Lydia Balaboosta

Word of this installation at FRIEDA lured me back to Philly after years of being away. I had heard that Lydia Balaboosta, my best friend from childhood, was somehow involved and I wanted to check it out.Walking through the door, I recognized her immediately. And this brought an instant smile to my face and drew me back into the past.

Ours, like many friendships, was forged on the school playground. I saw Lydia on the first day of second grade standing on the blacktop like she owned it. Squat as an icebox with a mass of tangled blond curls, she was wearing her signature oddball socks. And even though Lydia couldn’t speak a word of English, the kids flocked around her, captivated by her wide grin and infectious laugh.

We soon became inseparable. In an unspoken pact, it was agreed that I would teach her English and all about being an American and she would instruct me on some of the intangibles that were missing in my own life. Most of this mutual learning occurred in her tiny apartment, where Mrs. Balaboosta bustled about in the background.

The Jewish neighborhood ladies laughed and said that the Yiddish term balaboosta was the perfect last name for this woman, who was the solid rock of her family. Her table was full of food, love, and laughter. I recall how she frequently pinched Lydia’s round rosy cheeks and called her “my delicious little potato pancake” and laughingly threatened to gobble her up. I teased Lydia about this at school and would jokingly call her Latke. Soon, the name caught on and she became Latke to all who loved her.

While our classmates dressed their Barbies in the latest fashion and groomed their hair to perfection, Latke and I spent hours in her kitchen, surrounded by our vegetable friends spread out on that red and white chipped enamel table. They differed depending on what her mother was cooking that day, but I remember Rifka Rutabaga and Tova Turnip to this day. We gave them glamorous hair styles using perfect curls of carrot peel or waves of shiny golden corn silk. Translucent skin from blanched tomatoes was transformed into scarlet lips, while bits of dill weed fluttered like eyelashes. We invented improbable adventures for them that took us to faraway places. Eventually Mrs. B would give our companions a quick rinse and plop them in the pot, where we later devoured them for dinner.

I was most fascinated with the covering on Latke’s bed. Her mother called this colorful mish mash of patterns and fabrics Latke’s family, her mishpocha. She would point out a scrap of fancy dress shirt and relate how Latke’s great-grandfather had played in a klezmer band in their old country. A lovely bit of embroidery helped recall Aunt Miriam’s long-ago wedding and so on. I was transfixed with the notion that each square was a part of Latke’s history and that she could take her whole extended family with her wherever she went. I loved the idea that they kept her warm at night and provided companionship when she felt lonely. And I loved that Latke knew who she was and knew where she came from.

It was a perfect friendship. And when something is so perfect it’s incomprehensible that it could ever end. But it did. One day it was suddenly and irrevocably over. That morning, I went to pick Latke up for school, but the family was gone. They left in the night without a word to anyone. All that remained was the sad, mismatched furniture that came with the apartment. Looking around, I saw that the cozy refuge I considered to be my real home was, in fact, shabby and worn. And it wrenched my heart to discover, rolled into a ball under Latke’s bed, her forgotten mishpocha.

Clutching the quilt to my chest, I went home and cried for hours. It was a bitter time. I kept waiting for something, Latke’s return, a postcard in the mail, a birthday greeting, anything. But there was only silence. I truly felt abandoned and betrayed. Then, one day, I angrily shoved the mishpocha into the darkest corner of my closet and vowed to get on with my life.

In time, I was able to look back with gratitude. Latke and I were closer than sisters. We ignited each other’s imagination and had each other’s back. That magical time laid the foundation for my adult life. I learned about friendship and caring and how to make wonderful things out of very little. And those afternoons at the kitchen table with our veggiepals led me to a very successful career as a food stylist for Bon Appetit magazine.

In fact, it’s that job that brought me full circle back to Philly. I tune in to a variety of podcasts to stay on top of my field and my favorite is called Chefs Without Restaurants. One day an episode aired honoring people who make a difference in their communities by using food as a type of ministry. As I listened, I was stunned to hear the distinct voice of my old friend filling the room, recognizable despite the distance of decades.

The story she told explained her disappearance those many years ago, how the shadowy Mr. Balaboosta, a man I rarely saw, abandoned his wife and daughter. The next few years found them in and out of shelters and sleeping in a car on a few desperate occasions. Mrs. Balaboosta’s fierce pride kept her from asking for charity or accepting kindness from strangers. Eventually she had no other choice. And this was the turning point for both mother and daughter.

Latke says this experience burned into her soul the importance of being treated with respect, that being respected helps you to maintain your dignity in the toughest circumstances. How it makes you feel valued, heard, and accepted. And this is the tenet Latke now lives by as she runs her community kitchen, The Neighborly Nosh, in the Kensington section of Philly. She has become the very balaboosta her mother embodied all those years ago - the passionate center of her community where the table is full of delicious food, love, and kindness.

Well, I’m off now, excited to reunite with my childhood friend. And I’m thrilled to reunite her with her extended family, the mishpocha that she left behind so many years ago and that I’ve watched over with love, hoping and waiting for this day to arrive.

The end.