I’ve noticed that cheaper food doesn’t keep as long after it’s bought—this is a casual observation, not careful research. It seems plausible that cheaper food hasn’t been given as good care and/or isn’t as fresh to start with.
It’s plausible that the refrigerator is malfunctioning. It’s also plausible that its temperature is set too high, so that should be checked. Look for a dial inside the refrigerator.
A pressure cooker might be helpful with getting beans to cook faster. I don’t know whether one can be found cheap enough and whether an unusually small one would be needed because of portion size/arm strength issues.
You can sometimes buy these second-hand from thrift stores.
Alternatively you can often buy a “slow cooker” from the same places—and they are also good for cooking beans (you set the up in the morning and leave them to run during the day while you’re at work/whatever and dinner is done when you get home).
some cheaper food is cheaper because it is about to expire and the store wants to make at least some profit off of it. other cheaper food is just cheap because it’s cheaper to produce.
the dial on the fridge is labeled in Russian. My Russian is not very good (i can read most of the letters and get a basic idea of what i’m reading, but more than 50% of the words are unknown to me), but i can easily make out МИН “minimum”, ВЬКЛ “medium”, and МАКС “maximum” and have it set to medium. i have no idea what actual temperature this refers to. i have a thermometer but it is only for measuring human body temperatures. i will have to see if i can find a cheap thermometer that could measure the fridge, because I am curious.
i may look into the cost of pressure cookers down the track.
Because I live in a former eastern bloc country (Hungary). My only guess is the fridge is that old. (It’s not mine, but it came with the apartment I live in. The building I live in is Russian built too. :)
I will look again it, to make sure I got the letters right and to make sure it is pointing at what I thought it was. Since my Russian is so bad, when i checked last time what the words said, I was repeating “V soft sign K L” to myself so i wouldnt forget it before i got back to the keyboard. (I was confident i could remember min and maks) so it may have stood out in my head enough that i forgot what it was set to.
But it’s definitely cold in fridge, so it cannot be set to “turn off.”
This time, I take my camera with me :)
.… and discover that it is set to maximum (МАКС).
Here is a picture http://pics.livejournal.com/pthalogreen/pic/0012rat7 . It also has another setting “НОРМ” which im going to assume is the “normal” or “medium” that i was remembering that it had. I think I set it to maks some time ago in attempt to solve the food spoilage problem.
It’s really hard for me to remember выключить because my knowledge of Slavic languages (and understanding of Russian via cognates) comes mostly from southern slavic languages which I have studied, like Serbian, and uključiti in Serbian means “to turn on”.
It’s really hard for me to remember выключить because my knowledge of Slavic languages (and understanding of Russian via cognates) comes mostly from southern slavic languages which I have studied, like Serbian, and uključiti in Serbian means “to turn on”.
Haha, you’ve run into some of the most confusing false friends between any languages there. The Russian cognate of Serbian (and Bosnian/Croatian) uključiti is включить, which if I’m not mistaken means the same thing—not выключить, which means the exact opposite.
To make things even more confusing, the BCS verbal prefix u- normally denotes arrival/entering, whereas in Russian it generally denotes leaving. So you get false friends like ući “to enter” vs. уйти “to go away,” or uletjeti “to fly in” vs. улететь “to fly away.” Generally, if there exists a Russian cognate of a BCS verb with the u- prefix, it will have the prefix в- or во-, not у- or вы-. The former are real etymological cognates, while the latter are not despite the similarity, and often in fact convey the opposite meaning.
Such false friends are even more fun when you see Serbian spelled in Cyrillic, making the false similarities even more prominent. (The first prize, I think, goes to this one, though my great favorite is also право, which is “straight” in Serbian but “right” in Russian when you give directions.)
oh, this is helpful information. I didn’t realise there was a difference. It seems to be the latter case. Things are fine unopened until their expiration date. Things that are opened need to be used very quickly. There are things growing in certain dishes in the fridge (another problem I’m not really up to tackling) but I have had this problem since I moved into this apartment, even during long stretches of time when there were not things growing in the fridge (because I was using the fridge less—wasn’t cooking as much as didn’t have leftovers). It doesn’t seem to matter whether I buy UHT milk or regular. They keep okay unopened most of the time, but opening them means I have to use them quickly. I’ve swtitched to powdered milk, which I wont drink, but a teaspoon of the powder with a little extra water works well for sauces that call for milk.
When I do get round to throwing out things that are growing in dishes (the current ones are covered in plastic wrap), i also take the opportunity to wash the fridge with cleaning supplies and vinegar, in case any of the scary stuff escaped.
in winter, i’ve had some success using the balcony as a fridge/freezer. but it’s summer now.
If milk goes bad after a day or two no matter when you open it, you might have a malfunctioning refrigerator.
If milk is OK until a day or two after you open it, you might have a dangerously elevated level of airborne microorganisms.
I’ve noticed that cheaper food doesn’t keep as long after it’s bought—this is a casual observation, not careful research. It seems plausible that cheaper food hasn’t been given as good care and/or isn’t as fresh to start with.
It’s plausible that the refrigerator is malfunctioning. It’s also plausible that its temperature is set too high, so that should be checked. Look for a dial inside the refrigerator.
A pressure cooker might be helpful with getting beans to cook faster. I don’t know whether one can be found cheap enough and whether an unusually small one would be needed because of portion size/arm strength issues.
You can sometimes buy these second-hand from thrift stores. Alternatively you can often buy a “slow cooker” from the same places—and they are also good for cooking beans (you set the up in the morning and leave them to run during the day while you’re at work/whatever and dinner is done when you get home).
i’ll look around. it sounds like a nice way of cooking.
some cheaper food is cheaper because it is about to expire and the store wants to make at least some profit off of it. other cheaper food is just cheap because it’s cheaper to produce.
the dial on the fridge is labeled in Russian. My Russian is not very good (i can read most of the letters and get a basic idea of what i’m reading, but more than 50% of the words are unknown to me), but i can easily make out МИН “minimum”, ВЬКЛ “medium”, and МАКС “maximum” and have it set to medium. i have no idea what actual temperature this refers to. i have a thermometer but it is only for measuring human body temperatures. i will have to see if i can find a cheap thermometer that could measure the fridge, because I am curious.
i may look into the cost of pressure cookers down the track.
My Russian is pretty good… ВЬКЛ = выключить = turn off, not “medium”. Why do you have a Russian fridge anyway??
Because I live in a former eastern bloc country (Hungary). My only guess is the fridge is that old. (It’s not mine, but it came with the apartment I live in. The building I live in is Russian built too. :)
I will look again it, to make sure I got the letters right and to make sure it is pointing at what I thought it was. Since my Russian is so bad, when i checked last time what the words said, I was repeating “V soft sign K L” to myself so i wouldnt forget it before i got back to the keyboard. (I was confident i could remember min and maks) so it may have stood out in my head enough that i forgot what it was set to.
But it’s definitely cold in fridge, so it cannot be set to “turn off.”
This time, I take my camera with me :)
.… and discover that it is set to maximum (МАКС).
Here is a picture http://pics.livejournal.com/pthalogreen/pic/0012rat7 . It also has another setting “НОРМ” which im going to assume is the “normal” or “medium” that i was remembering that it had. I think I set it to maks some time ago in attempt to solve the food spoilage problem.
It’s really hard for me to remember выключить because my knowledge of Slavic languages (and understanding of Russian via cognates) comes mostly from southern slavic languages which I have studied, like Serbian, and uključiti in Serbian means “to turn on”.
Haha, you’ve run into some of the most confusing false friends between any languages there. The Russian cognate of Serbian (and Bosnian/Croatian) uključiti is включить, which if I’m not mistaken means the same thing—not выключить, which means the exact opposite.
To make things even more confusing, the BCS verbal prefix u- normally denotes arrival/entering, whereas in Russian it generally denotes leaving. So you get false friends like ući “to enter” vs. уйти “to go away,” or uletjeti “to fly in” vs. улететь “to fly away.” Generally, if there exists a Russian cognate of a BCS verb with the u- prefix, it will have the prefix в- or во-, not у- or вы-. The former are real etymological cognates, while the latter are not despite the similarity, and often in fact convey the opposite meaning.
Such false friends are even more fun when you see Serbian spelled in Cyrillic, making the false similarities even more prominent. (The first prize, I think, goes to this one, though my great favorite is also право, which is “straight” in Serbian but “right” in Russian when you give directions.)
Native Russian speaker here.
That is correct.
btw. ь and ы are distinct letters.
Спасибо for the correction.
oh, this is helpful information. I didn’t realise there was a difference. It seems to be the latter case. Things are fine unopened until their expiration date. Things that are opened need to be used very quickly. There are things growing in certain dishes in the fridge (another problem I’m not really up to tackling) but I have had this problem since I moved into this apartment, even during long stretches of time when there were not things growing in the fridge (because I was using the fridge less—wasn’t cooking as much as didn’t have leftovers). It doesn’t seem to matter whether I buy UHT milk or regular. They keep okay unopened most of the time, but opening them means I have to use them quickly. I’ve swtitched to powdered milk, which I wont drink, but a teaspoon of the powder with a little extra water works well for sauces that call for milk.
When I do get round to throwing out things that are growing in dishes (the current ones are covered in plastic wrap), i also take the opportunity to wash the fridge with cleaning supplies and vinegar, in case any of the scary stuff escaped.
in winter, i’ve had some success using the balcony as a fridge/freezer. but it’s summer now.