Tatiana's Table: Tatiana and Alexander's Life of Food and Love

by Paullina Simons

  ¼ teaspoon ground cardamom

  2lb (900g) chicken breast fillets, cut into 1-in (2.5cm) pieces

  1 tablespoon salt

  1 Granny Smith apple

  2 tablespoons all-purpose (plain) flour

  4 cups (900ml) chicken stock

  16oz (450g) canned tomato sauce, or 2 cups (450ml) passata

  1 cup (225ml) half-and-half or yogurt

  In a large, wide-bottom, heavy-bottom saucepan, heat 2 tablespoons oil and 2 tablespoons butter. Add garlic, cook briefly add ginger, cook for 1 minute. Add another tablespoon butter, add onion, cook until lightly golden. Add curry powder, cumin, garam masala and cardamom. Add the rest of the butter and olive oil, and the chicken. Cook on medium, turning occasionally until chicken starts to brown, 4–5 minutes. Add the salt and stir well. Peel and core apple, cut into quarters, add to the chicken. Add flour, stir to coat. Slowly add chicken stock and tomato sauce, stir well, cover and cook 30 minutes while you prepare the rice. After 30 minutes taste the curry and adjust the seasonings. You might need to add some more curry powder. Stir, cook for another minute or two, and take off the heat. Let stand for a minute or two and then add 1 cup of yogurt or half-and-half. Yogurt is delicious, but tends to separate inside the hot liquid, so stir constantly with a whisk until it’s fully incorporated. Half-and-half goes in easily. Stir all to make creamy.

  Serve with Chang Hao’s basmati rice, here.

  Macaroni and Cheese

  Was Anthony suffering? Tatiana worked too much, and the hours were long. Isabella looked after the boy, but he was too often in the company of older people. Sometimes he went to the playground, but Tatiana feared it was not enough, couldn’t be enough to make Anthony well. He was by nature too introspective, too solemn a little boy. She thought it was the food he ate. It wasn’t American enough. He was always eating eggplant or peppers, or ossobucco. She wanted to learn to cook something fun for him, and perhaps in this way transform him into a fun American boy, his widowed Soviet mother notwithstanding.

  When he went to nursery, her anxieties were realized. Anthony would come home and say the other kids were eating something called peanut butter and jelly. He had never had peanut butter and jelly. Butter made with peanuts? They had tunafish; what was that? They had snack items like pretzels; not Anthony.

  Tatiana knew: working at Ellis Island, New York University and the Red Cross office was both too much and not enough. She needed to learn to do something else. What if Anthony’s friends came over to play? She didn’t want to be the kind of mother who served her son and his friends roasted peppers and rice for an afternoon snack.

  So she bought peanut butter, and served him that on bread. She put some of her homemade strawberry jam on it. He liked it okay, but liked it even more when she cut an apple into cubes and let him dip the cubes into the peanut butter. She needed a tub of warm water to de-glue Anthony afterward, but he liked it, and this pleased her.

  She began to experiment. She mixed apple cubes with cubes of muenster cheese. They were both white, and that was part of the fun—trying to figure out which was which before you touched a piece. She made Anthony tunafish with mayonnaise, a little lemon juice, salt, and instead of celery, which he didn’t like, small slivers of apple. He loved it and asked for it every other day.

  And because Tatiana believed there was no food that was not improved—to an incremental or revolutionary degree—by bacon, and because she assumed everyone else felt the same way, she served Anthony bacon. In the morning, she made him bacon and egg sandwiches. For lunch, grilled cheese and bacon sandwiches. She toasted bread, grilled the bacon to crisp and served it to him cut into quarters. For herself she added lettuce and tomato. For dinner she made macaroni and cheese—with bacon.

  Tatiana had to grow into her macaroni and cheese recipe. It was too plain for her—and she couldn’t imagine it as a meal in itself: where was the meat? So to make it more interesting, she tried different kinds of cheese, different spices, tried adding things to it, like bacon. Or ham. Or both. Finally, she devised a recipe that was so excellent, she started being asked to bring it to the nursery school for potluck afternoons and to Isabella’s house on Sundays. Vikki requested it on a weekly basis. Mothers of her son’s friends would call and ask how she made it, because little Billy was still talking about having it when he came to play. Tatiana started making American friends because of her macaroni and cheese.

  Macaroni and Cheese:

  1lb (450g) elbow macaroni, cooked

  5 cups (1.125 liters) milk

  1 large onion, peeled and left whole

  5 tablespoons butter

  5 tablespoons all-purpose (plain) flour

  1lb (450g) extra sharp cheddar

  8oz (225g) Swiss or Gruyère cheese

  1lb (450g) mozzarella

  1 teaspoon salt

  pepper, to taste

  ½ teaspoon paprika

  ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

  Optional:

  bacon, cooked crisp, and chopped, or thick ham, small-cubed, and lightly fried

  Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Butter a rectangular ovenproof casserole dish, 9×13 in (23×32.5cm).

  In a medium saucepan heat milk and onion until bubbles just form around the edge of the pan. Turn off heat, and let onion infuse in the milk. Shred all the cheeses into separate bowls.

  Meanwhile, melt butter in a 5-quart (4.5-liter) saucepan on medium heat. Add flour, and cook, stirring gently in a clockwork fashion 3–4 minutes. Discard the onion from the milk and slowly add milk to the roux paste, stirring constantly. Heat until milk mixture thickens and starts to bubble slightly. Add salt, pepper, paprika and cayenne. Remove from heat and add cooked macaroni. Add half the cheddar cheese, half the Swiss cheese, and half the mozzarella and mix thoroughly. Spread into the prepared ovenproof dish. Sprinkle with the rest of the cheddar, Swiss, and mozzarella cheeses. Bake for 30 minutes until cheese is bubbling.

  Optional:

  Crumb 8 strips of crisply-cooked bacon and fold it into the mac’n cheese before you sprinkle with cheeses and bake.

  Cube 8oz (225g) thick ham, brown for a minute or two in a frying pan and add to the mac’n cheese.

  Add both, bacon and ham. It’s pretty unbelievable. Alternatively, serve the mac and cheese with ham on the side.

  Chocolate-Chip Cookies

  Anthony came home bringing the moist remains of a thoroughly chewed cookie and said, almost accusingly, “Rebecca’s mother made these for Friday snack.”

  Tatiana looked, tasted. “What is it?” she asked suspiciously.

  “A cookie, Mama.”

  “Hmm.”

  “A chocolate-chip cookie.” It sounded even more accusing because it was said in Russian.

  So Tatiana tried. But in Russia there had been no brown sugar, and so she didn’t put any in, not knowing it wasn’t a chocolate-chip cookie without the brown sugar.

  “Mom, what is this?” Anthony said. “It’s a sugar cookie with chocolate chips in it.”

  Tatiana tried again. She put in an extra cupful of chocolate chips. Anthony was critical. Vikki less so, but she said, “Tania, where’s the brown sugar?”

  “The what?”

  “See, that’s your problem right there. Buy some brown sugar, and you’ll fix these right up.”

  Brown sugar? White sugar was what the aristocracy ate in Russia because it was refined and expensive, just right for their delicate palates. Centuries were spent in technocratic morass trying to work out a way to make brown sugar white. And now, suddenly, when she had the kingly white sugar in abundance, she needed brown sugar, in America?

  Dutifully she went and bought brown sugar.

  Anthony declared them too chewy.

  “Anthony, you too picky,” Tatiana said to him in English. “Just eat cookie and say thank you.”

  But the next evening, she made them crispy by adding a tiny bit of water to the mix. A finally approving Anthony wanted to bring some for snack the next day, but he and Vikk
i devoured them.

  It was Rebecca’s mother who called Tatiana and asked if Rebecca could come over. “Oh, and she’s raving about the cookies your son brought to school the other day. You wouldn’t happen to have the recipe, would you?”

  “Oh, sure.”

  “And what about the little ones with the jam in them? She brought one home last week, it was excellent.”

  “Sure, you come, I give you cookies.”

  “May I have the recipe? I want to make them for my husband. He just came back from war and has a terrible sweet-tooth. You’d think they didn’t feed him in the army.”

  Quietly Tatiana said, “Probably they not give him cookies with jam.”

  Chocolate-Chip Cookies:

  2 cups (250g) all-purpose (plain) flour

  1 teaspoon salt

  1 teaspoon baking soda

  2 sticks (225g) unsalted butter, softened

  ¾ cup (150g) dark-brown sugar

  ¾ cup (170g) white sugar

  2 eggs

  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  ½–1 teaspoon water

  1¼ cups (250g) semi-sweet chocolate chips

  Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Grease 2 cookie sheets (baking trays).

  Gently stir together flour, salt, baking soda.

  In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream together butter, white sugar, dark-brown sugar. Add eggs and vanilla and mix lightly. Add water, mix lightly. Carefully stir in the flour, followed by the chocolate chips. Don’t overstir, or the cookies will harden.

  Drop onto cookie sheets using a teaspoon and a tablespoon. For the little tots, dropped teaspoons will do. For the adults a tablespoon might be better. Make them as big or as little as you wish. Cookies will spread while cooking so give them plenty of room.

  Bake for 10–12 minutes (less for smaller cookies) or until the edges have browned. Leave for 5 minutes on the cookie sheet, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

  Russian Tea Cookies

  With jam. For Anthony. And for Rebecca’s father who had recently returned from war and didn’t get much dessert in the army.

  Anthony only liked the jam. The cookie was just a receptacle for the fruit and sugar.

  1 stick (110g) unsalted butter, softened

  ½ cup (100g) sugar

  1 egg, separated

  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  1 cup (125g) all-purpose (plain) flour

  1 cup (110g) walnuts

  raspberry jam

  powdered (icing) sugar, for sprinkling

  Preheat oven to 325°F (170°C). Grease cookie sheets.

  In the bowl of an electric mixer cream butter and sugar. Add egg yolk and vanilla and beat well. Carefully stir in flour, either by hand or on lowest setting of the mixer.

  Roll dough to the size of small meatballs. Process the walnuts in a food processor, or crush into fine crumbs in a mortar and pestle. Spread out on a piece of waxed paper. Dip dough balls in unbeaten egg white, then roll in the walnuts. Place on cookie sheet and push the middle down with your thumb. Bake for five minutes, then press the centers down again with the back of a spoon. Bake for 15 minutes longer until golden.

  Fill the middle with half a teaspoon of raspberry jam. Plum jam is good, too, as is cherry. The slightly sour jams work better to contrast with the sweetness of the cookie than, say, strawberry or apricot, though by all means, try the one you like best.

  When the cookies cool, sprinkle with powdered (icing) sugar. They won’t last the night. Anthony would eat the tray of them. Actually, what he did was eat the jam out of the centers and lick the sugar off every cookie, then nibble around the edges, pretending to leave them behind. It was like a little mouse had gotten to the Christmas pastry when the family wasn’t looking, thinking no one would notice.

  “Anthony, you just like your mama,” Tatiana said to him.

  “I don’t want to be like you, Mama,” said Anthony. “I want to be like my dad.”

  The Best Hard-boiled Eggs

  When Tatiana knew she was going to Germany to find Alexander and leaving her son behind with her best friend, one of the things she worried about was what Anthony was going to eat. Tatiana knew Vikki would love him, she knew she would take care of him, that he would be clean and dressed, that he might even make it to school on time, certainly more on time than Tatiana could make him, but the food concerned her. What would Ant and Vikki do every evening, every weekend?

  “Vikki, be honest with me. Is there anything you know how to cook?”

  “Tania, I’m insulted. I won’t even dignify that with an answer.”

  “Tell me. Do you know how to boil an egg?”

  “God!”

  “Do you?”

  “If you’re so concerned, why don’t you just stay here and cook for us instead of hopping off on a suicide mission?”

  “Vikki, I repeat my question. I will repeat as many times as necessary. Do you know how to cook an egg?”

  “I don’t like eggs,” Vikki said loftily.

  “Well, Easter is coming soon.”

  “Easter? And where is this Easter coming? Are you joking with me? Easter is not for two months!”

  “Like, I said. Soon. How are you going to color eggs—”

  “Wait, wait.” Vikki started to hyperventilate. “Are you telling me you’re not planning to come back until after Easter?”

  “Vikki, you ask me unknowable. How I know when I come back? If I find him in two weeks, I come back in two weeks.”

  “Yes, but …” Vikki almost didn’t know how to ask. “What if you don’t find him for two years?”

  Now it was Tatiana’s turn not to answer.

  “And Tania …” Vikki had to sit down for her next question. “What if … what if … you don’t find him at all?”

  Tatiana sat down herself. Finally she answered. “Better let me teach you how to make eggs, Vikki.”

  “Anthony has never asked me to cook for him,” Vikki said many years later. “What a blessing.”

  “Not just for you,” said Anthony. “Besides, it’s not true, Vik. Sometimes you cook. You make eggs.” They were sitting in Tatiana’s kitchen. It was the mid-seventies.

  “Yes. But you never asked me to make eggs.”

  Alexander and Tatiana exchanged looks.

  “What eggs? You mean hard-boiled eggs?” Tatiana asked slowly. “The kind Ant liked when he was little?”

  “Mom, I never liked them.”

  “He still likes them,” Vikki said defiantly.

  Anthony rolled his eyes. “I hate them.”

  Alexander said, “Vikki, what have you done all these years when men expected you to cook for them?”

  “I avoided men that did.”

  “Well, I suppose you had to narrow the field somehow.”

  “Tania, reign in your husband,” returned Vikki without pause, as if they were in an ad-lib comedy troupe. “Besides, I know how to cook. I told you, I can make eggs.”

  “Do eggs even count as a recipe?”

  “Ask Ant. He loves eggs.”

  “I hate eggs.”

  Vikki continued undaunted. “Besides, you said so yourself—it’s a blessing I don’t come anywhere near a stove.”

  Anthony deflected diplomatically. “Your hard-boiled eggs are pretty good. After all, you’ve gotten a lot of practice. It’s the only thing you know how to make.”

  “It was the only thing your mother taught me!”

  “Don’t lie, Vikki,” said Tatiana. “It was the only thing you remembered how to do.”

  “For your information, you smart-ass Barringtons,” said Vikki, “because I can see you’ve forgotten a few things yourselves—the only reason I had to learn how to cook at all is because someone, I won’t mention any names, galloped off to Germany to find someone, I won’t mention any names and left me with—”

  “Vikki!” That was Tatiana, Anthony, and Alexander. She laughed. They fell quiet.

  Unapologetic, ignoring Anthony’s glaring eye, Vikki said, “Last
time we’ll be talking about my lack of cooking abilities, then? That’s too bad. Because I was just beginning to enjoy this conversation.”

  eggs

  water

  salt

  Place eggs in cold water that covers them just to the top. Add salt to keep the eggs from cracking, a heaping tablespoon or two. Bring to boil. As soon as water boils, turn off the heat, cover completely, and let stand for 10 minutes. Drain, cool, eat, color, use in recipes.

  To color eggs, use food coloring, a dozen drops mixed with three tablespoons of white vinegar and half a cup of cold water. Use more drops for more intense color, and place the eggs right into the cup. The longer the eggs are left, the darker their color will be. Take them out and let them dry.

  Paskha

  Tatiana was in Germany, and Anthony and Vikki were alone in the apartment. He had been such a verbal boy, but after his mother left, he behaved as if he’d lost his ability to speak. He played with his friends, on the swings, in playgroup. He played hide-and-seek with Vikki. She read to him. He let her hold his hand when she took him to her grandmother’s, when she took him to nursery school. He walked to her when she came to pick him up. When she asked what he wanted for dinner, he, almost as if knowing that Vikki would have trouble cooking, said, “I don’t care.”

  “How about bacon?”

  “Just bacon?”

  “Bacon on bread?”

  “OK.”

  Often they ate out. Chang Hao still brought his Chinese food twice a week. Isabella cooked one weekly meal, plus her dinner on Sundays. Saturdays they went out for pizza. The rest of the time they had bacon sandwiches.

  With Easter coming up, Vikki managed to boil the eggs the way Tatiana taught her, to color them. And then Anthony said, “What about Paskha?” Paskha was the traditional cheesecake-like Russian dessert prepared to celebrate Easter.

  “What about it?”

  “Aren’t we going to make Paskha?”

  “Anthony …”

  “Mama told you how. I heard her.” That was more than he had spoken in weeks. Encouraged, Vikki said, “Of course we’ll make Paskha. To celebrate the Feast of Feasts, why not? It just doesn’t say Easter if we don’t have cheese dripping water onto our floor. But you’ll help me, right? I’m going to need your help, Ant.”