on the 'black market' in the desperate days before Thanksgiving but perhaps this is a sign of times to come in UB. Maybe an entrepreneur figured-out that most expats yearning for a bit of familiarity will pay ungodly amount of cash for a frozen bird. Not us, not this year at least. I have promised to make two pumpkin and two pecan pies and have already invited a few key people to our feast of debauchery.

Weird thing in the underground parking garage this week: a garage full of hay. Seriously. Like the kind that grazing animals eat. The hay was conveniently swept away from where we park but I'm not sure what everyone else did with their cars since we were the only ones parking in there while the ha was there. Greg asked the security guy (in pantomine since we don't speak Mongolian, he doesn't speak English) what was going on. The guy just smiled and laughed while gesturing at the little truck that was half covered with hay as well. We figured it must have gotten wet in the inclement weather so our garaged was borrowed to dry it out. I love Mongolia.