The Quilt Inn Country Cookbook

Aliske Webb

tbsp. peppercorns, slightly crushed

tsp. cornstarch

salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Scrape brown pan drippings into saucepan. Add green onions, 1/2 cup stock,

Madeira and peppercorns. Simmer 5 minutes. Mix cornstarch with remaining 1/4 cup

stock until smooth. Slowly drizzle into sauce, stirring rapidly. Add salt and pepper. Stir,

simmer 5 minutes. Serve over duck.

Send the Servants to the Cellar

If you rise early enough you may see a dusty old pickup truck parked in our front

yard. It belongs to one of the many invisible people who help make an Inn run smoothly.

In this case it’s Clareville’s only resident Russian emigre, Tamara Shostokovitch. (“Not

that one, da'link, he vas much too bourgeois!” she would always explain.) Tamara is

anywhere upwards of seventy—it’s your guess. And although she wears grubby old

American blue jeans, her frazzled grey hair is still held back in place by a colorful

Babushka, the ubiquitous Russian kerchief.

Tamara runs a small market garden and supplies us with fresh vegetables such

as potatoes, cabbage and squash, common vegetables to be sure, but staples that are

familiar and comfortable for her because they recall her childhood in a Russia very

different than today. She even delivers to us once a fortnight because she comes from

the “old school” when a fortnight meant something. What it means is, we never know

when she will arrive. She’s always welcome.

This morning, after we helped her unload her produce into the root cellar, we all

went to the kitchen for a cup of coffee because today Tamara brought with her a

treasure from her homeland to share with us. It was a copy of A Gift To Young

Housewives by Elena Molokhovets. This wonderful book was a serious work at the

time, but is now both hilarious and nostalgic, and I’d like to share some of it with you.

Gift first appeared in Russia in 1861, the year of the emancipation of the serfs

(“Serfs up!” was thereby introduced into the local lexicon). This huge volume of over

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Country Cooking