WHEN IN DOUBT, COOK!

Roxy, as could be expected from a nine-year-old, seemed oblivious to our predicament. She made friends with most of the Hispanic kids playing in the courtyard with no regard for the language barrier. One day she was sitting on the stairs watching the kids cannonball into the pool, the next she was getting into trouble for splashing pool water at the neighbors’ windows right along with them.

She knew where everyone lived and what kind of food they had in their fridge, and soon the neighbors started to send gifts back with her: a basket of a sweet bread called pan dulce or a plate of homemade enchiladas. At first, Mom was wary of eating things prepared by strangers. In her mind it was “stuff that looks like food but is made entirely of millions of germs from unwashed hands.” But she eventually grew too curious. She’d often pick the food apart to see how it was made and then try to make it herself.

Roxy’s chirpy mood bounded in counterpoint to my own. We were surrounded by foreigners like ourselves. Where had the Americans gone? Sometimes I braved the world outside the gate to see if I could spot one. Little by little, I wandered farther until I found the DollarDream Market, a convenience store owned by two Hindu brothers. Their parents, Raj and Shubi, spoke as little English as I did, but they always grinned. They ran the business, but their only responsibilities seemed to be ringing up customers while always keeping one eye on the Bollywood musicals blasting from their TV.

I strolled through the aisles, amazed at the crowded shelves and the abundance of products made in China. I began to notice things I’d seen before, inside the packages Uncle Arsen sent when we lived in Moscow.

Every time I’d gotten a package from Los Angeles, I gained new friends. They loved the gum that came in crinkly, see-through wrappers, and the shiny hair clips with Disney characters. I had clothes with Michael Jackson and Elvis and Marilyn on them. For my seventh birthday, Uncle sent me the “Thriller” jacket, like the one in the video, red with black stripes. My friends drooled over it. Having an entrepreneurial spirit, I took reservations for the privilege of wearing it and charged ten kopeks a day.

Inside the DollarDream those gumballs sold at ten per dollar, and the hair clips inside the giant buckets by the cash register were a mere quarter each. There were the three-dollar watches with grinning Mickey Mouse dials, and the celebrity T-shirts, a bargain at three for ten dollars.

Had everything Uncle ever sent us from America come from the DollarDream Market? Later I discovered that wasn’t so. The “Thriller” jacket was from a swap meet two blocks up. As an expert bargainer you could get it for twenty bucks.

When I told Mom, she didn’t seem surprised. “It’s the effort that counts, not the cost of things.”

I remembered with how much care Mom had wrapped the antique tea service in terry-cloth towels and crumpled-up newspaper, the fight she put up when the Soviet customs officer fussed over it. “Why didn’t you bring a couple of matryoshka dolls for Aunt Varvara, then?”

“That would’ve offended her,” she said, “and I have more class than that.”

*   *   *

I’d learned long ago that food is a beautiful language.

When my parents first got married, Grandma Ksenia, dad’s mom, hated my mother, and she measured that feeling with food. In Romani culture, multiple generations live together, and for a long time Mom found herself under a hostile roof. Ksenia avoided her daughter-in-law, refusing to eat at the same table with her. (To be fair, she scoffed at eating with the rest of the band when touring, always requesting a tray of food be delivered to her dressing room.) If they saw each other by chance around the house, she’d say things like “You’re getting fat. I’m not here to support a leech, so make sure to stay away from my pantry.”

During the first months my parents were together, Dad often sneaked sandwiches into the bedroom. In the morning, Grandma often noticed the missing loaf of rye or the pitcher of milk half full, and she never hesitated to comment on it. Mom’s solution was to start cooking for herself. The first time she made kotleti Armenian-style, with lots of onions, potatoes, and dried basil in the minced beef, the aroma beckoned Grandma into the kitchen. The second time, Grandma waited until my parents had left for a show before swiping a kotleti. The third, she said, “How do you make them so juicy?” It took years for Mom and Grandma to get along, but the first step was made over a plate of savory minced beef.

My favorite of Mom’s dishes was tort-salat, or cake-salad in English: a salad composed like a layer cake. Every time Mom made it, I’d be in the kitchen. Mom never used cookbooks or written recipes, and she eyeballed the ingredient portions and estimated the cooking times.

“Mom,” I’d say, “let me make tort-salat this time. Write down the steps and I’ll follow.”

She’d hardly look up from her cooking, hovering like an alchemist over potions. “The best way to learn is by observing the cook.”

But that proved more frustrating than not knowing. When asked how many potatoes to use in podzharka, Russian beef stew, she’d say, “Enough to last four people two days, because it’s always best the day after you make it.”

“When do I place the chicken into the frying pan?”

“Not until the melting butter stops hissing at you.”

“How do I know when the borscht is done?”

“When it smells done.”

Mom picked up many of her cooking skills on the road from other Romani women, and maybe that’s why her methods seemed so chaotic. Soviet hotels didn’t come furnished with kitchenettes, and no performer could afford to eat out while on the road for six months at a stretch. Even if we had the means, restaurant fare in most of the towns we played would make a dog puke. But cooking in hotel rooms was strictly forbidden. I remember Esmeralda, Zhanna’s older half sister, hurling a perfectly good pot of chicken and potatoes out the hotel-room window while the hotel manager banged on the door, shouting, “I smell meat!” As she passed me on her way to the door, Esmeralda pressed a finger to my lips and pinched my cheek. “Our secret, okay?” She opened it, relaxing her curvy figure against the doorframe like a star of the silver screen. The manager’s Brezhnev-like eyebrows unfurrowed, but his nostrils flared as he tried to sneak a look past her shoulder.

Like Esmeralda, the women in the band hid hot plates in their luggage; a single burner and a pot was all they needed to throw together mouthwatering dishes. And they made quick work of it. Onions had to be chopped with mad speed, eggs fried until just runny, toast buttered and swallowed before we were discovered. Mom and I spent many an afternoon watching some Romani do her magic over a tiny electric stove. In fact, it was the reason I’d started keeping a journal in the first place.

I was nine and my first entry described the way Esmeralda made tea and how she’d managed to turn the brewing process into a magical spell.

“To make proper zavarka (essence), you need five tablespoons of loose-leaf Ceylon tea in a white teapot.” The leaves formed into mountains as she measured them out. “Then, hot water to just below the spout.” After this step, she’d fetch a tall heatproof glass and fill it halfway with the essence, pour the liquid back into the pot, and repeat it thirteen times.

“What are you doing now?” I asked.

“Marrying the essence with the water,” she explained. “If you want to catch a good man, pay attention.”

“Oh, is this how everybody does it?”

“Smart women do whatever’s necessary. It’s simple. The leaves won’t infuse the water if both are standing still and not putting effort into it. Leaves by nature are lazy, and water’s too proud. So you, the tea-maker, help by creating motion between them. Every time you pour from one vessel to the other, the liquid gets stronger, richer. That’s what every relationship needs.”

“Strong-smelling tea?”

Esmeralda tousled my hair. “How much sugar?”

“Three lumps. So why do it thirteen times? Is that like a magic number?”

“It’s my magic number. You’ll have to find your own.”

For a while I’d stopped adding new recipes to my collection. Other matters, like getting used to living without a father and learning to answer the phone in English, took precedence. But in my mother’s tiny L.A. kitchen, I started up the old habit, finding its familiarity comforting.

According to my notes, the first step to making tort-salat was to boil some beef the same way you would if making beef broth. Mom would then put it through a meat grinder she’d purchased at the local Russian market. At the same time, she’d cook eggs, carrots, beets, and potatoes in water until they were soft but not soggy, and then grate them. Next, she’d start building the salad: a layer of potatoes, followed by a layer of beef, eggs, and the rest of the vegetables. A little mayonnaise, spread between each layer, kept everything moist. Mom would repeat the process several more times, and sprinkle some grated cold butter and a generous amount of parsley, dill, and cilantro on top.

I’d been known to eat tort-salat every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, so Mom always made extra, or guarded it from me if guests were coming.

During those first months in America, we found solace in the familiar foods or in the songs Mom sang under her breath, many of them centuries-old Armenian melodies.

Ov, sirun, sirun. Inchu motezar?

Sertis gahtnike inchu imatsar?

Mi unmech sirov, yes kes siretzi

Isk do anyraf davachanetsir.

 

Oh, my beautiful. Why did you come near?

Secrets of my heart, just how did you hear?

With an innocent love, I have fallen for you

Shamelessly betrayed, your love so untrue.

We often sat on our cots and read out loud from the books we’d brought with us. Mom’s sister, Aunt Siranoosh, lived in Kirovakan with Grandma Rose, and the walls of their living room hid behind enormous bookshelves stuffed with classics, large and leather-bound and intimidating. Aunt Siranoosh used to send me parcels of books from her collection a couple of times a year.

I’d brought several of them with me to L.A. Alexander der Grosse, by Fritz Schachermeyr, read like an epic adventure of courage, something we needed now. Every time I reached the part when Alexander tamed Bucephalus, his legendary horse, Roxy would exclaim, “Victory!” and shake her fists in the air.

Our neighborhood looked and felt nothing like the America from my father’s friend Vova’s stories, with houses the size of Iceland and flower beds that bloomed year-round. But maybe this was how people started out before they got their dream. Maybe living in a dump, on a street with cracked pavement and skeletons of cars, made them tough and ready for all that glory they would experience later. I felt determined to find out.