How I make rasols (Dustin Becher)

My wife Signe and I have been married for around 6 years now. We live in the City of Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA. ……My wife is from Latvia, and I have been to Latvia a dozen times…I make Latvian meals regularly, especially when my wife has a craving. This time I made rasols for our son’s 4-month birthday and my wife’s birthday. I also made a šašliki (kefirs, garlic, salt, pepper), and salad (kefirs, sour cream, salt, pepper). The wife likes kefirs but it isn’t popular in the USA. I can only buy it in a specialty store that offers it with a sweet flavor. The sour cream we get is either Mexican or Amish style, as it contains more fat. As for the rasols here is where I bought all the items:

Amish Market
potatoes, carrots, eggs

Kroger (local grocery store)
sour cream, pickles, salt pepper

Richs Market
Peas, horseradish, mayo, kefirs

Fort Wayne primarily has Hispanic and “American” style foods. We need to travel to get foods that remind my wife of more homey items. Unfortunately, a lot of food in the USA has been overfarmed, resulting in changes to its taste and nutritional value. Because of this, we have to do a lot of our shopping at Amish markets or “organic” grocery stores in the Fort Wayne area … After that, we travel far to Chicago (3 hours each way), where they have our favorite international market. Rich’s Market is the best place we have found to find foods that remind Signe of home. Unfortunately, Latvia does not export a lot of food, so we have to buy a lot of Ukrainian, Polish, German, and Lithuanian food … Whenever we go to a new area, I also look up different cultural centers and European grocery stores to see if we can find something new.

Dustin Becher, Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA, email correspondence 16 September 2025

Photos from Dustin Becher’s private archive.