If you are ashamed of being one of the unfortunate newcomers to St Petersburg who have naturally slipped into being a card- carrying Stockmann's frequenter or a habitue of other Western supermarkets, there is hope.
It is still possible, in the kiosk age, to eat Russian food and end up healthier, wealthier and wiser.
Which is not to say that shunning Western food conveys a Gandhi-like moral superiority. The real value of adding Russian staples to your diet is to increase your intake of square sit-down meals, to cut grocery bills and, perhaps, to bring the cook closer to the society he or she coexists with, but is not always a part of.
Soup, specifically, "borscht," is the place to start. This intimidating Russian icon is easy to make and, despite the hours needed to prepare it, is a time-saver; a big pot will round out every meal for several days.
Tea presents a different challenge. Six months ago, tea in bags was still a novelty. Now, loose tea has been driven from the upscale part of the market -- the less-than-well-off Russians who form the majority still use it. Indian is the tea of choice.
Own the basics: a teapot, a teakettle, and the mandatory tiny strainer which attaches to the spout of the teapot.
Fresh pryaniki, the Russian compromise between cookies and small cakes, ARE "tea," but chocolate and other candy also round out what is, after all (as I am explaining for the benefit of my British and American friends) a meal.
The most important element of tea is the attitude. Keep the tea set in easy reach at all times; NO ONE who darkens your doorway should escape without drinking at least one cup.
Once borscht and tea have come into one's life, the place of honor for the omnipresent bread becomes comprehensible.
White bread goes with tea; dark, with soup and meat. Round loaves, when you can get them, are best. Russian bread is made fresh and it doesn't keep well; three days for white bread and a week for dark is about the limit.
Kasha (Russian porridge), frightening-looking brown grains -- even brand new, they look as if they had been sitting on the shelf for 20 years -- is great for breakfast. It's best served with cream and, when possible, fruit on the side.
Dumplings (pelmenny) win the contest for easiest-to-prepare sit-down food. Stores keep them in freezers next to the ice cream. Boiled for a few minutes with soup on the side, they make a good dinner. Both dumplings and porridge are easy to reheat.
The worst part of cooking Russian food is indisputably shopping in Russian stores.
Fortunately, a new breed of food store, including several former "Universams," supply a convenient mix of Western and Russian food, plus radical capitalist infrastructure such as check-out counters.
There, by spying out the contents of fellow shoppers' baskets, you can see that Russians have already taken the plunge into cosmopolitanism, mixing and matching the world's foods.