Influences on My Writing
The Waves by Virginia Woolf. For its poetic, lyrical, excruciatingly beautiful writing.
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. For its ambition and audacity and for showing me, when I was a young adult, that it was possible to write a novel that was set in my hometown and had Indian characters and street names I was familiar with. Up to that point, I'd only read novels by American and British writers.
Beloved by Toni Morrison. For its righteous anger, its politics, and its humanity.
BOMBAY BHELPURI
Makes 4–6 servings
This is a recipe for a snack or street food, known as bhelpuri. This is the quintessential street food in Bombay and often acts as a metaphor for the city. This is because bhelpuri is a mix of many different things: flat puris, puffed rice, and deep-fried, thin flour strips known as sev. Bombay, too, is a mix of different religions, castes, classes, and cultures, truly a melting pot of a city. Bhelpuri and Bombay, in my mind, are inextricably linked.
Because bhelpuri, with its wonderful mixtures of ingredients, is such an apt metaphor for Bombay, and also because it's such a popular street food in India, many of my novels have references to it. Perhaps the most well-known reference is in The Space Between Us, when a pregnant Dinaz has a sudden craving for it and goes to Chowpatty Beach with her husband and mother, Sera. A chance meeting with Bhima and her granddaughter leads to the tragic events that follow.
Although there are many places in Bombay where one can eat bhelpuri, perhaps the most popular are the open-air food booths that line busy, colorful, noisy Chowpatty Beach, the city's largest outdoor food gallery.
Note: Puffed rice, sev, flat puris, red chili powder, and the chutneys can be purchased at an Indian grocer. Make sure to use the red chili powder found at an Indian grocer, as it has a different flavor from typical commercial chili powder.
In place of puffed rice, sev, and flat puris, you can purchase a bag of dry bhelpuri mix. (Be sure to avoid the bhelpuri kits, with dehydrated ingredients.) Simply use 4 cups of the bhelpuri mix in place of the puffed rice, sev, and flat puris.
Assemble the bhelpuri right before you plan to eat it so the puffed rice does not become soggy.
3 cups puffed rice
1 cup sev
Handful of coarsely crushed flat puris
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 small potatoes, peeled, boiled, and chopped into tiny cubes
3 tablespoons finely chopped cilantro
Pinch red chili powder (optional)
2–4 tablespoons date-tamarind chutney
2–4 tablespoons mint or cilantro chutney
Juice of 1 lime
1 In a large bowl, combine the puffed rice, sev, puris, onion, potatoes, cilantro, and red chili powder, if desired.
2 Add enough chutney so the dry ingredients are moist and flavorful, but not soggy.
3 Sprinkle lime juice to taste, and serve immediately in small bowls.
Abraham Verghese
SELECTED WOEKS
Cutting for Stone (2009)
The Tennis Partner (1998)
My Own Country: A Doctor's Story (1995)
Inspiration The desire to understand what I am thinking is what inspires the writing. The act is mysterious, and it emerges only in the process of writing.
Readers Should Know that writing is really all about revision and the finished book in the reader's hand represents one tiny fraction of the pages generated. Hundreds of pages, good pages, gone in the service of not boring the reader.
Readers Frequently Ask Is Cutting for Stone autobiographical?
And the answer is no, I was not a twin, or born to doctors, or raised in a missionary hospital. That said, I did use the geography I knew well and I was born in Ethiopia and came to America about the time that Marion does in Cutting for Stone.
Influences on My Writing
Günter Grasse's The Tin Drum. I loved this novel for its daring point of view, for its acrobatics, for the way it shows how a novel can tell the truth about our world in a manner even more convincing than a factual account.
Gabriel García Márquez's Love in the Time of Cholera. For the delicious language, which I regret I am reading only in translation.
John Irving's The World According to Garp. For the sheer ambition of that book, the wonderful, complete, complex world that he creates.
All three of these recipes are originally from my mother, Mariam Verghese, perfected by her through countless repetitions and passed on to us. The first two are South Indian dishes. The scenes I describe in Cutting for Stone of Marion being carried on Almaz's hip while onion is frying and mustard seeds are popping reflect memories of my own childhood in my mother's kitchen, where the Ethiopian maids taught by my (Indian) mother were adept at making these Indian dishes. My mother both taught us how to prepare and helped me write these recipes.
MOM'S BEEF FRY (IRACHI ULATHU)
Makes 4 servings
This dish is not only a typical dish from Kerala, but also one that I associate with my mother. No one else makes it better than her. It's a typical South Indian meat dish, the kind of thing that Hema, a Brahmin and a vegetarian character in Cutting for Stone would not eat in India but enjoys and craves in Ethiopia, and which Almaz the cook is adept at making. It is served with rice or bread.
Note: You may substitute 4 tablespoons meat masala for the pepper and coriander mixture.
Mariam Verghese adds that by the time you fry the meat, the pepper has lost its intensely spicy quality. However, you might want to add less pepper for a milder dish. She offers some options for finishing the dish: “In Kerala, we add fried coconut slices now (after the dish has cooked). Some folks add a little butter and stir over a low heat for some more time.”
3 tablespoons ground black pepper (see note)
2 tablespoons ground coriander (see note)
Small amount of water for paste
1 pound beef tenderloin or sirloin, cut into bite-size cubes
1/3 cup vegetable oil (or more if needed)
A few mustard seeds
1 1-inch stick cinnamon
2 whole cloves
Seeds of 2 cardamom pods (crush pods to release seeds) (optional)
½ cup chopped onion
1 teaspoon chopped garlic
1 teaspoon chopped gingerroot
½ small beef bouillon cube
¼ cup hot water for bouillon cube
Salt (optional)
Butter (optional)
Coconut slices (optional)
1 Place pepper and coriander in a small bowl, and add a small amount of water to make a paste. Place beef pieces into a medium bowl and stir paste into the meat pieces. Set aside for a few hours if there is no hurry to prepare.
2 Heat the oil in a large skillet, add the mustard seeds, and heat until they sputter. Add the cinnamon stick, cloves, and cardamom seeds (if desired). Stir, and then add onion, garlic, and ginger. Continue to stir over low heat until the onions begin to turn brown. Add the beef, and stir-fry for a few minutes.
3 Dissolve the ½ bouillon cube in hot water. Add to skillet, stir, cover, and simmer until the water is nearly gone. Test beef for tenderness and add salt if desired. If satisfactory, remove cover, keep stirring occasionally until the water is completely gone. Add a small amount of butter and/or coconut slices, if desired.
SISTER MARY JOSEPH PRAISE'S UPMA
Makes 3–4 servings
This would be a typical breakfast dish that Ghosh and Hema and the twins Marion and Shiva (from Cutting for Stone) would eat, either with an egg curry or by mashing in some bananas and sugar as something sweet.
Upma is also the sort of simple dish that Sister Mary Joseph Praise, a character central to Cutting for Stone, would have learned to make in her mother's kitchen. Upma was probably the first thing she made, and since she joined the convent at a very young age, it might have been the only thing she learned to make.
Note: You can add julienned cooke
d vegetables to the upma if you like.
You may use commercial ginger paste, found in specialty stores, or make your own. To make ginger paste: Place 1/8 pound peeled and coarsely chopped gingerroot and ¼ cup water in a blender and purée.
Wear plastic or rubber gloves while handling the chiles to protect your skin from the oil in them. Avoid direct contact with your eyes, and wash your hands thoroughly after handling.
1 cup hot wheat cereal, such as Cream of Wheat (semolina or farina)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
A few mustard seeds
½ cup chopped onion
2 jalapeño chiles, split, with seeds
Dash of ginger paste (see note)
A few curry leaves (optional)
2 cups water
1 tablespoon butter
Salt to taste
A few drops of fresh lemon juice
10 roasted cashew nuts
1 In a medium flat shallow skillet, roast the cereal over low heat, stirring often, until golden in color, approximately 2 minutes.
2 In another medium skillet, heat the oil over medium heat, add the mustard seeds, and heat until they sputter. Add the onion, chiles, ginger paste, and curry leaves, if desired. Continue to stir over medium heat until the onions begin to turn brown at the edges.
3 Add water and butter and stir. Add salt and lemon juice to taste. When the water comes to a boil, reduce the heat and slowly add the cereal, stirring continuously and breaking up any lumps. Turn off the heat.
4 Sprinkle the cashew nuts on top. Cover the dish for a few minutes before serving.
ALMAZ'S ETHIOPIAN DORO WOT (CHICKEN CURRY)
Makes 4–6 servings
In Cutting for Stone, Hema arrives in Ethiopia after a month-long absence and sends Gebrew to a restaurant to bring back doro wot, which she has been craving. The stoic cook at Missing Hospital would also have regularly made this dish and fed it to the twins. This Ethiopian curry is eaten with injera, the pancake like bread. The key to making this dish is berbere, a spice mixture (found in Ethiopian stores abroad) that includes chile peppers, pepper ginger, cloves, coriander, allspice, rue berries, and ajwain. Berbere is a key ingredient for so many curries (wot) in Ethiopia.
Note: Berbere can be purchased online and at local specialty and gourmet food stores.
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 cups chopped onion
1 medium (4-pound) chicken, skin and fat removed, washed, dried, and cut into large pieces
2 tablespoons garlic paste (puréed garlic), or more to taste
4 tablespoons berbere (more if you like it to be 5 alarm!) (see note)
1 tomato, chopped
2 cups hot water
1 teaspoon salt
Butter (optional)
Hard-cooked eggs (optional)
1 In a deep skillet, heat oil, add onions, and lightly sauté until onions are soft. Add chicken pieces and garlic paste, and cook over medium heat until the chicken is lightly browned.
2 Add the berbere, stirring so that all pieces of the chicken get coated. Add tomato and stir again.
3 Pour in water, bring mixture to a boil, and add salt. Simmer over low heat until the meat is well cooked, approximately 30–45 minutes, depending on the size of the chicken pieces. (In Ethiopia, they say that the woman who loves her husband cooks it slowly so that each piece is tender and the gravy is thick.) You may add a pat of butter and/or hard-cooked eggs during the last 5 minutes of cooking, if desired.
Meg Wolitzer
Deborah Copaken Kogan
SELECTED WOEKS
The Uncoupling (2011)
The Ten-Year Nap (2008)
The Position (2005)
The Wife (2003)
Surrender, Dorothy (1998)
Friends for Life (1994)
Inspiration The Ten-Year Nap was inspired by my thoughts about women who stop working when their kids are born, and then a decade passes and they begin to think about how they want to spend the rest of their lives. I had gotten to know quite a few women who had had a similar experience; I met them through my own children, and was struck by the fact that this phenomenon hadn't often been written about in fiction. It had sometimes been written about in the kind of nonfiction book that took sides in the so-called “mommy wars,” a term that makes me highly uncomfortable. As for me, I had no position. A novelist's job, as I see it, is to show “what it's like,” and so I set out to do just that, without being judgmental about the complex, overlapping, and sometimes hard-to-choreograph worlds of work and motherhood.
Readers Should Know I try to write about what I see in the contemporary world, often involving the dynamics between men and women, and among members of a family. Also, when I'm writing, I try to write the book that I would like to find on the bookstore shelf. I write to my own tastes and interests, assuming (I hope, correctly) that they're not all that idiosyncratic or specialized.
Readers Frequently Ask Readers like to know about how a writer manages to be disciplined. As for me, I try to keep banker's hours, working in my home the way someone might work in an office, with the addition of the fact that I take power naps when needed and don't have to go on corporate retreats. I also never beat myself up when I have a bad work day; instead, I try to remember that there are some times when you're actually working without really knowing it. It almost happens on a cellular level. You're taking in ideas for your novel just by looking around you, and by listening to other people talk.
Influences on My Writing Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell, Philip Roth's novels, and Death in Venice by Thomas Mann are all examples of exciting writing, which makes me want to write, or at least want to read.
PATSY'S CASHEW CHICKEN
Makes 2 servings
From Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin by Kenny Shopsin and Carolyn Carreño (Knopf, 2008)
Shopsin's General Store was my hangout with my friends when I was in my twenties, and this was one of my favorite dishes. Much later, in my forties, I wrote the novel The Ten-Year Nap. The women characters in The Ten-Year Nap, over the course of a decade, gather frequently at a coffee shop during the day. I wanted to include passages in the book about the collegiality of a group of friends spending time together when their children are still young — strollers in the aisle, baggies of Cheerios at hand, the occasional whip-it-out moment of improvised breastfeeding. I remembered my own earlier experiences, pre-children, at Shopsin's, and I thought about how different my life was then, yet how strong and powerful the connection is between the important friendships of one's twenties and those of one's forties. And in both cases, at least for me, who has always been a food person in addition to a friend, writer, and mother, they involved the consumption of a lot of excellent food.
2 (5–6-ounce) boneless, skinless chicken breasts
All-purpose flour for dredging
2 tablespoons good quality olive oil
½ cup roasted cashew nuts
4 scallions (white and green parts), cut into 1-inch pieces
½ cup soy sauce
Juice of 1 lemon
½ cup chicken stock
Steamed white rice, for serving
1 Cut chicken into 1-inch strips, approximately 3/8 inch thick. Pour flour on a plate or in a small bowl. Dredge chicken in flour and shake off excess flour.
2 Heat olive oil in a large heavy sauté pan over high heat until it's hot but not smoking. Carefully and gently drop chicken in pan, evenly distributing it around the pan. (This can be dangerous because everything is really hot. If you carelessly drop the chicken in, it will splatter on your arms and face.) Let the chicken cook undisturbed for 2–3 minutes. Check the underside of one piece. When it becomes medium brown, use tongs to turn the pieces over.
3 When all of the chicken has cooked on both sides (after about 5 minutes), add the cashews and scallions. Add the soy sauce and lemon juice. Agitate the pan to coat the chicken with the glaze. Pour in the chicken stock, adding more if necessary to cover the chicken, and
cook for another 1–2 minutes. Pour the chicken and gravy over the rice and serve.
Acknowledgments
We extend our deepest gratitude to our wonderful agent Joelle Delbourgo, who championed this project from beginning to end. Her advocacy, wisdom, and sound advice have been invaluable. Our editor, Meredith O'Hayre, was passionate about our idea from the beginning, has intelligently guided us every step of the way, and been a pleasure to work with throughout the process.
We are grateful to Chris Duffy of Adams Media for his indispensable help in guiding us through acquiring the various permissions needed to put together a book like this.
We appreciate the assistance and support of the talented Adams Media staff who contributed to the project in many ways. Finally, warm thanks to each of our participating authors. It was a privilege to work with them in creating Table of Contents.
We extend our appreciation to the restaurants and chefs who generously shared their recipes:
Erik Goetze and George Mason of Blue Sky Bakery in Brooklyn, New York
Brian Kaywork of the Rhinecliff Hotel in Rhinecliff, New York
Keith Marden of Captain Marden's Seafoods in Wellesley, Massachusetts
Enriqueta Villalobos of the Ventana Inn & Spa in Big Sur, California
Terri Weyland-Henecke and Kathy McCauley of Kathy's Pies in Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Behind the scenes, our devoted corps of recipe testers was critical in helping us perfect these delicious recipes. They donated their time and ingredients to prepare and sample the food and provided invaluable feedback. We are indebted to our testers:
Cheryl Aglio-Girelli, Kay Allison, Linda Bauer, Seth Bauer, Susan Bonaiuto and fam-ily, Heidi Brown, Molly Burgess, Laurie Burgess, Lucia Gill Case, Adam Gill Case, Ethan Ceplikas, Jesse Day, Joan Demers, Suzanne Diamond, Mary Kate Dillon, Denise Dirocco, Rebecca Drill, Kim Evans, Jody Feinberg, Elizabeth Freeman and family, Andrew Gelman, Doris Gelman, Loie Gelman, Kim Greenberg, Joyce Montag Greenberg, Holly Hartman, Joe Hutcheson, Louis Hutchins, Susan Katcher, Laura Katz, Jane Levin, Larry Masur, Barbara Matorin, Ana Maria Caballero McGuire, Yael Miller, Rich Moche, Elizabeth Nun-berg, Ceci Ogden, Carol Pankin, Allison Pisker, Debbie Pryor, Jayne Raphael, Larni Rosenlev, Tammy Sadok, Judy Safian, Emily Safian-Demers, Abby Schwartz, Daniela Sever, Donna Skinner, Sara Smolover, Dale Sokoloff, Deb Squires and family, and Leslie Zheutlin.
Table of Contents: From Breakfast With Anita Diamant to Dessert With James Patterson - a Generous Helping of Recipes, Writings and Insights From Today's Bestselling Authors Page 24