by Cathy Erway
“That’s seriously amazing,” Elliot said, after I confirmed that I’d keep not eating out as a general rule. Elliot had grown up in Manhattan, and he probably cooked for himself the least out of all the people that I knew
“Come on, don’t you ever want to cheat every once in a while?” he asked.
I nodded. “But it’s weird ... ,” I went on. “Even when I do, it’s like, I can’t even imagine doing something like ordering out. If I’m really in the mood for something, it’s usually for something I can make, like a simple steak, or a bowl of noodles or something. I think about how quickly it can be ready on a plate. It’s like I’ve forgotten how other food tastes or something. I don’t know”
This was something that I couldn’t quite explain at the time, but I think my palate had changed a little. I didn’t crave restaurant food anymore the way I used to. Even though the temptation was always near, I’d prefer something home cooked to takeout if given the option.
Elliot looked confused for a moment. “Well, that’s awesome. You must be saving tons of money,” he said.
I told him about the Fall Harvest Feast I’d had with friends the week before.
“You must have gotten some practice,” he said, slathering a strip of turkey with gravy. “Everything is so good.”
“Oh, I definitely agree,” Zoe chimed in.
“Best Thanksgiving dinner ever,” Ellen said. Mouths full, everyone around the table nodded.
After a long, leisurely dinner we all retired to the living room to stretch out. Desserts wouldn’t come until later, when we had regained our appetites. So Ellen suggested a game of cards. My mother had a different idea.
“This!” she said, proudly holding a bright blue case of mah-jongg tiles. Recently purchased in Chinatown, the mah-jongg tiles had been bringing my mother back to her roots lately. I’d played the game a couple of times already with her; it was easy to pick up, and actually a lot like many Western card games, so long as you could differentiate the numbers and characters on the tiles. Mah-jongg was actually a lot like rummy. Players had sets of tiles before them, which they tried to group off into three of a kind or three in a row. We’d take turns picking up tiles from the table and discarding them. Once a tile was discarded on the table, the next player had the option of picking it up to complete a set—calling out ‘Pung!’ when this happened. And instead of saying “rummy,” when a player had a winning spread, he or she would call out “Hula!”
We pulled out a card table and gathered around it. My mother, Chris, and I were each seated at one of the sides of the table, and my aunt and cousin pulled their chairs close together and teamed up on the last. Mah-jongg is a four-person game, and the four sides of the table are thought to symbolize the four winds: north, south, east, and west. The familiar crackling sound as the plastic tiles were poured in the center and turned over one by one signaled the start of a long succession of games. After some pointers and practice rounds, Ellen and Phoebe were following just as well as the rest of us. At fourteen years of age, my cousin was downright scary-smart.
“Pung!” she cried, grabbing a tile that my mother had just placed on the table.
“That’s the second time I gave you pung,” my mom sighed.
The next day, after all our guests had left, my parents, Chris, and I drove to Jo-Jo’s apartment in Queens. We brought the mah-jongg tiles, as well as some makings for wontons. It would be a simple late lunch or early dinner, and a third Thanksgiving for me.
We sat around Gong-Gong’s easy chair in Jo-Jo’s apartment. My grandfather refused to eat most of the time, shaking his bony hand in protest when Jo-Jo tried to feed him. But whenever he tasted something good, I noticed he always let up a little. We had stuffed and folded the pork and shrimp wontons in the kitchen ourselves, with the help of Gong-Gong’s helper. “Auntie,” as we respectfully called her, had taught us the classic Shanghai style of folding the dumplings in square, store-bought egg-noodle wrappers. Once Gong-Gong accepted a spoonful of wonton in soup, he eagerly took another bite, and another.
We’d gone to Jo-Jo’s apartment to see Gong-Gong several times that fall, as his condition worsened. Since his hearing was so poor, at first Jo-Jo and my mom would communicate with him by writing on a dry-erase board in Chinese characters. “Do you want soup?” they might write, or more seriously, “Do you remember Wei Kai Lin?” (my Chinese name). After a while, it became less and less clear that he even remembered my mother anymore, and he couldn’t maintain the attention span to read writing.
My mother brought the mah-jongg tiles to play once again that evening. Once the tiles were poured onto the table with a familiar crackle, Gong-Gong perked up a bit. He eyed the tiles attentively as we pushed them around for a while. We didn’t end up playing a real game, but for the rest of the evening, as we sat around Jo-Jo’s apartment talking, my grandfather plunked and picked at the pieces on the table, as if trying to recall what was supposed to be done with them.
“Pung,” I said at one point. He looked up in wonder for a moment, and I thought I saw his eyes shine with clarity, as if the clouds in his memory had temporarily parted.
Sweet, Salty, and Sticky Roasted Squash Seeds
A great snack to put out before the big Thanksgiving meal. If you’ve got squash on your menu at any occasion in the fall, instead of tossing the scooped-out seeds, try out this caramely slightly spicy use for them instead. Keeps great in a jar for up to a week.
(MAKES ABOUT 1 CUP)
1 cup squash seeds (pumpkin, butternut, acorn, etc.)
1 tablespoon butter
¼ cup firmly packed brown sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Make sure the squash seeds are dried completely, with bits of pulp removed. Heat a large skillet and toast the seeds in it for a couple of minutes over high heat. Melt the butter in the skillet, and toss in the sugar, salt, and cayenne pepper. Turn seeds onto a lightly greased baking sheet and spread in an even layer. Bake for about 40 minutes or until crisp. Let cool completely and remove with a spatula.
Turkey Liver Mousse with Pistachios
This is an easy,yet luxurious snack, and a good way to use the liver that comes with whole turkeys. Crushed pistachios add texture to the mousse as garnish, and you might want to serve individual crackers with the mousse spread on top, finished off with a small sprinkle of the pistachios. Try using cognac, sherry, or dry Madeira or Marsala wine for a change in flavor.
(MAKES ABOUT ⅔ CUP)
1 stick unsalted butter, cut into cubes
2 small onions (or 2 medium shallots), finely chopped
2 turkey livers
1 sprig fresh rosemary or thyme
½ cup dry white wine
Salt and pepper to taste
Handful gently crushed, shelled pistachios
Melt about 1 tablespoon of the butter in a small skillet. Add the onions and cook over medium heat until translucent, about 8 minutes. Add the turkey livers and cook, stirring occasionally, for 4-6 minutes, or until the insides are just pink and no longer bloody. Add the fresh herb sprig and the wine. Season mixture with a few pinches of salt and pepper. Cook until wine is nearly completely reduced.
Remove the herb sprig and transfer mixture to a food processor. Add a few butter cubes at a time and pulse until smooth and uniform. Taste for seasoning, adding additional salt and pepper as desired. Transfer to a small serving bowl or ramekin, cover with plastic, and refrigerate 1 hour before using. Serve with the pistachios sprinkled on top.
Chipotle Cornbread Stuffing with Apples and Chorizo
This is an improved version of the chipotle stuffing I served at the Fall Harvest Feast, with cornbread instead of corn tortillas, and chorizo. A good handful of fresh herbs goes a long way in this recipe, so if you don’t have fresh oregano, substitute with parsley thyme, tarragon, or a mixture.
(MAKES ENOUGH TO STUFF A 15-20 LB TURKEY)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 celery ribs, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
Salt and pepper to taste
1-2 tablespoons chipotles in adobo sauce, pureed in a food processor or blender until smooth
4-5 cups cornbread (preferably stale), cut into 1-inch cubes
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
2 tablespoons fresh oregano, chopped
Heat a large skillet with the vegetable oil and add the chopped chorizo. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned, 2-3 minutes. Transfer to a bowl, and in the same pan, add the onions, celery, garlic, and a couple of pinches of salt and pepper. Cook for another 2-3 minutes. Return the chorizo to the pan and remove from heat. Sprinkle the chipotles and toss to distribute evenly. Fold in the rest of the ingredients gently, so as not to break up too many pieces of bread. Taste for seasoning before stuffing into a turkey to roast.
CHAPTER 9
Going Solo
“Watch out; I hear they spit.”
The camel I was sitting on abruptly stood on its hind legs, pitching me forward with a jolt that brought my face to the bristly hairs on its head. A moment later, it began to climb onto its forelegs and bumpily rose to a standing position.
“Why don’t they tell you when they’re about to do that?” I exclaimed.
I turned around and just caught a glimpse of Jordan’s camel doing the same thing, almost knocking her sunglasses off her forehead.
“Aaah!” she squealed.
One by one, the camels seated in procession just behind her began to stand up, shifting their riders forward in their seats. There were twelve of us backpackers in the group, each mounting camels for the first time. When the camel at the end of the line sat aloof, refusing to move, one of our Berber guides walked over to it and spoke gently to its face. He patted the camel a few times. Grudgingly, it rose.
Then we were off—into the dunes of Erg Chebbi, in the Western Sahara of Morocco, for a night of camping in tents under the stars.
It was January, and my good friend Jordan and I were in the middle of our ten-day trip to Morocco. Jordan and I had been trying to plan a vacation together for the last year or so, hoping to relive some of the traveling adventures we’d shared when studying abroad in Europe my junior year of college. Now that we were both living in New York and working steady jobs with paid vacations, we decided to pick a place where we’d never been before and just buy tickets. We finally decided on Morocco; it was a country and a culture that we knew next to nothing about. What better reason than that, we thought, for us to go?
After spending three nights in Marrakesh, Jordan and I signed up for a three-day trek to the desert, passing the rugged Atlas Mountains and sepia kasbahs famously made popular by Hollywood films shot on location in this exotic landscape. In our van were ten other travelers, between the ages of twenty-two and thirty-two. They hailed from Spain, Australia, Quebec, London, Italy, Korea, and Japan. Two days into the trek, we were just like old friends.
The trip had been filled with stunning landscapes, architecture, and culture shock, but for me, it was also a fascinating gastronomic odyssey. From the start of my blog, I’d accepted that when I traveled out of New York City, and certainly outside of the country, I would allow myself to eat out for practicality. I took full advantage of this liberty while traveling through Morocco. There was nothing quite comparable to Moroccan food, I learned. It had dramatic extremes, from heavily spiced, slow-cooked tajine stews to fresh, barely seasoned vegetables and salads. Jordan and I had taken a casual cooking class while touring Marrakesh, and I already couldn’t wait to duplicate back at home the dishes I’d learned about.
So after a near-perfect vacation with Jordan-the only imperfect part being an accidental thirteen-hour layover in London’s Heathrow Airport, which was sort of fun and memorable in its own way—I came back to New York, going on less than three hours of sleep in the past twenty hours or so. But I arrived home in the afternoon, and I didn’t want to mess up my return to work the next day by going to sleep right away. Instead, I wanted to surprise Ben with a fabulous Moroccan meal when he came home from work.
I had to get to work quickly. It was three thirty by the time I arrived home, and I had to pick up some groceries first. I was set on cooking the same two dishes we’d made in our cooking class, the Moroccan menu staple, tajine chicken with olives and piquant preserved lemon, and a side dish or warm dip of roasted green bell pepper and tomato, called taktouka.
I didn’t have time to hunt down salt-preserved lemons in Brooklyn, nor the time to cure them myself, so I settled for fresh lemon instead. I wanted to serve the tajine with freshly baked bread, as was always done in Morocco. But there wasn’t enough time to turn out a loaf of no-knead bread, which needed to be set out overnight. So instead, I got to work actually kneading a loaf of bread—something I’d rarely done before. After eight minutes of kneading the dough, I was about ready to collapse into a deep sleep. But I managed to shake off the sleepiness and move on to cooking the tajine, since it needed to simmer a while. Red onion, garlic, and several spices later, the terra-cotta tajine that I’d brought back from Morocco was slowly cooking the chicken and olives inside. I got to work on the green-pepper dip next, the taktouka. Gripping the peppers with tongs, I held them over a high stove flame until their skins became blackened and crispy all over. I then covered them in plastic wrap to let the skins become soggy and easy to scrape off. Next I thinly sliced the roasted flesh of the peppers and sauteed the slices in a pan with chopped fresh tomato, onion, garlic, and spices. The tomatoes broke down into a loose sauce with just barely visible cubes of onion that coated the sliced peppers. The tingling smells of paprika and roasted peppers wafted to my nose as I stirred them in the pan, just as we had in the cooking class. Really, it was a lovely dish.
When Ben got home at seven, the apartment was engulfed in the aroma of cumin and coriander from the chicken. It was just finished cooking, and I hadn’t had a spare moment to rest yet. But the food was all ready to eat: a freshly baked loaf of bread, the warm taktouka, and the lemony chicken and olive tajine. I was proud of this feat, and, once I tasted the results, I was duly impressed with the outcome. Stained yellow with turmeric, the chicken meat fell cleanly from the bone with the touch of a fork. The salty olives were soft and warm, and the onions and garlic had cooked down to a thick yellow sauce that was perfect for soaking the bread.
I tried to tell Ben everything about my trip over dinner. I was winding down from my third or fourth wind and got hit with another fatigue spell once there was a full meal in my belly. Ben was reticent throughout the meal. There had been a strange look of shock on his face when he walked into the apartment and saw me. I had been standing in the kitchen, as usual, which was situated awkwardly close to the door. The scenario was exactly the same as it had been countless nights when Ben came home from work: a cutting board and knife planted in front of me as I chopped up vegetables or dropped some pasta noodles into a bubbling pot. This time, the preparation was all done and I was just clearing some bowls and dishes into the sink.
Ben listened to my tales about riding camels and tasting the food in the stands of Marrakesh, and politely complimented the dinner I made. I showed him the terra-cotta tajine and told him about how well I had learned to bargain with the street merchants by the end of the trip so that I’d gotten it for a steal. He had very little to say about his week, by contrast, and seemed reluctant to go into detail about it. I got a strange feeling from this, but by eight thirty, I didn’t have the energy to talk for much longer. After finishing the dishes, I fell into a deep, long night’s sleep.
“How’s your jet lag?” Ben asked on the phone the next day as we chatted from our respective office cubes.
“Better,” I said. “Gone, I think.”
“That’s good. Hey, do you think we can talk tonight?” he asked.
/> “Sure. What’s up?”
“Well, I just think a lot of things have changed ... you know?” he said.
“Hm. What things?” I asked.
Ben hesitated. His next words came out nervously. “I think we should just talk later.”
I laughed. “Whoa, you’re scaring me now; what’s up?”
There was a long moment of dead silence on the other end.
“Okay ... let’s talk, then,” I said.
I was disturbed after the phone call, but I had no clue what he could be getting at. Something must have happened, but I wasn’t sure what. Whatever it was, there was no use dwelling on it or trying to guess, so I just went on with my day as usual.