Tatiana and Alexander settled in Arizona like immigrants piling out of their covered wagons. For a long time they lived in the covered wagon, so to speak, cooked on the fire outside and washed in the proverbial river. They lived as if they could not believe their good fortune. And then a remarkable thing happened, and so slowly that it went almost unnoticed by everyone. Tatiana got Le Creuset pots and Global knives. She bought Kitchen-Aid stand mixers and food processors, and Cuisinart baking utensils, cookie sheets and cheesecake forms. She filled her little kitchen with the products of permanence, and it was as if the utensils themselves sprouted into the ground and grew roots. When events conspired to make Alexander want to leave Arizona, Tatiana could not imagine leaving. This was home, for good, for bad, for ever.
In Arizona her cooking had changed once again. For one, Alexander bought a barbecue grill. Ever the soldier, he still liked cooking over an open flame, but now the open flame had a cast-iron rack and adjustable temperature and a warming tray. So the things that they cooked when they camped in the United States for three years became a fixture of their evenings—hamburgers, hot dogs, steak, chicken, sausage, baked potatoes, corn.
And Tatiana became friends with Francesca.
Francesca was a young woman from Mexico who lived down the street. For the first few years of their friendship, Francesca was always pregnant. During this time, Tatiana taught Francesca English and to return the favor, Francesca taught Tatiana how to cook some Mexican dishes. Tatiana never did make her own tortillas, but Alexander fully embraced the marinated steak called fajitas, and the lime chicken and the meatball soup, but none so much as the beergaritas, which he himself made every Saturday night, making every Saturday night a celebration, particularly if Anthony was sleeping over his friend Sergio’s house, and Tatiana and Alexander were alone. Alexander had his own theory about beergaritas that he, for fear of offending Tatiana, did not verbalize unless she had some beergaritas in her, and then he hoped that by morning she wouldn’t remember what he had called them: the reason Francesca kept having all those babies.
To go with Alexander’s barbecues, Tatiana added more cold salads to their meals, not mayonnaise-based Russian salads, but lettuce and tomato based American salads.
And Tatiana baked. She baked cookies and corn muffins, banana bread and pies. The interest in baking never waned, because just as Anthony got to be a teenager and started to pretend he wasn’t interested in his mother’s cookies anymore, Tatiana had three more children, one after the other, first the two boys, sixteen months apart, and then a few years later a baby girl. So the sixties were spent waiting for letters from Anthony in Vietnam and baking for the little ones. And when the children grew up and had their own children, she baked for her grandchildren. No one could come to her house without asking if there was something she had made earlier that day. Everyone had their favorites, and Tatiana baked happily for them all, never denying them, for she always remembered the days spent on her hands and knees on the floor, licking the crumbs of the old stale oat flour out of a canvas bag, and wishing not for crumb cake or croissants but for no one in her family to come into the hallway because then she would have to share the scraps.
Arizona was too hot for soups, for stews, for a broiling kitchen. In the wintertime, Tatiana still made pot roast and curry and shepherd’s pie but “winter” lasted from December to January, and early December still had apricot globemallow blooming on the lawns, and late January often had violet verbena peeking through the sand.
During their first eight years when Tatiana was working late at the hospital, there was no time to come home at eight and involve herself with an hour’s worth of food prep. She made her food on the weekends and on her days off, so all Alexander had to do was preheat the oven, or put it on low on the stove. On her days off she cooked like a Saturday night short-order cook to make up to Alexander for her late hours at Phoenix Memorial. She thought food would soften him. Sometimes it did. Gradually, nothing would soften him, until life ultimately reached critical mass and exploded. And then rebuilding bombed-out cities took, among other things, Tatiana making three children and Alexander building them a new home. Alexander would come home early from work and grill. She marinated the chicken and the steak for his grilling, she made the baked potatoes and the salads; they sat outside and drank cold liquids, they had steak with salad, and it was still light out, not dark, not cold. Winter seemed to disappear altogether when the new house was built, all white and sunny and spotless. In that house, it was always summer. And in that house, Tatiana made dessert and babies and then dessert with her babies in the white limestone-floor kitchen, while Alexander cooked the steak on the fire outside. “Like a soldier in the woods,” Tatiana said.
“Just like that,” said Alexander. “Except there was no meat, and we couldn’t start a fire. But I know what you mean. Are you going to make your little rabbit food to go along with my actual food that I’m about to rip off the bone with my teeth?”
So Tania made her little rabbit food to go with his actual food. She made a salad with fresh mozzarella and bacon pieces. She used iceberg lettuce, cucumbers, sliced carrots, a tomato, crisp crumbled bacon (of course!) and fresh mozzarella, cut into small cubes. If she wanted to be adventurous, instead of mozzarella she used Gorgonzola cheese. “Why Gorgonzola?” asked Alexander. “For a little adventure,” replied Tatiana. And he would stare at her for a second or two before saying, “It’s a fine day indeed when using moldy cheese has become your idea of adventure. Why don’t you really take risks and use two garlic cloves instead of one?”
For dressing, Tatiana made her own by combining ½ cup of olive oil, ½ cup of balsamic vinegar, two finely chopped garlic cloves, salt and pepper, one teaspoon of freshly squeezed lemon, and shaking very well before pouring.
Alexander called this “the king of meals.” Tatiana cooked it only for guests she was trying to impress. The family loved this cut and had it often, and one afternoon, Harry’s best friend and his parents came over for drinks and salsa, and as they were sitting on the deck, Harry asked, “Mom, what are we having for dinner?” and Tatiana, shrugging, said, “I don’t know. What day is it? Monday? Filet mignon maybe?”
And the nearby Janie snorted and said, “Oh, no! Not again.”
3–5lb (1.35–2.25kg) whole and uncut beef tenderloin, trimmed of fat
5 tablespoons butter, melted
2 teaspoons coarse salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
½ teaspoon cayenne or Cajun seasoning
2 garlic cloves, grated
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon red wine
1 teaspoon sugar
Leave tenderloin out at room temperature for 45 minutes.
Tie it with string from one end to the other, tie it in a spiral as if you were imprisoning it. Preheat oven to 450°F. On the stove top, heat 3 tablespoons peanut oil in a large roaster.
Prepare your marinade:
Whisk together the melted butter, salt, pepper, cayenne, garlic, soy sauce, vinegar, red wine, and sugar. Rub the marinade thoroughly over the tenderloin, then place in the preheated roaster on top of the stove and brown on medium-high 2 minutes on each side until nice and brown. Place on a rack inside the pot you just cooked it in, and grill inside the oven for 25 minutes. Take it out, let stand for 20 minutes to compose. It will become very moist and be much easier to slice.
In the winter, Tatiana served the tenderloin with mashed potatoes.
In the summer, Alexander grilled potatoes brushed with melted butter and left untouched on a closed medium grill for an hour. And because it was Tatiana’s favorite, he grilled a sweet potato for her, while she melted a little butter with brown sugar and cinnamon to pour over the top.
Alexander’s favorite soup.
Sirloin steak, onion, bay leaf, a little oregano, frozen mixed veg, water, a beef bouillon cube, barley, cooked for an hour. “It’s almost like a Russian soup, Tatia,” he would say, sitting at her table, and drawing the bowl near.
“Just the barley, Shura. No stringbeans in Russia, no corn.”
“Yes, and no frozen veg.”
“Well, no. And no olive oil. And no meat.”
“Right. But the barley is Russian. The barley and the bay leaf.”
“Yes, darling,” said Tatiana. “It’s almost like a Russian soup, then.”
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, very finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, very finely chopped
1½lb (700g) sirloin steak, trimmed of fat and cut into 1-in (2.5cm) cubes
5 cups (1.125 liters) cold water
1 bay leaf
2 beef bouillon cubes
1 cup (175g) frozen mixed vegetables
½ cup (100g) pearl barley
salt and pepper, to taste
Heat the olive oil in a 4-or 5-quart (3.6-or 4.5-liter) pot, add onion, cook until pale, add garlic, cook 30 seconds, add cubed beef and brown on all sides for 5 minutes. Add water, bay leaf, salt, pepper, bouillon cubes, bring to boil, reduce heat, cover, simmer for 30 minutes. Add vegetables and barley, bring back to boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer 30 more minutes, or until barley is completely cooked.
Corn was like plantains. Corn was quintessentially American. It was indigenous to the continent, the world had not heard of it until Christopher Columbus discovered it, it was not widely available elsewhere, and it was nearly completely unavailable in Russia, though they did have a name for it—“KookooROOza”—a made-up name for something they read about, like prairies and lassoes, but had never seen in real life. Tatiana’s feeling for corn was strong. She made corn fritters, which were pancakes with corn, and corn muffins, which were muffins with corn meal, and corn chowder, which was soup with corn. And the children loved cornflakes and popcorn, and sometimes spent whole dinners wondering about the surprise and joy of the first Indian who placed a kernel over heat and kept it there long enough to pop and have a white puff, like cotton, pop out.
Alexander, amused by Tania’s love for corn, prepared it in the simplest American way: he basted it with butter and placed it on his grill for five minutes, turning it over a few times. A few times, too, he called his grill the “bourzhuika” but this made Tatiana cry so he stopped doing it, but Tatiana said she knew he was thinking it, and cried anyway.
Tatiana cooked the corn in a little boiling water with the lid closed to let the steam take care of things. She added a teaspoon of sugar, and cooked it for only a few minutes because it was meant to be crunchy and sweet.
To everything Tatiana cooked, she added onions. Alexander said it was a Russian thing. “Can’t take the Soviet Union out of the girl,” he said.
“I don’t know why you’re complaining,” she rejoined, chopping, mincing, slicing, frying. “You love onions. Think of your beef barley soup.”
“I’m not complaining. I’m just saying.”
She sliced them thinly and fried them on medium with butter and a little oil, she added salt and a little cayenne pepper when they got golden, and continued to fry until they caramelized. She used them in everything.
“Everything?” she asked. “Brownies?”
“Savory, I said.”
“You didn’t say.”
At dinnertime, the house was first filled with the smell of bread, then the smell of onions, followed by the smell of chocolate.
Onions for flavor: stews, soups, sauces, and of course, macaroni and cheese.
“Of course,” said Alexander. “Macaroni and cheese.”
Onions sweet and caramelized, in hamburgers, over rice, over chicken, over steak. She just cut them differently. She small-diced them for hamburgers, but over steak or calves liver she sliced them thinly, julienne-style, in long strips.
For parties Tatiana made onion dip. Even her guacamole was passed up.
2 large onions, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 tablespoons butter
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
½ cup (110g) mayonnaise
½ cup (110g) sour cream
½ cup (110g) cream cheese, at room temperature
Fry the onions on medium-high in the oil and butter. Reduce heat to medium-low, add cayenne pepper, salt, black pepper, continue to cook for 15 more minutes until caramelized. Don’t stir for the first 7 minutes, and only occasionally afterwards. Make sure not to burn the onions, otherwise they lose their sweet taste and caramelized brown hue. Take off heat, cool slightly.
Meanwhile, mix together mayo, sour cream, and cream cheese, add onions with all the juices, mix well, serve warm. You can omit the cayenne pepper if you don’t like kick in your onion dip. Alexander liked kick.
“Tania, you know what you haven’t made in a while?”
They were sitting by the pool as the sun was setting. The children were jumping off the diving board—Tatiana would have liked to say one at a time, but it would not have been true.
“What haven’t I made in a while? Corn?”
“No, you’ve made plenty of that. Francesca’s guacamole.”
Tatiana pondered. It was true, but why? “Well,” she said at last, “we haven’t had anyone over on the weekends recently, and the kids hate guacamole.”
“This is true,” said Alexander. “But you know who doesn’t hate guacamole?”
“Um—you?”
“That’s right.”
“And me. So, OK, I make guacamole tonight.”
“Good. And I’ll get Harry to eat it. And if he eats it, Pasha will eat it. And if they eat it, Janie will eat it because she wants to be a boy.”
“Um—do you need to be a boy to eat guacamole?”
“Tania.”
“OK, OK, I’m going.”
Anthony was not home anymore. He was in Vietnam.
Avocado should not be too mushy, nor too hard. It should feel springy when touched, like a peeled orange. If it feels like a walnut, don’t buy, if it feels like a mashed mango, don’t buy.
2 ripe, slightly softened avocados
2–3 tablespoons very finely chopped red onion
1 large garlic clove, grated
juice of ½ lime
3 tablespoons very finely chopped cilantro (coriander), or to taste
salt, to taste
1 small red tomato, finely chopped
Cut the avocados in half, scoop out the pit, then scoop the meat into a mortar. Add minced onion, garlic, lime juice, cilantro, salt and tomato. Mash coarsely with a pestle, making sure to leave some chunks.
Sure enough, when the guacamole was brought out, eight-year-old Harry dipped in his tortilla chip and ate it, alongside his dad. Pasha watched for a little while, uncertainly, but his mother, his father, and now his youngest brother were eating it. Clearly he had no choice. He dipped his chip in.
“I want some!” whined Janie. And she had some, too.
“How did you get Harry to eat it?” Tatiana later asked.
“Simple,” said Alexander. “I told him it’s what his dad lived on when he was in the forests of war-torn Europe.”
“Shura! It’s a sin to lie to your children.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Someday he’ll find out you didn’t know what an avocado was in the forests of Europe.”
“My work by then will be done.” Pause. “You know what else you haven’t made in a while?”
“What, my love? Blinchiki? Pirozhki? Cabbage Pie? I haven’t made that in fifteen years.”
Alexander would not be baited. “No. Salsa.”
“Salsa?”
“Yes. Salsa, with cream cheese on the side.”
3 ripe tomatoes, finely diced
½ jalapeño chili, seeded, and very finely chopped
4 tablespoons fresh cilantro (coriander), chopped
2 garlic cloves, very finely chopped
¼ red, Vidalia or other sweet onion, very finely chopped
juice of 1 lime
salt, to taste
Combine all ingredients and mix well. Serve with chips and cream cheese on the side.
Francesca taught Tatiana meatball soup. When Tania made the meat filling for blinchiki, she made the soup at the same time.
It went nicely with blinchiki or pirozhki. Even Francesca thought so, and she had previously had meatball soup only when accompanied by fajitas. So Francesca and Tatiana decided that meatball soup can be Russian and Mexican. It was inter-cuisinary.
When Tatiana cooked just for Alexander, Anthony, and herself it was easy to make plenty. But after Pasha and Harry were born, and after Janie, she had to ration the meatballs to the children, because there was no amount she could make that could fit in the pot that would be enough for them. No matter how many she made, they consumed them all.
8 cups (1.8 liters) cold water
1 large onion, peeled and left whole
3 garlic cloves, sliced crossways
16oz (450g) canned peeled whole tomatoes
salt and pepper, to taste
¼ cup fresh cilantro (coriander)
4 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
4 carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
2lb (900g) ground beef sirloin
½ cup (95g) raw white rice
1 large onion, grated
2 garlic cloves, grated
½ cup (25g) breadcrumbs
salt and pepper, to taste
Fill a large pot with 8 cups (1.8 liters) water, and while bringing to boil, add onion, garlic, canned tomatoes, fresh cilantro, and salt and pepper, to taste. (Make sure the tomatoes are peeled, otherwise the tomato skins separate; since they don’t soften, they’re impossible to eat.)
Meanwhile in a large bowl combine ground sirloin and uncooked rice. Add grated onion, grated garlic, salt, pepper, and breadcrumbs, mix well.
Make the meatballs. Drop them into the boiling broth. Bring back to boil, cover, lower heat, and simmer for 45 minutes. Add potatoes and carrots, bring back to boil, lower heat, simmer for 30 minutes or until the vegetables are soft. Adjust seasoning as necessary. You can serve this soup with blinchiki, but it’s like a meal in itself.
Alexander called Tatiana a cooking chameleon. Just as Leningrad cooking had Russian influence, and lower New York cooking had Isabella’s Italian influence, and Esther’s cooking had the American, New England Pilgrim influence, so Arizona’s cooking was stamped with Francesca’s Mexican roots.
The sainted Francesca taught Tatiana fajitas. “For señor Alexander,” she said. “He will like.”
“Oh, yes, he will, Francesca,” said Tatiana.
She taught Tatiana this, and meatball soup. Both became a staple in the Barrington household.
1½–2lb (700–900g) flank, skirt or blade steak
juice of 2 limes
3 garlic cloves, very finely chopped
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
5 tablespoons olive oil, for frying
½ teaspoon ground cumin
4 tablespoons chopped cilantro (coriander)
1 green or red pepper (capsicum), seeded, and thinly sliced
Optional:
half a small jalapeño chili, coarsely chopped. Jalapeño is very spicy, be careful not to touch your eyes as you chop it. Tatiana once tasted the marinade and then, in a fit of affection, kissed Alexander’s eyes. He was not happy.
Slice the steak against the grain into long strips ½ in (1cm) wide. Place in a large bowl, add other ingredients, mix and marinate, the longer the better, overnight is ideal.
Heat a heavy-bottom skillet on medium-high, add 3 tablespoons olive oil, add steak, and fry for 5–7 minutes, turning over after 4 minutes, until well-browned on all sides, but still pink inside. Cook on higher heat if you want it less cooked inside, but still nicely browned on the outside. Remove meat from heat, add remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil, add the onion and green pepper from the marinade, drain of liquid, and cook on high heat for 2–3 minutes until sizzling brown.
Serve fajitas with refried beans, guacamole, salsa, grated cheese (Monterey Jack or mild cheddar), sour cream, and warm tortillas.
Oh, and lime and cilantro rice.
5 cups (1.25 liters) chicken stock
½ cup (110ml) white wine
juice of 2 limes
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, very finely chopped
½ teaspoon salt
pepper, to taste
1 cup (200g) long-grain or basmati rice
2 garlic cloves, very finely chopped
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro (coriander), chopped
Optional:
1 cup (225g) grated Monterey Jack or other hard, mild cheese
In a medium saucepan, bring chicken stock, white wine, and juice of limes to a boil, reduce heat. Meanwhile, in a large, heavy-bottom skillet heat olive oil on medium-high, add onion, cook, stirring constantly for a few minutes. Add salt, pepper, and stir. Add rice, coat well, add garlic, stir and cook for another half a minute. Add the lime-wine stock, stir well, cover, lower heat to medium and cook for 15 minutes until liquid is absorbed and rice is tender. Remove from heat, add butter and cilantro, stir, serve. Sprinkle cheese on top without stirring through.
Lime is like cilantro, Francesca taught Tatiana. You put it in beer, in tequila, over rice, in marinade, always on chicken. “And when you have a headache, rub a little lime juice on your forehead.”
“On your forehead, really?”
“Really.”
Alexander had walked into the kitchen. “Francesca, do you really need lime on your forehead after all that lime-infused tequila? I think intravenous lime will have probably done the trick, no?”
“What he say?” Francesca asked Tatiana. “I tell by his face he teasing me, but what he say?”
4 garlic cloves, very finely chopped or grated
1 medium onion, sliced
juice of 1 lime
1½ cups (340ml) buttermilk. If you can’t find buttermilk use yogurt
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons Cajun seasoning
2lb (900g) thick chicken breast fillets
In a large mixing bowl combine all ingredients except the chicken. Add the chicken, mix thoroughly with the marinade. Cover with a small plate, put large weight on top: a 3lb (1.35kg) weight, a rock, a jar of pickles, etc. Marinate in the fridge for 4–8 hours.
The buttermilk makes the chicken unbelievably tender, and difficult to overcook. You can also marinate chicken breast on the bone, if you prefer.
To prepare for cooking, take chicken out of the marinade and pat dry with paper towels. To cook you have a few options:
a) If it’s summer, you can cube the chicken, thread onto skewers and grill on the barbecue for 2 minutes a side on medium, with the cover closed.
b) You can add vegetables or onions in between the chunks of chicken and make like a shish-ke-bob.
c) Or you can grill the chicken breasts whole on the barbecue.
“Tania, it’s Saturday night.”
“Yes, so?”
“Anthony is asleep.” It was just the three of them back then.
“Yes, so?”
“So, so. You know what time it is, don’t you?”
“Tea time?”
“No.”
“Um, bedtime?”
“Not quite.” He grinned. “Beergarita time.”
“Oh, that time.”
112–16oz can frozen sweetened lime juice concentrate, such as Limeade
2 fresh limes, quartered
1¼ cups (275ml) Patron Reposado tequila
5oz (150ml) Triple Sec or Cointreau (you can try Grand Marnier but Tania finds it not sweet enough)
2 bottles Corona or Rolling Rock beer, or any lager beer of your choice
Ice
In a large pitcher, combine all ingredients; except for the beer, stir well to mix. Add beer, serve. Tatiana doesn’t recommend putting through a blender, the fizziness of the beer works against the taste, and she definitely doesn’t recommend driving afterward. It’s stunningly and deceptively potent. It tastes as if you’re drinking a Corona with lime. And suddenly—you’re acting silly and singing in Mexican. And when you say you don’t know any Mexican, Tatiana says, that’s exactly my point. More on that below:
1 tablespoon sugar
1 cup (175g) dried fruit
1 teaspoon soda
2 large eggs
lemon juice
1 or 2 quarts (900ml or 1.8 liters) good, dark rum
1 cup (200g) brown sugar
1 cup (225g) butter
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ cup (50g) chopped walnuts (black if you can find ’em)
Select a large mixing bowl, measuring cup, etc. Before starting, sample the rum to check quality. Good, isn’t it? Now proceed:
Check rum again, it must be just right. To be sure rum is the proper quality, pour one level cup of rum into a glass and drink it as fast as you can … good rum goes down smooth and easy. Bad rum won’t. Repeat to make sure it is good quality.
With electric mixer, beat 1 cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add 1 seaspoon of thugar and beat again. Meanwhile, make sure rum is still alright. Try another cup. Open second quart if necessary. Add leggs, 2 cups dried druit and beat till high. If druit gets stuck in beaters, pry loose with drewscriber. Sample rum again, checking for tonscisticity. Next sift 3 cups pepper or salt (really doesn’t matter). Sample rum. Sift ½ pint lemon juice. Fold in chopped butter and strained nuts. Add 1 tablespoon of brown thugar—or whatever color you can find. Wix mell. Grease oven. Turn cake pan to 350 gradees. Pour mess into boven and ake. Check rum again and go to qed.
When Tatiana first came to America, the bananas never ripened. They never ripened because she would eat them before they did. She bought them barely yellow and ate them barely yellow. She had never had bananas in the Soviet Union and now feasted on them the way she feasted on bacon. Then slowly, the bananas started hanging on the hook longer and longer, getting more yellow, getting black-pitted. She didn’t like to eat them when they were overripe, so she started figuring out what else to do with them. She put them over her cold cereal, ate them with vanilla yogurt, mashed them and put them in her pancakes, and she dipped them in chocolate (20 oz(570g) melted chocolate chips, 1 stick (110g) melted butter) and called them chocolate covered bananas. She served them at barbecues with chocolate covered strawberries and they were the highlight of the party. But the bananas were still going too ripe. She could have just stopped buying them, but that was like saying she should stop making bread every other day. The bananas represented a different life. Bananas, plantains, sweet potatoes, corn, turkey were all symbols of the new world. So she bought them every time she bought milk, like a staple, and they hung on the hook. That’s when Tatiana started making banana bread. She tinkered with this recipe, putting in too many eggs and too much flour, not enough sugar, not enough bananas. There was a period of months in the ’50s when Alexander and Anthony ate banana bread every week. One took it to work, one took it to school. “Is it good?” she would ask them, and they would reply, “It is good.”
She would pause. “Why don’t you like it?”
“I like it,” Alexander would say.
“No, you don’t. I can tell by your face. Why are you reserved? Why don’t you like it?”
“I’m not reserved. I like it.”
The next day there would be new banana bread. “Try this. Maybe this is better. I put more sugar in.”
Alexander would taste it. “It is good.”
“Oh, no. Why don’t you like it?”
And so it went. Still her boys took it with them, but finally, after some months, Tatiana figured it out.
“OK,” she said. “Taste this.”
Alexander tasted. “Oh my God.”
“Ah. Now you like it.”
And the irony was, once she figured it out, she stopped making it quite as often, but the irony was, once she figured it out, Alexander and Anthony couldn’t stop asking for it.
This is that recipe.
1 stick (110g) butter, at room temperature
1 cup (200g) sugar, at room temperature (Ha!)
2 eggs, at room temperature
4 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
⅓ cup (75ml) water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 very ripe bananas, mashed
1¾ cups (220g) all-purpose (plain) flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Grease the bottom of a loaf or pound-cake pan. Cream butter and sugar in an electric mixer. Add eggs, lemon juice, orange rind, water, vanilla, and then the bananas. Mix thoroughly so the bananas become smooth, not chunky. In a separate bowl combine flour, baking soda and salt, and fold into the banana mixture on low until just mixed. Pour into the cake pan and bake for 45 minutes or until pick inserted just off center comes up clean. Leave for 5–10 minutes in pan, then turn out onto plate.
Optional:
add ½ cup (50g) chopped walnuts, or ½ cup (75g) chocolate chips. Or both. Everyone loves the chocolate chips.
Pasha tried to be stoic when it came to fudge brownies, but his undeniable weakness for them propelled him into his mother’s kitchen where he would stand timidly near the mixer, pretending to be interested in just the ingredients that went into the batter. “How long do we have to beat the egg yolks for? Fifteen minutes? Wow. Why so long?” He watched the sugar, the eggs. He offered to help his mother melt the chocolate. He carried the melted chocolate to the refrigerator to cool it. He kept time, monitored the room temperatures of things. It was all with one goal in mind. To get the wooden spoon and the mixing bowl after the brownies went in the oven. Tatiana started leaving a little more in the bowl, to please her son. Then a little more. Eventually, it became clear: she had to double the recipe in order to please him completely and still have mixture left over for baking. When she doubled the recipe the rest of the children got to lick the bowl also. But no one enjoyed it as much as moderate, composed, not-easily-rattled Pasha. Harry and Janie and Alexander had other weaknesses; brownies were Pasha’s.
The recipe called for semi-sweet chocolate and unsweetened chocolate. It was very good this way, very fudgy, very chocolatey. If you like your brownies slightly less intense, use milk chocolate instead of semi-sweet. Tatiana had great success using chocolate shavings made for hot chocolate, and unsweetened cocoa powder instead of the unsweetened chocolate blocks. Use according to your preference. Alexander liked them milky, Anthony and Harry liked them dark, and Pasha ate them any which way. Janie preferred them the opposite way to whoever was annoying her most at the moment. Tatiana was thus forced to make two batches, one milk, one dark. They rarely lasted through the evening.
1 cup (200g) sugar
2 eggs, at room temperature
⅛ teaspoon salt
6oz (175g) milk or semi-sweet chocolate
2oz (50g) unsweetened cocoa powder or unsweetened chocolate
½ cup (110g) unsalted butter
¼ cup (30g) all-purpose (plain) flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
In an electric mixer beat the sugar, eggs and salt for 13–16 minutes. Meanwhile in a double boiler, melt the chocolate and butter on low heat. When the chocolate is two-thirds melted, take off heat and melt fully by stirring. Cool to lukewarm before folding into the egg mixture. Then by hand with a wooden spoon, fold in flour and add vanilla. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted off the center comes up clean. Cool before serving. Cover and refrigerate leftovers. Serve them with cream cheese icing: 1 cup (125g) powdered (icing) sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, ½ cup (125g) cream cheese and ¼ cup (50g) butter, all at room temperature, all mixed well until smooth.
In the nineteenth century these cookies were called preacher cookies. They were called preacher cookies because when a woman looked outside her kitchen window and saw the minister walking down the hill toward her house, they could be ready for him by the time he reached her front door. Of course Harry, when he heard Mama was making preacher cookies heard “creature” cookies, so that’s how they became known.
“Harry, you fool,” Pasha said. “They’re not called creature cookies. They’re called preacher cookies.”
“You’re wrong,” Harry stated flatly. “As always.”
“Oh yeah? Then what are creature cookies made with?” Pasha said triumphantly.
“Oh yeah?” said an even more triumphant Harry. “You fool. Then what are preacher cookies made with?”
½ cup (110ml) milk
½ cup (110g) butter
2 cups (400g) sugar
Heat the milk with the butter and sugar until it comes to full boil. Reduce heat. Add:
3 cups (350g) quick-cook oats
½ cup (50g) unsweetened cocoa
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
And here you can also add:
½ cup (40g) shredded coconut or
½ cup (125g) chunky (crunchy) peanut butter or
½ cup (50g) chopped walnuts
Cook for about a minute, until thick and mushy. Take off heat, and spoon onto foil in little round teaspoon lumps. Cool to room temperature before eating.
Overcooking the oatmeal sometimes turns the creature cookies into chocolate hockey pucks, delicious but not for those with weak teeth. Or it turns them into boiled glue. Harry loves them either way, saying no one but a true lover of cookies made with creatures could eat them in this state.
The children helped Tatiana prepare for parties by making fruit salad. She agreed at first, thinking it would be fun for them, and they could sample the goods as they put them into a collective bowl. But in no time, the making of fruit salad devolved into the throwing of fruit salad. First, there was the inevitable argument as to what fruits actually qualified for inclusion. Janie wanted watermelon, but Harry said no. He wanted grapes. Pasha said no grapes, but mangoes. Harry said no mangoes, but kiwi. Janie didn’t know what kiwi was and said definitely no kiwi. The argument got heated, and instantly violent—toward the fruit. The watermelon, the kiwi, the grapes were all over the floor of Tatiana’s kitchen, the children were thrown out and sent into the pool, and Tatiana made her own fruit choices. When the guests came, they said, oh what delicious fruit salad, and the three children, standing clean and proud and so well-behaved said, “Oh, thank you. We made it.”
2 cups watermelon, cubed
2 cups strawberries, halved
1 cup blueberries
1 cup apples, peeled and cubed
2 cups green grapes
Or whatever fruit your family won’t throw in your kitchen. Add ½ cup (110ml) orange juice, ½ cup (100g) sugar, mix well.
Alexander loved all things lemon like lemon meringue pie and Tatiana for a long time made that, then found an easier method which made it even better. Alexander asked for it once a month in the summertime.
“Dad, is there anything Mommy makes that you don’t love?” asked Harry.
“No, son,” Alexander replied. “I eat and like everything your mommy gives me.” He smiled—meant for Tatiana, not Harry.
“Come on—there is not one thing she makes that you don’t like?”
“No, son.”
Harry looked skeptical.
Pasha came in and snorted at his brother. “Harry, you’re a primitive. What don’t you understand? If Dad doesn’t like it, Mom doesn’t make it.”
Harry’s eyes widened. He was only six at the time; he didn’t understand. “Is that true?”
Tatiana and Alexander said nothing.
“Go get the plates and forks for dessert,” said Tatiana. And the lemon chiffon was served, and it was delicious. Everyone forgot for the moment the simple truth of things, the undeniable truth of things—that if Daddy didn’t like it, Mommy didn’t make it.
“Mommy, you are the bestest mommy in the world,” said Janie, who was three. “There are other mommies, but there is no mommy bester than you.”
9-in (23cm) pie crust, store bought, or pre-made (here)
1 egg white, beaten
15oz (425g) lemon curd
4 egg whites, at room temperature
½ teaspoon cream of tartar
⅓ cup (70g) sugar
powdered (icing) sugar, for sprinkling
Pre-bake the pie crust, with weights, for 20 minutes in a 425°F (220°C) oven. When it cools down slightly, brush with a little egg white. Reduce oven temperature to 375°F.
Meanwhile whip the other 4 egg whites until soft peaks form. Add cream of tartar, and then little by little the sugar. Fold carefully into lemon curd until just combined. Pour into pre-baked, still warm pie crust and bake for 20 minutes until lightly golden on top. When it cools completely, sprinkle with powdered sugar.
Alexander came home one evening from work, stuck something into Tatiana’s mouth and said, “Here, try this.”
She tried it. “Pretty good,” she said. “Lemon?”
“Daddy, Daddy, I want some!” cried Janie. Alexander, denying his only daughter little, gave her one, then another.
“It’s dinnertime, Shura,” said Tatiana.
“Mommy, these are sooooo good,” Janie said. Luckily the boys were outside playing basketball.
“All right, I’ll bite,” said Tatiana. “Where’d you get them?”
“Oh, it’s a long story,” Alexander replied, pretend-casual, pretend-dismissive.
“Turns out, I got nothin’ but time,” said Tatiana.
“Well, you know Shannon is building a custom gig on Shea, and the short version is, that there was a problem with the pitch of the roof, I came to help, we fixed it by putting a deck underneath to balance things out, and as a thank you, I got these cookies, from Marilyn, who’s building the house with her husband, the superintendent of Scottsdale schools.”
Tatiana looked singularly unimpressed with Marilyn’s husband’s respectable and handily tossed-about credentials. She said, “Hmm. So you got the cookies from Marilyn. What did Shannon get?”
“Nothing! I did most of the work.”
“I see.”
“They’re good, aren’t they?” Alexander grinned and scooped her up into his arms. “If I fix your roof and build you a deck, will you make them for me?”
“Shura, look, the kids …”
The kid, rather, was looking. But Alexander and Tatiana were kissing, and didn’t care. Tatiana did make the lemon whippersnappers for him, and for Janie, and for Pasha and Harry. They inhaled them, and said, if only Ant were here, he’d love them. He loves lemon—like Dad.
Anthony wasn’t home anymore. He was still in Vietnam.
1 package (regular size box) lemon cake mix
4½oz (125g) whipped topping, such as Cool Whip
1 egg
½ cup (50g) powdered (icing) sugar
Grease cookie sheets (baking trays). Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Combine cake mix, whipped topping and egg in a large bowl. Stir until well mixed. Drop by teaspoon into sugar, roll to coat. Place 1–2 in (2.5–5cm) apart on cookie sheets. Bake 10–15 minutes. The cookies should be just turning golden over the whole surface.
Tania in Sweden, in Stockholm after her solitary escape from the Soviet Union. What you are can’t help but come out, even in Stockholm, after days and nights of being certain that you’ve been buried alive.
She used to sit at the Spivak Café and pretend to read the newspaper. After thirty minutes of staring at the same page, she would look up to find the afternoon waitress standing close with a pot of tea and a plate of wedges. Tatiana took, she ate.
The next day she would come back. Helga said nothing, but continued to bring Tatiana the tea and the sweetened cakes. Before she left Stockholm for good, in June of 1943, Tatiana came to Spivak one last time to say good-bye. “Helga,” she asked. “What you giving me? What I eat?”
Helga smiled. “Cardamom shortbread. It’s a Swedish delicacy.”
Helga told Tatiana how to make it. Tatiana didn’t write it down. Helga said, “You’ll forget.”
“I forget nothing,” said Tatiana.
In New York she taught Vikki how to make the shortbread before she left for Germany. She taught Vikki because Anthony loved it and Tatiana wanted her boy to have something he loved to eat while she was possibly forever away. And so Vikki made it, and Anthony ate it, and because he was so young, he came to associate the cardamom shortbread not with his mother, but with Vikki, who, being Vikki, did nothing to dispel the illusion.
It was the one thing Vikki knew how to make (besides eggs).
Shortbread cookies with a bit of a glaze for extra sweetness. They were simple to make, which was why Vikki liked to make them, and they were addictive, which is why Anthony liked to eat them. She could have made them with almond extract, but Anthony, like his father, preferred lemon over almond, so that was how Vikki made it—the way Anthony liked it.
⅓ cup (65g) sugar
2 sticks (225g) butter, softened
2½ cups (320g) all-purpose (plain) flour
2–3 teaspoons ground cardamom
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lemon extract
1 cup (225g) powdered (icing) sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon lemon extract
2–3 tablespoons milk
Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Line two pie pans (glass or ceramic) with aluminum foil and spray with cooking oil. In the bowl of an electric mixer cream sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Spoon flour into measuring cup, fold into butter/sugar mix, stir in cardamom, vanilla, and lemon extract. Dough will be crumbly. Press into bottom of the pie pan, making it flat and thin, no more, no less than ⅛–¼ in (3–5mm) thick. Bake for 20–25 minutes until light golden. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then lift out by the foil. Leave on the foil and cut into 16 wedges while still warm, then carefully transfer the shortbread to a rack. Shortbread has a tendency to break. The longer it cools, the easier it will be to transfer.
For the glaze, in a small bowl mix powdered sugar, vanilla, lemon and milk. When the wedges have cooled slightly, drizzle glaze in long streaks over them.
Many years later, Tatiana and Vikki packed their bags and boarded a plane that took them 12,000 miles to Southeast Asia, to Saigon. In Saigon they were met by two lieutenant-majors of Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) and escorted to Saigon Hospital—Vikki to collect the body of her husband, a colonel, and bring it back to the United States for burial, and Tatiana to attend to an injured son, a captain, and her gravely wounded Alexander, a major. Alexander was in the intensive care unit and in a coma. Tatiana was with him. Vikki, after spending half a day filling out paperwork, finally asked at the nurses’ station where Anthony Barrington’s room was.
She stood at his door for a few moments before she stepped in. He didn’t see her, hadn’t opened his eyes yet. It looked like he was sleeping. It was late afternoon, and the hospital room was sunny. Vikki could tell that Tatiana had already been in because Anthony had plants, a coffee-table book of Arizona wildflowers, and a blanket from home covering him.
Vikki entered, stood by him, then sat. Eventually he opened his eyes. They stared at each other in silence. Anthony was grievously injured, and her husband was dead. Anthony turned his face away. In a breaking voice, Vikki said, “I brought you something. Look.” She lifted the foil off the small plate she was holding. On it, stacked like Legos, were cardamom shortbread cookies. She went around to stand by his good arm. Anthony reached up, took a cookie.
“Ah, good,” he said. “Where’d you get these?”
“I made them.”
“Back in the States? They’re pretty fresh.”
“No. Here. Your mother and I have a kitchen at the hotel.”
“Where’d you get the cardamom?”
“Brought it with me.”
Anthony was quiet. “Powdered sugar?”
“Brought it with me. I brought it all with me. I just needed an oven.”
He ate another one. She set the plate on the table by his bed and sat down in a chair next to him.
Their mouths were all twisted.
“You look good,” he said.
“You, too,” she replied.
“Liar.”
“Are you a liar?”
“No,” said Anthony, blinking but not looking away this time. It was four and a half years since they had seen each other last. Now it was Vikki who couldn’t bear to see him, shaking her gaze down onto his blanket, not wanting him to see the tears in her eyes, for herself, for her husband of twenty-two years, the husband who was dead because Anthony was alive, not wanting Anthony to see himself in her eyes, either.
“Does my mother know anything?” he asked, pausing. “I mean … about you and me?”
“If by anything, you mean everything, then yes.”
Anthony put his one arm over his face. “God, Vikki.”
“How could I have told them about your letter otherwise? How else could they have found you—or … Moon Lai?” Vikki groaned.
They fell mute.
“I’m sorry,” said Anthony.
“Nothing to be sorry about, Ant,” Vikki whispered back. She wiped her face.
“Oh, yes, there is.” His arm reached for her. “Come here.”
“Ant …”
“Vik, come here.”
The nurse came in, the doctor.
“Ah, yes, Colonel Richter’s wife,” the doctor said, recognizing her. What he didn’t say was, “Colonel Richter’s widow.” And that was probably best since, when they came in, Vikki was bent over Anthony, her wet face pressed flush to his face, and her eyes had been closed.
She stepped away from him. “I’ll be back.”
“Yes,” said Anthony, squeezing her hand. “The shortbread will be gone next time I see you.”
“I’ll make more. I’ll bring you more.”
He held her hand for another moment, and then let go.