Lane is professor of English and linguistics at Los Angeles City College. His family is safe, but we want to support him and everyone in the Los Angeles community by sharing this link: “Resources to Support Those Affected by the LA Area Fires” compiled by Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA). We hope this is a helpful resource for you or anyone you know, and it also includes a list of nonprofits accepting donations for those affected by the fires. From our One Potato family to yours, our hearts go out to everyone affected by the Greater Los Angeles area wildfires.
Today’s Special Community Voices essay is based on excerpts from Lane Igoudin’s memoir, A Family, Maybe. Cooking a family recipe passed down through generations, Lane prepares borscht with his grandmother while discussing the challenges (and hope) surrounding the adoption of his young daughters.
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Of Love and Borscht
By Lane Igoudin (Excerpted from A Family, Maybe, 2024)
“Please don’t speak Russian in front of them. Ya proshu tebya (I’m begging you).”
“Okay.”
“No, Babushka, you have to promise me. I don’t want them to know anything about us.”
“Okay, Sasha, okay! I promise. Why are you so tense?”
We were crossing the parking lot to the foster agency in the hot, chalk-white August sun. I was carrying the 3-month-old Gaby in her car seat; behind me, leaning on her cane, my grandmother was leading Marianna, Gaby’s 2-year-old sister, with her free hand.
Jenna and Tony, the kids’ birth parents, and the social worker Maya were already there. I set down the car seat. Grandma nodded to them politely and let go of Marianna’s hand.
Later on, back at the house, I was frying the onions and carrots on the stove for the dinner borscht. Babushka was peeling the beets, swearing under her breath every time the peeler ran sideways.
Grandpa Isaac used to say, “Tomochka (Tammy), why do you have to swear like an Odessa sailor? It’s unbecoming of you. You’re a doctor; you are an intellectual!” And she’d always promise, “I won’t do it again, Izya,” and inevitably let out another juicy profanity when the situation called for it.
“So what do you think?” I couldn’t help asking the question.
Grandma moved on to the pile of potatoes.
“He is perfect for her, this Tony.”
“What do you mean?”
“Jenna, the kids’ Mom, might have many problems, but she’s not stupid when it comes to her future. Once they emancipate her at 18, where’s she going to go? And here’s a guy with a job and a home. Plus, she’s got nothing, so the state will support her and her babies. And between his job and her benefits, she might get to stay home with the babies, be a housewife. Not a bad plan.”
So simple, so obvious, and so demoralizing. If my grandmother’s prediction came true, we were going to lose these two precious children Jonathan and I had been fostering to adopt.
—> Behind the Paywall: Read the rest of Lane’s story and Babushka’s Odessa Borscht recipe…
“I didn’t think of it,” I said, not letting my feelings show. “It sure explains a lot.”
Beets and carrots, as Babushka had taught me, passing on a family recipe from her Jewish hometown in Ukraine, take longer to cook, so they went into the pot first, reddening the broth already tinged with emerald pickle juice. They were followed by ivory chunks of potatoes, while our conversation about the visit somehow turned into a rehash of the details of the children’s court cases.
“Did you tell the kids’ attorney that . . . ?” asked Grandma.
“Of course I did.”
“But how about . . .”
“We’ve gone over this too.”
“Then how can they . . . ?”
“Simply because the law says so.”
“You must’ve overlooked something.”
“Are you telling me this is my fault,” I slapped the kitchen counter, “that we might be losing these kids to the system? That there’s something I can do that I haven’t done? That I’m not doing enough? Or that I don’t know what the hell I’m doing? Did you come all this way to criticize me?”
“Poor boy, you are a cluster of nerves!”
“Sorry, Babushka.” I apologized. I meant none of it. Quite the opposite; I was so happy to see her, ill and aged, flying in from the Bay Area to LA just to check on us. There was no reason to get her involved. What could she possibly do, anyway?
With the borscht cooling off on the stove, Grandma was helping me put our little girls down for a nap. Marianna needed a diaper change and was fussing, writhing on her bed as I was trying to snap on the Velcro straps.
“The diaper’s too small,” I told Grandma, “I’ll need to get the next size up on Sunday and a better bum rash cream. This one isn’t working”
“You amaze me, both of you,” said Grandma with a kind, perceptive smile, “how you two, manly guys, are taking care of these babies. All these tiny little details, always trying to anticipate their every need, oy! I don’t think I ever watched your papa as much when he was little. Still, look at him, he turned out just fine.”
She fell silent and looked out into space, squinting her left eye. It seemed she had something to get off her chest.
“Anti-depressants,” she finally said. “That’s what you need, Sasha. Something to steady your mood.”
Good advice, actually. I hadn’t yet thought of meds.
“Have you heard of Paxil? They have it in Russia now, you know, I can have it shipped. Won’t cost you a thing. We can talk about the dosage.”
I knew just then how much I was going to miss her after she’d go.
“Let me think about it,” I said to her, “but… thanks.”
While the kids were napping in their bedroom, Grandma and I sat down to go over the draft of her article advocating for gay marriage. Citing scientific research, historical examples, and her own fifty-year psychiatric practice in Moscow, her full-page spread in the Bay Area’s Russian weekly was sure to rattle a deeply homophobic community. Undeterred and unwaveringly supportive of our family, Grandma was not afraid to speak her mind, even if it would cost her friendships.
Babushka’s chutzpah aroused my admiration. Not for the first time—three years prior, at age 81, she’d hired a tutor to teach her to use a computer and Microsoft Word. Then she had high- speed Internet installed in her senior home apartment. Now she was editing her newspaper articles on the computer and emailing back and forth with her editors.
My sister Natalie popped her head in the door. Coming in from her law firm, she was wearing a turtleneck, slacks and high heels, a leather portfolio hanging off the shoulder strap.
The kids were already up, so we brought them down to the kitchen, where Jon had already set everything up.
Natalie lit the candles, covered her eyes, and we recited the blessings sanctifying the Shabbat, honoring the bread, the grape juice, and the good life we had. My husband is African American, and our kids are Hispanic, but ours is still a traditional Jewish home.
The chicken and the garnet-colored borscht turned out deliciously tangy with a touch with sweetness, pairing perfectly with dry Riesling. As the day and the week melted into the darkness of the evening, I felt I was finally relaxing.
After dinner, Natalie and Grandma sang Russian songs, competing jokingly over who remembered the lyrics better. Marianna, smiling broadly, clapped along; Gaby dozed off in her hair chair.
With Jon, Natalie, Grandma, and the two kids around the table, our precious little world, our sacred circle, was complete.
Babushka’s Odessa Borscht
“Hot borscht can be served with a dollop of sour cream. In Los Angeles, outside of Russian stores, crema Salvadoreño or crema Centroamericana are the closest and more readily available alternatives to the Russian-style thick salted sour cream.”
Vegan, Gluten-free
Yield: Makes 4-6 servings
Prep Time: 45 min. Cook Time: 20-30 min. Total: 1 hr. 15 min.
From your pantry: sugar, salt (to taste)
Ingredients:
- 4 medium beets
- 2 large carrots
- 2-4 large potatoes
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 medium onion
- 1 large head of cabbage
- Brine: 1 c. of pickle juice OR sauerkraut juice; OR 1/3 c. of lemon juice OR apple cider vinegar
- 6-8 cups of water
- A few bay leaves
- A few sprigs of parsley or dill
Shop Ingredients on Instacart
Directions:
- It’s best to cut all the vegetables prior to cooking. Slice peeled beets thickly and, after cutting the slices in quarters, put them in a pot of boiling water, brine, and bay leaves.
- Fry sliced carrots, onion, and garlic, and once browned, add them to the pot. After a short while, add bite-sized potato chunks to the pot. Once the potatoes are close to being done, add in sliced cabbage.
- Turn the pot off once the cabbage begins to wilt. Sprinkle in fresh-cut parsley and/or dill right before turning off the stove.
About:
Lane Igoudin, Ph.D., has written extensively on foster adoption, parenting, and LGBTQ families and issues for Adoption.com, Forward, Jewish Journal, Jewish News, LA Jewish Home, Lambda Literary Review, and LGBTQ Nation and spoken about his book on NBC’s “Daytime” show, as well as a variety of syndicated radio shows and parenting podcasts. Lane is professor of English and linguistics at Los Angeles City College. This essay is based on excerpts from Lane’s memoir A Family, Maybe: Two Dads, Two Babies, and the Court Cases That Brought Us Together (Ooligan Press, Portland State University, 2024).
