When the Russian winter sets in, there is no escape. There are snowstorms during snowstorms. The wind whips up, ice dancing across your cheeks. The temperature does not tiptoe down, but dives headfirst into the minuses. Some say that fresh snow is beautiful, that icicles are like crystal. I try to stay inside, cooking great pots of soup, hunks of roasted meat, drinking coffee black instead of trotting out for fresh milk. Every time this Russian winter arrives, I hide from it. I lose myself in work, trying not to notice that the sun has gone down. My camera sits in a bag, the same half-shot roll of film in it.
For some reason on Sunday I ventured out in my long coat, all the way to the farmer's market, my face cold and wet as the trolley buses lurched and slid, stopped and surrendered like a beached whale on the riverside. We all got out, waiting for the next one to trundle along, doors slapping open, floor slick and muddy hopefully able to make it all of the way to Kievskaya.
At the market, I shove my way to the Georgian stall in the back corner. They make bread in a special oven, and it is ready about every twenty minutes. There can be a great line of people and you can wait for almost an hour if you are not lucky. Maybe today is too cold for everyone else, because I am third in line and the bread arrives in three minutes. I buy two of them, and a paper bag to carry them not a plastic one so they do not grow wet and rubbery as the steam escapes their thick crust.
Madlopt (thank you) I say to the woman at the counter and she almost winks at me she is so flattered that I know a few Georgian words. Next, the butcher section, with whole carcasses hanging from great hooks as men with axes snap bone and gristle, lining up racks of ribs and legs in neat rows. I buy a veal shoulder, just over two kilos. It smells clean, like the grass after it rains.
Outside I tear off a pointy corner of the bread and chew on it as the traffic snakes around the narrow streets. I am somehow back on First Avenue and 10th street for a moment, on my way home from Ferrucci's. But I am not a bachelor, and this is not the East Village.
Next, fresh bulbs of fennel and a handful of sage. I decide to buy more bread for some reason and the ciabatta is square today. I drive the salesgirl a little nuts as I try to decide which loaf to take. I try to explain that normally they are longer, rectangular. She shrugs her shoulders. "Is the chef in love?" I ask, and her eyes grow wide. "If they are salty, then he must be in love." I add (or something close to that) and her hands are over her mouth she is laughing so hard. It is an old Russian expression - that the chef cooks with too much salt if he is love.
At home, I cook in silence. The meat is cleaned and I score the top. A marinade inspired by porchetta comes together, a heady paste of fresh sage, exotic black pepper corns, sea salt, red onion, garlic, orange zest, a splash of orange juice, a jigger of dark Amaro and a few spoons of good olive oil. The fennel nestles on either side and then I douse the pan in leftover white wine and it goes into a low oven until the house smells like some lost corner of Italy. Three hours later and the meat is falling apart. I peel potatoes and splash them whole with lemon juice and olive oil, a generous rain of sea salt and they roast away, until the bottoms grow dark brown and crusty, the skins a salty crackle but inside a pillow.
E comes home first, her nose poking in the air asking what is for dinner before her boots are tossed to the doormat.
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