I have a question. I know it's embarassing to ask, cause I'm native Russian, but anyways..
What would you recommend to cook for american guests as an additions to a nice bowl of soup? I want to make a "russian" dinner, but do not want it to be totally traditional "russian" with soup, salad, hot course, desert with a lot of tea.. I don't think that unprepared people can take it all in once I want them to enjoy it.
So far, I came up with soup+pirozhki. I think some kind of salad would be good, but not sure.

Any suggestions, please?