by Sasha Martin
“This was my bachelorette pad,” I tell Keith. “We need a family home now—some space.”
I cite our swaybacked roof and crumbling driveway as further evidence. I point out that we cannot even open the front picture window and get a breeze. “The air feels stuck in this place.”
Keith doesn’t immediately shut me down. When he asks where we should go, he crosses his arms and tilts his head back, listening. I shrug as though I’m not sure. But I am.
Before he can object, I rattle off my ideas, starting with the East Coast: near my mom in Boston, or my sister in New Jersey. I even suggest Virginia, near my brother Connor, or Florida, near my brother Tim.
“I didn’t realize you were homesick,” he says, a sad look on his face.
“I’m not,” I say, but the words feel like a lie. “We don’t even know our neighbors and …” I clear my throat and start again. “What would I even be homesick for? Boston? Atlanta? France or Luxembourg? This isn’t about clicking my heels three times to get back to some childhood home. I don’t think the homesickness of a perpetual wanderer can ever be quenched.”
“Well,” Keith considers. “I’d have to find a new job.”
“You’d do that?” I shift in my seat. It feels as though he’s called my bluff. I cannot figure out why his willingness to move bothers me. Perhaps it’s because I could never live near all of my family at the same time. We’re too spread out. But—no, that’s not it. Not entirely.
“If you’re going to go to all that trouble,” I say, changing tactics, “let’s go somewhere exotic.”
I walk over to the map and begin plucking names at random: a castle on the Italian Riviera, where Ava can play among grapevines; a tree house in Brazil so we can live in the clouds; a fale in Samoa where we can drink chocolate all day long.
“Thanks to the blog, we know we can eat well wherever we go,” I laugh, but the sound is hollow.
Keith falters. He wouldn’t know how to begin finding a job in Italy, he says, his reaction checked by equal parts realism and inexperience. He’s never lived anywhere but Oklahoma. His first time in the ocean or out of the country was with me, in his late 30s, when we vacationed in Mexico.
I press forward, suggesting England, or maybe Ireland. “You’ll know the language there,” I say, “even if the accent needs translating.”
“What’s really going on here, Sash?” he asks.
“Maybe I’m just in a slump,” I say, embarrassed to be craving something more when I literally have the world at my stove top.
But the truth is I’m exhausted. The end of the blog is still two forever years away. The list of recent and upcoming countries blurs and blends: When it comes to Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and Guyana, I struggle to keep straight which of the “Guineas” and “Guyana” are in Africa and which is in South America.
In a few weeks I’ll be combining Haiti and Honduras, just to get them done before Mom’s next visit. It makes no sense from a culinary point of view.
Keith jumps up. “Hold that thought—I forgot to take my blood pressure medication.”
Though nothing changes in the room, I get a whiff of something sterile—the hospital. I realize with horror that the scent has been trailing me since Keith’s episode two months earlier.
I take a deep breath and slowly release it while glancing around the living room. A photo of Michael hugging me on the beach catches my eye. I must be two or three—he’s maybe five years old. He’s run behind me, leaped and wrapped his arms around my middle. Mine have flown up from the force. I’m laughing.
The scent grows stronger.
Just for a moment, I feel the police officer’s shoulder as he lifts me from my castle bed to the foster house. And then I smell the courts: ink, paper, marble. I taste the pound-cake goodbye, caught up with the smash of strawberry against sweet whipped cream. I can almost hear Mom’s footsteps crunching through the snow on her way to work on Michael’s card after he died. I never want to be that alone. Even cooking the world cannot compete with this hard reality.
When Keith sits back down, I turn to face him completely.
“I–I just don’t want you to get sick again and …” I bite my lip. “And ruin our happy ending.” I don’t look him in the eyes when I say the words. Instead, I rest my head on his chest.
“Oh, Sash.” He doesn’t say anything for a minute. Then he picks me off his shoulder and looks into my eyes. He opens his mouth to speak, but before he does, I blurt out, “Can’t you just … live forever?”
He hugs me tight, and we rock slowly. “I’ll do my best.”
I put all my energy into renovating our faux Tuscan kitchen. We pay a friend to paint the dark wood cabinets antique white, lightening the windowless room. I donate three boxes of kitchen gadgets, and when the kitchen sparkles, I ask Keith to drill through the faux finish so we can hang the Afghan stirring pot on the wall.
I use it more than any other pot, and it’s time it had a place of its own.
From our front stoop we can see our neighbors on their lawn. Though the three roommates have lived next to us for about a year, we’ve never spoken. They are in their mid-20s with beards of varying lengths. There’s the short George Michael, the fuzzy Bob Ross, and the fiery Vincent van Gogh. Today, they’ve brought their dining chairs and table onto the front lawn. They’re playing poker.
When they spot me, they wave with openmouthed grins. Instead of my typical cursory nod, I say “Hello!” It’s just one word, but it feels like a leap.
When Bob Ross hears I’m about to cook food from Haiti, he says he was just there. I shake my head: “Of course you were!”
“Nice setup,” Keith says of their lawn turned dining room.
“We’re on a mission to bring back the front lawn,” van Gogh laughs.
“Fences are the worst invention to plague Western society,” George Michael chimes in.
For the next 20 minutes, we stand in the Beards’ outdoor dining room, debating the finer points of our Haitian menu. Passersby eye us curiously.
At home, Ava asks, “Who that, Mama?”
I tell her, “They’re our neighbors. A neighbor is someone you live next to.”
Keith qualifies, “A neighbor is someone you can count on, should you ever need anything, like a cup of flour.”
At his words, I feel my cheeks redden. When Keith asks me what’s wrong, I just shake my head and go into the kitchen. As I stand there, staring absently at the stirring pot on the wall, I remember Greg’s words all those years ago: No one could create peace for me. Yes, I did the tough work to heal on my own. But in the process, I’d missed the finer point.
An insular life is just another wall. The realization rushes over me: There can be no peace without community. Real community—people to count on, and who could count on me. Beyond Keith. Beyond Ava.
I cannot help but think back to the conversation I had with my mom when the Bulgarian came to my door—the dream of a perfect, enormous global table. I wonder what it would be like to have the whole world as a neighbor.
CHAPTER 27
Burnt Chicken
YOUR PROBLEM IS YOU’RE out here by yourself,” Mom says the next time she visits. It’s June. We haven’t seen each other since I cooked Cambodia almost a year ago. This time she’s planned her visit to coincide with Hungary. “You don’t make time to visit anyone. You need to connect with your roots.”
She’s right. There’s only so much I can cook the world and study other people’s family traditions without feeling pulled toward my own past: So many of the recipes have reminded me of the early years. I find I want to teach Ava about what makes her heritage unique. She’s almost two now, with long brown hair, almost as dark as mine, Keith’s round face, and Mom’s almond eyes.
She still hasn’t tried a cannoli from the North End or one of Mom’s famous Hungarian crepes. I haven’t been up north in two years, since before I started the blog. The omission feels a little like avoidance.
“I just don’t have
that kind of time, Mom,” I say, tossing my hands up in the air. “I don’t know what the answer is.”
“What are you cooking for Hungary?”
I tell her I want to make her recipe for chicken paprika, crepes, and chilled cherry soup.
Mom tells me, “I went vayghan earlier this year.”
“You went what?”
“Vayghan.”
“You mean vegan?”
“Yeah. Vayghan. Vegan. Whatever.”
She insists I make the chicken as planned. “Don’t mind me; vegan or not, that’s your heritage.”
From the edge of the kitchen, she coaches me: “Make sure you burn the chicken. I’m serious, Sash; it’s not done until it’s burned. Don’t add the cream until the skin is black.”
On tiptoe, she peers over my shoulder as I pour on the cream.
“You didn’t burn it! What’s wrong with you?” she gasps.
“I-I didn’t want to wreck the chicken. I got it nice and golden brown.”
“The burn is where the flay-vah is.”
At the table, Mom slurps the cherry soup until her bowl is empty, and then takes a nibble of the chicken. Ava and I follow suit. Mom was right: The lightly browned chicken skin turned flabby in the cream sauce—no character.
Mom doesn’t say a word, instead turning her attention to the crepes. She holds one up to the light, admiring the lump-free surface. “You let this rest overnight, didn’t you?”
I nod.
“It’s perfect,” she says, and shows it to Ava. “See? No burn spots.”
“Guess your people know when to burn their food and when to hold back,” Keith remarks.
Mom laughs.
“Apparently, it’s an art,” I respond.
After dinner Mom pulls out her suitcase and removes a folder full of family photos, all photocopies. She says she’s trying to create balance: There’s a conflict in our heritage. Italians, like her mother’s people, talk about everything—loud and proud, probably to a fault. Hungarians, like her father’s, “are all buttoned up.”
She points to the pile of black-and-white photos on the table. I glimpse an old man standing over a dead deer with his rifle, a lumpy woman with a basket of laundry on her hip, and a few too blurry to make out.
“I have no idea who they are,” Mom says. “Whenever I asked grandpa about them, he’d say, ‘What do you want to know about that for?’ So I stopped asking.”
“So they might not even be our family?”
She blinks, considering. “Right, but that’s no reason to get rid of the photos. They might be family. You don’t get rid of family.”
“Why don’t you feel that way about Phoenix, Mom? She’s my sister.”
“Because it’s not the same!” she yells, and then softens. “Sash, we’re all brothers and sisters when it comes down to it. So. What?” She spits out the last words, agitated, and begins to stack the photos into a neat pile again. “You’re going to wear yourself out if you keep trying to make room for everyone. Not every family fits the same mold. I know you’re trying to figure out where you belong, but it’s about quality, not quantity. Now Patricia and Pierre, they cared about you.”
I nod, as I always do. She’s said the words a hundred times before, but now it occurs to me that there’s something beyond the words. She needs to believe they cared, because if they didn’t, it would be too much to bear.
“They did, Mom. They loved me and Michael.” I’d never been able to say those words before. But I know it was true—and it was a gift she needed to hear.
“It’s about time you realized that,” she chides, but her face relaxes in relief. She runs to her room and returns a moment later with a hatbox. “Remember the dolls you played with as a little girl?”
“The ones we found on the curb, that you helped me sew clothes for?”
She slides the hatbox across the table. “I brought them for Ava to play with.”
The dolls are tucked in a bed of tiny clothes, a rainbow from the fifties and sixties. They have faux fur collars and trim cocktail dresses; a nurse hat looks more like wings. I trace my fingers along the clothes, recalling the moment Mom pulled up to the curb where the box of dolls had been abandoned outside a mansion. I remember her triumphant whoop and how, at the sound, I’d shrunk into my seat to avoid being seen by the “rich people.”
“You kept them all this time?”
She nods. “I washed and ironed the clothes—put some tissue in the sleeves and bodices. But the dolls are still wearing the last outfit you put on them when you were ten.”
I stare at the one I named Tammy. For the last 25 years, she’d been wrapped in a cranberry-and-white peasant skirt I’d fashioned from an old lace doily at Mom’s kitchen table. Her top was a knotted handkerchief, over which she wore a wedding veil backward as an apron.
“Pretty,” Ava says, and dances the doll across the table, the plastic feet clacking on the wood.
As I watch Ava play with this old treasure, I realize that every time Mom has surprised me with something from the past, she was telling me, in her own way, that she loved me.
Perhaps it’s time for me to tell Mom that I understand—and that I love her, too.
Chicken Paprika
Nestled in its pale, freckled sauce, chicken paprika is not much to look at (even when browned properly). A bit of parsley or pureeing the onions into the sauce helps, but I am always too hungry to bother. Still, the sauce marries well to buttered noodles in true Hungarian comfort. Leftovers are excellent rolled up in Overnight Crepes (this page), then coated with the sauce, covered, and reheated in a warm oven.
2 pounds bone-in chicken legs and thighs, skin on
1 or 2 glugs of vegetable oil
1 large onion
2 tablespoons paprika (try half-sharp for kick)
1 cup chicken broth
Salt
Finishing touches:
1½ cups sour cream
In a large skillet over high heat, brown the chicken in oil, 5 to 10 minutes a side. Do not crowd, working in batches as necessary. Set the chicken on a plate, cover, and set aside. Pour off all but a tablespoon of the fat. Peel, chop, and cook the onions in this tablespoon of fat until completely soft and golden. Sprinkle on the paprika and cook a minute, until fragrant. Pour in the chicken stock, and return the chicken to the pan. Season with salt.
Let simmer, covered, for about 45 minutes, or until the chicken is falling off the bone. While it’s cooking, imagine lying in a field of Hungarian poppies as clouds dance across the sky.
When 45 minutes are up, turn off the burner and remove the chicken to a serving platter or bowl. Whisk the sour cream into the cooking liquid to make a pale pink sauce. Check the seasonings, and add more salt if necessary. Pour the sauce over the chicken. Serve over buttered noodles.
Enough for 4
My brother Tim comes to visit for Ava’s second birthday. Between his new job in Florida and the breakneck pace of the blog, we haven’t seen each other in almost two years. The week coincides with cooking India.
I whip together three easy recipes: homemade chai, seasoned with cinnamon sticks, peppercorns, and coriander; saag paneer, a spinach curry served with homemade cheese; and kulfi pops, an ice cream of sorts flavored with pistachios and cardamom. My selections are a one-dimensional interpretation of India, but I have a second birthday party to plan, and these seem a fun way to integrate the two projects.
My readers are upset, and have no hesitations about telling me so. They think I cheated India. They tell me I should have made something more complex, something that more finely represents the great cuisine of this enormous country. Brian, who’s been reading since Afghanistan, asks if I’ve considered recipes from the south, which are relatively unknown in the United States. “There is Chettinad-style food from Tamil Nadu, Kerala cuisine, which is itself incredibly diverse, and the fabled biryanis of Hyderabad,” he writes.
He’s not alone. My readers are well traveled and knowledgeable. Some, like L
aura Kelley of The Silk Road Gourmet, have devoted their work to understanding the food of a specific region. Their intimate knowledge of the cuisine adds richness to the blog and reminds me that I really am just a mom—curious, yes, but no expert.
But no amount of curiosity matters if I’m too busy to enjoy my family. I proceed as planned.
On cooking day, Ava takes great delight in flipping on the blender, whipping the kulfi into a pale green froth that displays the pistachios and whipped cream inside. There’s also condensed milk, evaporated milk, and two slices of bread (this last, I’m told, for chew).
The mixture glugs when divided between two bowls. To the first, Ava adds a few pinches of cardamom, and to the second, several dew drops of rose water and enough red food coloring to make it flush. Uncle Tim pours the kulfi into plastic shot glasses from the party supply store. A press of plastic wrap helps keep inserted Popsicle sticks upright. Tim makes a show of having giggly Ava “help” carry the tray to the freezer.
Then we make masala chai. It is a simple concoction: spices and tea simmered together, then strained. Even as I stir the pot, the spices unfurl, their warm bouquet hanging heavy in the kitchen. Eventually this garden of ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, and fennel overruns the house.
Later, at Ava’s birthday party, I smile to see her and her friends run around with the miniature pops and tumblers of iced chai, stirred together with long cinnamon sticks. Even in the heat of midsummer, India keeps us cool.
The morning Tim leaves, we have breakfast at an outdoor café. I tell him what my readers are saying, and apologize for making such simple recipes. I explain that I’m trying to celebrate my daughter, give her a normal birthday party, and have time to smile along the way, have time to visit with him.