Food Shorts Audio: Beet Borsht at a Russian Literary Feast

 Text of Audio

    Julie’s nose is held aloft over the soup as she stirs the beet borscht, wafts of dill and coriander curlicue up in a rainbow steam. It’s royal, red and bubbling. Sunlight floods the kitchen-- so there really is-- a rainbow, and it’s, as if, the spectrum of vegetables cut and chopped by Daniel created it.
    I’d made a quick vegetable stock earlier in the morning: onions, garlic, beets, carrots, dill stems, cilantro stems, endive, celery and coriander seed. It simmered for an hour and then was set off the heat, and allowed to infuse for another three.
    Daniel and Julie added diced beets, potato, onions, an apple, and carrots to the strained stock and cooked everything until fork tender. Then with Daniel’s immersion blender they pureed it until velvety smooth out on the front porch, where the splatters didn’t matter.
    We added salt to taste and pickle juice left over from kosher dill brining last summer. I had a half- gallon in the back of the fridge and kept thinking that its day would come, and it did. It was the perfect sour spark to the sweet lively vegetables. When the first spoonful hit Julie’s tongue her face went into revelry.
   Last night it was served as the first course, after the zakuski, at our Russian literary feast. In little bowls, with our salmon Kulebiac on the side. We didn’t even pass the sour cream because it was so, just right, as it was. ​