With the advent of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, you may be wondering what's so bad about Vladimir Putin? After all, this compassionate leader just released Khodorkovsky early after 10 years in prison. This oil tycoon's crime was that he was not only richer and smarter than Putin, but he had backed a rival political party. Putin also graciously pardoned those two women from the punk rock group Pussy Riot sentenced for "hooliganism." But don't ask Putin about gay rights because that would be an abomination.
Didn't the always photogenic Putin just discover ancient Greek vessels in the shallow water of the Black Sea when scuba-diving? And the ecologically- minded Putin also donned a mechanized hangglider to point the way for a flock of endangered cranes who apparently didn't know where to migrate on their own. Looking closely at his photos, you may have noticed that he is actually growing...
You had to be in Russia in the '70s to believe it, and if you were there, this happened to you too - forming deeper friendships in less time than you would have ever believed possible. In Jewish Luck, I alluded to "the other friends," the group that Vera deemed unsavory. Here is the story, the prequel to meeting Vera.
On my second day in Leningrad, I dragged my friend, Robyn off to the "Museum of Atheism and Religion", housed in the beautiful semicircular Kazanski' Sobor, an Orthodox church in a previous life. Behind us stood two Scandinavian-looking men - one had twinkling blue eyes, long blond hair and a bushy blond beard. Except for his blue jean jacket and the warmth of his smile, he could have stepped out of the pages of a Tolstoy novel. The other appeared more ragged and seemed more likely to have stepped out of an... 
My husband and personal chef (Henri) is giving me a “Thank God the Book Is Done Dinner” to thank several of the book’s characters and many of the contributors to our research. So, a Russian menu of zakuski (appetizers) and vodka is in order. Whereas at our Russian friends' homes, this would be just the beginning with a multitude of dishes to follow, at our home, this was it. Chef Henri relied on A Taste of Russia: A Cookbook of Russian Hospitality by Darra Goldstein (Harper Perennial 1991). Had we received Anya Von Bremzen’s new memoir in time, Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing (Crown 2013), we might have used her recipes as well.
Vera and I were skyping when Harry proudly announced the first item on his menu to Vera - Russian Salad (Stolichnyi Salat, or Salat Oliv’ye). According to Darra and Anya (I consider... 
Below is the description of Jewish Luck on Amazon.com
Jewish Luck recounts the intertwined stories of two women who—in their struggles against the anti-Semitism and patriarchy of the Soviet regime and the rebranded “New” Russia—succeed by creating their own luck. Their sisterhood is kindled when Vera and Alisa grudgingly line up to register for classes at the Institute that produced experts in Marxist-Leninist economics, a field on its way to extinction. For the next three decades, Vera and Alisa fight for their dreams of self-expression and status. To do so they must deprogram their minds of Soviet theory and learn the new language of a free market economy. After Vera dares to approach author Leslie Adler on a Leningrad corner in 1976, a forbidden friendship is formed. Leslie becomes Vera’s confidante and link to the West. With help from her Minneapolis connections, Vera builds a successful business in Russia despite her disdain for her... 
