Cheese and Eggs

So, earlier I guessed that I would have problems in the grocery store with cheese, but so far it has been a great success. I found a fairly mild cheese that tastes something like provolone and has the consistency of cheddar. Whatever it really is, it melts nicely and goes well with the fabulous, spicy mustard Rachel helped me find with her Russian/English dictionary. Generally I am able to figure out what things are in the grocery store due to packaging, location, or cognates, but sometimes none of these suffice. My Russian lessons are going slowly, so I continue to feel helpless in the face of words I am able to sound out but have no idea their meaning.

Along with cheese, I have been eating eggs which are a blessing here because meat, excluding chicken and bologna, is very expensive (of course I would argue this holds true in the U.S. as well). I had my first egg from what I assume must have been a Russian chicken last weekend - it was absolutely delicious, but the color seemed a bit odd. Rather than the reddish-orange yolks we are so used to in the states, the yolk was more of a creamy lemon color. It almost looked like lemon icing. Despite this odd color, I decided I would eat it anyway. I rationalized that the color had something to do with the diet of the chicken, but I really had no idea. I wanted an egg, so I ate it! After eating the egg, over easy and with a soft yoke, I googled yoke coloration. Surprisingly, my rationalization was spot on. The diet of the hen determines the color of the yolk. In some countries farmers even feed their chickens coloring so the yoke turns the nice orange color we know. Perhaps if I had eaten more eggs from local farms in the United States I would have already known this, but I am learning that being in Moscow teaches you more about yourself and your own country than you would ever have thought possible.