MRS. BHARGAV MISTRY'S GUJARATI SALAD
Makes 6–8 servings
In the first half of Dreaming In Hindi, a book about a year I spent in India learning to speak Hindi, I write about living with an extended Jain family: two brothers, their wives, five children, and a tiny matriarch. The brothers owned a marble mine and had a sprawling house with many rooms, but everything happened in the kitchen. Afternoons, I'd sit with the wives in the kitchen and watch their choreographed dinner preparations. I'd haltingly answer their questions about life in the United States and when they'd comment, I was lost. I'd be lost during dinner with the children and wives and lost again an hour later, when the men came home and sat down to be served. Day after day, all those hours, everyone spoke to me, ignoring the fact that it was largely a preposterous undertaking. To this day, I marvel at the family's infinite patience with my baby Hindi — they'd speak gently, slowly, repeat things often, as if I were a child. I was cradled by their language, until one day, an astonishing but predictable thing happened: strings of words were suddenly just there, as if I'd known them all along.
It was about then that the wives began hinting broadly that it might be nice if I'd just for once cook them dinner. I suppose I seemed more adult to them, more like a woman, and one thing every woman in India can do is cook. When they'd not-so-subtly suggest this, I'd freeze, stricken, for I deeply wanted to make dinner for them and at the same time, I knew, there was no way to explain that in New York, whence I'd come, people use their slivers of kitchens to microwave, end of story. I'd never learned how to cook anything. So they'd hint and I'd stammer, until finally, the women tried to help me out. I'd made it clear I'd wanted to and now they tried to figure out what was the problem. “What do you cook at your house?” they asked, but again, I was at a loss for words. No sense going for the dictionary.
“Take out,” was not going to be in there.
“Mexican?” one of the wives offered helpfully. “Yes!” I exclaimed. At home, I had heated up rice. Other times, beans. “So you can cook Mexican for us here?” she said, glancing at the stove. Damn. “No, I need the book,” I said. “Book?” they repeated. “Yes, I need the book of the kitchen to cook Mexican,” I said and the senior wife gave me a nice-try smile. “Good answer,” I swear she said.
The upshot of this story is that months later, when I met a woman from Gujarat, the wife of the saroda player Bhargav Mistry, who said she'd be glad to teach me to cook, I leaped at the offer. I'd never been so happy to know anything in my life. All of Mrs. Mistry's recipes were magnificent and often intricate, but the one I liked the best, the one I present here, was the simplest.
Note: Poha, or white rice flakes, can be purchased at Indian grocers or ordered online.
Pomegranates are in season fall through mid-winter in the United States. After breaking open the fruit, you'll find many arils, or seed casings, which can be consumed raw (including the seed).
You're welcome to adjust amounts of ingredients to suit your taste. When Mrs. Mistry taught me, she'd just say things like, “Add some peanuts, oh, maybe two handfuls.” Every time I make this salad, I wing it.
1 20-ounce can pineapple rings, or fresh pineapple, cored
¾–1 cup salted peanuts
1 head of white or red cabbage
1–1½ cups sliced seedless green grapes
¾–1 cup poha (white rice flakes) (optional) (see note)
¾–1 cup pomegranate seeds (see note)
4–6 tablespoons chopped cilantro leaves
Juice of 1 lemon
Pinch of sugar
Salt to taste
1 Slice pineapple rings or cored pineapple into bite-sized pieces, until you have 1–1½ cups. Place peanuts in a small paper bag and use a mallet to smash into pieces.
2 Using a mandoline, food processor fitted with a slicing blade, or box grater, grate the cabbage into long pieces.
3 In a large salad bowl, combine pineapple, peanuts, cabbage, grapes, poha, pomegranate seeds, and cilantro. Add lemon juice, sugar, and salt to taste, and toss. The mix of textures and tastes make this like nothing you've ever tried.
Roxana Robinson
Marion Ettlinger
SELECTED WOEKS
Cost (2008)
A Perfect Stranger: And Other Stories (2005)
Sweetwater (2003)
This is My Daughter (1998)
Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life (1989)
The Inspiration for Stories versus Novels I usually begin to write when I find something that disturbs or interests me, something that intrudes on my mind.
I write stories and novels differently. I write stories because of a scene or an exchange, some moment I've seen or heard of, that strikes me as very powerful. I write the story toward that moment. It comes toward the end of a story, and if you read my work you will know it when you reach it, though something else usually happens after it. But that moment is what drives the story.
I write novels differently; I'm not writing toward a moment, and I don't know at all what will happen. I start a novel because of a conflict or a problem that I find compelling. I explore the idea of the conflict, I find the people who are involved in it, I get to know them well, and then I let them deal with the problem. In doing so, they create the narrative. It's a slow, organic process, one that has its own sort of life and direction.
Readers Should Know My most recent novel, Cost, is about three generations of a family going through a crisis. I'm interested in the way families respond to each other. I think of the family as being an organic unit, whole and living. I think of it as being like a mobile, a sculpture, delicately balanced, carefully interconnected. Any movement on the part of anyone will have an effect on all the others. One person in crisis sets the whole system into silent, swaying motion.
Readers Frequently Ask Most people ask how I know what it's like to be the characters I write about. One woman called me at home, said she was the main character in my last book, and asked if I'd been stalking her.
It's a hard question to answer; it's hard to say exactly how I get to know my characters. I spend a lot of time with them, in their worlds. And the better I know them, the more I enter their worlds and feel I understand them. Their worlds sort of become mine, particularly toward the end of the process. Then I start living more in their lives than in my own. When it's over I feel sad to let them all go; I'll never live with them again, and I feel a kind of loss.
Influences on My Writing To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf has probably been the biggest influence on my work. She showed us it was possible to make a small domestic narrative into great literature. She writes about the family: how the members reflect each others' needs and conflicts, about what it's like to be alive, and how it feels and how it looks. Reading her beautiful sentences, you think over and over, Yes! Yes, that's how it is!
Other great favorites include The Rabbit Quartet by John Updike. His sublimely elegant language delivers all the mess and complications of real life, and it's driven by deep understanding and compassion. Updike is truly engaged with his characters; he understands them, he sees their flaws and he forgives them. He's a compassionate writer, and for me, compassion is hugely important.
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy is a wonderful, wonderful book delivered so simply, in such small, heartbreaking scenes, each one so beautifully rendered. Plus, it has all the glamorous splendor of prerevolutionary Russia: the balls, the furs, the sleighs, the villa in Italy. The spectacle is mesmerizing. I was put off by it for years because the book is so thick! It's so heavy! It's so Russian! But once I finally began it I realized — it's so easy to read!And it's so riveting, so hypnotizingly engaging. Now I've read it twice, and look forward to reading it many times again. It's like an old friend you know and trust and love.
ARTIST'S SUMMER STEW
Makes 3–4 servings
Julia, from my novel Cost, is an artist who spends as much time as possible in her studio. Time in her studio is lost time, and she will forget whatever
else is going on. This is very bad for cooking. It means she'll forget whatever is on the stove and let it burn, or forget to even turn it on. When she's alone she hardly cooks at all, though she might make a big batch of lentil soup and eat it for several days. When her family is with her in Maine, she likes making slow-cooked dishes that produce a rich stew of flavors and textures. She can't deal with a lot of last minute steps that involve finishing sauces, but she likes a meal that includes grace notes: fresh chopped herbs scattered on the top of a dish, warm crusty baguettes passed hand to hand, and on the table, a vase of flowers from the meadow.
Here's something she would make. It's a recipe she made up, though it probably has its roots in the cooking of southwestern France, which she admires because it's rich and slow. Serve this dish with a mesclun salad (see recipe) with walnuts and more chopped tarragon sprinkled through it, a warm baguette, and sweet butter. For dessert, another baguette (this one not warmed), some good cheeses, and whatever fruit looked good that day at the market.
1 tablespoon butter
2 medium onions, thinly sliced
6 boneless chicken thighs or 3 boneless chicken breasts (1–1¼ pounds), cut into 3-inch pieces
1½ cups arborio rice
3 cups chicken broth
2–3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
Salt to taste
Ground black pepper to taste
2–3 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon
1 In a big iron skillet, melt the butter over low heat. Add onions, cover with tight-fitting lid, and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally. When they have become translucent (this will take 10–15 minutes, during which time you can run out to the meadow and pick some flowers for the table), remove the onions and set aside.
2 Turn heat to medium, add the chicken pieces, and brown in the skillet. (The browning will also take 10 minutes or so, during which time you can set the table, pour a pitcher of ice water, and make a platter of cheeses for dessert.) You should be nearby during this, so you'll hear and smell if they start to burn.
3 When the chicken is all nicely browned, add the onions, pour in the rice, and stir to coat it with butter. Then add the chicken broth and the chopped parsley, and stir it all. Cover the skillet with a heavy lid, turn the heat down to medium-low, and let it simmer until the rice is soft and the liquid is mostly absorbed, while you take a shower. This will be about 20–30 minutes. Keep checking whenever you can to make sure the heat's not too high or too low. When it's finished, add salt and pepper to taste, and sprinkle the fresh tarragon over it before the last stir.
MESCLUN SALAD AT THE LAST MINUTE
Makes 4 servings
Note: Both walnuts and pine nuts taste good with the mesclun; both are kind of oily and offer a good contrasting crunchy texture to the lettuce, but the walnuts are more visible and so you are more aware of them.
If you're using fresh tarragon, you can either add it to the dressing or sprinkle it on the salad. If you're using dried tarragon, just put it in the dressing. (Dried herbs in salad are scratchy and dry.)
FOR THE SALAD
8 cups fresh mesclun greens, or a combination of mesclun and baby spinach, or a local lettuce on its own
A handful of shelled walnuts or pine nuts (see note)
FOR THE DRESSING
1½ tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1½–3 heaping teaspoons Maille Dijon mustard (this is my favorite ingredient)
¼ cup (or a little less) really good extravirgin olive oil
1/8 teaspoon dried tarragon or a big handful of fresh chopped tarragon (see note)
1 Wash and drain the lettuce, and spin it dry. Set lettuce in a salad bowl with the nuts on top, in a casual cluster.
2 To make the dressing: In an empty glass jar, combine balsamic vinegar, mustard, olive oil, and tarragon. Whisk together gently with a fork. (Don't whip the dressing or shake the jar, because the dressing will thicken and become viscous. Stir it gently, and try to keep it liquid.)
3 Pour the dressing down the inside edge of the salad bowl, so it runs underneath the leaves and pools beneath them. (This dressing is best when brought up from underneath, instead of poured on top, because it can be thick and a bit heavy.) Place a thoroughly dampened paper towel on top of the lettuce to keep it moist, and allow the salad to sit “undressed” until ready to serve. To serve, remove paper towel and toss salad gently, bringing dressing up from underneath, until the leaves are coated.
Stephanie Saldaña
Frédéric Masson
SELECTED WOEKS
The Bread of Angels: A Journey to Love and Faith (2010)
Inspiration I am inspired by the people around me and the incredible stories they have to tell. In my memoir The Bread of Angels, I take my inspiration from the people I encountered during my year in Syria: my Armenian neighbor, the gossiping Arab Christians who inhabit the streets around me, philosophizing carpet sellers, and Muslim teachers and Christian monks and nuns who live and pray in the Middle East. When I write, I try not only to be honest about my own journeys and struggles, but also to find ways of listening to and learning from the journeys of the people I meet along the way. These days I live between Jerusalem and France, where I've encountered a whole new cast of teachers!
Writing to Heal I have spent much of the last ten years of my life living in countries scarred by conflict and war. And yet I have always encountered the truest moments of beauty in these places. I found love in one of these places. For me, writing is a way of meditating on the beauty I find in the torn cities I've made my home in. I know that it is old fashioned and melodramatic to believe that writing can be a way to heal, but I try to believe that every working day. Maybe the only person I'm healing is myself, but that's a start, at least.
Readers Frequently Ask I am always asked about what happened to my relationship with Frédéric, the French novice monk I fell in love with during my year in Syria. Did we run off together, or did he remain in the monastery to take his final vows? I always tell readers that they have to finish The Bread of Angels to find out, right through to the acknowledgments!
I am also often asked whether or not I miss Syria. The answer is yes, yes, yes. I miss Syria every day.
Influences on My Writing One book I have carted all over the world with me is The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris. She writes movingly about her time as a lay poet living inside of a monastery, inspired by the rhythm of the prayers and the stories of the monks and nuns she meets. She is also extremely funny. I have always struggled with how to live a spiritual life within the chaos of the world, and I go back to her book again and again for answers.
The poet who influenced me the most is probably Czeslaw Milosz, the great modern Polish poet, who described the tragedies of the twentieth century in deep, searing, and beautiful poems. He speaks to my own heart and is a constant reminder that a writer, in all humility, should strive to participate in the act of healing.
Finally, in all honesty, the author who has influenced me the most in the past year is cookbook writer Claudia Roden, whose book The New Book of Middle Eastern Food completely changed my life. As I cooked my way through it, she opened up the world of Middle Eastern food in a totally new way and, as a result, Jerusalem came alive to me. Because of her, I know all of the spice store owners, village sellers of greens, vegetable vendors, butchers, and markets in the neighborhoods near where I live.
SYRIAN STYLE MUHAMMARA (ROASTED RED PEPPER DIP WITH WALNUTS AND POMEGRANATE SYRUP)
Makes about 2½ cups
Inspired by a recipe in Paula Wolfert's The Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean: 215 Healthy, Vibrant, and Inspired Recipes (William Morrow, 1994)
In my memoir The Bread of Angels, I write about the incredible journey I lived during a year in Syria, where I studied Arabic, almost became a nun, explored the Quran with a female sheikh, and found myself in love with a French novice monk who lived in a monastery in the middle of the desert. The backdrop of the story is the city of Damascus, a place of rema
rkable diversity, full of Muslims, Jews, Druze, Kurds and Armenians, Sunnis and Shiites, and every form of Christianity under the sun. It is a city where every day reveals something magical and unexpected. And it is a city full of remarkable restaurants; gorgeous, tiled Ottoman houses with fountains at the center, where a man plays the oud at the front on a stage, and waiters bring out endless plates of delicious appetizers, platters of steaming kabobs, desserts laced with rose water, and delicate mint tea. An average meal can last several hours, and you wouldn't want it to end a moment sooner.
All over the Middle East, meals begin with mezze, dozens of small appetizers spread about the table in a dizzying array of flavors: hummus and eggplant dips, cheeses and olives, chopped salads, spicy tomato sauces. In Syria, the first thing I asked at any restaurant is if they offered muhammara, the magical dip consisting of an unlikely mix of roasted red peppers, toasted walnuts, and pomegranate syrup. Syria is famous for its muhammara, and for me it represented everything I loved about the country: exotic flavors, surprising combinations and, more than anything, the blending of spicy and sweet. If life in Syria has a flavor, then it is muhammara.
When I moved to Jerusalem, I couldn't find my beloved muhammara anywhere, and so I decided to learn to make it myself. I never knew that I would love a dip so much that it would lead me to roast my own peppers and toast walnuts, but muhammara is not just any dip. Each time I taste it, I taste Damascus. I hope you do, too. Enjoy!
Note: Muhammara can be prepared countless ways, and no two cooks make it alike. Be sure to experiment with the recipe each time you make it to decide how you like it. Some cooks like it with twice as many roasted red peppers, some like it spicier and pile in the chile peppers, and others double the garlic or leave it out entirely. I always start with the minimum amount of pomegranate syrup, lemon juice, chile pepper, and salt when I begin and then adjust as I go along. It's always delicious!
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