Since yesterday the Lord tried my patience with seventeen minutes of waiting for a waiter at Kofemania, I have resolved to give up restaurant food until the end of the year

Since yesterday the Lord tried my patience with seventeen minutes of waiting for a waiter at Kofemania, I have resolved to give up restaurant food until the end of the year. Happily, the Foreign Literature Library has put a selection of New Year recipes on its website. I have already ordered a fig pudding and an Azorean Christmas pie to be prepared for me. And, who knows, perhaps on my festive table one of the mayonnaise giants will make way for a Dutch salad from "The White House Cookbook".

Take note: you will need a dozen anchovies, a herring, Bologna or Lyon sausage, or smoked ham and frankfurters (I prefer to replace these with kosher turkey jamón), as well as an equal quantity of cold roast breast of fowl or veal (we shall substitute lamb, since Russians do not eat veal), diced beetroot, pickled cucumbers, boiled potatoes in large cubes, a tablespoon of capers, the yolks and whites of hard-boiled eggs, a dozen olives with their stones, whipped butter, and tarragon vinegar with white pepper and mustard.

Oh wait, this is just the ordinary Soviet...