tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13628756975823650792024-03-18T21:00:19.528-07:00Homesick Pieessays on food and culture Donia Bijanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15765742439428978896noreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1362875697582365079.post-67646581922388924682017-03-19T13:50:00.001-07:002017-03-19T14:04:35.168-07:00Wishful Thinking<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I like a good baklava. Layer after layer of light, crispy dough with pistachios and walnuts coated in orange blossom syrup, a heavenly sweet for special occasions. Of course nothing could ever be quite as good as a homemade baklava but I feel that perhaps the best one I ever ate was at the quirky Persian market on Castro Street, in 2008. It happened in March, as I was making my way through the aisle of jams and tea, shopping with fellow Iranian-Americans for the Norooz holiday, the Persian New Year celebration that coincides with the first day of spring. I have loved this mini mart for its colors and perfumes of home and for the amiable old-timers who man the register and holler your take-out order on the loudspeaker. I was checking my list, each item yielding a twin I could not leave behind, saffron for rice, yogurt for cucumbers, when a clerk turned the volume up on a television set affixed to the wall. We all turned to face the screen to watch President Obama wish us a Happy Norooz. We gazed openmouthed. It was very quiet until someone clapped and then we all put our baskets down to join in the applause. Another clerk walked through the aisles with a box of baklava. How sweet it was! How far we had traveled. How this message stoked our hopes for peace. Yes, that was the best baklava of my whole life, and Ziba joon and Mrs. Escandar would understand this one-time betrayal.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Norooz ceremonies are symbolic of the reawakening of nature, its rituals secular, dating back three thousand years. In the weeks prior to the new year, homes are swept clean, new clothes are purchased, seeds are germinated for sprouts, and a ceremonial table, the <i>Haftsin</i>, is set with seven symbols of spring and rebirth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Year after year, a generation of Iranian-Americans like me, who arrived nearly four decades ago as teenagers, fumble through preparations for a holiday that falls somewhere between Valentine’s Day and Easter, trying our best to follow the customs lest we lose this hallmark of our homeland, too. Nostalgia hits us each spring and we are excited again, to get the tradition right. For the next eight years, President Obama continued to send a Norooz message, always quoting a Persian poet, even going so far as setting a <i>Haftsin </i>table at the White House, dictating a peacefulness we had thought unattainable. We listened, clinging to every word. Let me tell you, <i>it blew our minds</i>. For the first time, in a long time, overcome with a sense of belonging, we celebrated spring with new vigor.</span></div>
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This year, the vernal equinox, that moment when the sun crosses the earth’s celestial equator, making night and day of equal length will occur on March 20<sup>th</sup>, at 3:28 A.M. PST. I’ll set my alarm for 3:25, allowing myself four minutes to crawl out of bed and acknowledge the moment before going back to sleep. When I was a child, regardless of the hour, my parents gathered us around the <i>haftsin</i> table just before a radio broadcast of the countdown to the spring equinox followed by the Shah’s new year wishes. Throughout my childhood I expected something magical to happen when the clock struck spring, and afterwards, it really did feel dreamy to see my family in such good spirits, beautiful in their new clothes.<br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">Spring comes earlier to my home in California. Already, the neighborhood trees are in full bloom. Recent rainstorms have lifted us from a five- year drought and the hills are bright green again. Ah, Spring, you never give up. You insist on coming back. I see you emerging from the cracks in the sidewalk, from the tight buds on the branches, making me tipsy with your heavy scent of hyacinth. I stand at the kitchen sink to wash the breakfast dishes and hear your song before I see you prancing for your mate. This tiny patch of earth where you flower is my garden and I ought to run out there to greet you but I shrug and turn away. This spring, no matter how much I try, my devotion to the season’s festivities has waned. In a brute reversal of goodwill, our delicate peace is threatened and the message so far has been menacing. Even so, I go to the Persian market to restock my pantry with pistachios and cardamom and I look back to the screen wistfully.</span></div>
Donia Bijanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15765742439428978896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1362875697582365079.post-54208532935919635552016-03-06T18:02:00.000-08:002016-04-19T15:46:32.285-07:00Girl Goes Down the Mountain<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Iran, I have found you in the news again, but this time the landscape is promising and dotted with color. Oh, snowy slopes of my youth, what are you doing in the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/03/06/magazine/voyages-dizin-iran.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fmagazine&action=click&contentCollection=magazine&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=7&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0" target="_blank">New York Times</a>, brightening my kitchen counter while I light the griddle for pancakes?<br />
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I was an awkward twelve-year-old when my mother signed me up for ski lessons. She marched me straight to the only ski shop in Tehran where I was fitted for skis and boots. My outfit was borrowed--a bright tangerine parka with matching pants that were too snug. Doomed is how I felt.<br />
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On weekends, just before dawn, our instructor, Mr. Pazooki, picked up his students and drove to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dizin" target="_blank">Dizin</a>, the ski resort just an hour and a half from Tehran. As we wound our way up the mountain, six of us bounced on benches in the back of his Land Rover. On a good day, I threw up only three times. The five other children learned to recognize the signs and screamed "Agha (mister), pull over! Pull Over! Quickly!" Mr. P would swerve to the gravelly shoulder and leap out to watch me tumble from the back onto the snowdrift. He waited patiently on the edge of the road and listened to my shallow breaths as if he had all the time in the world. I prayed he would just leave without me.<br />
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I fell on my first run and my orange pants ripped in half exposing my underwear to the world. The children howled. These days I would have been arrested for indecency, but in 1972, my instructor shrugged off his parka and tied it around my waist, anxious to resume the lesson.<br />
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Did I refuse to go back after that first time? Yes. But my mother had paid for a season and by golly, she would carry me up that mountain herself if she had to. So I went. I vomited on the way, and it was hard, and I trailed behind the other kids, always the last link in the chain that made its slow descent towards Mr. Pazooki, who stood at the bottom, gazing up at my flailing arms.<br />
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Then it happened. I'm pretty sure it was the fifth or sixth lesson when fear washed away. Suddenly, all I could see was the light on the snow glinting around us and the only sounds were the soft slushy scrape of our skis racing down the hill and Mr. P smacking his gloved hands in applause.<br />
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Why this sudden longing in my chest? I have no idea. Standing here now, over a smoky griddle, I can hear the chair lift rattling and my friends shouting <i>You dropped your stick!</i> Snowy mountains are not far but nowhere is the peak so high, the range so immense and beautiful, the powder so soft as in Dizin.Donia Bijanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15765742439428978896noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1362875697582365079.post-4988141637557207672015-10-14T20:35:00.000-07:002016-01-30T10:50:03.513-08:00Two Pigeons and a Fava Bean<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">My grandfather raised pigeons in his backyard. I used to think the sound of cooing was a hymn unique to his house. To me, my grandfather's garden was an infinite maze of surprise and discovery.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I know if I went back today it would seem small and tangled, but in my childhood it loomed large and full of possibility. The rows of cages on stilts with their tiny doors were the closest thing I had to a dollhouse. Yet I was afraid of the erratic movement of birds each time my grandfather lifted the latch on those doors to "let the little devils out". If he allowed me to accompany him, I trailed behind apprehensive because I didn't much like pigeons outside of their cages. Their flutter, fits and starts between my feet made me anxious and I stood fixed as a pole in the midst of their nervous merriment. But I went for the occasion that occurred most rarely.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It seemed more like a magic trick the first time my grandfather reached inside a cubicle for an egg--like the penny he found behind my ear. I can still see the smooth and speckled orb he cradled in his palm. "How?" I gasped. "Two pigeons and time," he replied. I stared openmouthed as he pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket to wrap the egg. "Take this inside." I dashed like a courier, cautiously holding the bundle in front of me, up the path, past the fountain, to the kitchen, where the woman who cooked his meals after my grandmother died, was bent over a basket of shelling beans. How did beans make more beans? How did pigeons make more pigeons? I remained puzzled over the former, but the latter was less vague and nothing short of a miracle.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I have since learned that in Italy, there is a gentler way of achieving two ends with a single effort. In Italian, a fava bean replaces the proverbial stone to kill two birds. My friend Susanna taught me this kinder expression: <i>due piccioni con una fava. </i>I thought of my grandfather and how in one afternoon, he taught his granddaughter about nature and nurture.</span></div>
Donia Bijanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15765742439428978896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1362875697582365079.post-48471521658378775232015-02-26T06:28:00.000-08:002016-01-30T11:18:46.163-08:00Eternally Yours<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">My last visit to Rome was in the summer of 1968. I was six years old and my shoes were too tight. My mother agreed to a pair of two-tone, suede Mary Janes which were too small, but I kept that to myself until I was whimpering through the narrow cobblestone streets, through the Vatican and the galleries, through the ruins and the basilicas. That she kept a brisk pace and crossed the streets like a Roman, didn't help. An absolute virtuoso, weaving through Fiat toy cars, staring straight ahead, like she knew where she was going, briefly consulting a map before lunging once more into traffic, all the while pulling me along as I half ran, tripped, and hobbled to keep up.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Rome in 1968 must have been splendid, a far less congested tourists' playground. If only I could remember what I saw...Bernini's fountains, the Colosseum, the Sistine chapel, but my eyes were fixed on my shoes. Oh, how pretty they were--soft pink and pistachio green, with a small suede flower stitched to the buckle. I brushed each and every smudge with my sleeve. Oh, how they hurt. Oh, if only we could rest a bit. Then she stopped. <i>Do you see what I see</i>? her smile said. Inside the gelateria was like stepping into a clock and stopping time, for the minutes it took me to stretch up to the glass case, to choose a flavor from the range of colors, and the moments we sat on a bench with an ice cream in our hands, were long and indulgent--an eternity to a child.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">When the opportunity to spend a few weeks in Rome came up, I immediately recalled my suede shoes and the taste of my first gelato forty six years ago. <a href="http://www.mitchelljohnson.com/" target="_blank">My husband</a> is a visiting artist at the <a href="http://www.aarome.org/about/school-fine-arts" target="_blank">American Academy</a>, and in hindsight, I cannot believe I initially resisted the idea of joining him for part of his stay. What about our son's school, homework, basketball practice, I protested? What about my novel at the finish line? They stared at me <i>Are you nuts</i>? Well, yes.</span></span><br />
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Returning to Rome with my own family this winter, I watch my son, now taller than me, taking long strides across the same streets, stopping motorists with the same bravado as his grandmother, and once again I'm half jogging to keep up. At a cross light he slaps away the hand of a pick-pocketer unzipping my bag Don't touch her! he yells into the woman's face and she flees. He spends the next few hours devising schemes for catching thieves, luring them with fake money or filling a backpack with shards of glass. He's wound up. What does he think, I wonder, of walking along the Via Sacra in the footsteps of Julius Caesar, or the multilayered Basilica of San Clemente above a 1st-century Roman house, and the spooky underground passages beneath the Colosseum where men and beasts waited to be slaughtered? What about the young doctor in skinny jeans and a leather jacket who makes a house call when he's sick and examines him with such tenderness (say aaah like an Italian), or the homeless man who plays soccer with him in the park? What will he remember?</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I'm seeing it all for the first time, really. Inside the Pantheon, my eyes are drawn to the dome and the opening to the sky. In the Sistine Chapel, I look to the ceiling for Michelangelo's Last Judgement. Bird watching beneath the tall umbrella pines in the Pamphili park, oh, how formal and dignified they stand, and yes, those are parrots nesting in the parasols! My gaze is unaccustomed to such splendor. It's like love and a new sky just opened above me. How can there be this feeling of newness in a place so ancient? They have all been here for an eternity, adapting again and again over centuries to their latest surroundings, to the next wave of humanity, insisting on their place. It is impossible to explain where we've been, but this time I feel connected to what we've seen. I won't wait so long to come back.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I wear more sensible shoes now, but my neck hurts. Isn't it time for an ice cream?</span></div>
Donia Bijanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15765742439428978896noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1362875697582365079.post-31258569137731757262014-04-09T21:38:00.000-07:002016-01-30T11:20:14.713-08:00Swimming with the Stars<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">Henri Matisse <i>The Swimming Pool</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Never mind the oldest and the youngest. In the pool we are all the strongest. Our lane mate, Ann, turned eighty yesterday. Our pool sleeps under covers in the dark and on most mornings, Ann wakes up before the birds to lift and reel the heavy bedspread on a spool. At 5:45, it's always our turn to play! We show up like an army, thirty or forty of us to break the glitter she has uncovered, to splash and puff and shiver and swing our arms, to leave our rigid selves on land and watch the first, small, pink clouds sail above.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">For years we've watched and learned from Ann's long, beautiful stroke, her razor sharp flip turn, the ear to ear smile and praise she lavishes on us when we've shaved a second off our interval. If I've arrived early enough to watch her take aim and jump in the pool, I'm reminded of hopping into fountains as a child and the defiant whoop whooping, I am the life in the fountain! Catch me if you can! </span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">This morning she swam beneath a canopy of balloons tied to a vase of flowers from Karen's garden. There goes joy in the water, I thought. </span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Happy Birthday Ann.</span></div>
Donia Bijanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15765742439428978896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1362875697582365079.post-53203016895721308222013-12-03T19:54:00.000-08:002016-01-30T11:21:39.170-08:00Simmering Dinner<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzgQtjMBzwHztHmBT4Il31s4Yowea542gLE-HBQW3DEGsszrBzunrkJFXXPwDmxsCsM477Qnyh6NkgVV1TDZoyLVIzhg8a72Nw1ZNEsA7Mb7XLWUfqKSzYrnlgdQukP7yASac3pev1C0c/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzgQtjMBzwHztHmBT4Il31s4Yowea542gLE-HBQW3DEGsszrBzunrkJFXXPwDmxsCsM477Qnyh6NkgVV1TDZoyLVIzhg8a72Nw1ZNEsA7Mb7XLWUfqKSzYrnlgdQukP7yASac3pev1C0c/s1600/images.jpeg" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 10px; font-style: italic;"><b style="background-color: white;">Photo: Wayne Bremser</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Hearing that Judy Rodgers had passed away sent me to the kitchen. Her beautiful cookbook is one of three on my shelf and I've turned to it again and again because Judy, anchored as she was to technique and history, often had answers to all my questions, because repetition came before creativity and innovation. If you think making the same dish day after day is easy, it's not. If you're not falling in love with the same dish each time you carefully gather the ingredients for it, whether it's a caesar salad or a hamburger, you should untie your apron and order take-out. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I never had the privilege to work with Judy, but have always felt her tall slender presence nearby--a quirky angel with waist length hair, mini skirt and bright colored tights--you would have to search the planet for a more serious, dedicated, intelligent chef. Restaurants come and go, chefs tire and retire, but Zuni stayed and Judy never looked away. She spoke to every single diner through her intensely flavorful soups, her simmered dinners, creamy scrambled eggs, and summer puddings. Moored to her stove, gliding through the dining room with a champagne flute was not for her. She was marrow to the bone.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Tonight, in memory of Judy, we're making her braised chicken with honey and vinegar, substituting dates for figs, and remembering all the soulful meals, the birthdays and anniversaries we celebrated at Zuni.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">So long Chef. </span></span></div>
Donia Bijanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15765742439428978896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1362875697582365079.post-62198714986158692222013-10-10T21:24:00.000-07:002016-01-30T11:22:41.103-08:00At Last<!--StartFragment-->
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Hey, do you know this author Alice Munro,” my husband asked. “She’s Canadian. Did you ever read any of her books?” I woke up at five fifteen this morning to the news of my beloved author’s Nobel prize. What a glorious day! It’s been too long since I’ve actually jumped up and down over the announcement. The last time was in 1995 when Seamus Heaney (1939-2013), another good shepherd, received the award.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I’ve devoured every word Munro has ever written and reread her books when I miss her. Her stories come in teaspoons to be read and savored, page by slow page. To choose a favorite would be like finding one child more enchanting than the other. She taught me that all stories are right here in our backyards, laying low, subversive, unassuming as leaves, if only you bend down to examine them. I learned that a leaf lives an interesting life if you care to look closely and trace its veins like a palm reader to find the miracle of economy. Your entire world is there like an only child.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Do I know her?” “I worship her!” How had he missed that?</span></span></div>
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Donia Bijanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15765742439428978896noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1362875697582365079.post-79205612486137016322013-09-16T17:15:00.000-07:002016-01-30T11:23:42.771-08:00Seventeen Going On Eighteen<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 26.4px;">
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">During my senior year in high school, I took home economics with Mrs. P. The bulk of my repertoire at the time included banana bread and its many variations, but I came eager to learn how to transform eggs, butter, and sugar into cake, ground beef into meatballs, or flour, water, and yeast into bread. A teenager is always starving and I was no exception. There was no limit to my appetite and the 6th period class came late in the afternoon when I would've eaten my binder if it weren't for the promise of macaroni and cheese or shredded carrot raisin salad with honey mustard dressing.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Our co-ed class met in a big airy room with a cheery light that came through the windows. It felt like being let out of prison. Finally, in this space between the deep sinks, four burner stoves, and Mrs. P's pantry, I felt free. I didn't know it at the time, nor did I have a word for it--the closest image I can draw for you is that of Julie Andrews on the green Alpine pastures, breaking into song. Most of my classmates weren't there to learn how to feed themselves. Let's face it, it was an easy A and despite her stern expression, Mrs. P was a sweetheart, a P-for-pussycat who had been teaching for thirty years and passed the A's like a platter of snickerdoodles--more on her generosity later. Her curriculum focused on comfort food, dishes I turned to again and again in college. Except for her wonderful bran muffin recipe (the only one I've ever had that didn't taste like tree bark), there was no back-to-the earth, holier-than-whole buckwheat and barley gruel. She started each lesson by handing out a recipe or two, three-hole punched for our Home Ec binders, then walked away, leaving us to gather the ingredients, to weigh and measure. Oh, how I wished she wouldn't turn her back because the moment she disappeared around the corner into her office (more like a cubby in the back where I think she took the edge off with a pony of sherry), the first raisins followed by a scoop of ketchup (yes, we made our own) flew across the kitchen to land at your feet, if you were lucky, but often on your neck. This business of a "food fight" and its battle cry was as alien to me as pink hair and punk rock. Call me prudence, but this was where you could single me out as the foreign student. Throwing food was not only unthinkable and barbaric, but my mother would've yanked the hair from my scalp if I threw a grape in the air and tried to catch it. I had no choice but to appoint myself as the class monitor, at first begging them with Come on guys, stop it please, to emphatic cries of Children are starving in Ethiopia! Of course, it was useless but little did I know that trying to maintain order in a kitchen full of teenagers would be my first step to becoming a chef. Bless my friends for taking it well and girding the area around me, but they weren't about to stop. After all, what better place to offer their affection to the person they fancied?When you're young and savage, you show your love with a lump of baking chocolate and butter slipped into an unbuttoned polo shirt. A juvenile be-my-valentine, but effective.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Mrs. P emerged from her cubby, tall and teetering a little on her sensible heels, to praise our efforts, refusing a taste with an elegant wave of her hand, Oh no dear, I couldn't possibly digest that! She had sampled enough meatloaf and quick bread, knowing the good ones from the bad at a glance. We were dismissed lovingly and allowed to take home the remains of our cakes and custards. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">One March afternoon, upon receiving my first college rejection letter, I went to class with a lump in my throat. One of those lumps that a tap on my shoulder or a simple Are you okay? would have me dissolve into a puddle of tears--you know the kind. At five feet three inches, I came to Mrs. P's waist and she folded in half to look into my eyes before shooing me to her office where I wept on her shoulder and she brought me a glass of cold water and actually said there, there. When my hiccups subsided, she suggested I stop by her house for a chat one evening. I rode my bike to her little bungalow and she greeted me at the door in the same belted knee-length dress she wore to school (did I expect she'd be wearing sweatpants?) and ushered me to "the parlor" for a little glass of sherry served in a doll size cordial glass. I smelled almonds but tasted figs. Less than an ounce, but enough to overcome my awkward disposition so I could sit on a beautiful old chair across from her. She didn't offer me a cigarette (that would've blown my mind), it was a thrill just watching my teacher light one in front of me-- a smoke signal that graduation was near and we would part friends. Mrs. P spent the next hour asking me about what I expected to do with my life. No one had ever asked before. She didn't realize that I was straw in the wind, that she had given me the confidence to shape my longings into food, to tide over that gnawing hunger. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It all started in a home economics class that is no longer offered in high school. I thought of Mrs. P after reading and commiserating with Jim Sollisch's article, Cooking is Freedom, in the Sunday Times. He reminded me of my Julie Andrews moment.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Mrs. P's Snickerdoodles</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">4 ounces unsalted butter, softened</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">3/4 cup sugar</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">1 large egg</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">1 1/3 cup flour</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">1/2 teaspoon baking soda</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">1/4 teaspoon salt</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">3 teaspoons sugar</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">2 teaspoons cinnamon</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">-Preheat oven to 350'.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">-Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">-Add the egg and mix thoroughly.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">-Fold in the flour, baking soda and salt. Mix just until combined.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">-Chill the dough for 15-30 minutes before rolling into 1 inch balls.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">-Combine cinnamon and sugar in a bowl.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">-Toss the balls in cinnamon sugar, not at each other! </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">-Place 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake 8-10 minutes until golden.</span></span></div>
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Donia Bijanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15765742439428978896noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1362875697582365079.post-61190320171686481032013-05-02T21:04:00.001-07:002013-09-03T12:18:37.899-07:00Child Labor<!--StartFragment-->
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM-rrzA-h4rmyOALSCgR4Zu916rNKqBKFnycXMX-gfyJOy3Wc2KDlJPMZaTvmbCfs_cOk6v6n1ftRvyuHZnux_HNV1GdSxga3E9KcP8lZ_q8MlCpRaAlKJJnuV08BxY98rW2vsMMHOBqk/s1600/0-2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM-rrzA-h4rmyOALSCgR4Zu916rNKqBKFnycXMX-gfyJOy3Wc2KDlJPMZaTvmbCfs_cOk6v6n1ftRvyuHZnux_HNV1GdSxga3E9KcP8lZ_q8MlCpRaAlKJJnuV08BxY98rW2vsMMHOBqk/s1600/0-2.jpeg" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">I have shelled my share of beans
but none have ever made me wish I were a bean, like the fava bean. The moment I
pull the zipper and see three, sometimes four or five fat beans nestled in
their padded shell, I want to snuggle up next to them. A springtime delight, often
overshadowed by the arrival of peas, asparagus, and artichokes, these friendly
pods were made for small hands to shuck. If you have access to a few children,
and you’re always nagging them about time spent on the computer, here’s a task
that will keep their hands busy and hopefully trigger a sense of wonder. I
would start with five pounds—the yield is so small that anything less is silly.
If they don’t stop to fondle the fleshy pod and resist the temptation to try
one raw, they are made of stone and you may consider trading them for more
sensitive creatures.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">When I was a child, my mother
steamed them whole, dusted them with angelica and a drizzle of vinegar, and
piled them on a big platter to serve as a snack. My sisters and I sat in a circle
and peeled one after another, slipping off their rubbery skin with our
fingernails and popping them in our mouths like missiles. I never had a chance
to see, nor fondle, or I would’ve missed my share. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">It wasn’t until I was an apprentice
and given a few cases to shell that I saw them raw and held the bright green
emeralds in my palm. Perhaps it’s just as well because as a child I would’ve
wanted to line a box with Kleenex and tuck them in for the night. As it was,
the chef was very annoyed that after an hour, I had made little progress.
Later, I saw him layer those favas with braised butter lettuce and sweetbreads
in a startlingly simple composition of spring. Enchanted and terrified (would I
be capable of bringing these elements together with such grace?), I understood
why I was there, in that kitchen, at that moment. Over the next few hours, we
assembled that dish dozens of times and I imagined diners looking longingly at
their neighbor’s plate, unable to resist ordering the same. Side by side, we
repeated the pattern—soft greens against milky white, a tangle of herbs aloft,
a drizzle of jus. It was new each time. Our chef inspected every single plate
before letting it get whisked away. Like a father sending his child to the
first day of kindergarten, he all but kissed the rim adieu.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">It’s been years since I’ve eaten
them steamed like my mother used to make. Tonight I may have to forgo the
delight of seeing them snug in their cushy beds, unless I find some kids to
help me shell.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Donia Bijanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15765742439428978896noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1362875697582365079.post-6830017346789329452013-04-24T18:20:00.001-07:002013-04-24T18:20:38.304-07:00Wonder Bread<!--StartFragment-->
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<span lang="DA"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">My husband flew home from Copenhagen with R</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">ugbrød lovingly wrapped
in brown paper and tucked in his carry-on bag. Rug what, you say? This dark,
sour, rye bread is a staple of the Danish diet and the pallet upon which </span><i><span lang="DA"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">smorrebrød</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">,
their delicious, sometimes elaborate, often humble, open-faced sandwiches are served. Some of you may be familiar
with my bread tourette’s and therefore may not find it surprising that this loaf,
warm from a Danish bakery, carried over the ocean, is a gift of true love.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Packed with cracked rye kernels,
flaxseed, sunflower seeds, and weighing nearly three pounds, it is three times
the weight of Milton’s multi-grain bread and mustn’t be confused with
pumpernickel, which is steamed, and like language (German, Swedish, or Norwegian), it has a distinctly different flavor. Rugbrød (try saying it with your mouth closed like the Danes) would
be my choice of sustenance if I were stranded in the wild, given that I could
use it to crack nuts or build a raft. It is a complete package. One slice for
breakfast spread with butter and honey, or two slices in your lunch box with
goat cheese, cucumbers and dill, or a soft boiled egg with radishes, and you may
not feel hungry till the next afternoon. Then again, at dusk, just before the
day vanishes, what could be better than an open-faced sandwich of liver pate
and pickled red onions with a cold beer on the patio? Let’s keep it simple tonight
and save the gastronomical somersaults for another day when the light isn’t so
pretty.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Over the next week, we will most
likely carve this brick to feast morning, noon, and night. When it’s nearly
gone, we’ll crumble the end piece for the sparrows, and think back on it with a
real nostalgia. How wholesome it was! How it comforted me! How it was, yes, the
best bread of my whole life and all other beloved bakeries would understand my
brief betrayal.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Donia Bijanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15765742439428978896noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1362875697582365079.post-40649694026476941462013-04-17T16:00:00.001-07:002013-04-17T16:00:10.401-07:00Rebound<!--StartFragment-->
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx6UPo5f9SSRcuOJy884lz0I8JQLSSVUG_YXx4FBNLODpLmbMMyRyOEI4_h87W4IwpylHpFk8wpoV2lc1T2XflCfHLnTkJ18NYwOPOkz0t1HnhQ9sUG121iZjD3NJCQL87zkvTqaz1H1o/s1600/Running-Injuries.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx6UPo5f9SSRcuOJy884lz0I8JQLSSVUG_YXx4FBNLODpLmbMMyRyOEI4_h87W4IwpylHpFk8wpoV2lc1T2XflCfHLnTkJ18NYwOPOkz0t1HnhQ9sUG121iZjD3NJCQL87zkvTqaz1H1o/s320/Running-Injuries.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Gone are the days I could shield my
son from the news. Driving to basketball practice with four boys on Monday
afternoon, he turned to me “Did you hear, mom?” “Hear what,” was my response.
Blood stained scenes of the Boston sidewalks and maimed runners had already traveled
across their screens and my urge to reach for his phone and shut it off, or better
yet, hurl it out the window, was too little, too late. All I could do was keep
my eyes on the road, my hands trembling at ten and two—please, let me carry these
children safely, please. “Do you have your seatbelts on?” I asked. Were they
five years old? Did I seriously just ask them that? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">At eleven and twelve, they’re still
like puppies, scrambling over each other’s conversations, eager to tell me where,
when, how they heard about the Marathon bombing. I struggled for something to
say, but I wasn’t fast enough so I drove and listened. It occurred to me that
they had received this news with a good measure of detachment, drawing
parallels to other horrors of their times. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">I
was supposed to be baptized on nine-eleven, but my parents cancelled it.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">So
you mean you weren’t baptized?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Yeah,
maybe a week later.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Dude,
do you remember water splashed on your head?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Yeah.
I was, like, whoa, what’s going on?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">How
could you possibly remember that?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">My
mom told me.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Dude,
my cousin was in a restaurant and they had to evacuate cuz there was a bomb.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Did
it explode?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Nah.
It was just a bomb scare. Some nut called and said he’s gonna blow up the
place.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Who
does that?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Aliens.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Good. Good for you, I thought, for wiping
away the terror, for dismissing these maladjusted nuts and insisting that we
return to normal as quickly as possible. In the decade since their birth, they
have grown accustomed to this cycle of horror as routine, but it hasn’t
diminished their trust in us, or in the world, as large and compassionate. I
wanted to pull over and just hug them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Afterward, I watched them saunter leisurely
to the gym, jostling and slugging each other playfully. Was I going to sit
there in the car for two hours and wait for them? It didn’t seem like a bad
plan. Rage and sorrow made it hard to move a muscle. It was a beautiful
afternoon. A lacrosse team was running laps on the track. I had my running
shoes in the trunk. The only logical thing to do was to see if I could keep up
with them.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Donia Bijanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15765742439428978896noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1362875697582365079.post-89882103099513772312013-04-11T14:02:00.002-07:002013-04-17T16:02:35.761-07:00A Bone to Pick<!--StartFragment-->
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwecTFfhZxoC8NskQ12PPFWXvb5gFKJvxwHvK-2Zn2UQ-kZGlkIj_UkpRDphr2JMZkg6ZnaONjCUNfO4gZ3xsyr-Jr449usEA7O2h4Zg4Wq3l82IBsuJC9kvpnrBcB6GEbktgE5vdaX04/s1600/paul-cezanne-still-life-with-red-onions-6929.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwecTFfhZxoC8NskQ12PPFWXvb5gFKJvxwHvK-2Zn2UQ-kZGlkIj_UkpRDphr2JMZkg6ZnaONjCUNfO4gZ3xsyr-Jr449usEA7O2h4Zg4Wq3l82IBsuJC9kvpnrBcB6GEbktgE5vdaX04/s320/paul-cezanne-still-life-with-red-onions-6929.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">Paul Cezanne </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">Still Life with Onions</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;"> 1896</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
If you live in the Bay Area you
know we had a heat spell this week with temperatures in the upper eighties. Our
heat is coy—stopping by unannounced at lunch time, gone by sundown, always leaves
you wondering if he’ll be back, if it was something you said, if you need a
sweater. At noon, it was eighty five degrees—not a day I would have chosen to
make French onion soup. If it were up to me, we’d have Popsicles for dinner.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Since my son read a short story by
Roald Dahl about a young boy who muses about onion soup, he’s been asking me
why I haven’t made it for him. He’s right to wonder. After all, I ran a French
restaurant with onion soup on the menu year round. Even in July I wouldn’t dare
take it off the menu lest I face a revolution. A third reminder came last night
before he fell asleep “How about that onion soup?” What is wrong with me, I
wondered, this is the simplest, most delicious creation in culinary history and
I’ve denied him? The thing is, it’s not so easy to find a bowl of authentic
onion soup—even cafés in France keep it on their menus for tourists and serve
boiled bouillon cubes with three strands of limp onions, forgotten pieces of
baguette that fell behind the counter, and a sad sprinkling of what could be
string cheese.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Even the butcher was surprised by
my request for beef bones when almost everyone will surely be firing up their
grills tonight. It didn’t take long for the house to heat up with ten pounds of
knuckles roasting in the oven and I do love the sweet smell of caramelized
bones. If you’re going to make stock, you might as well make a couple of
gallons—at least it seemed like a good idea before the two stock pots came to a
boil on the stove. I took a cold shower, then prepped the onions. If you saw
the movie <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Julie and Julia</i> with the
one and only Meryl Streep, you may remember the mountain of onions she sliced
to earn her stripes. Well, that’s how much you need for a pot of onion soup. If
you think you have enough, keep going. Do you have a pot big enough to sauté a
wheelbarrow of onions? Yes you do. Grab your big belly pot and throw them all
in there, or do it in two batches if you must—like spinach, they shrink as they
cook. Add a whole clove or two and a bouquet of thyme and bay leaf (just one).
If you’re an impatient person you probably haven’t read this far so it doesn’t
seem necessary to mention that now is the time to work on your taxes or fold
some laundry, because this part takes a while. Slowly, another sweet aroma will
overcome the scent of that rich broth simmering on the back burner. I like to
stick my head in the pot when the onions are just turning golden and have a
good sniff, then drizzle a little honey to hush a sweet tooth. When I was an
apprentice, my chef used to say I was capable of making even pickled herring
sweet. “Mon dieu,” he’d cry every time I reached for the honey pot.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
The honey is like a sigh. You’ll
know when you hear it to open a bottle of good red wine and drench the onions,
saving a glass for yourself. Here, the onions will look gloomy, overcast, but
not for long (long enough to fold some more laundry, strain your beef stock,
toast some croutons), as they will simmer from murky to a glossy crimson, ready
for their broth. Let everybody meet and greet, but not too
enthusiastically—think British restraint—a gentle boil for a half hour and your
soup is ready to be ladled into bowls. I do love the classic ones with the
stubby handles that allow you to slide them under the broiler (salamander, for
you colts). But first, drop in your croutons (please, make your own), layer
some shaved Gruyere cheese, and let it melt—as in bubbling and dripping over
the sides. Then wipe your brow and call the cubs to the table—if the heavenly
fragrance hasn’t beckoned already. Hopefully you will have extra croutons
because those warm bones from your stock are cannons loaded with marrow.
Lacquer a spoonful on toast to savor and swallow this magnificent reward.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Donia Bijanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15765742439428978896noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1362875697582365079.post-82996215377626369962013-02-26T09:08:00.001-08:002013-04-02T14:16:57.050-07:00Donia Bijan Bay Area Author Events<a href="https://ca.evanced.info/mountainview/lib/eventsignup.asp?ID=5518&rts=&disptype=info&ret=eventcalendar.asp&pointer=&returnToSearch=&SignupType=&num=0&ad=&dt=mo&mo=5/1/2013&df=list&EventType=Adult%2C+Adult+Workshop%2C+Community%2C+Holiday+-+Library+Closed%2C+Mountain+View+Reads+Together%2C+Parenting%2C+Technology&Lib=0&AgeGroup=&LangType=0&WindowMode=&noheader=&lad=&pub=1&nopub=&page=1&pgdisp=25" target="_blank">Mountain View Library</a><br />
Mountain View, CA<br />
Thursday, May 9th, 7 pm<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.burlingamelibraryfoundation.org/" target="_blank">Burlingame Library Foundation</a><br />
Author Lunch<br />
Saturday May 11th, Noon<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.draegerscookingschool.com/chefDetail.aspx?chefID=227" target="_blank">Draeger's Cooking School</a><br />
Menlo Park, CA<br />
Wednesday May 5th, 6:30 pmDonia Bijanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15765742439428978896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1362875697582365079.post-18344259172831602632013-02-11T13:09:00.001-08:002013-02-11T13:09:18.778-08:00Shake n' Bake<!--StartFragment-->
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW3JG0VVvcO-EhdWTJtD-T-G1aq8v5bwkKlhoJDW_qxOm7yNzQgqN4kLcIaD1X6QpawZUYhWGhBMxCENf10DjGVf5mbfb0F4CZ_9qcyDAUUYBKeOq4cGa5c9NC9oXrnWkWNucP2McV00o/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW3JG0VVvcO-EhdWTJtD-T-G1aq8v5bwkKlhoJDW_qxOm7yNzQgqN4kLcIaD1X6QpawZUYhWGhBMxCENf10DjGVf5mbfb0F4CZ_9qcyDAUUYBKeOq4cGa5c9NC9oXrnWkWNucP2McV00o/s1600/images.jpeg" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">I was twelve the first time I ate fried chicken. My mother
was away for a conference and my Aunt Homa invited my father and me for dinner.
I always enjoyed going to her house because she not only had a wicked sense of
humor, but a delicious hand—her cooking was tasty. She kept au courant with
songs, film, recipes from Good Housekeeping sent to her from abroad. I also
loved that Aunt Homa stood up to my dad if he so much as whispered a complaint
about his wife’s absence. “You should be so proud of her,” she’d snap.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">On this February night, she served us crispy golden chicken
legs with parsley potatoes and a green salad. The simplicity of this meal
would’ve struck an Iranian guest as miserly. A measure of a ‘better’ host is
the surplus of food, a galaxy of dishes on a buffet around which your guests
will orbit sampling everything, crowding their plates with pyramids of rice and
stews, pickled vegetables and yogurts, bread and feta cheese, herbs and salad.
I think my father may have even dared tease my aunt about her scanty offering.
That first bite of fried chicken was unlike anything I had ever tasted. I closed
my eyes and chewed slowly to understand the crackling outside and the tender
inside. I glanced at my father devouring a drumstick, his mustache glistening. Quickly
I ate everything else on my plate—saving the best for last. No sooner had I finished
than my aunt served me another piece, then another. Like love, I would never
tire of it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Later in the kitchen when I was helping Aunt Homa clean up,
she asked if I wanted to know how to make her chicken. An invitation to the
ball would not have excited me as much. She handed me pen and paper to write: </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Rub chicken legs with olive oil, salt and
pepper. Put Corn Flakes in a bowl and crush the flakes with your hands. Toss
the chicken with the Corn Flakes and lay flat on a greased baking dish. Bake in
a 400-degree oven until</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"> </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">they’re
golden brown</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">. She didn’t tell me to pre-heat the oven, or how many chicken
legs, or how long to bake them, but taught me that anyone who cared could
learn.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">My dad did the grocery shopping while my mother was away. We’d
been eating a lot of eggs in her absence, so I asked him to buy chicken. Corn Flakes,
however, were not so easy to come by, but one nearby market kept a paltry
selection of stale American cereal. When my father came home from work, I
served him ‘Kellogg’s chicken’ with radishes and a sliced cucumber drizzled
with lemon juice, then watched him chew happily the first meal I had ever made
him. He was the hardest working man I knew and usually never came home before
ten o’clock which gave me plenty of time to experiment and tweak the only dish
I’d learned to cook. Night after night we feasted on chicken until my mother
came home, surprised to find her enameled stove spotless. We resumed a more
balanced, colorful menu, which after days of browned bird legs, felt like a
carnival.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Just because I’m a chef doesn’t mean that we eat duck a
l’orange every night. Even though in my family we talk about what’s-for-dinner
at breakfast, there are days when I have to fall upon my tried and true. The
other night, after a busy day, I crushed a couple bars of <a href="http://www.weetabix.co.uk/brands/cereals/weetabix" target="_blank">Weetabix</a> (if you’re
wondering why I have that in my pantry, it’s not as bad as Twix), and tossed
seasoned chicken legs with the crumbled flakes in a Ziploc bag. And since the
oven was on anyway, I roasted some fingerling potatoes, too. A butter lettuce
salad with Dijon vinaigrette and voila! Dinner was ready. Weetabix, we agreed,
is a happy substitution for Corn Flakes, breadcrumbs, or even </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">real</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"> fried chicken. At the table, I made
a toast to my auntie who knew that less is more and you’re never too young to
cook for your parents. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Donia Bijanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15765742439428978896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1362875697582365079.post-47122986464224224992013-01-29T15:25:00.000-08:002013-01-29T16:49:13.106-08:00Bisquick<!--StartFragment-->
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMMgQClShBvBcNHnMv2sQcOE1ITtCMNJ1YVlnoQ1QZqu6PFJCK_B2jGAaiT81wTn0-4NI1O88GDvE6HDCFkr6mDicOFld3uzfo8nIfOBTsNKl_8EotXZLJMLMsml-xwIVVreOAOnzS6b4/s1600/photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMMgQClShBvBcNHnMv2sQcOE1ITtCMNJ1YVlnoQ1QZqu6PFJCK_B2jGAaiT81wTn0-4NI1O88GDvE6HDCFkr6mDicOFld3uzfo8nIfOBTsNKl_8EotXZLJMLMsml-xwIVVreOAOnzS6b4/s320/photo.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Raise your hand if you ever took a
typing class in high school. One or two hours a week dedicated to tapping keys
in a windowless room, all girls except for two boys in the back row. I was of
the Hunt and Peck variety, which meant I sacrificed speed by glancing away from
the copy to find and press each key individually instead of relying on the
memorized position of the keys. I probably took the class because I thought it
would have something to do with writing, not transcribing at record speed. Nevertheless,
it came in handy in college when I stayed up all night to finish term papers—the
ding of the carriage return and clickety-clack not only made good company in
the still dormitory, they provided just the right little-engine-that-could
motion that kept me on track.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">In the early nineties, I upgraded
to a portable Brother electric typewriter to write a business plan for a
restaurant. At the time, it seemed harebrained—an impossible dream (I was told
many times), but once I started pecking, the words nudged each other forward—I
think I can, I think I can. And when the lease for L’amie Donia was signed (oddly
the space used to be a typewriter repair shop), we shoved a desk into the
storage room upstairs and it became my office where I wrote menus with Brother.
Downstairs carpenters hammered and drilled booths and bar tops, while I perched
in my nest hatching summer dishes for a July opening.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">For our first anniversary, my
husband gave me a vintage Smith Corona (he’s never been subtle in urging me to
write). It has a nice clatter even with neighboring arms jamming when pressed
at the same time. In a crazy dream not too long ago, every key I pressed spurted
batter instead of ink on the page. With every mistake I was forced to scrape
away what looked like buttermilk pancakes off the carriage with a paring knife.
I won’t even address the symbolism here, but what a mess! Talk about think
before you write.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Brother retired sometime after my
sister gave us a bright blue iMac which sat like a spaceship on my desk urging
me to hop on board. Well, there was no going back after that, but I miss the
bell, the springing forward of words that can’t be deleted, the commitment to
staying on track. I love my laptop, but Brother never made it easy for me to
walk away, erase, cut and paste, or check email in the middle of a paragraph. And
when the day was done, you had something to show for it.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Donia Bijanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15765742439428978896noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1362875697582365079.post-7922105620260962482013-01-09T21:31:00.002-08:002013-01-17T15:31:11.905-08:00Walk With Me<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 13pt;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">In the shopping center near my
parents’ old apartment, there was a flower shop that stood apart from the rest
of the storefronts, angular like a kiosk dropped there accidentally. Home for
the holidays on winter break, I carefully filled an application there, even
listed my hobbies (cooking, reading, writing), left out where I was from, and
confessed to my lack of experience. I could identify roses, carnations, and
tulips but couldn’t tell apart poinsettias from amaryllis. It didn’t matter.
When I handed it to the lady behind the counter, she asked if I had a driver’s
license and sighed with relief when I opened my wallet. Never mind that I
hadn’t driven since I totaled the used ’72 Firebird my parents had scraped
together the funds to buy for my graduation. She called her husband who was out
making deliveries to give him the good news. He rushed back to give me the keys
to a white Dodge van in the parking lot with it’s rear doors thrown open
displaying several wreaths with huge red bows destined for a house in Atherton.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 13pt;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">I was terrified. The van was like a
small bus. I drove ten miles an hour with my foot on the brakes, peering over
the steering wheel, sweaty palms clenching it like a lifesaver. How do I get to
Atherton? Where the hell is Atherton? I had an address on Oak Grove and a map
open on the passenger seat. I was lost. Circling Menlo Park, stopping to read
the house numbers, realizing too late I was in the wrong town. Joyous when I
finally found the house, I parked and carried the enormous wreath to an iron
gate that opened to a long driveway. I heard the bark before I saw the German
Shepard bounding toward me, all fangs, snarl and spit with nothing between us
but laurel and holly, so I bolted like a scared rabbit back to the van. It was
noon when I had left the shop and four-fifteen when I pulled into their parking
spot, pretty scraped up from trying to squeeze into the driver’s seat with a
holly wreath.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 13pt;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">The proprietors, Mr. and Mrs. Wells,
didn’t fire me. Instead, they let me stay in the shop to help take orders and
learn to assemble flowers and wreaths in elaborate baskets. I was glad for this
paid apprenticeship and they never asked me to make another delivery. Their
children were grown with families of their own, they had both graduated from
Berkeley and I suppose they were glad to have a student from their alma mater
around. They once asked me where I was from <i>originally</i> and I lied, of
course. No one in her right mind would confess to being Iranian in the middle
of the hostage crisis.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 13pt;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">My day started at nine when I helped
Mr. Wells pull all the Christmas greens out front, all the while quizzing me on
their names, then leaving me to arrange the giant clay pots of cyclamen and
boxwood topiaries. Back inside, Mrs. W would offer me some of her Earl Grey tea
and we’d go about the store and in the fridge “to shop”, as she liked to say,
for that day’s orders. We filled the hours quickly. At noon I would be sent to
the deli to pick up their usual (pastrami on rye) while I ate a tuna sandwich
from home. They were generous with their knowledge and I proved to be reliable
as long as I didn’t have to drive. After lunch, I’d help pack the van and Mr.
Wells would leave to make the deliveries, always rolling down the window to
call out “Now you girls hold down the fort 'til I get back!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 13pt;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">And we did. I helped guys who were
buying flowers for their dates, ladies looking for pretty centerpieces for
their dinner parties, and once, a nice man with shaggy hair who stopped in to
buy some ferns and camellias. Together we carried the plants to his pick up
truck and he followed me back into the shop and handed me a check. When I asked
to see his driver’s license, his face lit up with a smile. I took down the
number like I’d been told to do and he left whistling. Closing the drawer that
evening, Mr. Wells gasped, “Neil Young was here? <i>Here in my shop?</i> Donia
did you see him? Martha, did you help him? Look, look, <i>look</i> at this
check!” He caressed the signature. “Who’s Neil Young?” I asked. He stared at
me, incredulous.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 13pt;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Already dark by five thirty, I would
bring the greenery inside and carry a watering can around the store, giving the
plants one last drink. My father would often take an evening stroll and walk me
home. More than once I saw him standing a few yards away in the waning light,
wearing his dark wool coat with the collar turned up, hands shoved in his pockets. I’d
wave. He’d nod and look away, quietly sobbing. His shoulders told me—oh how
they shook. My father buried his face in his coat and waited for me to finish.
We walked home in silence and you would think I’d have asked “Why are you
crying, Daddy?” But no, I was too afraid of the answer: because it wasn’t meant
to happen this way, because I dreamed a different dream for my daughters,
because you have dirt under your fingernails, because you are too young,
because you’re giving up your youth, <i>because</i>. His daughter should not
have to work in a flower shop, <i>for god’s sake</i>! But my parents had taught
me everything I knew about hard work. And what about everything they’d given up
for me? Their home, their country, brothers and sisters, friends, patients,
work, family albums, all left behind so I could be here, in this world of
possibilities, to live in it, free and in charge of my own becoming.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 13pt;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">By the time we reached our front
door, one of us would wonder aloud what my mother had made for dinner and the
spell was broken. My mother opened the door and pulled me in for a hug and a
sniff. She said she liked the wintry smell we carried inside and while I washed
up, I’d hear them in the kitchen carrying silverware and glasses, the evening
news coming on, and the smell of rice and stew that drew us to the table where
we were no longer unmoored. The television glowed and while we waited for
Jeopardy, I told them about my day, sometimes embellishing an encounter to draw
a chuckle. My mother nourished us, anchored us, and slowly we felt the ebb of the emotion that had blindsided us out there.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 13pt;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Three weeks went by and it was time
to go back to school. I hated leaving the cozy routine of the shop. They even
had a little goodbye party for me. Mr. Wells, always generous, said, “Invite
your mom and dad!” But on my last afternoon, it was just the three of us, and a
carrot cake. Neil Young on the stereo. A few weeks later, I wrote to the Wells
and told them where I was from. Originally. They wrote back and said they
didn’t care.</span></span><span style="font-family: Garamond;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Donia Bijanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15765742439428978896noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1362875697582365079.post-30419520033045070862012-11-01T20:15:00.000-07:002012-11-01T20:54:39.382-07:00Ancient Fruit<!--StartFragment-->
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijGWK6yauFtRNRj3kk2oS1VVm7b7NeCd2402kIiZka0BqRwQwKaV2DcRvzh9u3mkhHEFISevN9BGbiZ2p_ZdrdzuyZ4RwQWd8Iwv_v8L7SyLlMoH5i3hrRCLB1vCwdEsVdPijvTPzjmxA/s1600/paul-cezanne-still-life-with-quince-apples-and-pears-1886_i-G-38-3821-QX1YF00Z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijGWK6yauFtRNRj3kk2oS1VVm7b7NeCd2402kIiZka0BqRwQwKaV2DcRvzh9u3mkhHEFISevN9BGbiZ2p_ZdrdzuyZ4RwQWd8Iwv_v8L7SyLlMoH5i3hrRCLB1vCwdEsVdPijvTPzjmxA/s320/paul-cezanne-still-life-with-quince-apples-and-pears-1886_i-G-38-3821-QX1YF00Z.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Quince, Apples, and Pears 1886 Paul Cezanne</span></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">My friend Julia and I met a
thousand years ago. Just days before I opened my restaurant </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">L’Amie Donia</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">, I ran an ad in the Palo
Alto Weekly looking for line cooks and dishwashers. My office was a desk my
sister had hauled out of her garage and tucked into a corner of the cozy
storage room where I wrote menus and listened to NPR nestled between one
hundred pound bags of flour, five gallon bins of cornmeal, gunny sacks of
lentils, rice, and cannellini beans. Slowly, slowly, I had been stocking our
pantry and preparing for our opening, scared out of my mind, running on coffee
and adrenaline. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Julia came by one morning holding
out an application she’d only half filled. A tall, skinny, tanned blond, with
strong ropey arms who sat on the floor even though I offered her my chair
(there wasn’t room for two chairs), wearing a white T-shirt that smelled of
laundry soap with faded jeans and Tevas. </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Who
is this girl?</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"> I thought. She had just arrived home from a long cycling trip
through Washington State, when her mother had shown her the ad and here she was,
sitting cross legged against a case of wine, sizing me up with pursed lips
(they didn’t stay that way for long). I could only offer seven dollars an hour.
</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Okay. What time shall I be here?</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"> When
I arrived the next morning at seven, she was already there, sitting by the
front door on the ground in another clean white T-shirt, her hair in a loose bun.
I unlocked the door, we walked in, and for the next two years, she never left
my side.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">To say those first few months were
hard is like saying war is hard. Ask a soldier to describe the front lines, and
if she’s come home unscathed, perhaps you’ll hear how poorly reality compares
with what she remembers as the swell of daunting tasks intensified and
swallowed her whole and that she would not exchange any of it for the easy industry
of an air conditioned office with a coffee maker and a microwave in a break
room. Even on grim days when incident and no-show dishwashers collided, we
summoned grace in the kitchen, and I’d go home only to return just a few hours
later, playing with the keys in my pocket, ready to do it all over again. I’m
here because you’re here, you go, I go, put the coffee on, crank up the ovens, roast
the veal bones, blanch the fries, freeze the dough, cook the apples, strain the
stock, check the walk in, mise-en-place, mise-en-place, mise-en-place, whatever
we </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">can</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"> do, we </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">will</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"> do, and no one leaves until it gets done. Yes chef. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Within this orbit, rich with
friendship and work, cooks come to know each other all too well, and it wasn’t
long before Julia showed her mettle. This shy, freckled girl swore like a
sailor and cooked like a couple of grandmothers, reaching back to essential
ingredients before they were gussied up. Ask her to make pot roast and she’d
sigh, intoxicated from the beefy aroma, as if it was already on her fork. And she
provided the soundtrack to those long hours we spent prepping before the doors
opened. Annie Lenox, The Pretenders, Sinead, so loud, the lady next door
complained. Goodbye NPR. Alchemy and curiosity made Julia a wonderful chef—like
her freckles, she was born into her talent. So when she was certain that I had
a very capable brigade, she went off to take the helm of another kitchen in San
Francisco and we remained war buddies with plenty of scars and mangled joints
for souvenirs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">The other day, I came home to find
a humungous bag of lumpy, yellow quince on my porch. No note. No </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">sorry I missed you</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">. I reached and put
one right up to my nose to sniff its lemon rose scent through a gray fuzzy coat.
It didn’t take me two seconds to know who they were from. Like I said, we know
each other all too well. A different fellow might have forgotten how crazy I am
for this ancient fruit. Julia remembered.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">I’m making this Quince Cranberry
sauce to take to Thanksgiving dinner at my sister-in-law’s house. That is, if I
don’t eat it all before then with yogurt and granola.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Quince Cranberry Sauce<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">8 medium size quinces, peeled,
seeded, and cut into eighths<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">1 ½ cups sugar<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">2 Tablespoons honey<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">2 cups water<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Zest and juice of 2 oranges<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Zest and juice of 1 lemon<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">4-5 cardamom pods cracked<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">2 cups fresh cranberries<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Peel and core the
quince very carefully, removing any fibrous pieces. Save a tablespoon of seeds.
They’re packed with pectin and will give your sauce a lovely honey consistency.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">In a large
saucepan, combine the sugar, honey, water, citrus juice and zest and bring to a
simmer on medium heat. Wrap the crushed cardamom pods and a tablespoon of
quince seeds in a piece of cheesecloth and place in the warm liquid.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Add the quince and
place a piece of parchment paper with a 2 inch hole cut in the center on top to
keep the fruit immersed and allow steam to escape. Simmer for an hour until the
quince are tender and have begun to turn rosy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Gently fold the
cranberries with the poached quince and simmer on low heat another 45 minutes
until thickened and glossy. Remove the spice pouch. Pour into jelly jars, seal,
and keep refrigerated.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Donia Bijanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15765742439428978896noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1362875697582365079.post-84443643004731101052012-10-23T20:41:00.001-07:002012-10-23T20:48:14.236-07:00Lessons in Anatomy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf4ymLNqiBZ4scMJkEc-igvz37188rjT_O1mkfDmBliGokzqal_Lm2N8UEdZTinWAaGyzbvtQa5X9W-gHG3UtWsfzz1mjmVt9A2j1hBaiVRZoEbO_a6f0Dia0mlOsZQ1czHEC4_iFaLsE/s1600/bullfighters-and-bull-waiting-for-the-next-move-1900.jpg!Blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf4ymLNqiBZ4scMJkEc-igvz37188rjT_O1mkfDmBliGokzqal_Lm2N8UEdZTinWAaGyzbvtQa5X9W-gHG3UtWsfzz1mjmVt9A2j1hBaiVRZoEbO_a6f0Dia0mlOsZQ1czHEC4_iFaLsE/s320/bullfighters-and-bull-waiting-for-the-next-move-1900.jpg!Blog.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Picasso Bullfighters</i></span></div>
<br />
<br />
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">You have to wonder sometimes if
we’re really in the twenty first century. We may have devices in our palms that
can instantly connect and inform us, but judging from our political discourse,
particularly in the realm of women’s health, we have become so prudish, obtuse,
and uninformed, it may well be the sixteenth century when women donned chastity
belts and men decided their fate. My mother was a midwife who had seen her
share of happy and tragic childbirth, and she urged an open dialogue about sex
that today would be labeled as “TMI”. In this era of contentious debate over
our reproductive rights, I’m reminded of a rainy afternoon she spent giving me,
what you may call, too much information.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I came home from school to find my
mother waiting for me on the couch. The coffee table was set with cups and
saucers, a teapot, and a plate of currant cake. If I were six, I would have
thought we were having a tea party like we used to, when she sat in a circle
with my dolls and teddy bears waiting for me to hand her a dollsize cup. At
eleven, this request to come to the living room seemed too formal and I worried
she had received a call from school forcing her to leave work early.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> My mother sat on the edge of the couch in her
cream colored wool skirt and a silk blouse with a pattern of pink buds on a
green vine. She couldn’t be prettier, my mother, with her slim ankles and sheer
hose, a notebook open to a blank page on her lap. Without fidgeting, she dove
right in. “Now darling, I want to explain to you how human beings reproduce.
You may have some ideas, you may have heard things from your sisters, but I’d
like to tell you the facts.” Well, she needn’t have worried, because my sisters
were as forthcoming about the secrets of the human reproductive system as the
Shah’s intelligence ministry, speaking in code and stopping mid-sentence if I
wandered into their rooms. My mother was a nurse and a midwife schooled in
England. “Right, you see this?” She took a pencil to draw a diagram, stretching
her vowels as her pencil curved around the uterus. “These here you see, are the
fallopian tubes – a bit like a bull’s head, hmm? And these here are the ovaries.”
I sat close to her, my eyes glued to the drawing. </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Bull’s head?</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> She erased the right ovary to match the left one. “See
these sacs? They hold </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">all</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> your eggs.
And it </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">all</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> starts here. When you get
your period…” </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Period</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, I had heard of it
in the bathroom from some of my advanced classmates, but until that afternoon,
I had no idea what nature had in store for me. I didn’t know I carried so many
eggs around (my entire allocation) in those tiny pouches. “You, me, your
teachers, the kittens next door, </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">everything</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">
came out of an egg.” </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Hunh</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">My mother poured tea and stirred
milk and a teaspoon of sugar in each cup. Then she sliced two pieces of cake,
one larger than the other, knowing how I loved that yellow cake studded with
currants. I had come in from a cold rain to this room with a lush Persian rug
of reds, rose, and turquoise vines, where a radiator sputtered, and my mother
waited to share a remarkable secret. For the next hour or so she filled blank
sheets with impressive drawings of male organs, female genitalia, and what
happens when they meet. Hard to believe, really, that I had made it to eleven
not knowing this secret. Suddenly all those games of Doctor I’d played with my
cousins seemed suspect. Had they known? Was I the simple one in our gang? Or
were we all innocent when we played House or Teacher?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">That my mother was extraordinary
was not clear to me then. Iran in 1973, six years before the revolution, may
have boasted modernity, but the subject of sex was barred, mired in ancient
taboos. In a country where sex and shame are synonyms, where a woman carries
the weight of her virginity like an iron curtain, there is little chance for a
girl to know anything about her sexuality except for its implications of
submission, surrender, and shame. The saying goes: “Better to bear a snake than
a daughter.” Girls are corralled and cloaked in the guise of protecting the
family honor. My mother did not want her daughters to grow up under a veil,
refusing to surrender to a skewed natural order dictated by men to suppress
women, turning the curse of being a woman into a blessing, opening my eyes
before I could fall prey to ignorance, so I could stride through life unencumbered.
With a unique approach to sex education, she intercepted the cultural taboos
inflicted on women. My mother made her own rules, abiding by a personal code of
conduct. On her nightstand was a worn copy of Simone de Beauvoir’s </span></span><u><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Second-Sex-Simone-Beauvoir/dp/0140034633" target="_blank"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The
Second</span></span></a></u><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Second-Sex-Simone-Beauvoir/dp/0140034633" target="_blank"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span></span></a><u><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Second-Sex-Simone-Beauvoir/dp/0140034633" target="_blank"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Sex</span></span></a></u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">. For years I had stared at the cover, leafed through its
pages, disappointed to find no pictures. The summer I turned fifteen, she
suggested I read it while on holiday. What, until then, I thought was some sort
of sex manual, turned out to be a handbook on how a woman can become a
sovereign self in a patriarchal society. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> “Come,” she said “I’ll show you the cabinet
where we keep the Kotex. You should know how to use them in case I’m at work
when you get </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">it</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">.” We returned to the
sofa for another slice of cake. She chuckled to herself before reminding me of
an earlier anatomy lesson. There had been a long stretch in kindergarten when I
refused to wear pants, convinced that if I did, I would turn into a boy. I
attended a coed international school with teachers and students from all over
the world. Every day I insisted on wearing a white cotton summer dress my
mother had sewn for me with a pineapple pattern. By late autumn, my mother had
had enough. One afternoon, she staged a viewing while I was busy lining up
dolls for a round of my favorite game, “Mrs. Harkins” (my kindergarten
teacher’s name). I enjoyed playing the role of the teacher immensely, tapping
my dolls with a ruler, asking them to copy what I drew on a chalkboard easel,
scolding them for slouching or coming to school with unruly hair. Knowing I’d
become so absorbed in role-playing that I would forget to pee, my mother said
she poked her head in to remind me to go to the bathroom. Indeed I stood agitated
with my legs twisted, all the while yelling at my dolls to keep quiet. Turning
to leave, I warned, “Mrs. Harkins has to pee! Stay still!” When I opened the
door to the bathroom I shared with my parents I saw my father in the shower
with the curtain open. “Hello there!” he waved cheerfully as if we had just run
into each other at the park. But for the frothy soapsuds that sat on his chest,
he stood naked in the steam rising from the scalding water in the tub. Stunned,
I forgot I had to pee. “What’s </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">that</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">?”
I cried. My father was a doctor and completely casual about his private parts.
Like lifting the hood of a car to show his daughter the engine and the battery,
he continued to explain how all boys had a penis and two testicles, some
bigger, some smaller, how you should never kick or punch a boy there unless
he’s bothering you, and </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">never </span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">allow
one to touch you, elaborating on mammals, hair, breasts, egg sacs, you name it.
I’m not sure how long I stayed listening to my father’s lecture, but Mrs.
Harkins left the bathroom somewhat bewildered. The pineapple dress was washed,
ironed, and folded into a bag of hand-me-downs, and my mother celebrated by
buying me a pair of itchy wool pants.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The subject of sex did not come up
again until the fall of seventh grade. Our new science teacher, Mr. Prewitt,
had driven his motorcycle through Turkey to Iran. He wore wire-rimmed glasses
and dark brown corduroy pants with suede ankle boots and walked the length of
our classroom in long, measured strides, stopping to push back long hair behind
his ears to make a point. I adored him. So forthcoming was he with his
knowledge that he made our other teachers look stingy, sticking to their
carefully composed curriculums. In Mr. Prewitt’s class the bell always seemed to
ring just minutes after we’d begun, and each day I left wondering what he had
in store for tomorrow. In November, he announced that we would finish the
semester learning about the human reproductive system, reminding us to bring
fresh notebooks and be prepared to do some drawings while ignoring our stifled
gasps and snickers. Having had an extensive introduction to the subject over
tea and cake, I felt confident. Little did I know of the turmoil brewing behind
the scenes in the principal’s office. Not having sanctioned preemptive sex education,
parents were in an uproar. The principal had asked my mother to intervene
knowing she was well liked, respected, and as a nurse, could persuade the
parents that their kids would only benefit from knowing the facts. What
followed was more tea and cake – only this time she hosted forty anxious
parents, and her diplomacy paid off. How comforting it was over the next few
weeks to sit in Mr. Prewitt’s class, to follow the path of his yellow chalk as
he drew the now familiar shapes, and copy them in my brand new spiral notebook.
I owe that A+ to my mother.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This fall with the election looming
and the on-going archaic discussion over contraception, abortion, and Planned
Parenthood, I am reminded again of my mother’s eloquent anatomy lesson and her
insistence on a sovereign self. I daresay that midwives are better equipped
than politicians to insist on a woman’s right to make decisions about her body,
but I can’t help wonder which candidate would speak to his children with ease
and candor about these issues and ensure the rights of our daughters and grand
daughters. The fact is my parents taught me about sex the same way they taught
me how to swim, drive, fold laundry, sew a button, and boil an egg. It was
sensible, matter-of-fact, and always with a touch of humor. And thanks to Mr.
Prewitt, who traveled across the world to another continent to teach a bunch of
awkward, pubescent seventh graders about sex, a few of us managed to grow up informed
and unencumbered by ancient dogma. Their pragmatism is sorely missed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Donia Bijanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15765742439428978896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1362875697582365079.post-83577075322495362682012-05-14T20:51:00.000-07:002012-05-15T11:09:08.101-07:00Morning Cake<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKb9ldu9wNOXOvHEuhyfVwETxf-a8_6EVGbft2qo8-b78IBOEJDjgsjCU9Jwv3ikudpQdLPeVB9wbDFZnqX_3yqjP6FOrGwLdRFJPLiLaOYmDCt4TmE_ZT5jrXBndnqmSkZQRRuiGW5kQ/s1600/in-the-night-kitchen-print-c10046791.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKb9ldu9wNOXOvHEuhyfVwETxf-a8_6EVGbft2qo8-b78IBOEJDjgsjCU9Jwv3ikudpQdLPeVB9wbDFZnqX_3yqjP6FOrGwLdRFJPLiLaOYmDCt4TmE_ZT5jrXBndnqmSkZQRRuiGW5kQ/s320/in-the-night-kitchen-print-c10046791.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">The first book I bought for my son
was </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">In the Night Kitchen</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">, by Maurice
Sendak. He wasn’t born yet and he didn’t have a name, but the ultrasound gave
us a clear picture and the very next day, I was off to <a href="http://www.keplers.com/" target="_blank">Kepler’s bookstore</a>. I
even inscribed it right there at the register: </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">For my</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"> </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">son and his good appetite</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">. It hardly mattered that I had discovered this book
in my twenties—it’s supple and squishy illustrations of the </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">bakers
who bake till dawn so we can</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"> </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">have
cake in the morn</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">, spoke to me. At the time
I was working ungodly bakers’ hours, sleepwalking the streets of downtown San
Francisco to my job in a basement kitchen where I made enormous tubs of muffin
batter.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">So while my husband went to the
paint store for cans of sky blue, my mother bought spools of yarn, and my
sister brought over her daughter’s rocking horse, I started my son’s library.
Soon his bookshelf held an impressive collection, from </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">The Polar Express</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">, </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">The Giving</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"> </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Tree</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"> and </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Stone
Soup</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">, to </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Rascal</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">, </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">The Phantom Tollbooth</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">, and </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">To Kill a Mocking Bird</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">. But the very first, and the books we read most
often, were Sendak’s, such that Max, Mickey and Pierre were part of our family.
We read them once, we read them twice, and we always made our <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syAtmgKqc9c&feature=related" target="_blank">chicken soup with rice</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Last year, I listened to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/books/maurice-sendak-childrens-author-dies-at-83.html?pagewanted=all" target="_blank">Maurice Sendak’s</a> last interview on <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/05/08/152248901/fresh-air-remembers-author-maurice-sendak" target="_blank">Fresh Air </a>while driving home. It sounded like Terry
Gross was choking back tears, too, when Sendak said, “Almost certainly I will
go before you so I won’t have to miss you. I will cry my way all the way to the
grave. Live your life, live your life, live your life.” Remembering his earlier
interviews, when he said the monsters in </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">The Wild Things Are</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"> were modeled after the adults in his life (he had
found grown-ups grotesque and never wanted to grow up to look like them with
their yellow teeth, big ears and hideous hairs coming out of their noses) I
wondered who looked back, when, as an old man, he’d catch a glimpse of himself
in the mirror. Defying the world of adults, I bet he saw a ten year old boy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Lately, my son has been spending a
lot of time at the stove on Sunday mornings— inventing pancakes with sautéed
bananas and chocolate, berries and yogurt, and last week, with a potato he dug
out of the backyard (a compost gift). I stay out of his way, resisting the urge
to butt in and flip the bananas, busying myself with the coffee press and
taking photos of his creations to send to friends who inevitably reply “The
apple doesn’t fall…,” and all that and I say, “Nah, he just has a good
appetite.” I predicted it. More than a few have asked for his deep dish pancake
recipe. So on Sunday, we poured milk in the batter and remembered Maurice
Sendak, reading </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzzdx54evWc" target="_blank">In The Night Kitchen</a></span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"> out
loud for what may have been the thousandth time. It was Mother’s Day, so I sat
on a stool with a cup of coffee watching the careful preparation of morning
cake with the season’s first cherries.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Thank you Maurice.</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>Donia Bijanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15765742439428978896noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1362875697582365079.post-31472358668079533682012-05-08T12:20:00.001-07:002012-05-10T08:48:50.585-07:00Writing Workshop<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin4Uh8RKg5kCY-VzMzuswsxMEncWQRKrnif407uWodk7xGtOjHwrivP-gg8_r7qKcUduh5KqUM0zHcwEfdUE_CE7Q4GNUd7O84-W_HVdQx2p4p2ooOXoY_sazc-K8Dw6h3_SIK_C3n9GI/s1600/Pierre_Bonnard_BOP002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin4Uh8RKg5kCY-VzMzuswsxMEncWQRKrnif407uWodk7xGtOjHwrivP-gg8_r7qKcUduh5KqUM0zHcwEfdUE_CE7Q4GNUd7O84-W_HVdQx2p4p2ooOXoY_sazc-K8Dw6h3_SIK_C3n9GI/s320/Pierre_Bonnard_BOP002.jpg" width="274" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"> <i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Pierre Bonnard, The Letter 1906</span></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">At eleven, I was an awkward sixth
grader at the Tehran International School where we were taught in English and
Farsi. But on the slow bus ride home, sheets of rain falling against the
windshield, you heard Norwegian, Hindi, or French in high-pitched voices rising
above Radio Tehran’s tinny broadcast from the driver’s transistor radio.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Ever since my mother had started
her new job, I had been letting myself in with a key she had duplicated for me
on a Mickey Mouse keychain. I fretted over the key – turning it in my palm like
worry beads from the moment I shut the door in the morning until I pushed it
into the lock every afternoon. When the bus dropped me off, I took the stairs
two at a time to get inside. I missed our afternoons. With my father at work until
ten and my sisters away at college, I wasn’t crazy about coming home to an
empty apartment. It took me a while to get used to sitting down alone and
pulling pieces of braided bread to spread with jam she had left on the kitchen
table next to a tin of cocoa and a note she had written that morning before
leaving for work. She wrote—sometimes in English, sometimes in Farsi, on
flowery stationery I had given for her birthday—detailed descriptions of our
dinner, a recipe for salad dressing, a funny reminder about boxer shorts drying
on the balcony, and her thoughts about my science project or a book she was
reading. That my mother would sit down and write a letter to her daughter while
she ate her toast every morning seems Victorian, but she wrote without a trace
of prudishness, filling sheets of violet paper with ideas and humor and warmth.
Until then, I had filled my composition books with dull paragraphs that read
like lists, but her writing read like a conversation you felt privileged to be
a part of. I read them again and again, filling the hours until she came home,
then paced near the window overlooking the street hoping to catch a glimpse of
her car before she turned into our driveway. I chopped cucumbers and tomatoes
for our salad, stirred a dressing with lemon juice and olive oil, and counted
to one hundred before checking the street again.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">In my case the term latchkey kid is
unjust. It implies neglect or the stretching of a family’s fabric. The intimacy
of those letters proved that I was my mother’s confidante and when I read them,
I felt cared for. Cherished. I began writing letters back. In fact, I became
obsessed with paper—spending hours at the corner sundry shop in front of their
small display of stationery and school supplies, taking an eternity to decide
on a tablet of lined or blank sheets. I held the new notebook in my hands like
a prayer book, hoping to fill its pages with words that I would later fold and
leave on my mother’s pillow. Often, they were apologies—like </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">I’m sorry I
used the wrong sponge to wash the dishes</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">,
or </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">I didn’t mean to ignore your friend’s daughter who is a year
younger than me</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">, and so on.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">This letter exchange continued in
my adulthood. While dating my husband, I was working grueling hours and he was
often traveling for work. It was the era before email and we wrote to each
other every day. Coming home dead tired I’d find an envelope in my mailbox with
a seductive red and blue airmail trim, my name and address in his boyish
handwriting. There was no way I was going to wait until morning to write back.
Still enamored with paper, I chose the sheets lovingly and slowly we learned
about each other. Now that’s Victorian! Even now, if one of us is leaving early
or coming home later than usual, tender reminders are left on the kitchen
counter. When our son learned to read, we tucked notes into his lunch box
written in big block letters—</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">I HOPE THIS IS THE</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"> </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">BEST BURRITO YOU HAVE EVER EATEN!</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">, or under his pillow from the tooth fairy, that gradually grew
lengthier with illustrations and jokes. So far his replies to us have been
brief, sometimes apologetic—</span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Sorry, I left the light on</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">. But apart from the words, we are knowing each other
through our handwriting—the small close print, the big loopy cursive, tell us
we are cared for. Cherished.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">I don’t have my mother’s letters.
They were left behind along with every glass and every spoon in our home in
Tehran when we were forced into exile, but the writing lessons, even the
recipes and reminders, are embedded in me like a constant companion. </span></div>
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<br /></div>Donia Bijanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15765742439428978896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1362875697582365079.post-72853051548600463852012-05-01T08:59:00.002-07:002012-05-01T09:00:18.528-07:00In Celebration of Mother’s Day with Donia Bijan, Author of Maman's Homesick Pie<br />
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 1em; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.429em; margin-bottom: 0.714em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Menlo Park author and renowned chef Donia Bijan will discuss her book, Maman’s Homesick Pie: A PERSIAN HEART IN AN AMERICAN KITCHEN on Sunday, May 6<sup style="line-height: 0;">th</sup> from 3-5 pm at the Menlo Park Council Chambers, 701 Laurel Street. Part memoir/part cookbook, Ms. Bijan uses the language of food to tell her story, and to honor her mother from whom she learned to cook and to follow her dreams.</span></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 1em; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.429em; margin-bottom: 0.714em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Ms. Bijan and her book have received praise from numerous national publications such as Family Circle and Publishers Weekly:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">“Treat yourself to this delectable debut …ultimately this memoir is a loving tribute to her mother, her heritage—and food. Pour yourself a cup of cardamom tea (recipe included), and indulge in this savory slice of life.” —<em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Family Circle</b></em></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">A “wonderfully written memoir … so well rendered … Bijan writes movingly of her parents’ accomplishments, their difficulty adjusting to their new home, and her own burgeoning love of food and cooking … Like the perfect dessert, each chapter ends with recipes.”—<em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Publishers Weekly</b></em></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">For more information about the author and her book visit: <b>www.doniabijan.com.</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">For event details, call Roberta Roth at 650-330-2512 or e-mail Roberta at <a href="mailto:rlroth@menlopark.org" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">rlroth@menlopark.org</a>.</span></div>
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<br /></div>Donia Bijanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15765742439428978896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1362875697582365079.post-36323862793571596942012-04-11T09:34:00.000-07:002012-04-11T09:34:08.411-07:00Thorny with a Big Heart<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl6aS_X5g8a-Q3wbVIGlNnpj5MhTCbdc6C7SX3mpRdT8SzwB4nPwfyP2fYb4VsAzs6qu01JxPU6ND2VUJ7Doq5ZBmSNMg0P2-89jhXQaO2UtdbKEr8Rqtv3D98rwh218Z7LnF-QRBkzrc/s1600/photo-4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl6aS_X5g8a-Q3wbVIGlNnpj5MhTCbdc6C7SX3mpRdT8SzwB4nPwfyP2fYb4VsAzs6qu01JxPU6ND2VUJ7Doq5ZBmSNMg0P2-89jhXQaO2UtdbKEr8Rqtv3D98rwh218Z7LnF-QRBkzrc/s320/photo-4.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Who can resist the allure of an artichoke – the bud of a thistle flower? I was a freshman in college during my first spring in California, when a girl in my dorm came back from a trip downtown with a bag of artichokes. She got permission to use the roach infested kitchen – reserved for upperclassmen – to boil them and invited a few us to join her at the picnic tables outside the cafeteria, where we plucked and dipped the thorny leaves in Miracle Whip. The days were longer and I remember we stayed out there until dusk, leisurely stacking the damp discarded leaves like a deck of cards and fanning them out until the sun went down. Those days, it seemed we had all the time in the world.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Although I enjoyed my share of doughy Domino’s pizza, I often sought the nutty taste of artichokes. From March through May you could buy four for a dollar at the grocery store, and for twenty five cents I had dinner that lasted longer than a bowl of ramen. Soon, lemon juice and olive oil replaced the cloying mayonnaise, and of course, nothing was more rewarding than scooping out the fuzzy choke and biting into that warm meaty heart. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">I didn’t know then that artichokes are a California commodity. The first farms were planted on a few acres near Half Moon Bay by Italian immigrants in the late 1800s. The cool foggy summers, mild winters and proximity to the ocean were the perfect growing climate, producing a heavy spring crop and a lighter fall crop that today provides nearly one hundred percent of the nation’s supply. It’s a labor-intensive plant requiring hand harvesting with a knife and tossing the buds into a sack that workers carry on their backs as they walk in between the rows. Attempts at developing thorn-free varieties that can be harvested year round have not been able to surpass the taste of the perennial Green Globe. So from now until May, we feast on artichokes – steamed, grilled, braised, fried, raw, buried under ashes or stuffed – nothing spells spring quite like it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">It wasn’t until I went to France that my whole-steamed method seemed archaic. I was given crates of artichokes to prep and watched wide-eyed as my fellow cooks stripped the silvery green suit of armor going straight for the heart, whacking away at great speed and amassing mountains of leaves. The shelves in the walk-in refrigerator held buckets of artichoke hearts with long trimmed stems like old fashioned champagne glasses floating in acidulated water. I learned to shred through cases but never stopped lamenting the waste of all those teaspoons of flesh at the base of each leaf. Later, working for a frugal chef, I boiled the leaves and scraped their ends to make a luscious puree with lemon, shallots and butter for an exquisitely simple rack of lamb.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Back in California, I waited for March and the first sign of my prickly crop to launch the spring menu. We paraded them in a butter lettuce salad with chunks of seared foie gras, in lemony broths poached with fish and saffron, on savory tarts with hazelnut butter and ricotta, and yes, we scrimped and scraped the leaves to fill ravioli. And when the first case of baby artichokes arrived, we braised them with carrots and pearl onions, dry white wine and bay leaves, to eat warm in a shallow bowl with good crusty bread – unhurried, like we had all the time in the world.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">L’Amie Donia’s Braised Artichokes<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Serves 4-6</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">2 carrots</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">½ pound pearl onions</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">2 garlic cloves, crushed</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">1 bay leaf</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">2 sprigs of thyme</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">2 pounds baby artichokes or 6-8 medium artichokes</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">2 lemons and zest of one</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">¼ teaspoon saffron</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">5 tablespoons olive oil</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">1 cup dry white wine</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Vegetable broth or water</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">1 tablespoon capers</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">1 tablespoon chopped Italian parsley</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">-Peel the carrots and cut into ¼ inch slices. Peel the pearl onions and leave whole.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">-Cut the stems of the artichokes and cut about ¾ inch off the tops, then break off 2 rows of leaves from the base and trim the bottoms. Gently spread the leaves of each artichoke and use a small spoon to remove the choke. Place in a bowl of cold water with the juice of one lemon.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">-In a heavy saucepan, warm 4 tablespoons of olive oil over low heat. Slowly cook the carrots and onions until they begin to turn golden. Arrange the artichokes in the pan in a single layer. Add the bay leaf, fresh thyme, crushed garlic, the juice and zest of one lemon, saffron, and salt and pepper to taste.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">-Pour the wine over the artichokes and add vegetable broth or water until they are just immersed. Cover and cook over medium heat for 15-20 minutes, then remove the lid, add capers, and reduce the cooking liquid over medium high heat. Use the tip of a paring knife to test the artichokes and remove from heat when they are tender.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">-Sprinkle with parsley and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Serve warm in a bowl with good bread to mop up the juices, or as a side dish with roast lamb, rabbit, or fish.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
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</div><!--EndFragment-->Donia Bijanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15765742439428978896noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1362875697582365079.post-72572527765271442152012-03-20T08:55:00.001-07:002012-03-20T09:18:41.514-07:00A Taste For Small Things<div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b><br />
</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy31dikCoiq1ytra7l0LGe4HQisjaPmzxbNDAxZFvf96ojf4I92tsIihsOY0rfv_fwl9sQYsiio-YdUjLCt3OOTAIR1sgAtYAEIXnZu-SMwozPpV9NgrixLG89iXsVDAb0pSP0LQSIBgQ/s1600/P1050045.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy31dikCoiq1ytra7l0LGe4HQisjaPmzxbNDAxZFvf96ojf4I92tsIihsOY0rfv_fwl9sQYsiio-YdUjLCt3OOTAIR1sgAtYAEIXnZu-SMwozPpV9NgrixLG89iXsVDAb0pSP0LQSIBgQ/s320/P1050045.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">There is a quirky Persian market a half hour away, beloved by my family not only for its delicious grilled kebabs, but for the dry humor of the cranky old-timers who run the register and the take-out counter. I don’t have to drive twelve miles to buy parsley, leeks, and dill, but my list is filled with longing and the herbs are just an excuse. The Rose Market gives me a taste of home; to sniff packets of sumac and cardamom, even cakes of soap; to eavesdrop on the easy banter between the clerks—how I love to hear their voices over the static of a loudspeaker calling the kebab orders like life sentences to guys who man the grill—<i>Two chicken, two koobideh. For here!</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> I linger in the tea isle and study the script on each tin, I fondle jars of fig and sour cherry jam, filling my basket with </span><i>lavashak - </i><span style="font-style: normal;">pomegranate fruit leather, pistachio halva, and </span><i>noghl - </i><span style="font-style: normal;">sugar coated almonds. If I need saffron, I know the mister keeps it under the cash register like hundred dollar bills. When I tease him about his secret stash, he hands me a tiny cellophane envelope filled with delicate threads, like crimson hay. Here, good things come in small packages.<u></u><u></u></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">When I first met my husband, he was a regular at <a href="http://www.yelp.com/biz/rose-international-market-mountain-view" target="_blank">The Rose Market</a>. Every Saturday morning, after a pick-up soccer game, he joined two Iranian teammates for lunch, and there he was introduced to Persian cuisine. Ah, the things we do for love. Eager to please my family, he asked his friends to teach him Farsi and they obliged. Later, while boasting to my mother that they had ordered <i>koobideh</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, a ground beef kebab, </span><i>gojeh</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, a grilled tomato, and </span><i>dool - </i><span style="font-style: normal;">penis, for lunch, she howled knowing his friends had set a trap. “You mean </span><i>doogh</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, honey. Not </span><i>dool!</i><span style="font-style: normal;">” she corrected. “Yes, the fizzy yogurt drink. It’s delicious!” he replied. No doubt.<u></u><u></u></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Passing years have not diminished my enthusiasm for the charms of Rose Market. I anticipate the long drive like a dog wags its tail before leaving for a walk. It begins in the morning as I’m staring out the window at the first blossom on the crabapple tree. By the time the breakfast dishes are done, I’ve composed a list: dried mulberries, sugar cubes, feta, cucumbers, but I’ll come home with much more. I don’t want to leave looking over my shoulder, wondering if I might have forgotten something. Each ingredient yields a twin I would not want to leave behind, tea for sugar cubes, yogurt for cucumbers, lavash for feta. But these trips are quotidian compared to our Norouz pilgrimage. That’s when I make up for all the wish lists I never wrote to Santa.<u></u><u></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">Norouz, the Persian New Year, coincides with the first day of spring and in my efforts to get it right, to follow tradition and uphold a cherished holiday, I look to my grumpy grocer. The shelves at The Rose are stocked with everything from hyacinth to delicate chickpea cookies scented with rosewater, the owners going so far as bringing in a fish tank and scooping out goldfish for your <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haft-Sin" target="_blank">haftsin</a></i><span style="font-style: normal;">, the symbolic table you will likely find in every Iranian household days before March 20<sup>th</sup>. I sense the old-timers are on my side. They will send me home with everything I need to celebrate like a pro.<u></u><u></u></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">When I’ve marinated my fish with lemon peel and salt, and washed the fresh herbs for <i>sabzi polo</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, a rice dish as quintessential as turkey on Thanksgiving, I am once again an apprentice to the alchemist, a student of Persian cuisine. No matter how many times I’ve made this dish, after chopping dill, parsley, and cilantro, spooning layers of rice with herbs, cinnamon, leeks, and green garlic, then wrapping the lid of my rice pot with a dishtowel to trap the steam, I still feel the eyes of generations before me with raised eyebrows and their discontent. </span><i>Humph!</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span><i>Look how coarsely she chopped the herbs. My God that rice is begging for butter! Where is the fenugreek? Did you see how stingy she was with the cinnamon?</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> I drizzle more butter and say grace because an apprentice is never sure if she got it right, always getting by on a song and a prayer with a little help from the fellas.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc;">NPR's <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/03/20/148982771/ringing-in-norouz-a-time-for-family-and-good-eats" target="_blank">Tell Me More</a> is doing a wonderful broadcast all about Norouz on Tuesday March 20th.</span></i></div>Donia Bijanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15765742439428978896noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1362875697582365079.post-72171888813219654012012-03-10T19:09:00.001-08:002012-03-10T19:12:49.658-08:00Vernal Equinox<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKZXm1ZeN0x5-whHQhcU1UZC6qsW7MGyWRePbCwl_snpZA52M8-Sw9sUVc2Sm4JLVkV8mdMqPKC44ah1VNHItxyE_mWxJ1tQ1qF7cWjbng_JmJqFA7kyqEwM0wYZOEtn6LZqPfOJvndBc/s1600/Luca's+blossoms.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKZXm1ZeN0x5-whHQhcU1UZC6qsW7MGyWRePbCwl_snpZA52M8-Sw9sUVc2Sm4JLVkV8mdMqPKC44ah1VNHItxyE_mWxJ1tQ1qF7cWjbng_JmJqFA7kyqEwM0wYZOEtn6LZqPfOJvndBc/s320/Luca's+blossoms.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Daylight savings precedes the first day of spring, but that moment when the sun crosses the earth’s celestial equator, making night and day of equal length all over the earth will be on March 19<sup>th</sup>, at 10:14 pm PST. Perhaps after such a mild winter it isn’t worth noting the actual date. After all, trees are already blossoming, and the other day, my husband opened the trunk to display a dazzling selection of perennials in pinks, oranges, and whites to plant in the backyard. But the spring equinox marks the Persian New Year, a holiday we have not forsaken in exile. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nowruz" target="_blank">Norooz</a> ceremonies are symbolic of the reawakening of nature, its rituals dating back three thousand years. In the weeks prior to the new year, homes are swept clean, new clothes are sewn or purchased, seeds are germinated for sprouts, and a ceremonial table is set with the seven dishes that herald spring and rebirth. As part of a generation that straddles two cultures, we are the sons and daughters who sweep what remains of our parents’ dreams for peace and a new beginning.<u></u><u></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">My earliest memories of Norooz carry the scent of hyacinth and toasted almonds, slivered and caramelized with saffron and honey. My grandmother served them with tea when we paid our first day of spring visit, noticing at last, my new suede shoes. I had insisted on them, even though they were too tight and my heels were scraped. I couldn’t resist the soft two-tone tassels, one mauve, one rose. Every year, in early March, my mother shepherded us through the shops that lined the avenues of Tehran to buy new clothes for the holiday, calling on a seamstress to make our dresses. I pictured bright patterns, sashes and satin collars, but after standing still for too long to be pinned and measured, I inevitably ended up in a modest shift with cap sleeves—like ordering chicken after you’ve considered chateaubriand. The trees along the wide boulevards were in full bloom, shopkeepers kept longer hours, serenading us with <i>saz o avaz</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, our holiday “carols”, if you will, filling those early evenings with music and promise. To me, the world smelled like flowers.<u></u><u></u></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">The other day, I sat next to my son on the floor surrounded by Legos, watching him maneuver gently like Gulliver between Lilliputian rooftop gardens, garages, fountains with statues surrounded by park benches, and a car wash. Even in Lego City there were signs of spring and I was compelled to ask what Norooz meant to him. Year after year, he’s watched me fumble through preparations for a holiday that falls somewhere between Valentine’s Day and Easter, a cherished tradition that we, as Iranian Americans, hold dear lest we lose this hallmark of our homeland, too. I was curious to know if it mattered to him whether we set the<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haft-Sin" target="_blank"> <i>haftsin</i></a><span style="font-style: normal;">, the symbolic table with seven elements of life, namely </span><i>sabzeh</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, wheat sprouts representing rebirth; </span><i>sib</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, apple, a symbol of health; sumac, which mirrors the color of sunrise; </span><i>sekeh</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, coins for prosperity; </span><i>serkeh</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, vinegar, representing the wisdom of age; </span><i>seer</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, garlic, a tribute to health;</span><i>senjed</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, the dried fruit of a lotus tree, symbolic of love, and other components such as a flowering hyacinth, candles lit for every child in the family, painted eggs, goldfish, a volume of poems by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafez" target="_blank">Hafez</a>, and a mirror to reflect everything we hope for in the new year, to be mindful and present. I wondered if he would miss buying goldfish and giving them silly Farsi names, coloring eggs, going to the bank for crisp dollar bills (the only gift exchange being new money for children), spring cleaning, or buying new shoes. Would he look in the pantry cupboard for the clover shaped chickpea cookies he adored? His answer came slowly but clearly, that mostly he liked celebrating something unique, different from the other holidays: “It’s not commercial…you don’t see the junk at Target.” If a nightingale lit on my shoulder at that moment and sang, it would not have sounded sweeter.<u></u><u></u></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Yes, it mattered. That I am still learning how to tend wheat sprouts for the <i>haftsin</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> isn’t important. For too long, I had relied on my mother to carry the tradition, not paying close enough attention to how it all came together—like a terrific Thanksgiving meal you show up for with a napkin tucked in your collar. I’m no longer a visiting grandchild to a scene where smoke from my grandfather’s pipe floats above my face when he reaches to put a gold coin in my pocket. An immigrant’s career continues as long as there are children walking between us, mapping the space between their parents and grandparents. It’s not enough to sit them down and tell them stories about the ancient land of Persia and its empire. Singing them a version of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vQpW9XRiyM" target="_blank">Glory Days</a> won’t suffice, for they are </span><i>over</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. We have to plant real gardens, in real earth, in front of our new homes, and when the hyacinth blooms, to bring the scent inside and tell them: “This, this is what Norooz smells like.”</span></span></div>Donia Bijanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15765742439428978896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1362875697582365079.post-37473738227039180202012-03-01T07:58:00.002-08:002012-03-01T08:57:19.349-08:00Masterful<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDdote2YKYVdOfhQVa9zctobmMCeR-ZTZTf9UuTL5Pg5RT1JUfpQomwxpdmCj-OQ9dook3IDZ27o2sPlaAlN5jlFpfynZkr4HVvKCHWLVqsyo33DHxNdU2BLE74hjgaMyoHV_qCmxZthQ/s1600/robert-motherwell-the-blue-painting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDdote2YKYVdOfhQVa9zctobmMCeR-ZTZTf9UuTL5Pg5RT1JUfpQomwxpdmCj-OQ9dook3IDZ27o2sPlaAlN5jlFpfynZkr4HVvKCHWLVqsyo33DHxNdU2BLE74hjgaMyoHV_qCmxZthQ/s320/robert-motherwell-the-blue-painting.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Robert Motherwell, 1973 "Blue Painting"</span></div><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Heidi swam an elegant backstroke. Extending her arms in long powerful arches like a painter gone mad with his brush—coloring crescent moons blue with sweeping motions across his canvas. So when I picture her now, it is always in the pool, on her back, her eyes looking up at the clouds and migrating birds, swinging her arms in that carefree look-at-me-I’m-a-bird way.<u></u><u></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Eight years ago, I was a rookie <a href="http://menlomasters.com/" target="_blank">masters swimmer</a> and she welcomed me warmly in the pre-dawn hours. Heidi made sure she <i>knew </i><span style="font-style: normal;">who she was swimming with—no anonymity allowed, waiting for us at the wall to make sure we all knew the warm-up, but more importantly, to say hello, and always, always, greeting us with: “It’s so nice to see you.” And an hour later, when we heard Coach Tim call: “That’s a wrap.”, she’d look in your eyes and say: “Thank you for swimming with me.” Really.<u></u><u></u></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Our friendship was limited to time spent at the pool and in the showers, but what struck me was that Heidi didn’t waste time on small talk, delving into conversations about travel, marriage, your new baby, movies, and being an avid reader, books. She talked to everyone indiscriminately and earnestly like the child who waves hello from his car seat to people in adjacent cars. And sometimes, you would almost be annoyed with this goodwill ambassador, but not for long, for she disarmed you with her open smile. Because it wasn’t so much friendliness, but her genuine interest in knowing what you cared about, who you were underneath the swim cap and goggles. She asked good questions and listened for your answer with her head tilted, as if what you had to say was all she cared about.<u></u><u></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">When Heidi had a stroke, we swam, filling our days with yards. What else were we to do? Some people pray. Some people swim. We did a lot of both—convinced that if we swam hard enough, long enough, she would come back to us. One thing I’ve learned about swimmers is, we’re a dogged bunch. Fill a three-foot hole with water, we’ll jump in and try to do laps.<u></u><u></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">They say that when loved ones die, they leave a hole. Heidi’s loss on the other hand, has filled us with a capacity to love we didn’t know we had—our hearts have grown fonder, of each other, of water, of trees, rain, sun, clouds, grueling work-outs, warm showers. We’ve become like the mad painter, filling our canvas with blues, imitating her arc.<u></u><u></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div>Donia Bijanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15765742439428978896noreply@blogger.com3