so much to do, so little time
When someone asks me about my roots, it feels odd to say I am from Russia. I am Russian but from the Soviet Union. To me, Russia before the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union, and Russia after the Soviet Union are three different countries. My …
“If you want to see a city like a local and understand it, visit a market, a train station, and a cemetery.” …
“In Moscow, you’d sit in an enormous parlor of a restaurant where you don’t know anybody and nobody knows you and you don’t feel that you’re a stranger. And here, you know everybody and everybody knows you, and you’re a stranger, a stranger… and a …
We did get a few sympathetic words from friends about night flight hardships but it was our firm plan to fly a red eye. Direct. JFK to Moscow. Nine hours and some. Our plane was scheduled to take off after midnight NY time and land …
French comedy at its best. Marianne (Laetitia Casta, familiar to most probably as a former Victoria’s Secret model) announces to Abel (Louis Garrel, known outside French cinema as one of the twins from Bertolucci’s The Dreamers) that she is pregnant and the baby is not …
Ever since my first days in the United States, I have not been comfortable with food packed in bags. Not that I did not like it — I actually loved it. But that food was intimidating — so new and different. When we were out …
— Did you tell her she can eat!?!? It was a little after 8 AM on a sunny April Sunday of 2009. I was upstairs in the bathroom getting ready. Downstairs, Tom caught our nine-year-old Lizzie sneaking cereal in the pantry. No, I didn’t tell …
My culinary romance with Christopher Kimball and Lynn Rosetto Kasper was going strong for years. We connected via podcasts during my morning runs on Saddle River Trail. Then, Christopher switched from America’s Test Kitchen to Milk Street and stopped talking for a while and Lynn retired …
Lizzie saw an ad for Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo in one of The New Yorker issues lying around the house and got four tickets including Charlotte, me, and one of her friends. She knew the show was the day after her wisdom teeth …
As long as I remember, my mother made this salad for every New Year celebration. Even during late 80’s and early 90’s, when there was nothing in the stores besides cans of seaweed. And she made it for my birthday, and for my brother’s birthday, …