The Catskill Chronicle

By Jude Waterston

On an unusually warm day in early October, the temperature hovering in the eighties, I waited at the West Fourth Street subway station to board the ”B” train to Chinatown. I noticed that the sign above my head listed the last stop as Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. On a whim, I decided to head there instead. I hadn’t been to the waterfront community, where my paternal grandparents had lived and died, in over fifteen years, when my sister, Janet, and I had gone there to stand at the entrance to Grandma Gussie and Grandpa Bennie’s old apartment building and to take a stroll on the boardwalk a block away. Much, I knew, had changed.

I watched the city recede as the elevated train rattled across Manhattan Bridge, then into the depths of Brooklyn. Bold splashes of colorful, spray-painted graffiti were emblazoned on walls and building facades in many of the neighborhoods we passed through. I took out the notebook I’d brought along, so I could take notes on my trip to “Little Odessa,” which is what Brighton Beach has been called since the 1970’s when about 12,000 immigrants from the Soviet Union settled there.

At the Brighton Beach Avenue stop, I descended the clattering steel stairs and found myself in another country. All the signs were in Russian, in the decorative- looking Cyrillic alphabet. I walked along Brighton Beach Avenue, the main thoroughfare. The only language I heard, as I passed fruit and vegetable stands, grocery stores, pharmacies, and street vendors loudly hawking their wares, was Russian. At the corner of Third Street, a woman standing in a tiny wooden kiosk sold nothing but Russian newspapers and magazines.

Between Second and Third Streets, I happened upon two food purveyors. The awning at 287 read Vintage Food Corporation. A buxom woman in a pouf-sleeved, bright turquoise uniform and white lace hat on her very blonde head, stood outside the entrance, selling breads and pastries. She worked in grim silence, passing the wrapped baked goods to equally straight-faced customers. Inside I found an abundant world of hard sucking candies, chocolate, halvah, dried fruits, and nuts. There were five kinds of almonds alone. Along with the dried fruits, there were candied orange and grapefruit peels and crystallized ginger. An island in the middle of the shop held vats of glistening black and green olives and, in the back of the store, next to a small butcher counter, were glass-fronted spice drawers containing whole and ground cumin, turmeric, black or white sesame seeds, poppy seeds, hot pepper flakes, and Hungarian paprika. I jotted down a few notes to remind myself of the array of things I’d seen and couldn’t help noticing the piercing stares of a couple of the counter people.

I wandered out and headed up the block where I found Gold Label Delicatessen and Gourmet Food at 281-285 Brighton Beach Avenue. This huge, brightly lit, immaculate store is a cornucopia of Russian delicacies. There was a tremendous variety of prepared foods. Besides chopped salads of beets; red and green cabbage; eggplant; potato; cucumbers; mixed vegetables; and eggs; there was gefilte fish, kishka (blood sausage), pickled mushrooms, potato knishes, roasted duck legs, stuffed cabbage, baked trout, potato pancakes, stuffed peppers, creamed mushrooms, breaded cutlets of veal and chicken, plus many items I couldn’t discern and which were labeled only in Russian.

The cheese case was huge and carried Bulgarian, French, German, and Greek feta. At a case further along I counted over 20 kinds of salami and more than a dozen of sausages, as well as various forms of ham and cuts of bacon. Refrigerated cases in the rear of the store housed bag upon bag of frozen pelmini, pirogi, and other dumplings. There was a smoked fish counter where caviar and herring were sold alongside salmon, sturgeon, and whitefish chubs, and shelves in the center of the store held jars of preserves, jam, and fruits suspended in heavy syrup, as well as chocolates, halvah, bags of barley and other grains. Additionally, there were bins filled with every kind of hard candy you could imagine. The queue to pay ran alongside a counter displaying amazing-looking fine pastries.

As I waited to pay for my purchases, I closely observed the sales people, cashiers, and customers. Along both sides of the store were counters manned by brightly dressed, moody-looking, or downright sour-faced woman. No where  before had I witnessed such dismal facial expressions. The entire community seemed to be miserable! Back on the street, heading toward the boardwalk, I tried to discern a happy face, people laughing, or even talking animatedly, but I was met with a general glumness and what at times felt like open hostility. I was painfully aware of being an outsider in the midst of Little Odessa.

Sitting outside every deco-style six-story apartment building on Sixth Street were elderly people in folding chairs or wheelchairs, conversing in Russian. I would’ve liked to talk to someone of my memories of my grandparents and the neighborhood, but I simply walked quickly, head down, up the street toward the beach. Before I reached the corner I impulsively pushed through the door of the last building and looked at the names next to the buzzers in the vestibule that led to the lobby. The names were all Russian and impossible for me to pronounce. I left when a man abruptly rushed across the lobby, opened the door and stared pointedly at me as I was scribbling down some of the names. I tried to explain to him that my grandparents had lived in the neighborhood, but his anger and obvious distrust made me realize it was better to retreat. I felt his eyes on me as the door swung closed and wondered why the neighborhood felt so cloaked under a palpable weight.

Once on the boardwalk, the salt air filled my lungs as I stood before the covered pavilion where I fondly remembered searching among the gray-haired elderly couples for my grandparents so many years ago. The boardwalk had changed. I sat on a bench, my back to the water, and took a look at what faced me: the Winter Garden Restaurant and Lounge, the Moscow Café & Bar, Tatiana Café, Tatiana Restaurant, and finally Volna Café & Restaurant. All except the Moscow Café had outdoor seating, under broad canopies, where I imagined people flock during the warm summer months.

I crossed over to Volna Café and took a seat outside at one of the formally set tables. Serious, dark-haired young waiters in stiff, starched white shirts and black trousers, their ordering pads jutting out of their back pockets, moved silently about. One solemn-faced kid with prominent, bushy eyebrows slid a huge multi-paged, bound menu on my table without offering a greeting. I asked for a cappuccino and said I’d like to look through the menu. Cold appetizers, averaging about six dollars, consisted of such things as herring with onions; smoked fish or meat platters; jellied chicken with horseradish; herring “Odessa” style; and smoked mackerel. There were soups of lamb and rice; chicken broth with meat dumplings; borscht; and solianka (a traditional Russian soup laden with beef, veal, and sausage that is a meal in itself). Dough “entries” were potato, sour cherry, cheese, or meat dumplings, as well as Russian “pancakes” with red or black caviar. Entrees were, oddly, all listed as “entries,” and there were masses of them, from fried liver with onions; stuffed derma; meat and fish kebabs; baked eel; and foie gras to cutlet “Kiev style.”

My perfectly executed, frothy cappuccino was served with a wooden stick at the end of which was a long, chiseled chunk of rock sugar that resembled quartz crystal. This had been one of my Grandma Gussie’s favorite sweets, and I recalled her delightedly sucking on one, a hot cup of tea nearby. A few feet from me was a table full of compact men, who all looked like wrestlers, smacking their lips, eating heartily. At one end of the table a bottle of Stolichnaya vodka peeked out of a pewter ice bucket.

After a walk along the beach, where at the waters edge, hundreds of mussel shells lay embedded in the wet sand, I returned to the streets of Little Odessa. I stopped at Gina’s café at 409 Brighton Beach Avenue. I walked in and saw a few tables occupied by stout matrons. Instinctively, I headed toward the rear of the restaurant, up a few stairs to a quiet little platform directly opposite a suspended television playing non-stop Russian pop videos. I took a seat and soon a young woman came over, nodded in greeting, and handed me a lunch menu. One of the specials of the day was salad “vesna,” which I ordered as a first course, though I had no idea what it consisted of. For my entrée, I ordered potato vareniki, which were translated as “ravioli” on the menu.

The salad “vesna” was a dense mixture of ultra-crisp radish and cucumber slices and large chunks of hard-boiled egg whites, bound lightly with sour cream brightened with plenty of fresh dill. It was delicious, but I forced myself to stop after consuming half the bowl, so that I’d have room for the vareniki .The little half-moons of dough had been boiled, and then tossed with sweet butter. Crisp, paper-thin slices of fried onion were strewn on top and a little pot of sour cream was the only accompaniment. They were light and silken in texture. The crunchy onions and dabs of sour cream were perfect foils. I cleaned my plate and asked to take the remainder of the salad to go.

I walked to Brighton Beach Third Street and stopped in front of number 3091, the Alberly Arms, where my grandparents had lived in apartment 2G so very many years ago. In my minds eye, I could clearly picture each room of their apartment and could almost smell the delicious scent of chicken soup and long-stewed meats that always greeted us as we stepped from the elevator into the hallway that led to their corner apartment.

I opened the door to the vestibule and looked at the names next to the buzzers. Amazed, I read Auerbach, Greenspan, Goldman, Shapiro, Weintraub, and Zuckerman as a woman entered, passed me without a glance, and entered the lobby. Before the door closed, I slipped in behind her. I walked up to the second floor and was greeted by a huge Star of David that had been scratched in the layers of old paint of the wall at the top of the stairs. Out of nine apartments, all but two still had mezuzahs affixed to the right of the door. A flood of memories came back to me and I yearned to knock on the door that had been my grandparents and peek inside the past. The only thing missing was what I had naively expected and yearned to find in front of Grandpa Benny and Grandma Gussie’s door: the heady scent of Grandma’s Eastern European cooking that always clung heavily in the air.

The elevator was just as I remembered it, a heavy door with a huge brass knob. I pushed the button and waited. I pulled at the handle when the elevator arrived on the second floor and another door, this one with a familiar diamond pattern of leaded glass, slid open. I stepped inside and rode down to the lobby. I exited the Alberly Arms and took the “B” train back to my own world.

Russian Salad “Vesna”

Serves 4 – 6

This crunchy, refreshing salad is the perfect counterpart to a platter of smoked fish or pickled herring.

½ pound radishes, thinly sliced into rounds (about 2 cups)

½ pound kirby or English hothouse cucumber, with skin, halved lengthwise, then thinly sliced into rounds (about 2 cups)

5 hard-boiled eggs (See below)

¾ cup sour cream

½ teaspoon salt

A healthy grinding of freshly ground black pepper

Pinch cayenne pepper

¼ teaspoon sweet Hungarian paprika

¼ cup finely chopped fresh dill

1 scallion, white and green part, cut crosswise into very fine rounds (optional)

To hard-boil eggs: Place eggs in a roomy saucepan and pour in enough cold water to cover the eggs by at least an inch. Bring the eggs to a boil over high heat, then immediately remove the pan from the heat. Let the eggs stand, covered, in the water for 12 minutes. To peel, remove the eggs from the water, and roll them on a hard surface to crack the shells. Peel them immediately under cool running water.

For the salad: In a small bowl, whisk together the sour cream, salt, black pepper, cayenne, paprika, and dill. Place the cucumber and radish slices in a large bowl. Pour the sour cream over the vegetables and toss to coat. Cut the hard boiled eggs in half. Remove the yolks and discard or reserve for another use. Cut the whites into thirds and add to the bowl with the vegetables. Gently, but thoroughly, stir to combine. Sprinkle with scallions, if using, and serve immediately or chill for up to an hour. Serve cold.