Alone in a Kitchen in Moscow

My first apartment on my own was in Moscow. I had just turned 21, graduated from college and with the love and support of my parents I packed my whole life into 2 big suitcases and 2 carry-ons and I moved over 5,000 miles away.

In retrospect this was more of a test of my fortitude than I imagined. I would be 5,000 miles from everyone I knew, not one familiar face in a city of 14 million. I had visited Moscow on 2 previous trips, a high school 2 week tour and a weekend during my semester abroad in St. Petersburg. It was certainly the biggest city I will ever live in and it presented no end of wonder to me.

I had never lived alone (well I technically had a single Senior year, but in a dorm no one lives alone) and I had certainly never kept a household, cooked and cleaned for myself with any regularity. Cooking was a communal effort growing up and for the most part we cooked and ate as a family despite my parents often crazy work schedules.

I knew my way around a kitchen, but I had never relied solely on my own money and efforts to feed myself.

My apartment n Moscow was a joy. It was in the older part of the city, sturdy construction with sunny windows. In reality it was a one bedroom apartment, but the bedroom was being used for storage and locked away, so it was a glorified studio (training for my Boston future). There was a lovely entry way with a big bright room to the right with an old TV, a dining table, a book case, an orange couch and matching fringed lamp and a tiny bed, calling it a twin bed would be generous. I was so glad to be short.

If you turned away from the living room you came to a hall with 3 rooms off of it: the traditional European 2 room bathroom with the sink and giant tub in one room and the toilet in a separate closet and a small but functional kitchen. The best part of the kitchen was a huge wooden hutch with glass front cabinets and heavy drawers, I loved that piece of furniture. There was a small table, sink, fridge and a stove.

The stove became an instant cause for concern. It was a gas stove and I had grown up with electric, the whole idea of gas caused terror, images of singed eye brows or worse instantly came to mind. It was an old stove, no automatic ignition burners, a big box of matches at the ready.

Adding to the anxiety was an old wives tale I had heard about old urban apartment buildings. I heard that if you lit the oven the heat would rouse all of the cock roaches in the building and they would flood out of the woodwork into your kitchen. I had already encountered a few 6 legged creatures and the idea of them coming in any volume was enough to keep that oven door closed for 11 months.

In fact for the first month or so I don’t think I lit the stove top either. I subsisted on a steady diet of bread and cheese, both prolific and delicious in Russia, and the all too frequent Snickers bar. I was a recent college graduate who had learned to live on cereal while writing my thesis, bread and cheese were luxuries.

One night in late September I was really craving pasta (another college staple) and I had found a kiosk near my apartment that sold jarred Uncle Ben’s pasta sauce (I had no idea Uncle Ben had ventured outside of the rice world, but there it was). So I bought some macaroni, sauce, bread and cheese and I was going to make my first hot meal in my new home.

Shopping in Moscow in 1995 was a challenge in its own right. The flow of goods from the West was starting to pick up, but there was no rhyme or reason to what was available and no guarantee that what you saw on Monday would be there Tuesday. If you saw anything you thought you might possibly want to eat ever you bought it that day. You could not get your hopes up for something as there was no assurance that you would be able to get it, with the exception of bread and cheese.

So back to my Italian feast. I put the pasta in a pot with some water and found a sauce pan to heat up the jarred sauce. I nibbled on the bread and cheese, uncertain if I had the fortitude to strike the match and bring it to the flow of natural gas that would ignite and cook this food, how bad would cold jarred sauce be on really good bread?

I poured a glass of wine, because what is better for a potentially flammable situation than alcohol? I talked to myself a lot that year, alone as I was, and I talked myself into it, the comforting yield of the pasta, the acidic familiarity of tomato sauce, the sweetness of basil and the hint of garlic slipping over my tongue. I must do this, I must strike the match.

I did of course and I am still here, nothing bad happened, no singed eyebrows or additional cock roaches. I piled my plate high with pasta and sauce, brought the whole loaf of bread and block of cheese into the living room and savored every bite until I was so full I couldn’t imagine eating any more. In addition to the joy I felt from the food there was this moral victory, this coming-of-age moment of accomplishment, a single morsel of success that at the time seemed greater than stepping on the plane a month earlier, of starting my first real job and my adult life in this huge and wondrous city.

Once I conquered the fear of the gas stove top (and I admit I never got over the fear of the gas oven) I became a makeshift chef in my tiny apartment. I experimented with the perfect macaroni and cheese, with just the right amount of garlic powder, the ideal grilled cheese sandwich the merging of the 2 staples I loved so much. I ventured outside my neighborhood for ingredients, hitting a market way outside the city with produce I hadn’t seen downtown, I bought an eggplant.

This eggplant was like gold. I remembered my grandmother’s eggplant Parmesan and I longed for the comfort of family. I carried the eggplant home on the hour long train ride like a small child. I had a jar of sauce at home and some pasta. I could get bread and cheese from Sasha on the corner. I was going to make eggplant Parmesan and then it hit me, my grandmother’s eggplant was baked, in the oven, until the cheese browned and bubbled, the edges crispier than the middle. There was no way I could do that with my stove top set up, or was there?

Annmarie’s Stove Top Eggplant Parmesan

Peel eggplant and slice into rounds about ¼” thick

Dredge in flour, egg, breadcrumbs in that order

Fry in olive oil until golden on both sides drain on paper towels

Layer into large frying pan, eggplant cheese and sauce, 3 times.

Cover and cook on low until cheese melts and sauce heats through

Serve with pasta.

I had discovered a convection process on my stove top. With a large frying pan and cover I could “bake” anything. My local kiosk had frozen pizza one day, frozen pizza! It was a small pizza, fit in the frying pan perfectly, voila!

My time in Moscow was full of revelations. It was the training ground for independent living. I have now lived almost as many years alone as I did with my family. While I hope to have a husband someday I have never once worried about feeding myself. After that year in Moscow I knew I could not only shop and cook for myself, I could turn it into an adventure.