[Zhurh]

My wife's people from Hungary, Slovakia, and though they don't claim it, Poland too; I know these things from living 26 years with her. So Halupki is a standard Hunkie food. The wife mixes ground beef, rice, stewed tomatoes, sauercraut, egg, bread crumb, ketchup, and I don't know what else. She then cores a cabbage and boils it until leaves separate. Then she rolls up the mixture in the leaves so you have a bunch of cabbage rolls stuffed with rice, sauercraut, meat, tomatoes, ect. She then stacks the cabbage rolls in crock pots with sauercraut and stew tomatoes all around them. She usually sticks one pot in fridge and cooks the other one overnight. We eat it with mashed potatoes & this tomato gravy she makes and eat it for days, always better 2nd day like all sauercraut. I only ate it at polish weddings and such until I met my wife, we eat it once or twice a month now. Then Indians out the village even like it and you'll never hear them complain about halupki being filthy white man's food, ha ha. You all ought to cook some up, it's good stuff actually.

All Eastern Europeans and Russians and polish people eat the stuff, even Germans and Siberians eat it but they often use pork for meat. I've had tourists here from all over the place and they eat it in Europe, anywhere they grow cabbage. I have a Russkie buddy who lives in Fairbanks, just became an American citizen and they eat it all the time too. Every country has different name, but they all begin with Hal something.

Wife and I were originally from the Burgh, Steeltown; and all kinds of ethnic communities with rich heritage of food and culture being part of their lives even though nobody ever goes back to Eastern Europe, ha ha.

We do have many Russians here in Alaska, due to Siberia being so close, no joke I can see it on a clear day, just ask Sarah, she'll tell ya. The Russians come here anyway they can, usually under religious persecution reasons, but everyone of them will tell ya the real reason is because life is better here than in Russia. They all become Americans too and their kids don't even speak Russian. My one buddy is in an adult hockey league in Fairbanks, spends all his time with his boy's travel team;;;; Now he still thinks Russian Players better hockey players, ha ha. Yet this same guy had to come to Alaska cause his ancestors were from Germany (Catherine the Great Era) and in Russia today, if you have a German sounding name, you are a second class citizen. He came here to achieve the dream, and you can't fault anybody for that.