A Homemade Life

by Molly Wizenberg

  Very often, I find, restaurant renditions of chana masala are evidence of alchemy gone astray. They pound your tongue with a ton of tomato or smother your taste buds under a slick of oil. Brandon’s does neither of these things, and I don’t say that only because he bribes me with milk chocolate ice cream or because, in moments of weakness, I like to watch him sleep. His chana masala is a beautiful thing. It’s worth keeping around, as is the man who made it.

  CHANA MASALA

  when I’m not hovering next to him with a pen and paper, Brandon makes his chana masala entirely by feel and taste. The recipe that follows is our joint effort to make it reproducible for those who, like me, love a reliable recipe. You should feel free, however, to tweak as you see fit. It’s The Brandon Way.

  This chana masala can be served in two different styles: with some whole milk yogurt to smooth and soften the flavors, or sans yogurt, served with a squeeze of lemon. I prefer the former, but Brandon leans toward the latter. Either way, this dish is better the second day, or even the third.

  ¼ cup olive oil

  1 medium onion, coarsely chopped

  2 medium cloves garlic, minced

  1 teaspoon cumin seeds

  ½ teaspoon ground coriander

  ¼ teaspoon ground ginger

  1 teaspoon garam masala, plus more for serving

  3 green cardamom pods, lightly crushed under the side of a knife

  1 teaspoon salt, or to taste

  Water

  One 28-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes

  1 tablespoon coarsely chopped cilantro leaves, plus more for serving

  Pinch of cayenne or red pepper flakes, or more to taste

  Two 15-ounce cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed

  1/3 to ½ cup plain yogurt (not low fat or nonfat; optional)

  A few lemon wedges (optional), for serving

  Pour the olive oil into a Dutch oven and warm it over medium heat. Add the onion, and cook, stirring occasionally, until it is deeply caramelized. It’s okay if it’s even charred in spots. Be patient. The more color, the more full-flavored the final dish will be.

  Reduce the heat to low. Add the garlic, cumin seeds, coriander, ginger, garam masala, cardamom pods, and salt and cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant and toasty, about 30 seconds. Add ¼ cup water and stir to scrape up any brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Cook until the water has evaporated completely. Pour in the juice from the can of tomatoes, followed by the tomatoes themselves, using your hands to break them apart as you add them. (Alternatively, add them whole and crush them in the pot with a potato masher.)

  Raise the heat to medium, and bring the pot to a gentle boil. Adjust the heat to maintain a simmer, add the cilantro and cayenne, and continue to cook gently, stirring occasionally, until the mixture reduces a bit and begins to thicken, about 5 minutes. Add the chickpeas, stirring well, and cook over low heat for 5 minutes. Add 2 tablespoons water and cook for another 5 minutes. Add another 2 tablespoons water and cook until it is absorbed, a few minutes more. This process of adding and cooking off water helps to concentrate the sauce’s flavor and makes the chickpeas more tender and toothsome. Taste, and adjust the seasoning as necessary.

  Stir in the yogurt, if you like. Or leave it out, and serve instead with a lemon wedge on the side. Either way, sprinkle it with a pinch or two of garam masala and some chopped cilantro.

  Yield: 4 servings

  SPECIAL GAME

  Every now and then, Brandon and I like to play a special game. It has no real name, but if I were to give it one, it might be called the “Your Partner Has No Past” game. It goes something like this: whenever one of us mentions a previous boyfriend or girlfriend, the other feigns complete incomprehension. For example:

  MOLLY: Oooh! I love this song! Turn it up! [Ex-boyfriend] put it on a mix tape for me when we first met.

  BRANDON: What? Who did? You mean I did? I did, right?

  It’s not so much that we dislike knowing about each other’s previous significant others. In fact, I take a real interest in the topic. Who doesn’t want to know all her predecessors’ faults and shortcomings, or the story of the foolish English girl who broke his heart at age sixteen? (Hannah Baldry was her name, although you have to pronounce it “Hannah Bowwwldry,” with a British accent.) It’s just that it’s fun to pretend that your partner sprang from the ether, pure and wise and perfectly formed, the way Athena emerged from Zeus’s head. Pretending that we have no past makes us look very talented and precocious, like minor geniuses in the romance department. To wit:

  MOLLY (breathily): You’re such a good kisser. It’s really amazing, since I was your first kiss.

  BRANDON: Isn’t it? And you, I have to say, are so good at spooning. It’s kind of crazy how good you are, especially when you’ve never done this before.

  Quite fun, as you can see. You should really try it, so long as both players are in on the plan. Otherwise, it could get messy.

  But all that said, I have to admit that I am actually quite grateful for Brandon’s ex-girlfriends, and one of them in particular. Her name is Gillian. Without her wise tutelage, he tells me, he would be “a terrible hippie,” whatever that means. He would never have done any homework or made it through college, and he would douse all edibles with inedible amounts of vinegar. I owe her a lot. But more than anything else, I owe her, or, technically, her parents, for teaching Brandon about shaved fennel salads.

  Back when Brandon and Gillian were together, her parents owned—and perhaps they still own—a CD-ROM of Julia Child’s series Cooking with Master Chefs. In one of the episodes, Alice Waters teaches Julia how to make a salad of shaved fennel, mushroom, and Parmesan. Gillian’s parents were quite taken with the idea, and it quickly became a regular in their repertoire. They once served it to Brandon, and today, one breakup and several years later, it is a regular in our repertoire, too.

  After summer’s lettuces are gone and before winter’s red cabbage arrives, fennel is our early fall standby. It’s crisp and fragrant and cheering for the jaw. Shaved into slivers and layered on a platter, drizzled with olive oil and lemon and scattered with curls of Parmesan, it’s what salad looks like when it wears white after Labor Day.

  We often serve it with slivered mushrooms, à la Alice, but as we discovered on a whim one October afternoon, we like it even better with Asian pears. We stumbled upon the idea when we happened to finish off a Sunday lunch of fennel salad with some slices of an Asian pear. Much to our surprise, the juicy, perfumed crunch of the pear was delicious with the clean, aniselike flavor of the fennel, and a new salad was born. It makes a handsome lunch for two, along with a baguette, a pat of butter, and some chocolate for dessert.

  If you’re anything like us, it might even inspire a special game, something involving forks, stealth, and the last bite of salad.

  FENNEL SALAD WITH ASIAN PEAR AND PARMESAN

  as you may have noticed, Brandon and I eat a lot of salad. Between the two of us, we could keep a small farm in business. Much of the time, in fact, we don’t so much cook as assemble. It’s sometimes a little disconcerting, given that we supposedly like to cook, but it’s nice to eat simply. A good salad is nothing to scoff at.

  As salads go, this one is especially elegant, with its layered presentation. But if you’re short on time, you can certainly toss it. As for variations, you might try substituting aged Gouda for the Parmesan, or replacing the Asian pear with thin shavings of cremini mushroom.

  1 medium fennel bulb, about 10 ounces

  1 small Asian pear

  Olive oil

  Lemon

  Crunchy salt, such as Maldon or fleur de sel

  Wedge of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

  Freshly ground black pepper

  First, prepare the fennel. If it still has long stalks and fronds, cut them off and discard them. (Or use them for something else, like a homemade stock.) Using a vegetable peeler or small knife, trim away any bruises or brown spots on the bulb’s outermost layer of “skin.�
�� Cut it in half from root to stalk, and trim the root end. Using a sharp knife or a mandoline and working with one-half of the bulb at a time, slice the fennel very thinly, 1/8 to ¼ inch thick. You’re not going for quite paperthin—that’s almost too fine and will tend to make the fennel watery—but you want it to be close. Set aside.

  Next, prepare the Asian pear. Using an apple corer, remove and discard the core. Then cut the pear in half from top to bottom. Using a sharp knife or a mandoline, slice it very thinly, just like the fennel. Set aside.

  Assemble the salad in layers on a large platter. First, make a wide layer of fennel slices. Drizzle lightly with olive oil. Then place a layer of Asian pear on top of the fennel. Drizzle lightly with lemon juice, and season with salt. Using a vegetable peeler, shave thin ribbons of cheese on top of the pear. Add another layer of fennel, followed by a light drizzle of oil, and then another layer of pear, lemon juice, salt, and cheese. Repeat until you run out of ingredients. You might have two layers, or you might have many more; it doesn’t matter. Finish the salad with a good drizzle of lemon juice and a hearty splash of oil, and garnish with a few shavings of cheese.

  Serve immediately, with salt and pepper to taste.

  Yield: 4 first-course servings or a light meal for 2

  THE DIAMONDS

  My father was not known for having a particularly impressive memory. If you had something important to tell him, there was no need to hurry, because at least eight times out of ten, he wouldn’t remember it anyway. In most cases he promptly forgot, or else he buried it beneath another wisp of information, never to be seen again. Someone might have called with exciting family news, but my mother and I would never hear it. Burg was a dead end. My uncle Arnie took to facetiously calling him “Radio Free Wizenberg,” because he was anything but. He would have made a terrific career criminal, the kind who conveniently forgets which bank he robbed and who his accomplice was. He not only failed to remember his children’s birth dates, but he also occasionally referred to my brother David as “Midnight,” the name of the family dog, circa 1965.

  So it didn’t surprise me that he forgot about the diamonds. Sometime during college, I think it was, he had called to tell me about them. He’d just come from an estate sale where he’d found a pair of small diamond studs that were relatively cheap, as these things go. He knew I didn’t have my ears pierced, but he bought them anyway, figuring that I might want to use the stones for something else. He would give them to me, he said, the next time I was home.

  But then, of course, he forgot. And lo and behold, I, being his daughter, forgot, too. (With that kind of genetic stock, I didn’t stand a chance.) Years went by, and those diamonds might as well have never been.

  We could have been a terrific slapstick duo, the two of us. I can see it now, the first episode of our show. We’re walking down the street, both in oversized pants and suspenders, when we stumble upon a suitcase with a label on the side that says CONTENTS: GOLD. We leap on it, slapping our thighs and cheering, and set to work jiggling the latch. But after a few minutes, when it still hasn’t budged, boredom starts to set in. We lose interest. We forget why we were there. We stand up, shake out our coats, and while the audience squeals in disbelief, shouting for us to turn around, we set out cheerily in search of some doughnuts.

  The year after Burg died, my mother, my brothers, my sister, and I met in Oklahoma to go through his belongings, his clothes and shoes. Mom found the diamond earrings in his bathroom drawer. He’d put them in his cufflinks box, apparently, a clear plastic case with small compartments built for fishing flies, now filled with knickknacks and lapel pins. They were hidden in a silk bag, but she recognized them. She gave them to me, gently prodding my memory, and I brought them home to Seattle. I put them in a drawer under my bathroom sink. I didn’t know what to do with them, but I liked having them there. They felt like a secret that only my father and I would know.

  I told Brandon about the earrings earlier than I meant to, maybe two months after we met. It just slipped out. He was in town to visit and, while walking around the neighborhood one afternoon, had found six vintage champagne glasses, the wide, shallow kind with a hollow stem, for fifty cents each. They were glamorous and pretty, the sort of thing a flapper would hold in one gloved hand. They reminded me, I told him, of something my father would have brought home. They reminded me of the costume jewelry he bought for my mother, and of the diamond studs in my bathroom.

  Several months later, in January, Brandon was in Seattle again. When I got home from work, it was already dark outside, and he was in the kitchen, working on dinner. While we waited for the timer to ring, we sat down on the couch. My hands were cold, and he rubbed them for me. In the little apartment I lived in then, my desk was directly across from the couch. On top of the desk I kept a row of photographs. The largest, taller than all the rest, was a 5 × 7-inch black-and-white shot of my dad in his doctor’s coat in one of those wobbly plastic frames. This is probably way too precious to admit, but I always felt like he was watching me from up there, looking down over the living room with its hopeless, stained carpet, making sure everything was safe.

  “I had a talk with your dad today,” Brandon announced, nodding toward the desk.

  I guess it would be smart, or maybe just minimally sane, to say that I was surprised. Or that it was creepy to have my boyfriend tell me that he’d been chatting with my dead father. But I wasn’t surprised. I was charmed. Brandon had always asked questions here and there, wanting to know more about Burg. It didn’t surprise me that he might sit down at my desk one day while I was at work and study the face in the photograph. I wanted him to.

  “What did you two talk about?” I asked nonchalantly, smiling a conspirator’s grin.

  “Oh, nothing,” he said shyly. Then he stood up and pulled me into the kitchen.

  I don’t like mysteries very much, not outside of movies or books, but I decided to let it be. In fact, after a day or two, I’d completely forgotten about the entire conversation. Brandon is lucky I didn’t start calling him “Midnight.”

  It seems a little strange to tell the story this way now, when, as I was living it, it didn’t feel so neat and chronological at all. Even though I had wanted for months to marry Brandon—and had been, in small, subconscious ways, waiting for him to hurry up and ask me—still, it caught me by surprise. I didn’t put it all together until well afterward. When Brandon walked me across the Brooklyn Bridge that afternoon in March, almost a year after we met, and steered me up the hill to Brooklyn Heights, to a bench on the promenade, I had no idea. When he knelt in front of me and put his head in my lap, I had not the foggiest. I was thoroughly absorbed, in fact, in staring at a fleck of dandruff tangled in one of his curls. When he pulled out the blue leather box with a ring inside, a dainty, antique ring with two triangular sapphires and a small diamond in the middle, I still didn’t understand. Even when he said, “It’s one of your father’s diamonds,” I didn’t put it together. I didn’t understand that, that day when he had talked to my father, he had been asking if he could marry me.

  What I did instead was yell, “Are you crazy?” Then I looked at him, and then behind him, at the water, and up and down and all around, and giggling, out of breath, said yes.

  When I tell people the story of our engagement, that Brandon took the diamonds from my bathroom that January and carried them around New York City for two months, looking for an antique setting that would fit them—or one of them, at least—because he knew that was what my father would have wanted, they never know what to say. Sometimes they swoon. Sometimes they sigh. But sometimes they look at me hard. Wasn’t I upset, they ask, that Brandon took them without telling me, that he stole those diamonds from me?

  I never know what to say to that. It didn’t even cross my mind. They were never mine, I say. I was just their caretaker. They were meant for him all along.

  SLICED SPRING SALAD WITH AVOCADO AND FETA

  after Brandon and I got engaged, we went to his apart
ment and opened a bottle of champagne, and then we took the subway to Avenue J for pizza at DiFara. On the ride home, we shared a couple of chocolate truffles and leaned sleepily into each other over the hard plastic seats. It was strange and surreal, and just right.

  When I went back to Seattle a few days later, I ate this salad for two weeks straight. My binge of sorts had nothing to do with wanting to fit into a wedding dress (we weren’t getting married for almost a year and a half, anyway) or with any nervous lack of appetite. I was just overwhelmed. I couldn’t do anything else. So I made salad, and then I made more salad. I ate it straight from the serving bowl while sitting on the floor, my back against the couch, watching Jeopardy! and shouting answers at the screen.

  The components of this salad are not the most obvious partners, but don’t let that dissuade you. Tossed together in a classic vinaigrette, they meld almost seamlessly: crunchy with creamy, bitter with mellow. Anytime I serve it to someone, they ask for the recipe.

  You can eat this salad as a starter or side dish, but I like it best as a light meal, with a hunk of crusty bread or a few roasted potatoes on the side.

  Note that there will be more vinaigrette than you need for one salad. Extra vinaigrette can be stored in the refrigerator indefinitely and used on almost any salad.

  FOR THE VINAIGRETTE

  1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

  3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

  ½ teaspoon salt

  5 tablespoons olive oil, plus more to taste

  FOR THE SALAD

  8 red radishes

  1 medium radicchio (about 10 ounces)

  4 Belgian endive (about 1 pound)