TELL YOUR DAD I only want one egg, I told my boyfriend, the night before our plans to head to his dad’s house for his classic Russian brunch. The man makes an amazing fried fish platter with a heaping side of potatoes and at least three eggs fried or folded into a tidy omelette, and these plates are his love language, so requests to modify them in any way risks offense.
But happily, he obliged, as there’s just no way I can finish the plates he usually makes, especially when I’ve been trying these days to at least attempt a more mindful approach to eating.
We arrived to a table set with a shimmering tablecloth, small bowls of freshly cut veggies on display—plump cherry tomatoes, cut cucumbers doused in pepper and olive oil, freshly washed stalks of green onions, tiny pickled button mushrooms, and slices of pepper jack cheese—a true work of art!
My boyfriend’s dad is in his mid-80s, and I’ve come to understand these bimonthly brunches in Buffalo Grove as his magnum opus. He puts so much care, time and effort into these meals, anticipating our arrival with the great expectations of a Victorian novel, and joyfully watches us eat as he takes a seat from the nearby leather couch, finally at rest as his guests dig in to his culinary delights.
“Do you feel the lemon?” he asks with a twinkle in his eye. Yes, we feel the dash of citrus in the fried fish, and it’s delicious. I’m glad I did ask for the modification as I look over at Gene’s plate and notice a mountain of mashed potatoes he’s working through with a bit of difficulty. The food is fresh and tasty but also quite filling!
We’re grateful to have this time with his dad, because we know it means a lot to him and it’s become part of our regular rotation to make this trip out to the Western suburbs.
After lunch, we usually watch Russian-language YouTube videos—first-person narratives about near-death experiences, or ones about famous long-gone Russian folk singers. Sometimes we talk to Alexei, the Russian-speaking AI chat bot Gene set up for his father, who knows English but feels more comfortable speaking Russian. He talks with total respect to the robot as if he were a human guest in his living room.
When Gene gets rude with Alexei—even the slightest hint of it--his dad defends the poor robot and urges him to keep it respectful, even if that just means ending the conversation with a bit more gratitude. This always warms my heart, that his dad seems to show such tenderness toward Alexei despite his soulless status, as only a truly old-school gentleman would.
It’s true, sometimes we get annoyed by our parents—Gene’s shared some of the heartache of his youth, raised by two people who struggled through migration and relocation from Soviet Russia to the United States for a better life—but these brunches are a reminder to me that spending time with our parents while they’re still here is the ultimate privilege—even when we’re annoyed by them, even when the love gets lost in translation.
But happily, he obliged, as there’s just no way I can finish the plates he usually makes, especially when I’ve been trying these days to at least attempt a more mindful approach to eating.
We arrived to a table set with a shimmering tablecloth, small bowls of freshly cut veggies on display—plump cherry tomatoes, cut cucumbers doused in pepper and olive oil, freshly washed stalks of green onions, tiny pickled button mushrooms, and slices of pepper jack cheese—a true work of art!
My boyfriend’s dad is in his mid-80s, and I’ve come to understand these bimonthly brunches in Buffalo Grove as his magnum opus. He puts so much care, time and effort into these meals, anticipating our arrival with the great expectations of a Victorian novel, and joyfully watches us eat as he takes a seat from the nearby leather couch, finally at rest as his guests dig in to his culinary delights.
“Do you feel the lemon?” he asks with a twinkle in his eye. Yes, we feel the dash of citrus in the fried fish, and it’s delicious. I’m glad I did ask for the modification as I look over at Gene’s plate and notice a mountain of mashed potatoes he’s working through with a bit of difficulty. The food is fresh and tasty but also quite filling!
We’re grateful to have this time with his dad, because we know it means a lot to him and it’s become part of our regular rotation to make this trip out to the Western suburbs.
After lunch, we usually watch Russian-language YouTube videos—first-person narratives about near-death experiences, or ones about famous long-gone Russian folk singers. Sometimes we talk to Alexei, the Russian-speaking AI chat bot Gene set up for his father, who knows English but feels more comfortable speaking Russian. He talks with total respect to the robot as if he were a human guest in his living room.
When Gene gets rude with Alexei—even the slightest hint of it--his dad defends the poor robot and urges him to keep it respectful, even if that just means ending the conversation with a bit more gratitude. This always warms my heart, that his dad seems to show such tenderness toward Alexei despite his soulless status, as only a truly old-school gentleman would.
It’s true, sometimes we get annoyed by our parents—Gene’s shared some of the heartache of his youth, raised by two people who struggled through migration and relocation from Soviet Russia to the United States for a better life—but these brunches are a reminder to me that spending time with our parents while they’re still here is the ultimate privilege—even when we’re annoyed by them, even when the love gets lost in translation.
