Maybe it's because of the endless round of parties in Anna Karenina, but I've been thinking about cooking a Russian feast. I've worked on soups like borscht and Shchi, and I shop the Russian grocery store for weekday meal staples. But this meal would be something more.

I'm thinking of a full-blown banquet, in the high franco-Russian style that was in vogue when the real-life counterparts of the Oblonskys, Schterbakskys, Karenins and Vronskys of Tolstoy's novel were making the social scene in Moscow and St. Petersburg. This is probably the last chance for such heavy food before the dog days of summer set in. Russian food doesn't lend itself to hot weather to my thinking.

So what would it look like, this Russian feast? There would have to be appetizers, or Zakushka. There would be a herring salad and eggplant caviar and mushrooms a la greque. And maybe Satsivi, that cold poached chicken with walnut sauce from the Russian Tea Room Cookbook.

Then the soup course. According to Anya von Bremzen, author of Please To The Table, my favorite Russian cookbook, one-third of the dishes at a feast in old Russia would have been soups. The sorrel has barely begun to sprout in my Russian vegetable garden, and I haven't seen any at the local farmer's market. But this is a fictional feast, so I can put it on the menu anyway. Then maybe Ukha, a fish soup made with pike or salmon.

Now on to the main courses. Yes, courses. Remember what Stiva Oblonsky and Niklolai Levin ordered for their meal in part one, chapter 10? Oysters, vegetable soup, turbot, chicken with tarragon and a fruit and cheese course at the end.

They wouldn't be the retro dishes like Beef Stroganoff or Chicken Kiev. No, they would be courses that you wouldn't find every day, like Georgian-style grilled lamb chops with sour plum sauce, or a Tatar shashlyk. And maybe something labor-intensive, like a suckling pig stuffed with buckwheat.

And for dessert? What else but a Charlottka, the Charlotte Russe created by Tsar Alexander I's great French chef Marie-Antoine Careme.

OK, I'm stuffed.