Sassy Radish

This here, to me, is the epitome of a Russian summer. A cold borscht on a hot summer night. Pull up a chair and stir some sour cream into it; lift a spoon to your lips and close your yes. That tang of the sour cream, the floral cool of the cucumber, the slight bitterness of dill – that’s the stuff you remember years later and it makes your mouth water just thinking about it, and your stomach growls audibly. You grow both giddy and slightly melancholy just thinking about it.

I had a good childhood in Russia – a wholesome, leave-it-to-Beaver-whole-milk childhood. It stands at a stark contrast to what people might imagine a Soviet childhood to be – and mine was a good as they get full of books, walks in the forests, fishing in the rivers, and gazing at the stars. Summers were idyllic in particular – I spent them at my grandmother’s: a lot of time outside, hours foraging for berries and mushrooms, dipping my toes into cool lakes (I couldn’t swim back then), scratching itchy mosquito bites, and icing bruises and scrapes – the childhood that was simple and minimalist, yet lacked nothing. Bill Cosby had this stand-up bit back in the day, when he would talk about his childhood and how his parents would give him a stick and would tell him to go play in the back yard. And there he would be, sitting in an empty backyard, dirt all around him, digging a hole in the ground with his stick, happy as happy can be. That was me, happy to be outside and dig a hole with a stick. Happy to find wild strawberries and bring them home in a basket to have them for dessert sprinkled with sugar and dotted with golden-hewed cream so thick you could stand a spoon in it.

Continue reading cold borscht – chilled beet soup.

Sometime mid-week last week, I felt divine inspiration to cook and toss all my daily tasks to the wind. I suspect that sudden burst of energy and desire were prompted more by the chilly weather and gusts of wind than by any deity tapping me on the shoulder with a whisk or a baster. Fondly recollecting my mother’s soups – for she claims the title for best soup-maker – I phoned her to get a recipe for one of my childhood favorites, and thus a Russian standard – borscht.

Many an American has wrinkled his nose when a beet is introduced into a conversation. Growing up in a suburban America, I was always defending root vegetables. Turnips, carrots, beets, radishes. I was labeled a weird eater, an immigrant. And I grew up thinking that not only beets were uncool (albeit tasty), but they were also a form of lower-income diet. Imagine my surprise when my monthly issue of Martha Stewart Living arrived (I must have been the only 16 year old with a MSL subscription) and I found a salad of beets and chevre beautifully displayed as one of the recipes. Either beets were gaining ground or Martha was going back to her Polish roots. Either way, beets broke out of their stigma.

Nowadays you find beets in most prestigious restaurants. They’re in salads, in vegetable arrangements, served as elegant side-dishes. Their deep, rich color and sweet earthy flavor and texture are both filling and surprisingly light. They smell of the earth, of winter and of hearth. And despite their lowly upbringing, they’re quite elegant and sophisticated.

The soup takes a few hours to make if only because you want the flavors to deepen and blend together. It is not a complicated soup to make provided you have patience to chop everything and stir occasionally. When completed and ready to eat, it will warm you up from a cold wintry day and satisfy your hunger. As intense in its flavor as it is hot, borscht really exemplifies Russian cooking – hearty, warm and flavorful.

Continue reading russian borscht.