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

  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.

  “Creature Cookies”

  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.

  Fruit Salad

  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.

  Lemon Chiffon Pie

  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.”

  Crust:

  9-in (23cm) pie crust, store bought, or pre-made (here)

  1 egg white, beaten

  Filling:

  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.

  Marilyn’s Lemon Whippersnappers

  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 ha
ndily 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.

  Cardamom Shortbread

  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.

  Cardamom Shortbread Cookies:

  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

  Glaze:

  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 ti
me I see you.”

  “I’ll make more. I’ll bring you more.”

  He held her hand for another moment, and then let go.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Psalms and Songs and Aykhal Visions

  When all the world is old, lad,

  And all the trees are brown;

  And all the sport is stale, lad,

  And all the wheels run down;

  Creep home, and take your place there,

  The spent and maimed among:

  God grant you find one face there,

  You loved when all was young.

  Charles Kingsley

  Sometimes, even as Tatiana grew older and the memories of the old life became fainter, she could still close her eyes and …

  They pressed their bodies against the green building on Fifth Soviet.

  She opened her eyes and was back home in Arizona, on her bed with the green and white bedspread and the large pillows. She sat on her window seat and looked out in the deep afternoon onto the Sonoran Desert and the McDowell Mountains and the Saguaro cacti painted with white flowers, shadowing the horizon … the blinding setting sun. Then she would close her eyes and …

  They pressed their old bodies against the green building on Fifth Soviet.

  “Mom, why didn’t you ever teach Dad how to cook?”

  They were gathered around her island on a late Saturday morning. All four children were home spending the weekend. Breakfast had already been served, and it was too early for lunch, but perhaps just right for elevenses: another cup of coffee with a snack from the fridge. Harry and Pasha settled on some ham with a brioche. Janie had her brioche with jam.

  “Who says I didn’t try?” said Tatiana.