Alice and I were connected through a mutual friend, as happens a million times over in New Orleans every minute, (shout out Olga). Our first meeting was at Old Road coffee to see Olia Hercules, an accomplished Ukrainian cookbook author and activist, speak about her new memoir (Strong Roots, it is sad and beautiful, you should read it) and continued activism to bring attention to Putin’s war in Ukraine. Olia was serendipitously in New Orleans for a few days, and I had just put down a deposit to go on a culinary tour to Georgia with her and her travel partner, Nataliya, so it all really felt like one of those stars aligning moments that also happen a million times over in New Orleans every minute.

Alice and I hit it off, reciting our origin stories to each other. Alice immigrated with her parents to Canada in 1998 (when she was 7 years old), 7 years after the Soviet Union collapsed. She often jokes that she was born in a country that no longer exists, but this is true, as jokes often are. When she and her mom tried to establish Alice’s dual citizenship, Russia said, “sorry, but because your birth certificate was technically issued by a government and country that no longer exist we can’t do that, and we don’t feel like figuring it out”. In 2005, she and her mom moved from Ottawa to L.A.and re-started continuing to build their lives.

Alice and I quickly established that we were of the same ilk - Russian-speaking, but only with our families. Slavic at home but Canadian or American or neither or something else entirely when we left the house. We grew up with friends from Russian-speaking families, but English dominated as we navigated being kids and communication and just trying to understand and be understood. I know this is not a novel experience and one that millions of immigrants and children of immigrants experience, but still, I am captivated by the way this dynamic impacts our identities and how we move through the world (consciously and unconsciously). Anyways, the point is that we had similar lived experiences and therefore related easily to each other, and therefore became fast friends.

Fast forward to now - Alice is my right-hand comrade in opening this restaurant. Every day I wake up and feel gratitude of the deepest kind that Alice appeared in my life and that I can have someone by my side to drive to Gretna to get used equipment, clean years of built up grease in the kitchen, and brainstorm and scheme with. Alice supported me as the most loyal of customers and with her labor during my pop-up days. She sees and supports the vision for Dom Zakuski not just as someone who sees the vision, but also feels the vision. She grew up with the same foods, the same grilling of shashliki around a campfire with family (except me in Rutland MA by the lake, her in Pochep, Russia when she went back during the summers), the same olivier but with different family twists at the table on new years, the same rugs on the wall at family’s homes, the same cartoons, the same movies, the same love of Avril Lavigne, but also the same simultaneous connection to and disassociation from multiple cultures.

Alice got back into town two weeks ago, and we have spent nearly every night, after spending full days at the restaurant and driving back and forth to Lowe’s, looking at each other’s old family pictures and talking about our lives and watching old movies.

Ultimately, our experience of Russian/Slavic culture is limited by our circumstances, so I am aware of the limitations of claiming it fully, but it persists as a part of us we can’t quite shake. We love this part of ourselves. We love it for the food and the wry humor and the vodka and the art and the centrality of family and friends and the culture of gathering around the table to celebrate all of the above. And we are going to do our best to capture and share the essence of this at Dom Zakuski.

We can’t wait to have you join us at the table!

Katya