Chasing Borscht

I arrived in Woodstock with a backpack, a guitar, and two hundreds bucks which I had earned as a cocktail waitress in a hillbilly bar at my last stop. Lisa, my older sister, was finishing up her final year at Binghamton College. It was the first time I had visited her outside of our parent’s home. The apartment was dark and smelled like old wood and fish. She shared the crowded third floor walk-up with Rose, a polish exchange student, who insisted I try her version of beet borscht the first night I arrived. The table was set with an array of chipped dishes and mismatched flatware. I adore naked borscht with nothing more than a boiled potato and sour cream as garnish and was delighted to sample her old-world recipe. But in its place, Rose’s offering was a hot brown soup spiced with curry and made with raisins and sunflower seeds. I fished around the bowl for the beets, so overcooked that their natural blood red beauty had been bleached out hours before, like a miner panning for gold. To add insult to injury, there was no sour cream in their dairy-free kitchen. I applied for food stamps the minute I was settled and with my first allotment Lisa and I bought a chicken to roast and a box of crumb-topped Entenmanns donuts. It brought back bittersweet memories of our junk food inebriated childhood and we laughed, like little girls keeping a secret, at the irony of the purchase, thinking that all things come full circle.
“I never eat like this anymore,” she said dunking her donut into a glass of soy milk. “I’m a vegetarian now.” Her voice was filled with conviction.
“Yeah, me too,” I replied grabbing seconds.