Years later, in New York, and years later still in Arizona, Tatiana’s friends, her children, her children’s wives, and their children, and their teachers, and their children would ask her, “Where did you learn to cook like that?” And often she didn’t know what to say. She wished she could say what other people say. Oh, my mother taught me, or, my grandmother taught me. But she just said, “Oh, I picked it up here and there.” Or, if speaking to her children, said, “I learned to cook to please your father.”
What she didn’t say was this. I never would have known how to cook a single thing. Cooking was adult. And I was a child, and content to be a child until I had to grow up. I didn’t want to because all the grown-ups I knew weren’t happy, and I was happy. But there came a time in my life when there was no food to cook, no food to eat, and no food to buy. Nor were there lines anymore for anything, except for bread made of sawdust. Soup was just boiled water with salt. There was no flour for pies, no cabbage, no potatoes. There were no mushrooms and no apples. There was a blizzard outside our broken windows and not much else. During that time when we were without electricity, I lay in the dark next to my sister, with our mother and father dead, our grandparents dead, our brother gone, when it was just the two of us, and, to pass the minutes and hours while we were waiting for death or Alexander, whichever came first, I asked her to tell me how she made blinchiki, mushroom soup, apple pie, Napoleon, and Beef Stroganoff. And Dasha told me. We felt a little better talking about the food. She felt a little better talking about the food she would never have again. That’s how I know how to cook.
CHAPTER THREE
Alone in New York with Seven Million Others
On the White Star headed from Liverpool, England, to Ellis Island, Tatiana whispered lines of Pushkin to herself for perverse comfort. “Eugene looks round—boat on a station!/He greets it like a revelation/ Calls to the ferryman—and he/ with daring unconcern is willing/ to take him for a quarter-shilling/across that formidable sea.” She whispered this like a mantra to herself until she got sick and weak and couldn’t whisper anymore. Only her mouth moved, continuing to make the soundless words. “Eugene looks round—boat on a station!/He greets it like a revelation/ Calls to the ferryman—and he/ with daring unconcern is willing/to take him for a quarter-shilling/across that formidable sea …”
She was convinced that the rest of her life was going to be lived without Alexander. It took her a long time to lift her head, to raise her eyes, to agree to leave Ellis Island, to take a ferry across New York Bay to New York Island. It took her a long time, too, to get used to the idea of living. She didn’t want to do it, but little by little, day by day, she put her feet forward, bought a carriage for her son, took him to New York. She did it for him. Ellis Island was no place for a little boy, living among the wounded and rejected, among the refugees; he didn’t deserve it.
So, when her new friend, the beautiful and self-absorbed Vikki Sabatini, fellow nurse at the Ellis Island Hospital, invited her to the market on the Lower East Side, she went. And when Vikki invited Tatiana and Ant for Sunday dinner at her grandmother’s, Tatiana went. She met Isabella. She tasted delicious food, and liked Vikki more because Vikki was so adored by her grandmother. When one Sunday Edward Ludlow, a doctor at the hospital, asked her to come play softball in Central Park, she took her boy, sat on the grass and watched a joyous American game. Edward offered her fresh strawberries. He had gone out to the farms and picked more than he could eat, so Tatiana ate them, and then made jam with the rest. The jam was good, and Edward was pleased, Vikki’s grandparents, too, when Tatiana brought some for them. Vikki was pleased when she placed Anthony on her lap, the first time she had ever handled a child, and fed him a piece of soft white bread that he sucked on with his toothless gums, making a mess of her blouse but she didn’t care.
This is how Tatiana, minute by minute and against her will, was pulled back into life.
Anthony kept growing, and his mother’s milk was no longer enough. He loved food, and needed to be fed. He also needed to play with other kids, not stare at wounded soldiers. He needed life.
For Anthony’s sake, Tatiana moved out of Ellis Island where she had eaten cafeteria food since his birth and found an apartment with Vikki. She started to cook again, things she remembered, things other than strawberry jam. She learned how to make Italian stuffed shells and Jewish challah rolls, chicken soup, and Chinese rice. She did as well as she could with her boy, a young widow living in New York. She tried to distance herself from the eager soldiers returning from war, yet not so far distant that she didn’t peer into the faces of all the veterans to whom she brought her own blinchiki, her own pirozhki. Here, take this, she would say, take this, and tell me where he is. Tell me whether he’s dead or alive, so I can walk as his widow or his wife.
No one would, or could, tell her, and so she continued to cook, and to learn new things all the while searching for an answer among the outcasts.
The way he carried his body, the way he walked in my life, Tatiana thought, declared that he was the only man I had ever loved, and he knew it.
And until I was alone without him, I thought it was all worth it.
Isabella’s Pasta Sauce
Isabella, Vikki’s grandmother, was from northern Italy unlike Alexander’s mother who had been from Naples in the south, but one thing they both had in common was having made tomato sauce since before they could speak.
Tatiana had never tasted tomato sauce before she had dinner at Isabella’s. Tomatoes grew poorly in Luga, were rarely grown, and were not often available in Leningrad. There was no olive oil, no basil, no parmesan cheese and all these tastes were unfamiliar to Tatiana. But after she went to Isabella’s, she had second helpings and wondered if Alexander’s mother had made something this delicious for him when they’d been living in Boston. How could she not have known this about him? How could he not have told her that once upon a time, he’d had this for dinner every Sunday? Sauce with meatballs and Italian bread.
½ cup (120ml) olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1 medium or large onion, very finely chopped
10 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
58oz (1.65 kg) canned peeled tomatoes
16oz (450g) canned tomato sauce, or 2 cups (450ml) passata
3oz (75g) tomato paste
fresh basil leaves, uncut, or dried basil, 2 tablespoons
½ cup (50g) grated Parmesan cheese
½ cup (120ml) red cooking wine, or Marsala, or sherry
salt and pepper, to taste
Open the cans of tomatoes ahead of time. In a 9-quart (8.1-liter) heavy saucepan, heat the olive oil on medium-high. Melt the butter, then add the onions, cook 5–7 minutes until golden. If you’re pressed for time, you can omit the onions and go to the next step—garlic.
Add garlic, cook in hot oil for no more than 30 seconds (garlic burns like that), then immediately add the peeled whole tomatoes, tomato sauce, and tomato paste. Stir thoroughly, breaking up the tomatoes with a wooden spoon. If you don’t like chunky sauce, use a hand-held mixer right in the pot to purée the tomatoes, onions and garlic to a creamy consistency. Add a cup of fresh basil leaves, stems removed. Isabella added a cup of grated parmesan directly into the sauce. Bring the sauce to boil, turn down the heat to the lowest setting, cover, and cook for as long as you can, preferably a few hours. Or you can cook for an hour, then take off the heat, and when cooled, refrigerate overnight. The sauce will taste even better the next day. Reheat slowly. Don’t burn it, don’t boil it, don’t cover it completely.
Add the wine, Marsala or sherry half an hour before serving. Remove the fresh basil leaves.
Serve with meatballs and garlic bread—Italian bread sliced lengthwise, buttered and sprinkled with garlic powder and grated parmesan cheese—and a pinch of salt, then toasted in a 400°F (200°C) oven.
Isabella’s Meatballs
2lb (900g) ground beef sirloin
1 small onion, grated
; 2 garlic cloves, grated
1 teaspoon dried basil or oregano
2 eggs
1 cup (50g) breadcrumbs, either homemade or store-bought. (To make fresh, take 4–5 slices of white bread and put through food processor. Makes beautiful breadcrumbs.)
salt and pepper, to taste
ice and ice water
olive oil or butter, for frying
Mix all together, then add two or so ice cubes. Stir until mixture is nice and cold. Leave the ice in the mixture while you make the meatballs. Make the meatballs from meat closest to the ice, small or big to your liking, and then either fry in a little olive oil or butter until they’re nice and golden brown, or drop them straight into the sauce to cook. Either way the ice will make them nice and moist and the onion gives them a fantastic taste. Use fresh onion instead of onion powder. It tastes much better.
For sausage, use a pound of Italian sweet. Fry the sausages whole on medium heat until brown and crispy on all sides, drain lightly, drop into sauce. Don’t poke holes in the sausage.
Parmesan Risotto
To everything Isabella made, she added parmesan cheese. “It’s an Italian thing,” she said. “Yes,” agreed Tatiana. “The way Russians add sour cream.” The way, later, her friend from Mexico added lime. The way Tatiana herself added onions. “It’s a Tatiana thing,” Alexander once said.
Vikki said, “Pass some more of that stuff with cheese.”
“You cook, Vikki?” asked Tatiana.
“You know I don’t,” Vikki breezily replied. “Why ask?” Anthony was on her lap and she was feeding him tiny spoonfuls of rice with cheese.
Isabella shook her head. “It’s hopeless, Tania. Don’t even try. I’ve tried for years. She refuses to learn.”
“I don’t refuse to learn,” said Vikki, doing her best to ignore them. “I choose not to. Right, Anthony? Right, little guy?”
“Well, someday,” declared Isabella, “you’re going to fall in love, and you’ll learn how to cook so that he will love you.”
“Indeed, Grammy. But how do you explain that I fall in love every five minutes and have not learned yet?”
“Is that what you call it, Viktoria Sabatini? Love?”
“Oooh, Grammy! Cutting. Biting.”
“What do you think, Tania?” asked Isabella.
Tatiana wanted to be in on the joke. But she remained silent for a few moments. Then she spoke. “I think,” said Tatiana, “that if he will not love her because she doesn’t know how to make Parmesan risotto, he will not love her even if she learns to.”
1 quart (900ml) chicken stock
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion, very finely chopped
1 cup (200g) Arborio, or other Italian short-grain rice
2 garlic cloves, very finely chopped
3 tablespoons butter
⅓ cup (40g) grated Parmesan cheese
2 teaspoons salt, or to taste
black pepper, to taste
½ cup (50g) crumbled Gorgonzola cheese
Optional:
a few fresh, chopped sage leaves, or some fresh basil.
In a medium saucepan, bring chicken stock to boil, reduce heat. In a large heavy-bottom skillet, heat the olive oil on medium-high. Add onion, sauté for a few minutes, stirring. Add rice, stir to coat evenly. Add garlic, stir, continue to cook 30 seconds. Lower heat to medium and add half a cup of stock. Stir until liquid is absorbed but rice is not sticking to the bottom of the skillet. Continue adding stock, a little at a time, and stirring until all the liquid is absorbed, about 20 minutes.
Remove from heat, add butter, parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. Stir. Serve risotto in bowls or on plates, sprinkled with Gorgonzola cheese.
Mama’s Chicken Soup
Mama used to make it. When Pasha got sick, it was all she made. It was so good, Tatiana used to wish Pasha would get sick more often; it was the only time she had the soup. “You’re not sickly enough, Pasha,” she used to say to him. “Unlike you, Tania,” he would reply.
But in New York, the Jews on the Lower East Side made it, too, and it tasted just like Mama’s. Tatiana liked that, the continuity of the recipe across the oceans. When Anthony got sick, that’s what she cooked for him. When Vikki got sick, that’s what she made for her. Although Vikki didn’t get ill that often, she did get blue, breaking up with her beaus, looking for just the one, and when Vikki felt low, she wanted bread and soup. So, Tatiana made it for her friend and tried to teach her how to make it, too; it was so simple! When they no longer lived together, and Vikki had newly remarried, Tatiana asked if she made this soup for her husband, and her husband, Tom Richter, rolled his eyes and said, “I would die of a heart attack if my wife ever cooked me a single thing,” and Vikki sheepishly said, “But, Tania, you know that it always tastes better when someone else cooks for you.”
“Yes, like a wife,” said Tom.
“Like Tania,” rejoined Vikki.
“Tania can’t be everybody’s wife,” stated Tom. “There are some wives that are just for one man,” he added pointedly.
Next time Vikki and Tom came to spend a few days with her in Scottsdale, Tatiana made chicken soup for her friend who did not cook for her husband.
1 large, fat chicken with all the bones, the neck, and giblets. Throw the liver out.
10 cups (2.25 liters) water
1 large onion, peeled and left whole
2 bay leaves
1 small bunch parsley, tied with a piece of thread.
6 large carrots, peeled and sliced or cut into small chunks
3–4 stalks celery, leaves removed, sliced into ½-in (1 cm) pieces
1 medium parsnip, washed and peeled or not peeled. If you’re planning to eat it, peel it. If you’re planning to throw it out, leave the skin on for taste.
2 cups (330g) cooked white rice, to serve
salt, to taste
Wash chicken, place into large—at least 9-quart (8.1-liter)—pot. Add water, onion, bay leaves, parsley, and salt, and bring to boil. Turn down to a simmer, cover and cook for 45 minutes. Add carrots, celery, and parsnip, bring back to boil, cover again, and cook for another 45 minutes. Throw out the onion, the parsley, and bay leaves. Adjust salt as necessary. Separate the chicken from the bone and shred. Leaving the chicken on the bone is a very Russian thing to do.
Serve with the cooked rice. Don’t add raw rice and cook in the soup: it changes the taste of the broth—for the worse.
Chicken Curry
If America is the country of immigrants, then New York is the city of immigrants, and they all cook. Tatiana, who greeted them at Ellis Island, got the grain not the chaff of their cooking, and the people she met living downtown were happy to share their lifeblood with her, to share with her a little of what they’d carried with them into the new land. And she, when she learned to cook from the Italians, the Jews, the Russians, the Chinese, the Indians, carried a little bit of their past into her bright, new, lonely life.
Prithvi from the Punjab taught her to make curry and, it was astonishing how Anthony devoured it, though the tastes were strong and unfamiliar. This recipe has quite a lot of liquid in it, so if your family doesn’t like that you can reduce the two cans of chicken broth to just one. Tatiana’s son loved the liquid, the more the better. He ate it with a spoon, like soup, but with more rice. And the next day, when there was no chicken left, he ate the rice with just the curry broth.
The curry Tatiana learned from a Punjabi man, the rice to go with it from a Cantonese. Chang Hao taught her about rice while recuperating from corneal scarring at Ellis Island. Tatiana couldn’t pronounce his name. He told her to call him Tony. “Like your boy.”
“My boy not Tony. He Anthony.”
Chang Hao called for Anthony by waving his hand through the air and calling, “Tony, Tony, come here.”
Anthony, eighteen months, on the floor playing with two trucks, never even looked up. Chang Hao tried to focus, then gave up. His highly contagious trachoma refused to ge
t better, and he was facing certain deportation. Tatiana kept Anthony away but changed the man’s eye dressings, gave him antibiotic faithfully every four hours and managed to save one eye. He was given a visa, opened a tiny place in Chinatown, and twice a week walked to Church Street to bring Tania and Anthony dinner. He brought her hot and sour soup and cold noodles with sesame sauce. He brought Anthony sesame chicken and shrimp Kung Pao. And he was the one who taught Tatiana how to make perfect white rice. “Americans, they overthink it,” he said. “They wash, they rinse, they measure. They stir.” He shook his head. “Rice is best left alone.”
“You don’t need to measure?” asked Tatiana, skeptically squinting as if optically damaged Chang Hao were her Babushka Maya.
“You don’t need to measure,” he confirmed. “You want perfect rice every time? Put your rice in the pan, pour cold water on it until water level reaches the first knuckle on your finger, about an inch above rice, add salt, add butter if you wish, I don’t, but you can, then bring to boil on high heat. As soon as it boils, reduce heat to lowest low, cover, and forget about it for twenty minutes.”
“And that’s it?”
“That’s it.”
Chang Hao’s business thrived in Chinatown for forty-five years and then was passed down to his grandchildren. And his way of making rice went just fine with chicken curry.
Chicken Curry:
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoon butter
5 garlic cloves, grated
5 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
1 large onion, very finely chopped or grated
2 tablespoons curry powder
1 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon garam masala