Charles Troob

by Charles Troob

Cut a piece of chuck roast into chunks. Put it to boil with onion, carrot, salt and pepper. Skim. Scrub a bunch of beets and add them to the pot.  Turn the flame down. Settle into a nice long book.  Stay close enough to the stove to enjoy the rich smells.  After a hundred pages or so, start checking the meat and the beets. When they finally begin to get tender, smoosh a small can of tomatoes and toss them in.   Read for another half hour.   Remove the beets and put them on a plate to cool.  Add half a cabbage, coarsely chopped.  Check your email and make a few phone calls.  When you can handle the beets, peel and mince them, and throw them back in. Don’t pick up the book–your hands will be bright purple.

The garnet-colored broth is robust but delicate, and slightly sweet.  Grandma added sour salt—citric acid—to balance the flavor—but lemon juice is fine. The vegetable mixture is hearty and comforting.  The moist and luscious beef is a revelation.  (In Vienna I twice ate the famous Tafelspitz [boiled beef].  In comparison to borscht meat it was dry and insipid, barely worth the chew.)

Grandma sometimes served this borscht with piroshki, flaky pastries filled with an addictive blend of chicken and chicken liver.  They live only in my memory.  But the shimmering jewel box in a bowl is legacy enough, and so easy to do.

A taste of borscht brings back my grandparents and the many family meals at their home.  When I was a little boy it was a house—a house, not an apartment!—is Jamaica, with hydrangea out front and a nearly lifesize photo of my mother as a little girl at the top of the staircase.  Later they moved to an apartment near us, in Forest Hills, where before dinner my brothers and I would look out at Grand Central Parkway far below, with magical patterns of headlights heading toward the city line and to Manhattan.

After a round of chopped liver and Ritz crackers in the living room, the meals always began with soup. Grandma’s wonderful chicken soup was more usual than borscht, but borscht was common enough, and more distinctive—it taught us about our particular heritage.

My mother’s family came from Akkerman in Bessarabia, a province bordering on the Black Sea.  Akkerman—now called Bilhorod-Dnistrovs’kyi—is near the western edge of Ukraine, and much of Bessarabia is the independent country of Moldova.  But when I was growing up, this entire area was part of the Soviet Union, and when Grandma was young it was in the Russian Empire.

My grandmother knew Yiddish—and spoke good though accented English—but thought of herself as a native Russian speaker.  She’d earned a diploma from the local high school, called a gymnasium in Russian.  She could not attend classes there—they limited Jewish enrollment—but she studied at home and could take the examinations.  Despite the antisemitism—and a horrendous pogrom she lived through as a teenager—most of Grandma’s recollections of the old country were suffused with nostalgia.  She spoke rapturously about the beautiful Russian language and about the rich black soil of the region.  And she proudly talked about Odessa—forty miles from Akkerman—as a fascinating center of culture, though I have no idea how often she went there.

A regular guest at our family gatherings was my great-aunt Manya, thirteen years younger than Grandma.  (A third sister, Nina, lived in Washington with her husband Lazar, a former Menshevik who worked for the Voice of America.)  Manya thought of herself as a member of the intelligentsia—she and her long-dead husband had been friendly with many distinguished expatriates, Jewish and Gentile–and she looked down on Grandma as provincial and semi-educated.  They fought frequently and loudly:  e.g., “Papa loved me best.”  “No, you’re wrong, he loved me best.”   (At this time Manya was in her sixties and Grandma in her seventies.)

One particularly heated argument—it almost came to blows—was about Alexander Nevsky, a historical figure immortalized in a classic film by Eisenstein.  Grandma insisted that the story took place at the time of Peter the Great and his war with Charles XII of Sweden.  Manya said she was crazy, and Alexander Nevsky was a much earlier figure than Peter.   We could look this one up.  Manya was right.

 When I moved to Chelsea in the 1970s, I was only a few blocks from Aunt Manya, who lived in London Terrace on West 23^rd Street.  My grandparents had died by then, and I took over the family responsibility for attending to my great-aunt. It wasn’t a burden: she was excellent company.

Manya was eager to teach me Russian.  I got a first-year college text; with her I worked through the first dozen chapters, enough to read some poetry and to understand finally why Grandma had called it a very rich language and was so proud of speaking it correctly.

And like her elder sister, Manya loved to put food on my plate and watch me eat.  She didn’t make borscht, but she did make a fish soup, called ukha, with mackerel, which I enjoyed very much.

As for the borscht, Grandma had given me the recipe, and when beets were in season it was time for me to spend a few hours evoking her memory.  I once served it to my father and my older brother.  They ate it but I can’t say that the experience meant much to them.  Fortunately my partner John, with his Slavic roots—his parents were Croatian—had similar food tastes to mine.  He loved soup, and beets—and he adored my borscht.

 

This piece was written for David Grogan’s memoir study group, in response to a prompt about food and memory.  It was a pleasure to write it and to share it with my colleagues.

 

by Charles Troob

In the summer of 1967 I had an internship in Rabat.  This clean and safe capital city on the Atlantic was the Third World on training wheels.  Even when the sun blazed there was a fresh ocean breeze.

My office—I was at the United Nations Development Programme—was closed from noon until four.  I’d lunch alone at a nearby bistro—I would pick one at random—where for five dirhams (about a dollar) I’d have three courses of simple French food, with couscous as an occasional plat du jour.  Some customers were at the same places each day, seated at the same table, as though it were a private dining room.

On the far side of the palm-lined main boulevard was the gate to the medina, the fragrant old city.  Here I would stroll past butchers and fishmongers; gorgeous arrays of spices and vegetables; fabrics in brilliant colors; rugs and baskets; wallets, belts and leather jackets; and metalware: bowls, pitchers, candelabra, and “hands of Fatima.”   In time I learned to shop and haggle.

There would still be hours to kill before returning to work.  One day I went to a public beach, but there I felt like a rich invader—foreigners and bourgeois Moroccans drove to swimming clubs down the coast.   So I’d usually visit the Jardin des Oudaias, a walled Andalusian garden with a teahouse.  A waiter would bring a metal pot filled with boiling water, sugar, and a large handful of mint.

I’d inhale the pungent fumes and sip slowly, admiring the shrubs, flowers and fruit trees, and pondering my uncertain future.   This summer in Morocco had been fascinating, but the long hours of solitude—midday and evening—were a heavy burden, and I didn’t think I could make a life of this kind of work.    I would be a closeted gay man in a foreign country, without a family to keep me company, too cautious to have a wild time….

 It was a privilege to be twenty-one and melancholy in such an exquisite setting, like a Romantic poet or a character in a novel.  My sadness was as sweet as the mint tea.

 

Charles Troob: This piece was written for the LP² Writing Workshop, which I’ve co-coordinated for over a decade.  I’m still learning to write!  

by Charles Troob

 

1. Age.

A year ago I attended the 75^th birthday party of a woman who went to high school with my younger brother.   I was startled by an uncannily familiar face.  “Jane,” I said.  “What is it, 50 years since we saw each other?   You’re exactly the same, just grayer with a few wrinkles.  I’d know you if we met on the street.”  She laughed and said, “You, too, Charles.”

It’s in my genes.  My father, who lived to 96, looked pretty much the same at 80 as he did at 40.  Only at 85 did he show signs of advanced age, and even then, he was just a frailer version of himself.

I once looked unlike my two brothers; now there’s a hint of a family resemblance.  But on balance my face has changed so little that people have a hard time guessing my age.  I’m surprised when I’m offered a seat on a bus.

 

2. Mustache.

At some point in the late 1960’s I grew a beard, because I could:  it seemed a badge of maturity.  Nobody hassled me about it, but nobody said it looked terrific.  When I look at old pictures with the beard, I think, “Eh.”

In 1971 I went to see “The Virgin and the Gypsy,” based on a D.H. Lawrence novella.  Franco Nero was dazzlingly handsome as the swarthy gypsy—but I was also drawn to an elegant young major with a bewitching little mustache.

I’d associated mustaches with cartoon villains, with Adolf Hitler, and with repressed and proper Englishmen, like Alec Guinness in “The Bridge on the River Kwai” and David Niven in almost anything.  In other words, not an appropriate look for a twenty-something during the early years of the sexual revolution.   But this mustache was different.  It beckoned and hinted:  my mouth is available for a passionate kiss.

That night I shaved off my beard, leaving only the hair on my upper lip.   No movie star—still, a definite improvement.  I’ve had that mustache ever since.  Twice I grew back the beard for a year or two, only to get rid of it.  I preferred my bare chin, and its cleft.

I used to shape my mustache myself, but now my barber Avi takes care of it when he cuts my hair and trims my eyebrows, which in recent years have grown bushy.   I don’t much care how long my hair is, so I wait until the mustache in the mirror reminds me of John Bolton, a very silly looking man.  I then head over to Chelsea for a reset.

From time to time I wonder whether I should get rid of the mustache and present my face as it really is.   But it’s as fixed in my image of myself as the eyeglasses I’ve worn since I was five….  I’d feel incomplete, naked without it.

 

3. Skin.

In June of 1961, after my junior year of high school, I went to the beach at Rockaway with some classmates.  We spent the entire day there, and for over an hour I lay on my left side playing Scrabble.   Unfortunately, I had the harebrained notion that I needed sunscreen only on my face, arms and neck.  The next day my right leg was purple and sore.  It never blistered, but it looked sunburned for months.

I expected that this leg would be doomed to skin cancer or some other pathology.  It hasn’t happened.  Every six months my dermatologist does a full body check, but he never finds anything—except on my face, which requires constant attention.   If I’m lucky, he merely freezes off a pre-cancerous cluster.   But I’ve had half a dozen positive biopsies—basal cell carcinoma—followed by Mohs surgery, a procedure that sounds scarier than it is.   Dr. Mohs, whoever he was, developed a protocol for removing the surface layer of skin, then examining it under a microscope, and, if necessary, taking off a second layer, repeating the process until all is clear.

The face has remarkable recuperative powers.  I once had Mohs on the top of my left ear, and when the bandage came off it looked like a dog had nibbled off a chunk. The ear grew back, and now there’s only a faint scar at the site.  Other Mohs procedures usually end with an inch-long incision: the surgeon cuts beyond the cancer site to create two flaps that are sewn together to close the wound.  A month or two later it’s difficult to locate where the surgery took place.

When I have Mohs I feel like a car brought in for an oil change or a new battery.  It’s routine maintenance that leaves me as good as new.

 

4. Nose.

My mother had a peculiar attitude about being a Jew.  Though nearly all her friends were Jewish, she was made uncomfortable by such markers of Jewish identity as Brooklyn accents and big noses.  As a child of immigrants, she needed to feel fully “American.”

Fortunately, none of her sons had big noses, and for some reason she particularly liked mine.   In addition, unlike my brothers, I was blond and blue-eyed.  She often said with great pleasure that as a little boy I “looked like a Polish prince.”  Mother was certainly aware that actual Polish princes oppressed Jews and serfs, and she wouldn’t have wanted one in her house.  What she meant by the Polish prince thing was that it was great that I didn’t look at all Jewish.

A people-pleaser by nature, I took to heart Mother’s message that it’s important to smooth any rough edges, blending in with the majority culture.   On first meeting, people rarely tag me as a Jew, as a gay man, or even as a native New Yorker.  I’m comfortable with all these identities, but I don’t embody them in my speech and bearing.   I travel incognito.

I’m a little sorry about this.  After all, I was raised in Queens, not far from Fran Drescher of “The Nanny,” and I’m perfectly capable of invoking her nasal whine: “Oh, Mr. Sheffield.”   In the early 1970s, when I taught at Lehman College in the Bronx, it gave me great pleasure to talk like my students–at least a little like them.

But I can’t do anything about my nose, not that I’d want to.

 

Charles Troob:  This was written in response to a prompt from David Grogan in his wonderful memoir study group. 

by Charles Troob

         “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive…”  William Wordsworth

In 1970, I returned to New York from grad school, a twenty-four-year-old gay man attempting to emerge from the closet.   The next year I moved into a shared apartment on Christopher Street in the West Village, where my new life included street cruising and late-night bar pickups.   In the Village Voice I read about the Continental Baths, a gay bathhouse that was also an entertainment venue.   Cabaret and anonymous sex?  How did that work?

It didn’t take long to answer the question.   A college roommate and his wife had me over to dinner at their Lincoln Towers apartment, and my hosts went to bed early.  At 10pm I was free, only a few blocks from the Ansonia Hotel—the baths were in the hotel basement.  I wasn’t out to Greg and Emily, or to any of my college friends, and as I made my way to Broadway and 74^th, I felt a little like Dr. Jekyll switching to Mr. Hyde.

I paid the admission fee and descended, excited but edgy:  what if someone saw and recognized me?   I knew this was silly—everyone here was after the same thing I was—but paranoid secrecy is a hard habit to shake.

I stored my clothing in the assigned locker, then wrapped my towel around my waist and went off to explore.   I found myself in a large room, with rows of chairs, a small stage—and, to my surprise and amusement, a tacky pool party.  Men in towels were chowing down on Chinese food from a buffet table, while a few others were swimming naked in the next room.  So much for erotic adventure.  This wasn’t the whole story, of course:  beyond the pool, men were entering and exiting an unlit area filled with bunk beds and mattresses.

But it was showtime!  The munchers put down their plates and took seats.   I joined them.

A door opened.  In came an attractive Latina with her band, followed by a half-dozen male-female couples, dressed for a night on the town.  The new attendees sat calmly in the front row, as though it was the most natural thing in the world to take in a show among bare-chested men—a stone’s throw from a gay orgy.

There was a fanfare from the band, and then the singer took over.  (I think it was Liz Torres, mentioned in the Wikipedia article about the Baths—along with Bette Midler, Barry Manilow and others.)  Her patter and songs were directed knowingly at a gay audience—and as innocent as anything you could see in midtown.

The set came to an end.  There was enthusiastic applause.  The performers and straights departed.  And it was now time for me to enter the dark room.  There I found welcoming bodies and sexual release.

Only two years after Stonewall, the gay community was setting the pace in New York nightlife.  The relaxed air—the festive music—the unfazed straight couples—the easy friendly sex—all these suggested that the promised free love of the Sixties was now a done deal, at least for a few of us.   But over the decade, the freedom was to go in an unexpected direction.   The city became more dangerous, the mood darkened, and the gay scene turned to disco and drugs, gym bodies and leather.   The place to be seen was the notorious Mineshaft, with kinky sex under bright light.   The few straights who visited there were jaded sophisticates, not cabaret fans.

The Continental Baths lost its audience and closed in 1974.   The openhearted campiness of Bette Midler et al. remained a part of New York gay life, but as a grace note—not the leading edge of the culture.

by Charles Troob

Dear Diary,

The optometrist who gave me eyeglasses as a little boy was chatty and warm, a real New York character.  I stayed with him as an adult.  When he finally retired, I switched to the pleasant doctor who bought his practice.   So I still travel a few times a year to the neighborhood of my childhood, on the border between Forest Hills and Kew Gardens.

Last May, I went to a grocery-café on Queens Boulevard near 77^th Avenue.  I ordered a panino from the owner, a recent immigrant from Genoa.  I startled her—both of us, really—by telling her that I’d grown up on that very block.   I took my sandwich to a table by the window and gazed across the wide boulevard.  In the 1950s my older brother and I would buy stamps on the far side, in a shop on the ground floor of an apartment house.  The buildings of that era are still there, looking just the same except for the storefronts.

After my eye exam I went down into the subway.  The Union Turnpike station is also little changed in more than half a century.   I inhaled the familiar damp funk, and suddenly I was five years old once again, holding my mother’s hand as we awaited the E train, to visit my grandparents, two stops away in Jamaica….

Then I took an E train in the opposite direction, to Manhattan and 2023.