Making Dumplings (and Friends) at Parish House

I didn’t have too much work this week. I know, I know, it’s shocking. For some reason, 8th week has been relatively light for me. While everyone is scrambling to prepare for final exams, I’m scrambling to find something to fill my time with.

Which is exactly the situation I found myself in a few days ago—lying on my bed, homework completed, mindlessly scrolling Instagram to satiate some immeasurable desire that I know will never truly be quenched. It was then that I stumbled upon the Carleton Instagram account’s newest story: a picture of a delicious looking dumpling-snack under Russian lettering. After popping the text into a translator, it revealed that the post was an invitation to a cooking activity that evening coordinated by the Russian department.

Parish House

With nothing else on my plate but looming final exam prospects, I decided to head to the Parish house basement to try my hand at this new food.

It turned out everyone there was a student enrolled in a Russian class. I am not—but I do know one word: “да” (meaning “yes”), so I felt right at home. When I arrived, the host greeted me with open arms and taught me how to count to three before demonstrating the technique of making “pelmeni” and “vareniki”: little dough pockets filled with meat and potatoes respectively. It turns out it’s harder than it looks: it was to my extreme disappointment that my first batch came out looking more like deformed grubs than something one would want to eat.

Life and Dumplings

As we sharpened our folding skills and the dumplings started taking on more appetizing shapes, the Russian students and I discussed upcoming life plans. I learned that many of them were preparing for an off-campus study program in Kazakhstan next Spring. There they’ll explore Astana (the capital city), travel down the ancient Silk Road, and even visit Uzbekistan. It sounded wonderful, and felt a pang of regret for not paying closer attention to all of the off-campus study information sessions the school offered. I awkwardly brought up my slightly more mundane plans this Spring: staying on campus and taking normal classes. Maybe next year I’ll try to vary it up.

At a certain point our conversation devolved into a strange game in which we tried to guess which Russian celebrity’s name was written on our forehead. I was unable to participate due to my extreme lack of pop-culture knowledge, so it was lucky that then the pelmeni and vareniki finished cooking. We gathered around the kitchen counter and dug in. Despite their deformed appearance, they tasted delicious: the vareniki were stuffed with creamy potato filling and the meat in the pelmeni was juicy and flavorful. I think knowing that you cooked the food makes it twice as tasty.

Russian Tea

Apparently, this sort of activity happens every week, from 7-9 PM. They call it Russian Tea—where the students learn about the culture, eat Russian snacks, and hone their speaking skills. I thought about this for a bit. I probably should join another club. I probably should get out of my comfort zone a little more. There’s no reason that they wouldn’t let me attend the sessions, even if I’m not enrolled in a Russian class, right?

Turns out they were happy to let me tag along. So despite not knowing any of the language, you can catch me in the basement of Parish House on Wednesday nights, drinking tea and slowly getting coerced into taking a Russian class next term.

Inigo (he/him/his) is trying very hard to turn interests in subjects like film, english, and psychology into a manageable course load. Originally from Somerville, Massachusetts, he can often be found running in the Cowling Arboretum (and getting passed by everyone on the cross country team) or rock climbing at the bouldering cave in the evening. He loves Carleton’s walkability: it didn’t even matter that he forgot to bring his bike to campus. He considers bad horror movies to be the ultimate form of entertainment.