A Cook's Tour_ In Search of the Perfect Meal - Anthony Bourdain [44]
To say that the experience was shocking, that it knocked the wind out of me, that it was cold would all be grievous understatements. It was like getting hit by a phantom freight train – every cell, every atom of my body went into mad panic. My balls scrambled north, headed somewhere around my collarbone, my brain screamed, my eyeballs did the best they could to pop out of my skull, and every pore, wide open only a few seconds earlier, slammed closed like a plugged steam pipe. It was a punch to the chest from God’s fist. I sank to the bottom, bent my knees deeply, and pushed up, breaking the surface with an involuntary high-pitched shriek that must have sounded to residents across the lake like someone had just hooked their cat up to a car battery. I struggled for purchase on a guide rope completely glazed over with an inch of ice, my hands unable to grab hold, and floundered, slipped, and finally managed to clamber up a few steps and flop onto the snow-covered ice.
Strangely, once out of the water, I felt fine. In fact, I felt incredible. I wasn’t cold at all. With a confident, even jaunty, spring in my step, I walked along the surface of the frozen lake, ankle-deep in snow, feeling as toasty and comfortable as if I’d been sitting in front of a fire in a big woolly sweater. I walked around the cabin for a bit, pausing to chat with a barrel-chested naked Russian hockey coach, who informed me that he didn’t even bother to use the sauna before jumping in the lake. He came only to swim. Every few seconds, there was another splash as a naked Russian flopped into the water. The coach wanted to talk about American hockey, but as my bare feet were beginning to stick to the ground, I stepped back inside. I sat with Zamir and gratefully slugged back a mouthful of vodka. I felt good. Really good. So good that after a bit more of the black bread and sausage, a few nibbles of fish, and lots more beer and vodka, I was ready to go again.
I was drunk. I was happy. If not the perfect meal, this was, in many ways, a perfect one. Good food, good company, exotic ambience, and an element of adventure.
Back in Saint Petersburg, we turned the corner by the Hermitage, only to get pulled over once again by a traffic cop. ‘Aw, this isn’t fair,’ complained Alexej. ‘We just got shaken down in the same place a few hours ago. We paid already!’
The cop considered this for a moment, peered into the car, and agreed. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘It’s not fair.’ He closed his little pad, withdrew his hand, and waved us along.
In a well-worn rabbit-fur coat, Sonya pushed her wide shoulders through the crowded entryway of the Kupchina market. This was a working-class district, and the other customers around her, also in ratty furs, bore the same resigned expressions and stooped postures you see on the IRT train bearing passengers in from Queens for morning shifts at city restaurants – the look of hardworking people going to and coming from unglamorous jobs. Given her dark mascara and rough Slavic features, her less-than-diminutive size, and the seriousness of her intent, the others got out of Sonya’s way as she approached the long row of butcher counters. She was a woman on a mission, a heat-seeking missile, a professional at shopping. ‘What’s this?’ Sonya inquired of a leathery-looking man in an apron as she disdainfully fingered a perfectly fine-looking pork shoulder draped over his countertop.
‘Beautiful pork shoulder,’ said the butcher, already wary. He knew what was coming.
‘It looks older than I am,’ sneered Sonya, easily in her late thirties. ‘How much?’
After getting an answer, she spun away without a backward glance, her eye already on another piece a few yards down. The butcher called her back, the pork suddenly cheaper by a few rubles. I traveled slipstream in Sonya’s considerable wake, doing my best to keep up as she barreled from vendor to vendor in the hangar-sized unheated space, keeping my eyes constantly on the massive rabbit