Ode to Tvorog
April 23, 2006
I have been dreaming of farmer cheese (tvorog) for the past week. Actually, it’s been only a few days since I finished the kilo that Tamara bought upon my return from my business trip, but since my love for tvorog has grown into a physical dependency, every day feels like an eternity. After finishing the rough draft of a ghastly translation on Sunday afternoon, my friend Magomed and I decided to take a trip to the market (rinok) where I get my weekly supply of tvorog. Of course, they sell it in stores, but it’s just not the same: In the store, it always tastes exactly the same and the consistency is homogeneous throughout—in other words, it’s clear that the tvorog was mass produced. At the market, the cheese is homemade and fluffy and breaks into small chunks when you touch it. I always buy it from the same woman at the same market – Tepliy Stan.
As we left the office, I asked the guard what time he thought the market would close. “I think all the markets are closed today: It’s Easter,” he said calmly, not anticipating the weight of the words he had so carelessly uttered. I was terribly disappointed for a minute while I was tying my shoe, but then I shot straight up: “Well, I think we should go anyway.” Magomed agreed. Closing the market on Easter was preposterous, I thought to myself, even though I knew that there was nothing preposterous about it at all, considering I am surrounded on all sides by Russian Orthodoxy. But somehow, it made me feel better to think of them as being preposterous for closing the market on Easter rather than myself as being preposterous for being plagued with an insatiable tvorog obsession that would send me six subway stations south of my own when it was clear that the market would be closed. The closer we got to the market, the more nervous I got. With every stop, Magomed asked if I was sure I wanted to go through with it…if maybe we shouldn’t just turn back so as to avoid the inevitable disappointment. It is exactly this kind of negativity, I informed him, that closes down markets. He apologized and we agreed to think positive thoughts. If I just send all of my positive energies to the market, it will surely be open upon my arrival.
Across from us on the metro sat two teenage girls: a husky one with long black hair and a small blonde. We watched them in their relentless attempt to self-photograph by means of their cellular telephone. The screen on the phone was bigger than the screen on my digital camera, so when they stretched out their arms to take a picture, I could already see what was caught in the frame.
To the left of them sat a woman in her late-50s with a young boy of about 9. He sat upright with such a solemn expression that I suddenly forgot about my tvorog and the happy thoughts I was supposed to be faxing to the market were replaced by an unpleasant emptiness. His demeanor, posture and expression were so serious that if it wasn’t clear by his size that he was a child, I would have given him no less than 60. He carefully looked around and seemed completely aware of his every surrounding. His eyes were crisp and clear and looked as though they carried the burden of all the grief of all the world within their crystal shells. At some point, he slid off the seat and stood up to look at something. The woman accompanying him yanked him callously by the sleeve, forcing him back into his seat and reprimanded him with a derisive bark. Watching children being chastised for no reason makes me cringe and I stared at her disapprovingly. He sat back down and folded his hands together so that the fingers of each hand were nestled in the palm of the other, creating an interlocking ‘S’. It was awkward to see such a mature resting pose with such small hands. I felt like at any moment, he could break into choral song. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. He looked so sad that I suggested to Magomed that perhaps he didn’t have a mother and this woman was just a mean aunt whose custody had befallen him by a tragic twist of fate. Yes, I thought sadly, there is no other explanation. The woman sat beside him and stared forward with a cold, indifferent gaze. ‘She can’t stand him,’ I thought, 'and right as we all sit here in the light of the metro car lamps, she is plotting how to get rid of him once and for all. "I’ll just leave him at an orphanage somewhere," she surely chuckled to herself. How could she be so cruel? This is a child! Magomed thought I was being ridiculous, but I was very upset. Then, suddenly, he stretched out his little neck until his face was on the level of her right ear and whispered something to her. She let out a big smile and responded with a soft laugh. He wasn’t satisfied with whatever it was she responded to whatever it was he asked, but her gentle response resonated inside of me and I felt a pang of relief. ‘Thank God,' I thought. 'Maybe she does love him after all,' I whispered to Magomed, to which he said that it was more likely that she was his grandmother than an evil aunt. He was probably right. After all that investigative work, I was tired and dozed off for a couple of stops. When I opened my eyes, the entire bench in front of me was empty.
Our stop had finally come and I was feeling extremely optimistic. As soon as the doors of the metro opened, I started looking around frantically and was pleased to find quite a few people carrying large, full plastic bags. This, I told Magomed, was a sure sign that the market was alive and well. We sprinted up the metro steps into the light of day, and I could almost taste the tvorog that was about to be mine…but, alas, I tasted it all too soon. The market was closed, and just in case the fact that the huge, iron gate (through which one would normally enter the market) was locked shut wasn’t a good enough indication that the market was ‘not open’, they decided to top it off with a small handwritten sign, informing patrons that the market is, in fact, ‘Closed’. ‘Preposterous,’ I thought to myself. As we walked around in hope of finding tvorog at a neighboring store, I decided it would be best to relieve my rage by behaving like an insolent child, and resorted to pouting, dragging my feet, staring at the sidewalk in front of me and partaking in other equally obnoxious behaviours. Luckily, I tired of it quickly and we made it back to the metro.
On the way from my metro station to my apartment, I decided to settle for store-bought tvorog and stopped in at the small store adjacent to my building. When I entered my apartment building, Maria Ivanna, the little old lady who patrols the entrance of my apartment building, was there to great me. Last night, when I came home, she taught me what I was supposed to say to her today…on the Russian Orthodox Easter, that is. “Isus voskres,” (Jesus was resurrected!) I said reluctantly, to which she cheerfully replied completing the formula “Vo istinu voskres)!” (He truly was ressurected!) I heard this numerous times throughout the day, and was baffled by it each time anew. Now, I can understand wishing someone a ‘happy holiday’, but why should I have to say something that I don’t believe in just because they believe it? It’s awkward for me to say that Jesus was resurrected if I don’t believe that he was, and I don’t understand what sense it makes on the receiving end either: if they believe that he was resurrected, then why do they need to hear it from me, or anyone else for that matter? After all, on Pesach (Passover) I don’t walk around asking people to say: “Moses led the Jews out of Egypt and the Red Sea parted before them.” And, it then logically follows that I don’t respond: “Yes it’s true: Moses led the Jews out of Egypt and the Red Sea parted before them.” Just weird, if you ask me. At any rate, she was pleased that I remembered what to say and I was pleased that I could add a little bit of ‘festive’ to her holiday, considering she spent the entire day at work. As I made my way into the hallway that leads to my apartment, Maria Ivanna congratulated me with the holiday as well. I thanked her but told her that my Passover was a week ago. She didn’t understand. I told her I was Jewish, to which she shamefully responded, “Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot that that’s right, Catholic Passover was last week. It’s just all mixed up: ours is this week and yours was last week.” I repeated again that I was Jewish but it didn’t stick and she expressed regret for not having congratulated me during the Catholic Easter.
As soon as I stepped into the apartment I took to opening my store-bought, homogeneous-consistency tvorog. I didn’t even have to fully unpackage it to know that it had already gone sour.
This was more than I could bare, but so as not to fall into complete desperation, I quickly converted my disappointment into action. The rule with tvorog is that as soon as it goes bad, you make ‘sirniki’ (tvorog pancakes) out of it and so I got right down to business. Usually Tamara makes them, but since she was out of town, it was just me and the spoiled tvorog. It just so happens, that Tamara doesn’t have much faith in my cooking and so whenever I suggest that I would like to make the sirniki, she makes up an excuse as to why it would be best if she just went ahead and made them herself: It can’t be a good sign that she is so worried about my cooking that she doesn’t even want to subject spoiled farmer cheese to my culinary massacre. I haven’t made sirniki in years—come to think of it, I don’t think I have ever made them on my own from start to finish, and so all I had to rely on was my memory of what my mom told me years ago. But since I didn’t remember, I decided to take a more unsystematic approach, which always seems to work wonders for good cooks. I added one egg. Then another. Haphazardly threw in some flour and sugar with no concern for ratio or consistency. Squeezed in some lemon and threw them on the frying pan. Of the eight that came out of this batch, the four that were not the color black turned out pretty good. Of course, while I was frying them, I suffered a splash of oil to the arm and in the last couple of hours I have watched it grow from a tiny red spot to a millimeter-tall blister.
So now the day is over, and instead of a kilogram of tvorog in the fridge, I have an oil-burn blister on my arm.
As we left the office, I asked the guard what time he thought the market would close. “I think all the markets are closed today: It’s Easter,” he said calmly, not anticipating the weight of the words he had so carelessly uttered. I was terribly disappointed for a minute while I was tying my shoe, but then I shot straight up: “Well, I think we should go anyway.” Magomed agreed. Closing the market on Easter was preposterous, I thought to myself, even though I knew that there was nothing preposterous about it at all, considering I am surrounded on all sides by Russian Orthodoxy. But somehow, it made me feel better to think of them as being preposterous for closing the market on Easter rather than myself as being preposterous for being plagued with an insatiable tvorog obsession that would send me six subway stations south of my own when it was clear that the market would be closed. The closer we got to the market, the more nervous I got. With every stop, Magomed asked if I was sure I wanted to go through with it…if maybe we shouldn’t just turn back so as to avoid the inevitable disappointment. It is exactly this kind of negativity, I informed him, that closes down markets. He apologized and we agreed to think positive thoughts. If I just send all of my positive energies to the market, it will surely be open upon my arrival.
Across from us on the metro sat two teenage girls: a husky one with long black hair and a small blonde. We watched them in their relentless attempt to self-photograph by means of their cellular telephone. The screen on the phone was bigger than the screen on my digital camera, so when they stretched out their arms to take a picture, I could already see what was caught in the frame.
To the left of them sat a woman in her late-50s with a young boy of about 9. He sat upright with such a solemn expression that I suddenly forgot about my tvorog and the happy thoughts I was supposed to be faxing to the market were replaced by an unpleasant emptiness. His demeanor, posture and expression were so serious that if it wasn’t clear by his size that he was a child, I would have given him no less than 60. He carefully looked around and seemed completely aware of his every surrounding. His eyes were crisp and clear and looked as though they carried the burden of all the grief of all the world within their crystal shells. At some point, he slid off the seat and stood up to look at something. The woman accompanying him yanked him callously by the sleeve, forcing him back into his seat and reprimanded him with a derisive bark. Watching children being chastised for no reason makes me cringe and I stared at her disapprovingly. He sat back down and folded his hands together so that the fingers of each hand were nestled in the palm of the other, creating an interlocking ‘S’. It was awkward to see such a mature resting pose with such small hands. I felt like at any moment, he could break into choral song. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. He looked so sad that I suggested to Magomed that perhaps he didn’t have a mother and this woman was just a mean aunt whose custody had befallen him by a tragic twist of fate. Yes, I thought sadly, there is no other explanation. The woman sat beside him and stared forward with a cold, indifferent gaze. ‘She can’t stand him,’ I thought, 'and right as we all sit here in the light of the metro car lamps, she is plotting how to get rid of him once and for all. "I’ll just leave him at an orphanage somewhere," she surely chuckled to herself. How could she be so cruel? This is a child! Magomed thought I was being ridiculous, but I was very upset. Then, suddenly, he stretched out his little neck until his face was on the level of her right ear and whispered something to her. She let out a big smile and responded with a soft laugh. He wasn’t satisfied with whatever it was she responded to whatever it was he asked, but her gentle response resonated inside of me and I felt a pang of relief. ‘Thank God,' I thought. 'Maybe she does love him after all,' I whispered to Magomed, to which he said that it was more likely that she was his grandmother than an evil aunt. He was probably right. After all that investigative work, I was tired and dozed off for a couple of stops. When I opened my eyes, the entire bench in front of me was empty.
Our stop had finally come and I was feeling extremely optimistic. As soon as the doors of the metro opened, I started looking around frantically and was pleased to find quite a few people carrying large, full plastic bags. This, I told Magomed, was a sure sign that the market was alive and well. We sprinted up the metro steps into the light of day, and I could almost taste the tvorog that was about to be mine…but, alas, I tasted it all too soon. The market was closed, and just in case the fact that the huge, iron gate (through which one would normally enter the market) was locked shut wasn’t a good enough indication that the market was ‘not open’, they decided to top it off with a small handwritten sign, informing patrons that the market is, in fact, ‘Closed’. ‘Preposterous,’ I thought to myself. As we walked around in hope of finding tvorog at a neighboring store, I decided it would be best to relieve my rage by behaving like an insolent child, and resorted to pouting, dragging my feet, staring at the sidewalk in front of me and partaking in other equally obnoxious behaviours. Luckily, I tired of it quickly and we made it back to the metro.
On the way from my metro station to my apartment, I decided to settle for store-bought tvorog and stopped in at the small store adjacent to my building. When I entered my apartment building, Maria Ivanna, the little old lady who patrols the entrance of my apartment building, was there to great me. Last night, when I came home, she taught me what I was supposed to say to her today…on the Russian Orthodox Easter, that is. “Isus voskres,” (Jesus was resurrected!) I said reluctantly, to which she cheerfully replied completing the formula “Vo istinu voskres)!” (He truly was ressurected!) I heard this numerous times throughout the day, and was baffled by it each time anew. Now, I can understand wishing someone a ‘happy holiday’, but why should I have to say something that I don’t believe in just because they believe it? It’s awkward for me to say that Jesus was resurrected if I don’t believe that he was, and I don’t understand what sense it makes on the receiving end either: if they believe that he was resurrected, then why do they need to hear it from me, or anyone else for that matter? After all, on Pesach (Passover) I don’t walk around asking people to say: “Moses led the Jews out of Egypt and the Red Sea parted before them.” And, it then logically follows that I don’t respond: “Yes it’s true: Moses led the Jews out of Egypt and the Red Sea parted before them.” Just weird, if you ask me. At any rate, she was pleased that I remembered what to say and I was pleased that I could add a little bit of ‘festive’ to her holiday, considering she spent the entire day at work. As I made my way into the hallway that leads to my apartment, Maria Ivanna congratulated me with the holiday as well. I thanked her but told her that my Passover was a week ago. She didn’t understand. I told her I was Jewish, to which she shamefully responded, “Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot that that’s right, Catholic Passover was last week. It’s just all mixed up: ours is this week and yours was last week.” I repeated again that I was Jewish but it didn’t stick and she expressed regret for not having congratulated me during the Catholic Easter.
As soon as I stepped into the apartment I took to opening my store-bought, homogeneous-consistency tvorog. I didn’t even have to fully unpackage it to know that it had already gone sour.
This was more than I could bare, but so as not to fall into complete desperation, I quickly converted my disappointment into action. The rule with tvorog is that as soon as it goes bad, you make ‘sirniki’ (tvorog pancakes) out of it and so I got right down to business. Usually Tamara makes them, but since she was out of town, it was just me and the spoiled tvorog. It just so happens, that Tamara doesn’t have much faith in my cooking and so whenever I suggest that I would like to make the sirniki, she makes up an excuse as to why it would be best if she just went ahead and made them herself: It can’t be a good sign that she is so worried about my cooking that she doesn’t even want to subject spoiled farmer cheese to my culinary massacre. I haven’t made sirniki in years—come to think of it, I don’t think I have ever made them on my own from start to finish, and so all I had to rely on was my memory of what my mom told me years ago. But since I didn’t remember, I decided to take a more unsystematic approach, which always seems to work wonders for good cooks. I added one egg. Then another. Haphazardly threw in some flour and sugar with no concern for ratio or consistency. Squeezed in some lemon and threw them on the frying pan. Of the eight that came out of this batch, the four that were not the color black turned out pretty good. Of course, while I was frying them, I suffered a splash of oil to the arm and in the last couple of hours I have watched it grow from a tiny red spot to a millimeter-tall blister.
So now the day is over, and instead of a kilogram of tvorog in the fridge, I have an oil-burn blister on my arm.
posted by Liza | 11:38 PM
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