No, this is not the same photo as in the previous post. If you look closely, you will see that they are different.
We stayed hungry all day long on December 31 to prepare ourselves for a magnificent feast at my parents’ place. See photos of how Ukrainians celebrate the biggest holiday of the year under the fold.
The first course always consists of a multitude of very inventive and beautifully decorated salads:
All of the salads are completely different, of course.
This one, called “The Mistress” (don’t ask) was everybody’s favorite. I will ask my mother for the recipe and share it with you:
Here is the patriotic part of the repast:
And here is a beautiful salad called “The Sunflower.” A sunflower is Ukraine’s most symbolic flower:
I got too busy eating, so the next two courses didn’t get photographed. All of this food was cooked and decorated single-handedly by my mother who refused any help. Is that a heroic feat, or what?
While the food was getting ready, I took photos of my mother’s collection of religious imagery:
This is just a small part of the collection. There is a lot more.
And here is a collection of pictures where every shape is created from tiny piece of amber:
OK, this has made me hungry, so I will go eat. Happy New Year, everybody!!!
Clarissa's Blog 
I’m a little surprised to not see Ukrainian flags. Are they not available or is it more symbolic cord cutting?
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I guess it never even occurred to anybody to add some Ukrainian flags. 🙂 🙂 We could easily find some if we wanted to because my parents’ close friends own Montreal’s biggest Ukrainian store. But nobody thought of it. Hmmm. . .
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I’m trying to imagine a similar gathering with emigrants from that same general part of the world (Poles, Hungarians, Baltic states, former Jugoslav states) not putting the old country flag all over the place and just can’t picture it.
Hmmmm maybe it’s because the current flag has only been in use for just over 20 years? OR because IINM the internal independence movement in Soviet Ukraine wasn’t really all that strong? I think a lot of Ukrainians were very happy to finally get some indpendence but it wasn’t the result of any kind of longterm local movement – they didn’t ‘win’ indpendence they had independence thrust upon them.
That’s maybe one reason that expansion of the language hasn’t really taken off either. It hasn’t been all bad (and Ukrainian has fared a lot better than poor Belarussian) but it hasn’t come close to what early planners wanted either.
Just theorizing…
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You are extrapolating the approach of one fairly unusual immigrant family onto the entire community here. 🙂 I can’t imagine any other family I know from the Russian-speaking immigrant community putting up the Canadian (let alone the US) flag. We did not emigrate in the same way and for the same reasons as other people. We are not like the immigrants who go back every year and construct their lives around those trips and the contact with people who stayed behind. I haven’t been back since I emigrated and I’m not in touch with a single person back there.
I didn’t emigrate because I wanted to improve my life economically. Emigration has actually been a financial disaster for me and I anticipated that well in advance. I emigrated because I didn’t feel at home there. So now it would be kind of weird to commemorate the place where I felt nothing but discomfort. 🙂
“That’s maybe one reason that expansion of the language hasn’t really taken off either.”
– Actually, it has, and enormously well, given what had been done for 300 years to eradicate it.
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What is the Sunflower Salad made with? It is a beautiful presentation.
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I have to ask my mother. I never made it myself but now I really want to.
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Your mistress [the salad] is beyond beautiful.
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There was alsoone called “Heart” that was heart-shaped and covered with smoked salmon to imitate the heart’s red muscle tissue. I found that very disturbing.
I hope you had a great New Year’s!
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