My Fat Dad
Page 7
The night before we left, Beauty and I stayed up all night talking and making a batch of her famous noodle kugel with golden raisins and little shell pastas. She even divulged her special ingredient—lemon juice—the one my aunt had been dying to know for years. After the kugel cooled, she sliced it up and placed the pieces into twelve individual foil packs so April and I would have enough for a couple of days. The kugel never made it to the plane. We devoured it instantly and begged for more—scared it would be a while before we ate something so delicious again.
Beauty assured me that every week she would send me a recipe card and a twenty-dollar bill so I would have a little something to look forward to. “If I am cooking chicken soup for Papa, you can cook chicken soup for April. If I am cooking pot roast with green peppers and sweet potatoes, you could prepare pot roast with green peppers and sweet potatoes. I will walk you through every step. Just remember what I taught you. Food should taste like food. Chicken schnitzel should taste like chicken. Blueberry pie should taste like blueberries. If it is too sweet or too greasy, then you are losing the natural flavors of the ingredients. And if you need anything, I am just a phone call away—312-555-0783,” she chanted.
“312-555-0783,” I repeated.
“You have no idea how strong you are.”
Beauty always said I was the strongest girl she knew, although I never really understood why she thought that. Both my parents always made fun of me for being too sensitive. Beauty said it was something that she knew, even if others, or I, didn’t see it in me yet. Beauty believed in me so completely that I wore her love and confidence on me like a shield—making me feel protected from anything bad that could possibly happen.
The day we arrived in New York, it was extremely hot and muggy, and the sounds and sights of the city were mesmerizing—delis, fruit stands, bakeries, coffee shops, yellow taxis, pay phones, dry cleaners, bus stops, and take-out Chinese food places were everywhere. It was loud, fast, and dirty—nothing like our quiet neighborhood by the lake in Chicago. As much as I wanted to hate it, something about it was intriguing and electrifying. I was excited, scared, and curious all at one time. But I made sure not to let my mother see since she was being more attentive and thoughtful than usual. I guess she was probably feeling guilty about taking me away from the things she knew I loved most.
“You need to look at this like an adventure,” my mother said, all gung ho, planning the sights of the day.
“I love adventures,” April said, bouncing up and down. I said nothing.
“You were mad when I left you for a month to go to Africa on safari. This is your time to explore and have new experiences.”
“I was mad because you left me with that mean babysitter, Sister Ann, who tortured me, saying I was going to Hell because I had not been saved by Jesus; and every time I showed her my drawings, she said they were ugly and I was a terrible artist.”
“You know you are a very good artist. Don’t I buy beautiful frames for all your pictures?”
“And she hardly fed us because she said you did not leave her enough money for groceries.”
“She was a very reliable babysitter; she was always on time. I couldn’t have left you with Beauty because she was too frightened to get her driver’s license, so she would never have been able to get you to school.”
“And you never called. I was worried that something happened to you. April was only one year old. How could you have not been worried?”
“You are just like Beauty, scared of the world. Didn’t you like the little hand-carved wooden elephants I brought back for you girls?”
My mother always misconstrued what I was trying to convey. She always thought I was accusing her of something, instead of hearing me, which made matters worse. I learned at an early age that there were very few safe places to express myself—even Beauty would get uncomfortable when I read her my dark poems about death. No one seemed to be able to tolerate my emotions when I was sad, so most of the time I just smiled no matter what I was really feeling. The feelings I did not know what to do with, I kept locked safe in my diary—sealed with a little gold key that looked like it came off a charm bracelet.
Buckling my new Stride Rite white sandals with the rubber soles that my grandmother bought me for walking around Manhattan, my mother tried to convince me how lucky I was to be in a city of great public transportation and creative expression. “In New York City, we can walk everywhere, and everything is open late. I would have killed to get out of suburban Chicago when I was your age. My childhood was so boring. Every day was the same. I got up, ate breakfast, went to school, and practiced the piano. Nothing exciting ever happened in West Rogers Park. We had the same neighbors for most of my life, the same type of Jewish food day after day. It was just so ordinary. Everyone looked the same. I just love how people express themselves here.”
Most days, I would have liked my life to be a little more boring and my mom to be a little more ordinary—from her wild, untamed, long frizzy hair; to her faded denim two-toned Levi bell-bottom jeans, to her low-cut tunic shirts to her dangling silver earrings, to her powerful voice, which always seemed ten times the volume of other people’s. In Chicago, people always used to give my mother dirty looks; but in Manhattan, she didn’t seem to stand out so much. Here, she was just part of the canvas and blended in as effortlessly as the bottle caps were embedded into the pavement. No one even looked twice at my mom while she hollered hysterically at April and me for wanting to sit down and get something to drink when there was so much more to see.
The first month we lived in the city, my mom was the ultimate tour guide. Her friend Joanne from the theater department at Northwestern University had moved to Manhattan after graduating college, and she mapped out the most exciting neighborhoods to explore. Since my mom loved Indian food, small avant-garde theaters, golden oldie movies, and foreign films, we explored the East Village. Since my dad used to be a disc jockey for the radio station at Northwestern University and his first job was as a music reviewer for Rogue magazine, we explored all the music venues and record stores in the West Village. My mom heard that there was a neighborhood called Little Odessa that made food like my Bubbe Mary, and she knew if she wanted to get on my dad’s good side, eating there would be a fabulous idea. As for me, my mother wanted me to be comfortable taking the buses and subways because school was starting in a couple of weeks, and I would be traveling on my own. My mom said the school would provide me with a subway pass so I would be able to travel anywhere I wanted in the city for free.
“The whole city is like one big amusement park,” she said, gesturing April and me to run through the water shooting out of a fire hydrant. When April balked because we didn’t have bathing suits on, my mom suggested we take off our clothes and run through the sprinklers in our underwear. April didn’t have to be told twice; she was off and running. When I refused to get wet, my mom shook her head in disgust. “Dawn, you are such a stick-in-the-mud. I don’t know how I gave birth to such a Jewish grandmother.” Noticing my eyes starting to well up, she looked at April and my dad and complained, “Not again.”
“Dawny’s going to cry, Dawny’s going to cry,” April teased in a singsong voice.
“I am not going to cry. I just have something in my eye.” My stomach often ached from holding my breath so hard to hold back the tears from flowing. But unlike Chicago—where everything felt quiet, and I could easily get crushed by my emotions—in New York City, I was distracted by the street musicians, the clothes, the street art, and the sounds of the different languages being shouted in the streets. I was never too upset for too long. I was a part of something bigger than myself. I had only heard English and Hebrew before. Now I was lost in the rhythms and the dialects of the many languages spoken: Spanish, Ukrainian, Italian, Russian, Polish, Hindi, Chinese—each neighborhood a new language, a new culture, a new food.
There was so much to take in, and my parents, both
experienced travelers, were determined to walk every street. They were like kids in a candy shop, sampling something new on every block. Chicago was the town of deep-dish pizza and ribs, but New York City was a mecca of cultures and flavors. “The city of many great cuisines,” my dad said.
For the first time ever, my dad made no reference to any special diet he was on—the diet seemed to be eat as much as you can, and he did. Even though he was way over three hundred pounds and was not getting any skinnier from all the walking we were doing, he ate his way through the city. We enjoyed pasta in Little Italy, dumplings in Chinatown, pirogues in Little Odessa, curry on East Sixth Street, and falafels on MacDougal Street. Not only was I experiencing the food from different ethnicities bringing my family together, each dish had a story—a life before it touched our lips, a history that I found intriguing. It was one of the few times with my parents that I felt full, and we felt like a family.
On Bleecker Street in the West Village near my new school, there was an Italian sandwich shop called Faicco’s Pork Store, filled with a dizzying range of imported Italian-style salamis hanging in the windows and hams, meatballs, sun-dried tomatoes, sweet peppers, and cheeses in glass cases. They even made their own homemade mozzarella. I remember the enthusiastic wrinkled man behind the counter asking me if I wanted to try the smoked or the marinated one. Both were incredible. I had tasted only Kraft Velveeta cheese before, but this cheese was so smooth and flavorful. The man who worked there had a passion for what he was selling, which made all the food taste that much more delicious. He told us food was la gioia di vivere—“the joy of life”—insisting that we try their house specialty, Arancini di Riso, crispy fried balls of risotto, crunchy on the outside and divinely soft and cheesy on the inside. They surely tasted better than my mom’s boxed Rice-A-Roni.
A little farther east from the West Village was Little Odessa, which was famous for its delicious authentic old world Eastern European food: borscht with sour cream, blintzes, stuffed cabbage, pirogues, and potato knishes. As my dad bit into the chicken kiev, filled with melted butter and parsley and mashed potatoes on the side, he said, “Moving to New York was without a doubt the best decision I have ever made.”
As I watched how happy my parents were, my uneasiness about moving to Manhattan and starting a new school was slowly beginning to fade.
Everyone had a favorite neighborhood. My mother loved Sixth Street in the East Village. In Chicago, there were only a few Indian restaurants, and she could never get her food spicy enough, but a whole street full of Indian restaurants with inexpensive lunch specials, all competing for your business, was more than she could have imagined. They would even make her food extra spicy. As my mother begged for more spice and heat in her lamb, she would joke how I was like Beauty since I liked my food so mild. While I watched my mother turn bright red, her nose dripping from the spices, I didn’t think she realized how big of a compliment she was giving me. And even though I didn’t like the food as hot as my mom, I loved learning about the different spices: turmeric, cumin, coriander, and saffron. I marveled at how the different spices created color and flavors that I had never experienced before, how the strands of red saffron and the turmeric turned the rice bright yellow when cooked.
Walking up St. Mark’s Place, which had more smells, food, music, and vendors than I had ever seen in one place, I was in awe. There was everything from rock-and-roll posters, to sunglasses, to leather sandals, to T-shirts, to funny pipes. While my parents were debating which was the best part of New York, I started talking to the patch man. He had a whole stand filled with hundreds of different patches that you could iron on your jacket, jeans, or knapsack: peace sign patches, “Nixon Sucks” patches, “McGovern for President” patches, “Flower Power” patches. As great as the patches were, Jovan, the man who owned the stand, was equally wonderful with his six-inch ’fro, muttonchop sideburns, silk pajamas, and a neck full of beads. He smelled of sweet cigarettes and patchouli oil.
As April and I looked through all the patches, trying to figure out which one to select, he gave us each a patch for free and said, “Welcome to New York.” He insisted that my parents take April and me to Veniero’s pastry shop a couple of blocks up, where I experienced the most mouthwatering chocolate éclair filled with ricotta cheese instead of the usual custard, and my dad and sister indulged in the Italian-style cheesecake and chocolate mousse pie. My mother was content grabbing a little corner off of each of our pastries.
Whether we went east, west, north, or south, there was something spectacular to see, someone wonderful to talk to, and something delicious to taste. I was exhilarated and felt alive in a way that I had not known was possible. More than adapting to my new surroundings, I was falling madly in love with my new city. I couldn’t wait to tell Beauty all that I had learned, and all that I had experienced in just a few short weeks.
Once summer was over and school started, my parents were not around as much. My dad started his new job at the ad agency, my mom started substitute teaching, and my sister was in an extended day program. As for me, I began wandering on my own after school, taking culinary adventures, buying new ingredients with the money Beauty sent me, and experimenting in the kitchen with different spices. My grandmother’s boiled meat became lamb curry with the addition of garam masala powder and coriander that was sold in the little spice shop in Curry Hill, a few blocks from my new home.
I still missed my grandmother terribly and longed for the comfort and love of my grandparents’ home, but learning about new cultures, cooking, and re-creating Beauty’s recipes with an ethnic flare gave me an incredible sense of pride and purpose. With each new recipe card came a new challenge, a new taste of the Big Apple.
Lamb Stew with Sweet Potatoes
Yield: 4 servings
1 tablespoon oil
1 medium-sized onion, sliced thin
4 medium garlic cloves, pressed
2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
1 pound cubed lamb
1 teaspoon garam masala (see note)
1 cup chicken broth
3 cups peeled and cubed sweet potatoes
5 cups finely chopped spinach
1 teaspoon turmeric
Salt and pepper, to taste
Heat the oil in a large skillet. Then sauté the onion, garlic, ginger, and lamb over medium heat for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the garam masala powder, mixing well for about 30 seconds. Then add the broth and stir in the sweet potatoes, spinach, and turmeric. Stir and simmer with salt and pepper to taste. Simmer, covered, on medium-low heat for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the lamb, potatoes, and spinach are tender.
Note: Garam masala is a pre-blended spice mixture that you can find in Indian markets or specialty shops. It is widely used in Indian, Nepalese, and other Asian cuisines. It is made of cardamom, cloves, mace, cinnamon, cumin, fennel, black peppercorns, and fenugreek.
Beauty’s Baby Shell Kugel with Golden Raisins
Yield: 6–8 servings
8 ounces baby shells
1⁄4 stick unsalted melted butter (plus a little more for greasing the pan)
1⁄4 cup applesauce
8 ounces cottage cheese
3 ounces cream cheese
3 eggs, beaten
4 ounces sour cream or yogurt
1 cup milk
1⁄2 cup sugar
11⁄2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1⁄2 cup raisins
1 teaspoon lemon juice
OPTIONAL TOPPINGS:
A little extra cinnamon and sugar to sprinkle on top of the raw kugel
1 cup crushed cornflakes, plus 2 tablespoons melted butter and 2 teaspoons cinnamon
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Parboil the shells in salted water for about 4 minutes. Strain the shells and set aside. In a large mixing bowl, combine the butter, ap
plesauce, cottage cheese, cream cheese, beaten eggs, sour cream, milk, sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon. Beat with an electric mixer until well combined. Then fold in the shells, raisins, and lemon juice. Pour into a greased, approximately 9 x 13-inch baking dish. You can sprinkle the optional toppings on top, if desired. Bake until the custard is set and the top is golden brown, about 60 minutes. Cool and slice.
Note: Kugel always tastes better the next day, either warmed or eaten at room temperature. But since the smell is so overwhelmingly delicious and it is impossible to wait until the next day, my grandmother always made an extra kugel, which she called the noshing kugel. We would eat it straight out of the pan. Because we did not give it time to cool and set, it was always a little crumbly. The noshing kugel was always reserved just for April and me.
Aranacini di Riso
Yield: 6–8 servings
2 tablespoons butter
1⁄2 white onion, finely chopped
2 celery stalks, finely chopped
1 cup Arborio rice
Salt and pepper, to taste
1⁄2 cup white wine
4 cups vegetable broth, heated
3⁄4 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
1 egg, separated
1⁄2 cup shredded mozzarella
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup bread crumbs
11⁄2 cups oil
Melt the butter in a large pan over medium heat, then add the onion and celery and sauté until soft. Stir in the rice and season with salt and pepper. Continue to cook for 1 minute. Then add the wine and stir until almost all liquid is absorbed, about 1 minute. Add 1 cup of the hot broth and cook, stirring, until it has been absorbed. Continue adding the broth, a cup at a time, and stirring until each additional cup has been absorbed. This will take about 15 minutes. Stir in 1⁄2 cup of the Parmesan cheese. Allow to cool and then put in the refrigerator, covered, overnight.