When I finally reach my desk I sit down, slip my notebook and pen out of my bag as quickly as possible, and scribble down the notes Mr. Yan has written on the board. Ahead of me, down the row, I see Nirmala pushing her notebook to the edge of her desk so Sunita can read a note written in the bottom corner of the right-hand page. I shake my head. How can Mr. Yan not see that? Nirmala and Sunita sit right in front of him.
“Do you disagree with my assessment, Ms. Krishnan?” Mr. Yan says, looking at me.
“Uh … no, no, sir.” My face goes hot. “I was just shaking my head at something I was thinking.”
“Okay, Anjali, but try to think about the lesson at hand.”
I nod miserably. I feel bad about not listening because Mr. Yan is one of my nicest teachers. But I am also angry at myself for giving Nirmala and Sunita something more to laugh at. Nirmala and Sunita giggle, looking over their shoulders at me.
I quickly look down. I pretend to be absorbed in writing notes, but I’m really writing I hate N&S over and over.
It’s hard to understand why they’re so mean. What do they care where my parents were born? Nirmala and Sunita were born right here in Queens, just like I was. Doesn’t that make us all the same? The African American students and even the few kids actually from Africa never seem to give Linc a hard time, or tell him he isn’t “really” black, even though he’s lighter skinned than they are, and also West Indian.
Whenever Nirmala and Sunita start up, I think about my mom, who is mixed African and Indian. She doesn’t feel like she doesn’t belong. She was raised in Trinidad, where Deema says “everybody mix up.” So it’s different for Mom. She accepts who she is.
The bell signaling the end of class can’t come soon enough. This is my last period today with Nirmala and Sunita, and that’s something to look forward to.
Linc and I walk across the playground before heading home. He listens patiently like he always does while I complain about Nirmala and Sunita.
“Why don’t you just ignore them?” He slows his pace to match mine.
“I try, Linc, but they are just so vicious.”
“They’ve got nothing on you, Anj. No pow in those two.” Linc always knows how to make me smile. “Pow-less.”
I giggle. “Later, Linc.”
I cut across the playground to Austin Street behind the school to get the Q10 bus down to Liberty Avenue.
I walk through the fading sunlight, crunching the piles of fallen leaves on the sidewalk. The air is thick, sweet. Afternoon has turned the redbrick apartment buildings to glowing orange. The changing leaves make even my street, which runs right next to the Van Wyck Expressway, look pretty. Here in Forest Hills the smell of fireplace smoke from the small Tudor-style houses rises up Austin Street. At this time of year people have pumpkins and chrysanthemums on their small porches.
Whenever I walk down this street I wonder what it would be like to live in this neighborhood. It’s so peaceful here. At my house the only quiet I get is late at night, when there are fewer cars on the expressway. That’s when we can open our windows without hearing the constant sound of traffic.
The bus comes quickly. I squeeze on with the commuters from Manhattan. In a few stops I’m able to get a seat, so I pull out a small notebook from the front pocket of my knapsack and begin to write.
I’m still thinking about that bean cake. It might be fun to make a pudding from the filling, but how? I stare out the window at the traffic. It’s already starting to get dark. I go back to my recipe and think some more about how I can make my own special pudding.
When I get home, I’ll go to Sybil’s Bakery in my neighborhood and get some more bean cakes to taste the filling again, and to really look at it, too. And I’ll ask Deema — she’ll definitely have some ideas.
I am so caught up in vanilla, coconut milk, and cassava beans that I almost miss my stop. I shove my way through the standing passengers before hurtling through the door and onto the sidewalk at the base of the elevated A train platform at Liberty Avenue. I stop a minute to catch my breath before walking down Liberty to my family’s roti shop. The train clatters overhead, adding to the sweet mix that has now taken me over. Vanilla. Coconut milk. Beans. As soon as I get home, I’m in the kitchen, looking for ways to bring my pudding alive.
“What yuh doin’, child?” Deema comes up from behind. I’ve pulled ingredients from our fridge and cupboards.
I tell her about the pow and the Chinese cakes.
“Ah,” she says. “Sweet goodness from bitter times.” Deema explains that the Chinese indentured laborers in Trinidad and Guyana brought those cakes over with them from China.
“They came even before our people did,” Deema says. She goes to the bookcase in her room and returns with a book about the history of Trinidad. “Those original recipes didn’t change much, even though ours did.”
I look over Deema’s shoulder at a picture of Chinese men cutting stalks of sugarcane.
Deema is tall, slender, and stylish. She doesn’t look like the other Trinidadian grandmas I know. Her skin is the color of coffee with milk. Her eyes are green. Everyone else in the family calls her Rosie, a nickname her uncle gave her back home in Trinidad when she was a baby on account of her light complexion and pink cheeks. I call her Deema, which is short for dadeema, the Hindu word for grandma.
“I was thinking, Deema, of trying to make a pudding that is sort of like the bean filling in those cakes, but that you could eat with a spoon.”
Deema smiles widely. “Anjali, you know what’s good, girl.” I feel a tingle in my stomach. Deema hunts down a bag of kidney beans from the freezer, where she keeps the beans after she soaks them in water to make them soft. “I’ve never liked those canned beans,” she says. She hands me the bag.
“Anjali, defrost these in some boiling water, then grind them up.”
I boil a pot of water. Steam starts rising off of it, clouding the kitchen windows. I’m like that steam, rising with the joy that comes from cooking.
“Let’s put a little piece of cassava in to make it more puddingy,” says Deema.
“Cassava?” I say doubtfully, looking at the long brown root sitting in a basket on the counter.
“Yes, child,” says Deema, smiling. “What you think they make tapioca from — cassava. And tapioca not only a pudding but a thickener for pies and such.”
“Deema, no one knows more about cooking than you.”
“Well, me ain’ know ’bout that,” Deema says, laughing. Whenever my grandmother gets excited she slips into a deeper Trinidadian accent, as sweet and as thick as the bean steam that’s filled our kitchen.
I peel half a cassava and cut it into chunks, then rinse it in cold water before dumping it with the beans into the boiling pot. The beans do somersaults in the simmering water, bumping lightly against the cassava pieces. Once they’re soft, I drain them in a colander and put them in the food processor.
Deema sets out some light brown sugar, which I add along with mixed essence, a flavoring that goes into most Caribbean baked things. I uncap the mixed essence and take a deep whiff before adding it in. Mixed essence smells like a mix of pears, almonds, and vanilla. It’s one of my favorite smells in the world.
I cover the food processor, pulsing the beans until they start to get mashed under the blades.
“Add a little of the cooking water if you have to,” Deema says to me, and hands over a small measuring cup with water she kept aside from the beans. I add it, bit by bit, through the funnel of the processor until, finally, the beans whir into a smooth pink paste.
Deema’s hand is on her hip as she stares at the cupboard. “Now, let’s see what else …”
“I was thinking coconut milk, maybe, to make it light and creamy,” I say.
“You thinkin’ right, Anjali,” Deema says, smiling at me.
We spend the next hour making the pudding. When it’s done I arrange some in a white bowl and garnish it with cinnamon. I put the bowl on a colorful place mat, then I run ba
ck to my room to get my camera to take a photo for my portfolio. Afterward, Deema and I bring some in to my mom, who is sitting at the dining room table just outside the kitchen, studying for her nursing exam.
Mom was a nurse back in Trinidad. When she came here, she had to take a bunch of new classes and retake all the tests. When she had me and Anand, she stopped studying for a while, then when we got big enough, she had to work to help my dad get the roti shop started. Now she goes to school at night, and she’ll probably graduate next year.
On the other side of our L-shaped living room, my brother is doing his homework. I put some of the pudding on the coffee table in front of him and set some down for Mom, too. Back in the kitchen, I put more pudding in a bowl covered in plastic for my dad to eat when he comes in from the restaurant.
“Delicious!” Mom murmurs without looking up. “You are a culinary genius, Rosie,” she says to Deema.
“Actually, Lottie, this delicious pudding was Anjali’s idea,” Deema says, putting her arm around my shoulders.
Mom doesn’t answer. She’s deep in her nursing books. Deema hugs me. She must have felt something tighten. I’m often invisible to Mom. Even my pudding can’t soften her when she’s studying.
Mom almost never has time to pay attention to me or Anand. She’s always tired when she gets home from her nanny job taking care of the Sovald kids in Manhattan. At night she has to study. When I was a little kid, I used to think she liked those little white Sovald kids better than me and Anand, and that by the end of the day she had used up all the affection she had on them.
“Mommy don’t mean nothin’ by it, child,” Deema starts to say as I begin pouring the rest of the pudding into a Tupperware container to take to school, where I’ll share some with Linc.
“It’s okay, Deema, I know,” I say quickly, and put the container in the fridge before cleaning up.
Anjali’s Red Bean Pudding
1 three-inch piece of cassava (yucca), peeled
1 fifteen-ounce can dark red kidney beans
1 cup water
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup coconut milk
1 teaspoon mixed essence or vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
whipped cream for garnish (optional)
1. Place the cassava in a saucepan, cover with water, and bring to a boil. Cook until fork tender, about 20 minutes.
2. When the cassava is fork tender, drain it and set aside to cool. Rinse the kidney beans in a colander and place in a large saucepan with 1 cup water and the sugar and bring to a simmer.
3. Once the cassava is cool, cut it in half and remove the woody center. Chop into small pieces and add to the bean mixture.
4. Allow the beans to simmer until the liquid is reduced by three-quarters. Pour the mixture into a food processor and puree until smooth.
5. Return the bean mixture to the pan and add the coconut milk, mixed essence or vanilla, and nutmeg. Stir well and continue to cook over low heat until thickened further, about 5 to 10 minutes.
6. Remove and place in a heatproof bowl to cool. Chill in the refrigerator. Serve in pudding bowls or champagne flutes with whipped cream for garnish.
Makes 6 servings
CHAPTER THREE
Bustle
Island Spice is already hopping when I come in the front door. The place is always frantic on Friday nights. To get to the kitchen, I have to squeeze by customers filling up the tables in the front of the shop. In addition to the usual strong smell of curry, I can make out the smoky smell of boiling banana leaves. That means Deema is making either pastelles or paymee, a cake made out of grated cassava, coconut, and sugar, wrapped in a banana leaf.
“Dad!” I call out to my father, who is working the register. I head toward the kitchen in the back, where Deema is frying up aloo pies, hot potato turnovers, a favorite weekend snack around here.
I grab one of the pies, quickly moving it from hand to hand so I won’t get burned, then lean over and peck Deema on the cheek.
“God bless you, bayti,” Deema says, calling me the Hindi word for daughter. “How school was today?”
“Linc loved the red bean pudding,” I say, reaching into my bag and taking out the empty Tupperware container.
Deema continues to steadily drop the prepared aloo pies in the deep fryer. I quickly finish my own aloo pie, which is spicy with hot pepper and sweet with fried onions, wipe my hands on a paper towel, tie on an apron, and head over to the sink to wash the utensils there. I’m back in the beehive. Busy. Buzzing. Cooking. Rushing. “Move it!” Dad calls.
My insides churn as I wash the various pots and pans and large spoons that Deema uses to mix the curry. Dad’s voice is a drill. “Come, make it happen!” Deema steps away from the fryer to put the meals together for the waiting customers.
“One curry chicken!” Dad shouts the order. “And one dalpuri and curry shrimp,” he calls out. Deema fills a foil takeaway container with the chicken on one side and a pile of the softly shredded rotis on the other. She covers it and puts it on the table behind her for Dad to pick up. Next she places the dalpuri, a roti stuffed with powdery ground yellow split peas in its folds, on a large square of parchment paper, then spoons the curry shrimp inside. She folds the whole thing into a fat square, twisting the ends of the parchment tightly so it can be eaten like a burrito.
I wash dishes faster so I can hurry to help Deema. My grandmother is fast and looks much younger than her age, but she’s still an old lady and it isn’t really right for her to have to run around so much, especially when Anand can help. Part of the problem is that my parents won’t make Anand work in the restaurant. “He a young boy,” my dad likes to say. “He need to run around and have some fun.”
Whenever I bring up the subject with Mom, she sighs and says she can’t think about it now or that she has to study.
Doesn’t it matter that I don’t have any fun? I’m only a year older than Anand, so I’m young, too. Once when I told my dad how unfair it all is, he said, “Anjali, what’s fair is that you get to cook with Deema. Ain’t that yuh hobby?” Dad’s right — food is my thing. Plus, if I didn’t help, it would be really hard on Deema, so I try not to complain.
I finish scrubbing the last colander and rinse it off. I dry my hands, then go to the front of the kitchen and begin helping Deema fill orders. It’s dark outside now, and my father turns on the restaurant’s CD player. Steel drum music fills the place. Customers tap their feet, drum on the tables, singing about soca and island life, wrapping themselves in the rhythms of David Rudder’s famous voice. My mom says that when she was pregnant with me and she played a David Rudder CD, I would start moving in her belly. Now the music makes my belly leap with its beat. I dance a little while we fill rotis and put aloo pies in the foil containers next to small plastic cups of pepper sauce.
It’s hard not to be in a good mood, especially since tomorrow is Saturday, when Deema and I are taking the kids’ cooking class at the Institute of Culinary Education in Manhattan. The classes are a gift from Deema. David Rudder’s got me moving fast and light on my feet, carrying rotis, aloo pies, pepper sauce, and my own rocking soca beat to our customers. Deema smiles at me. She’s humming softly to the music as she works.
Aloo Pies
2 cups all-purpose flour
pinch of salt
1/2 cup water
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 pound Yukon gold or other boiling potatoes, boiled and peeled
1/2 teaspoon salt
hot pepper sauce, to taste
1/2 cup canola oil
1 small onion, chopped
5 large cloves garlic, minced
1/2 Roma tomato, seeded and chopped
1. Mix together the flour, pinch of salt, and baking powder. Add just enough water — about half a cup — to bring the dough together, and knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. Form into balls about 2 inches in diameter, and set aside to rest for 15 minutes.
2. Mash the pot
atoes, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and hot pepper sauce together and set aside.
3. Heat a large frying pan with 1 tablespoon of the canola oil and fry the onion until it is softened and clear. Add the garlic and fry 30 seconds more. Add the tomato and cook 1 minute longer.
4. Add the mashed potato mixture to the frying pan and mix well so all the ingredients are thoroughly combined. Cook for 1 minute more, and remove from heat. Allow to cool.
5. Flatten a dough ball to about 4 inches in diameter. Place 1 to 2 tablespoons of the potato filling atop a flattened ball and fold it over in a half moon. Using a fork, crimp the edges. Holding the pie in one hand, gently press and flatten it into an oblong shape, roughly 5 inches long, taking care not to squeeze out the potato filling. Repeat with each dough ball.
6. Heat the remaining oil in a heavy-bottomed frying pan and add the aloo pies. Do not crowd the pan. Fry on both sides until golden brown, remove, and drain.
Makes about 15 pies
CHAPTER FOUR
Possibilities
The Institute of Culinary Education takes up five floors in a big office building on Twenty-third Street in Manhattan. From some of the classroom kitchens you can see the Empire State Building ten blocks north. This morning, sunlight flashes off the windows of the high-rise.
The best part of these classes is that I get to touch and smell and cook with ingredients we never use at home or in the roti shop. It’s like Christmas and my birthday all rolled into one. If I had one wish — besides being a Food Network star — it would be to win a shopping spree in an expensive grocery store where I could buy anything I wanted.
When I turn away from the window behind the big sinks like the ones we have in the roti shop, I see that today’s Kids Cook Tapas class with Chef Nyla is filling up. Deema is already chatting with the father and daughter who are seated at two of the six stations set up at one of the three long stainless steel tables that make a neat row down the center of the room. At the end of the class, the tables will be pushed together and draped with white tablecloths so we can eat everything we prepare.
Stir It Up Page 2