While the days are still cool, I need to make Barsch Czerwona like my Polish babci did, adding blood red beets to the loamiest of beef stocks I can brew. If I am lucky enough to have some dried white-capped Borowiki mushrooms from Poland, I can make the stock so dark you’d think nothing could penetrate it. But only a few beets redden and lighten the broth, heightening its flavors from the nether regions to ethereal ecstacy. If that seems hyperbolic, just watch someone’s face during the first deep sips. I’ve seen people close their eyes in what seems like prayer.

So at James one recent rainy night before the heat turned us sticky, I ordered the Borscht. Chef Jim Burke deconstructed the ingredients of a very faithful Borscht (the Russian spelling, there are Ukrainian and Lithuanian versions as well) and reconstituted them into a pretty plate painting.  Three rosettes of pale sorrel foam, snuggled inside a curved tangle of wilted bright green sorrel & shredded beef with bright red quartered and steamed baby beets nestled on top. When our server poured the hot dark consomme into my bowl, I nearly swooned from the aroma. It took me back to barschs past, especially to one I drank from the thinnest of china tea cups in a restaurant near Wawel Castle in Krakow…