A Literary Feast: Recreating 10 Fictional Meals in Brooklyn
- c/o goodreads.com
[There was] a small table and a tray, covered with sliced white bread, pressed caviar in a glass bowl, white marinated mushrooms on a plate, something in a saucepan and finally, vodka in a mammoth decanter…that was sweating with frost, which was understandable since it had been placed in a shallow bowl packed with ice…in the bedroom, sprawled in a relaxed pose…was a creature, namely, a black cat of horrific proportions with a glass of vodka in one paw and in the other a fork on which he had speared a pickled mushroom.
I’ve always wanted a big, black cat named Behemoth. Instead I have a little gray dog named Valkyrie. That is not really the point, I guess, but I do hope one day to have a fat, black cat and when I do I will feed him herring and pickled mushrooms, if he likes, and just treat him really well, as one should. Until then, I think I will eat pickled mushrooms and drink icy cold vodka and, oh, eat all sorts of Russian delicacies, just like Behemoth does in Bulgakov’s masterpiece. Tatiana in Brighton Beach has all sorts of pickled things (my favorite being the pickled watermelon rind, actually) and no one will look askance if you order bottle after bottle of vodka as you sit at a table on the boardwalk and stare at the Atlantic Ocean, squinting and imagining it to be the Black Sea, which is still pretty far from Moscow, where this novel takes place, but that’s not really the point either.
Tatiana; 3152 Brighton 6th Street, Brighton Beach