If we haven’t met yet, then why not? Most of you know me as Vica; well at least that’s what I’m known as on my Facebook page. I have decided to be just Vica—stealing the whole idea from Cher and Madonna. If I start telling you what I do in the Lehigh Valley, we might be here for a while, as I do it all.
I’m very involved in the Lehigh Valley community: I hold fundraisers, started a business group that has grown to almost 600 small business owners in the area, started a fitness in the park workout. But the most important task is running BFD. Excuse me but don’t tell me you don’t know what BFD stands for! BFD is where I’m at all day long, Monday to Saturday. BFD is my second home and a second home to so many local Lehigh Valley residents. Black Forest Deli came about eight years ago when my mother and I decided to give the Lehigh Valley a little taste of Russia. Originally from Kiev, Ukraine, coming to the US about 18 years ago, our dream was finally coming true—we owned our own business.
As many will say, being your own boss comes with good and bad but we have managed to do really well in the last few years. Our initial goal was to become the best and friendliest neighborhood deli in the Valley and when we finally accomplished that, we decided to become that deli that serves you a little something special. What I mean by a little something special is a little something different that you really just can’t get anywhere else in the LV area. That is our homemade Russian/Ukrainian dishes made with so much love. Coming here from Kiev has inspired us to bring out our cultures and traditions and let everyone know what our food is all about and where it comes from.
What is the Russian/Ukrainian cuisine exactly? Well all I can say is that it used to be peasant food which I know doesn’t sound appetizing at all but this is what it was back in the day. We were raised on meat, potatoes, bread with butter and . . . hmm that’s about it. I have so many memories where mama and babushka were cooking in the kitchen something you could smell miles away. I can still smell the corn and the potatoes boiling or the onion being cut. Everything was so fresh and had so much flavor that you didn’t need anything extra to put on the table. Our kitchen was always the soul of the house where everything revolved around food and drinks and it always was an event more than just a meal; it was a social family gathering that could last for hours and hours. Food and cooking is what we knew and how we were raised and some of the things we ate were weird, but they were part of our culture. A part of us.
Being an immigrant from the Soviet Union Republic, I still crave some of the foods that I used to have when I was a little girl. Those foods were borsch, blinis, caviar, katleta with potatoes, galubtzi and so much more. It doesn’t sound like a lot but in my mind this cuisine is so much bigger than it sounds because it has blended with so many cultures and traditions over hundreds of years. The food is just more gourmet now if you were to visit the old country, but it still comes from that root where the simplest food tastes the best because it brings us to those childhood memories. What could be better than a nice bowl of borsch topped with a dollop of sour cream and some fresh dill??? I will never turn away a bowl of borsch, that’s for sure. What about some piroshki (pastry stuffed with different fillings)? How about some stuffed cabbage, or as we call it, galuptzi? I don’t know why these foods are called what they are called but all I can say is that they are delicious and have so much depth. I think by tasting all these foods you can almost travel back in time and imagine yourself sitting at a long table with friends and family, enjoying a meal and forgetting about all the things that you need to worry about. I think that’s what good food should do and that’s what the Russian/Ukrainian cuisine does. Hearty food makes it all better, especially in the cold winter days that we used to have.
At the end of the day we all love to eat great food so why not try something new, something with history? We started offering a Russian tasting menu a few years ago and I think, one by one, locals are learning why we are so fond of our food. We treat you as family and that is what it’s all about. It’s not about you coming in for an hour and leaving with a full belly. To us, it’s more important that you appreciate our food, appreciate the time that we spent making it from scratch and teaching you where it came from and how babushka made this for us. We love when you ask us questions and ask us for recipes and we love when you try to make something that you ate at our place and bring us some to try (hint, hint). To us, this is what is important: unfolding our heritage through our cooking and getting to know each and every one of you over a great conversation and great food.
If you would like to find a bit more about us and what we do, visit our Facebook fan page where we post our events, specials, and fun, easy recipes.
I would love to hear from you so please email me at blackforestdeli@gmail.com for any questions, comments or suggestions. We love hearing from our fans!
Stay tuned for my next blog where I will be talking about MY favorite restaurant in the Lehigh Valley as well as my favorite dishes there! What is YOUR favorite restaurant in the Lehigh Valley?
