Homesick Pie

Trial By Fire

2012-02-23T20:47:00.003-08:00

Mitchell Johnson Broadway & Laguna, 2010 28x16 inches

I spent my second night in San Francisco in the apartment I had just rented from Mrs. Lupescu at the top of a four-story on Pacific Avenue, around the corner from the Hyde street cable car. And there I stayed for seven years, subletting from time to time to go back to France. I had come from Paris with a diploma, a set of copper pots, a tin of fluted cookie cutters, a moka coffee pot, and a knapsack. I owned no television, no toaster, no dresser. My family quickly supplied me with hand-me-downs: a foldout couch, sheets and towels, mismatched bowls, cutlery, and an iron. Although I only wore t-shirts and jeans, I needed to iron my white chef’s coat and checkered pants.

My first job was at Campton Place, a posh hotel on Union Square, where I was filling in for the morning baker on leave. A young American chef stood at the helm, trailblazing the way for American cuisine. Critics were swooning over his pot roast, the baked potatoes with bacon, creamed spinach and butterscotch pudding. I took this temporary position to get my foot in the door, not realizing that my French culinary pedigree was useless in this kitchen where it quickly became apparent that what I knew of haute-American baking was limited to Mrs. Field’s chocolate chip cookies (a rare treat the summer I worked as a girl-Friday in a downtown San Francisco office). My resume read that I had apprenticed at a bakery in Paris and that was good enough. “Be here tomorrow morning at four.”

I made my way downtown in the pre-dawn hours when the only sounds came from foghorns on the bay and buzzing cable car lines. I wore a parka over my uniform but the wind was strong and it flapped about my knees, opening and closing, and I wished I could ride the trolley. There is a clear headedness that comes from tramping out before sunrise, you can feel heir to the city that still sleeps. At three-forty I walked through the employee entrance like I owned the place.

Pam greeted me in the far corner of the kitchen behind a deck of pizza ovens that were already roaring at four hundred and fifty degrees warming her cheeks pink. Two was a crowd in the cramped carved-out space for the pastry chef and his crew, but we were both small and I stood at her elbow while she explained the morning routine. We started out making an enormous batch of muffin batter. Sleeves rolled up to her biceps, I watched her fold eggs, cream and melted butter into flour with her hands. “You can use a spatula if you like.” she sighed, seeing the doubtful look on my face. I emptied baskets of blueberries into the lumpy mass and helped her scoop the mix into greased muffin tins. When they were done, row after row of gold and blue domes cooled on a rack behind us and we feasted on the first warm muffins of the day, slathering them with butter from a fifty pound brick. And when we stirred heavy cream in our coffee, I confessed that I had never made muffins before. “What did you do – before you came here?” Our eyes met – her’s, narrow slits. “I made croissants, brioche, madeleines.” “Well then, we haven’t got much time.” She was leaving the next day.

If you’ve ordered a continental breakfast in any hotel, you know how it varies from place to place. How the apricot danish can be a sad soggy mess or real fruit tucked into a glorious circle of light crispy dough. Campton Place prided itself on its exquisite basket of morning glories—cheese danish, raisin bread, coffee cake, banana poppy seed muffins, sticky buns, all served with homemade preserves and crocks of butter. The bread basket at lunch was equally enticing with an array of chive buttermilk biscuits, whole wheat rolls sweetened with molasses, and corn sticks. When Pam went through the morning baker’s tasks, she assumed I had some prior knowledge of Fannie Farmer fare. I may have eaten my share of sticky buns but I had no idea how to make one. We had less than six hours to bring me up to speed and we threw back our last sips of coffee before launching into a marathon training session.

Hurled from the basement of Paris’ most esteemed patisserie to the basement of a lauded San Francisco hotel is a little like going from selling silk stockings at Bergdorf Goodman in New York to snake skin boots at Nieman Marcus. Where both strive for uncompromised quality, one is understated, the other has something to prove. One knew they had the best croissants in Paris, the other was re-imagining the breads we had forfeited for the sake of packaged convenience, thus reminding us of our own treasures: cream biscuits, corn muffins, popovers, Shaker pie, sour cream coffee cake and so on. I felt sorry for Pam—not only did she end up with a je-ne-sais-quoi rookie, the girl shadowing her, replacing her, carried a green card and hadn’t sat on her grandmother’s lap at Thanksgiving eating pumpkin pie.

Thus my first day on the job—studying Pam, her ease as she kneaded big round loaves, her purpose when her nubbly hands swept flour on the wood counter. She traveled the small space between the ovens, the standing mixer, the sink and cooling racks like a dancer, humming between commands. Where she glided, I wrestled. My limbs got in the way, and even with hips as slim as a boy’s, I managed to bump into appliances. And as if there wasn’t enough to do, we hulled a flat of ripe strawberries for preserves. While jam bubbled on the stove, she pulled out cast iron pans shaped like ears of corn and explained corn sticks, instructing me to preheat the heavy molds in the oven before piping in the batter. I spooned the mixture into a pastry bag (at least I knew how to do that), but when I opened the oven door to pull the molds out, Pam stopped me: “They’ll lose their heat. You have to stick your head in the oven and fill ‘em.” No time for questions, lunch service was about to begin and the waiters looked in on us, agitated, tapping their watches—the sticks were to go into the bread baskets, hot. So I rounded my shoulders and stuck my head in the blackened space. I remembered a show where a woman’s hair burst into flame and everybody laughed. Was it I Love Lucy? This wasn’t funny. My cheeks were burning. The runny batter dripped and sizzled, smoke filled my eyes. The first batch got tossed, the next one, too. These weren’t non-stick pans. I had to scrape away stubborn chips and grease the ears, then line them up in the oven again. The wait staff was furious after having to explain to every table about the fabled corn sticks they had read about in the San Francisco Chronicle. The manager, a no-nonsense stunning woman in an exquisitely tailored ink-black suit, marched in, her heels striking the tile floor like cocking pistols. Pam stood between us. I thought. No. I prayed she would fire me, but she just glared at me, (I remember thinking how pretty her green eyes were) and hissed: “We. Need. Corn. Sticks. Now.” I shuddered in her wake. Don’t cry. Don’t cry, I pleaded silently. Pam put a hand on my shoulder, “Whatever you do, don’t make Chloe mad.”

I never imagined that I would dawdle through my tasks because having just graduated, this was, after all, my first kitchen job, but I didn’t expect to jump into the fire and come home blistered. Surely I would die in that basement—a corpse. I called my mom, of course, but I didn’t tell her about my burns and left out the part about sticking my head in the oven. I pictured her sitting on the edge of her bed, smoothing her skirt with one hand, the other gripping the phone, her knuckles white, wishing but not saying: “Come home.” From that day on, the orbit of my world reduced to the penned space between the pizza ovens and the counter, and my bed where I collapsed every afternoon, rising only to stand in the shower to wash the flour dust from my hair and nurse my burns. On those dark mornings, I summoned Pam’s agility and command. I followed the order of her handwritten instructions on a clipboard that hung from a nail above the sink. I set my alarm earlier and earlier, arriving at two, two thirty, to allow for the mishaps – the blueberry muffins that stuck to the tins, the danish that oozed butter, hiding them in the trash under egg shells and milk cartons, starting over and over and over again. And more than once, I made Chloe mad. One Sunday, when brunch was in full swing, I heard the pistols coming my way. Something about the biscuits being too salty: “You know, we have a re-pu-ta-tion to keep.” She turned and walked slowly back to the dining room. One of the line cooks popped in, wiping the grease from her glasses with a handkerchief: “The coffee cake is delicious today.” I wanted to kiss her.

Two weeks were like two years. Fannie Farmer came to me like Florence Nightingale, slowly making her way, bringing bandages and balm and bravado. For three days in a row, nothing got tossed in the garbage can. Then it was a week. Then I couldn’t remember when I had last seen Chloe. Looking back, I know it was the only way I could have learned that lesson—to mind my reputation.

Wine School

2012-02-02T20:54:00.000-08:00

In the fall of 1985 I was learning to cook at the old Cordon Bleu in Paris, still under the direction of the surly Madame Brassart, before its makeover and transition to its brand new headquarters. Keith was one of my classmates. Tall and lanky with a soft Texas drawl, he’d find a seat next to me during our demonstration classes and interrupt my note-taking with only-in-Paris anecdotes like the neighbor who let his dog poop right in front of their entrance, or the old lady who elbowed past him in the bakery line, or the sour guard in the Louvre who scowled at his attempt to speak French. Then he would proceed to mock me for wasting my time watching the preparation of Faisan en Daube a la Gelee, Daube of Pheasant in Jelly, a complicated dish that involved stuffing the pheasant with truffles, foie gras and forcemeat, cooking it in Madeira, and immersing it in game jelly to serve as a cold appetizer. He could not fathom a room full of students, there for a desire to learn about French cuisine with eyes fixed to the large mirror hanging above our instructor’s stove, unaware of the food carnival on the streets of Paris. No amount of shushing would shut him up. “Why, I didn’t come all the way from Dallas to sit a classroom!” he declared. Eventually he would slink away to go buy his own pheasant and stuff it with nothing but a few sprigs of thyme, and make his own game stock with the feet and discarded bones. Sometimes, I’d get a call late in the evening: “So, Miss Persia, did you learn anything today?” And I would chide him for wasting his daddy’s money and skipping classes.

One morning Keith came to our pastry class with a brochure from a place he had stumbled upon while he was roaming the streets and we were whisking egg whites for chocolate mousse. The Academie du Vin, a little school founded by an Englishman, Steven Spurrier, offered introductory courses in French wine. “Wanna learn something about wine, Miss Persia, or are you going back to San Francisco to tell them you can stuff a duck, but don’t have a clue what wine you’d serve with it?” Although these smug remarks unnerved me, Keith was right. Only I didn’t have his unlimited funds to while away the hours in tea salons and cheese shops, when back home, my mother worked graveyard shifts at the hospital to pay my tuition. Fortunately, it was the golden age when the dollar fetched ten francs, so even on a tight budget, I could spare the sixty five francs for a six-week course.

And so it was that a few nights a week we met at the Madeleine metro and walked along the narrow streets behind the monument to our school—a former locksmith shop adjacent to Mr. Spurrier’s wine store, Les Caves de la Madeleine. Eight of us sat on tall stools along a curved bar while his partner, Pamela, conducted elementary lessons in comparative tasting and grape recognition. There were baskets of good bread and platters of cheese at room temperature, carafes of water, dozens of glasses and an empty ice bucket. I brought a notebook, Keith didn’t. He asked a lot of questions and spat noisily, but there was no way I was going to spit anything in a bucket. She poured, I drank, and soon I would have a hard time balancing my notes, a wine glass, the crusty baguette with camembert, and my pencil, which fell to the ground one more time and Keith reached his long arm to retrieve it while giving me a sidelong glance, amused to see this other side of me that was no longer eager to be the perfect student. When it was time to go, he stood gallantly nearby and watched me wrap myself in my coat, then walked alongside, down the steps to my metro stop, making sure I didn’t tumble forth. “One of these days, Miss Persia, I’m going to teach you how to spit.”

One night we came in from the rain and took our places along the bar. If you were walking by, you would have paused to look inside at the row of devoted backs leaning forward, at our raincoats piled on a coat stand by the door, rows of glasses hanging upside down like chandeliers, and wine bottles with cream colored labels lining the wall. You would have been drawn in by the glowing intimacy of that warmly lit space. We would have made room for you.

That evening, Pamela said she had a surprise for us. Little did she know that every lesson had been a surprise for me. Until then, grapes were green or red, sweet or sour, and sometimes I liked to stuff ten or so at a time in my mouth. “Tonight, you will taste liquid gold.” I’m definitely not spitting that out, I thought. “But,” she continued, I will also introduce you to a magical marriage of flavors.” She poured a Sauterne, pronouncing Chateau d’Yquem with such reverence that we fell silent. If you’re a connoisseur and wondering about the vintage, keep in mind that I was twenty three and prior to this I had been in college drinking boxed Chablis. Those days, no one felt compelled to brag about their wine expertise. She explained about the “noble rot” that causes this blend of semillon, sauvignon blanc, and muscadelle grapes from southern Bordeaux to become raisined, that the color turns from yellow to copper, and with care, will age beautifully well beyond a century. We cradled our glasses and sniffed, anxious for the first sip but waiting for the nod from our instructor. My first thought was this wine was made by bees because what I tasted was cool honey. Then she reached below and brought out baskets of levain bread and platters of blue cheese and encouraged us each to take a morsel of Roquefort and follow it with the chilled Sauterne. We did. It was the first time I understood the meaning of “unctuous” and “rapture”. We sighed, we smiled, we leaned toward each other, our kinship sealed forever in that quiet moment. No one spat. I dropped my pencil and left it there. Pamela looked very pleased.

Weeks later, Keith and I would stop mid-sentence and say “Remember the Roquefort?” or sometimes just, “Remember?” and left it alone—neither of us willing to break the spell. I retrace my steps to this small turning point in my education when I gave myself permission to leave the classroom and wander the streets. I didn’t skip lessons, but spent hours in between, poking around, following a scent into a butcher shop where terrines of duck and rabbit cooled on marble, and a simple s’il vous plait would often lead to samples of cheese, pates, the first cherries. I came home one night with a celery root, an apple, a wedge of Roquefort, no more than four ounces, and assembled a tart in my closet kitchen using a chunk of day-old bread. I called Keith and two other classmates from Spain to come for dinner. The Spaniards brought a chunk of Serrano ham they had carried from a weekend home, and the Texan brought a half bottle of Sauterne. “You shouldn’t waste your daddy’s hard earned money!” I protested. He ignored me.

Celery Root and Apple Galette with Roquefort

Serves 4

1 celery root peeled and sliced 1/8 inch thick

2 apples, Pippins, Sierra Beauties, or Golden Delicious, peeled, cored, and quartered

Kosher salt, black pepper, honey

4 ounces unsalted butter melted

2 tablespoons lemon juice or cider vinegar

Half a loaf of chewy country bread

3 ounces Roquefort cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Toss the apples and celery root with a little salt, fresh ground pepper, 2 tablespoons of honey, 2 tablespoons of butter, and lemon juice or cider vinegar. Spread evenly in a roasting pan, cover and bake 20-25 minutes until the celery root and apples soften. Remove the cover, increase the heat to 400 degrees, and bake an additional 10 minutes to brown.

Turn the oven back to 350 degrees.

Butter a 9 inch pie dish. Slice the bread 1/8 inch thick and line the bottom and sides of your dish, fitting the slices snugly against each other. Brush the bread with melted butter. Spread an even layer of the apple and celery root, crumble half the Roquefort on top, and repeat with another layer of apple, celery root and cheese. Place the remaining slices of bread on top. Brush with butter and press down lightly.

Bake 25-30 minutes until golden brown. To serve, you can slide a knife around the edge of the pie dish and turn out on a platter, or serve wedges directly from the dish with a hearts of butter lettuce salad.

Crazy Stupid Standards

2012-01-27T20:42:00.000-08:00

Pierre Bonnard Nude Bending Down

I wore a skort to school on the first day of third grade. My mother had coaxed, threatened, and bargained before I agreed to wear this hybrid half shorts, half skirt that she had sewn from a beautiful piece of cotton madras for her obstinate daughter. I hoped to remain unnoticed, the loner kid in the schoolyard, but at recess I caught the eye of a precocious classmate with advanced knowledge of girl-boy stuff. “You got great legs!” she hollered loud enough for her entourage to turn and gape at my bare legs. I froze, horrified as if I were standing in my Wednesday underwear, while her friends wondered if their queen had extended an invitation to their circle. That she had said this with genuine surprise revealed her early lessons in female commodities. She may have overheard her father making a similar remark about another woman’s legs—children see and hear everything, after all, and she had adopted the phrase to hurl at me during recess on the first day of school.

So, to my mother’s chagrin, I never again wore the madras shorts with the pretty flap on the front and back, and I avoided the gaggle of girls at recess. But they had made me aware of my legs and I intended on keeping them in corduroys. Forever.

Today, my skort would be the equivalent of a burka—so chaste compared to the ubiquitous tank tops and teeny shorts. Children develop at their own pace, and it took me a while to catch up with these girls who had leapfrogged to adolescence, already sneaking blush and eye shadow to school, passing notes to clueless boys with rocks and dead lizards in their pockets. It is the oldest story. But so is the story of women being subject to standards and codes established by men. How can we shield our daughters from the onslaught of subliminal messages that make them anxious and insecure? Glossy magazines that run articles on what men find hot, and seventy five moves to lure men, elicit a yawn, at best, but not from vulnerable tweens and teens who regard them as textbooks. The magazine racks build shrines to Kim Kardashian while nourishing our girls on a steady diet of bedside astrology and sex tips. Our boys are equally subject to the media’s appalling portrayal of women, blindly following gender stereotypes. An entire generation is raised on American Idol where it has become the norm for aspiring fifteen year olds to be evaluated by lascivious old men and a femme fatale, then shepherded to Hollywood to be groomed and garnished, their ambition compromised.

Recently I saw Crazy, Stupid, Love because my husband’s paintings are in the movie and I love Ryan Gosling (even in his little brother’s clothes). When I told friends that the film left me shaking with rage, they looked at me like I was crazy, maybe a little simple: “Prudence! What’s the big deal?” “It’s just a movie!” It’s Hollywood for Christ’s sake!” Exactly! Hollywood thinks it’s okay for a young girl to seek advice from the school tramp on how to seduce the father of the kids she babysits. How about the parade of young women in bars who follow Ryan Gosling’s character home like zombies? Shall we just sit back and eat our popcorn? Do we really think twelve-year-olds won’t see this film because it’s rated PG-13? If they’re not, the Twilight series will supplement what they missed. This soft-porn soap opera inserts its fangs so cunningly, bewitching even parents who buy the books and accompany their ten, eleven, twelve-year olds to see the movie, where the distorted message seeps like an intravenous needle into their consciousness.

Women of my mother’s generation who fought to elevate our status in society from objects to people are taunted for their mommy jeans, not lauded for their efforts. A woman’s achievements, no matter how great, still pale in comparison to her looks. I realized this is all not just in my head when I saw Miss Representation, written and directed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom. It’s a startling look at the absurd standards the media has created for girls, where beauty and sexuality are valued above intellect and competence. How do we create new leaders who reflect real women, not the bare, hypersexualized images on a screen? How do we surpass the term “girly girl” that diminishes us to creatures dependant on pedicures and glitter? The only way to rise above this is to push back, to take a stand against this degradation of women. Maybe skorts will make a comeback.

Potato Waffles with Crème Fraiche

2012-01-22T11:46:00.000-08:00

Potato Waffles with Crème Fraiche

The first time I ate waffles was on a trip to Disneyland. Until then I had only been in love with the word “waffle” and the warmth it implied. When my mother took me to the amusement park, we stayed at a Travel Lodge and ate breakfast at a nearby diner. Perched side by side on red vinyl stools, we both ordered waffles. Two plates arrived with whipped cream and strawberries piled on top of the hot, golden cakes. We looked at each other and gasped. I just know she was thinking the same thing: “I can’t wait to come back tomorrow!” The next morning, the waitress poured coffee in a brown mug, and remembered how my mother liked her coffee. This small gesture made us feel so welcome and somehow connected to this place – an unsung diner in the maze of Los Angeles, that for years we brought it up: “Remember the waffles…” yet we hardly remembered the rides in the park.

I made these savory waffles for brunch at the hotel’s coffeeshop, where we jumpstarted a tired menu in spite of dubious guests who didn’t want us messing with their breakfast. They demanded we dish out our sad stack of pancakes from the box mix that just calls for water and garnish it with orange slices and curly parsley. There was an early morning showdown between the kitchen and the wait staff – they didn’t want to face cranky businessmen who hadn’t had their coffee yet. At the time, change meant everything to me, I lived for it, and threatened to quit if they stood in my way. It’s beautiful when you’re young and have convictions, even if it’s just about breakfast.

Serve these waffles warm, drizzled with crème fraiche, smoked salmon, chives, and a squeeze of lemon. And if caviar is available, what a New Year’s Day treat.

Yields about a dozen 3 inch waffles

2 large Yukon Gold potatoes

3 large eggs

1½ cups buttermilk

½ cup (1 stick) butter, melted

1½ cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar

¼ to ½ cup of milk to thin the batter if needed

-Peel and chop the potatoes into 1-inch cubes. Use a steamer to cook them over boiling salted water until very tender, about 5-7 minutes. Steaming the potatoes prevents them from becoming water logged. Drain and transfer to a bowl to mash into a puree.

-Whisk together the eggs, buttermilk, and melted butter.

-Add the potato puree to the buttermilk mixture and mix well.

-Combine the dry ingredients. Make a well in the center of the flour and add the buttermilk mixture, stirring just until smooth. If the batter is too thick, you can thin it with milk, added ¼ cup at a time.

-Let the batter rest at room temperature up to 30 minutes or overnight in the refrigerator; the batter improves the longer it rests.

-Pour about ½ cup of batter into a very hot waffle iron and bake until golden and crisp.

Serve hot.

Crème Fraiche

1 cup heavy cream

2 tablespoons buttermilk

-Warm the cream by bringing it to a small boil and removing from heat. Stir in the buttermilk and pour the mixture into a clean glass bowl. Cover and leave in a warm place to culture for 24 hours. Refrigerate when you are pleased with the taste and texture. It will keep refrigerated for about 10 days. If it becomes too thick, you can thin it with more heavy cream.

Any Noodle Will Do

2012-01-21T12:53:00.000-08:00

My mother used to love going for a walk after rainfall. "Let's go!" she would call. "Mother nature has washed the streets!" I accompanied her on these neighborhood strolls jogging to keep up with her pace. She would stop to comment on early buds or bend down to examine white mushroom caps that lit our path. My husband would lament, "I wish I knew if we could eat those." What better way to celebrate our recent rainfall than to shop for mushrooms at the farmers market and translate the longing for those walks by melting butter in my skillet and sautéing them with garlic and shallots.

Recipe for Mushroom Stroganoff with Fresh Pappardelle

1/2 lb each of your favorite wild mushrooms such as oyster, baby shiitake, chanterelles, wood ear to total 2 pounds

3 shallots finely diced

2 cloves of garlic finely diced

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons butter

1 cup red wine

3 cups beef or vegetable broth

1 cup creme fraiche

salt & pepper

Wash mushrooms thoroughly and lay flat to dry on a dish towel.

In a large skillet, heat 3 tbsp of olive oil and 2 tbsp of butter. Sauté mushrooms in batches (without crowding your skillet) beginning with firmest - shiitake - and slowly adding remaining mushrooms with the shallots and garlic.

Stir frequently to avoid sticking for 10-15 minutes. When mushrooms have softened and are glistening, it is time to deglaze your pan by adding the red wine, all the while scraping the bottom of your skillet with your wooden spoon. Allow the red wine to simmer 2-3 minutes before adding the broth. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer 10-15 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. Just before serving, stir in the creme fraiche and simmer 3-4 minutes. Toss with fresh cooked pappardelle or your favorite fresh pasta.

Oyster Mushrooms added to Sautéing Baby Shiitakes

Close up of the Oyster & Shiitake Mushrooms

Wood Ears added to the Oysters & Shiitakes

Adding the wine to deglaze the pan

Adding the broth

How About Tuesday Night

2012-01-14T10:06:00.000-08:00

Fairfield Porter, Girl in Woods, 1971, Courtesy Parrish Art Museum

The Blakes rented a house off campus on Water street with a swing set in the backyard. Mr. Blake had lengthened the rusty chains for Sam and Rory, their three-year-old twins. I was their babysitter my freshman year in college where they were visiting professors from Oxford. Mrs. Blake had posted a handwritten note with a phone number on the bulletin board outside the cafeteria. I saw it on my way in—I worked the sandwich bar at lunch and thought I’d call if the note was still there at the end of my shift.

You needed a dime then to use the pay phone down the corridor in my dorm. We need someone to watch the children Tuesday nights—we’re in a drama club, you see. Is $4.50 all right? And so it was that every Tuesday night, I rode the bus into town with my homework in my backpack to watch the twins for $4.75—so much for my bargaining skills.

The hand over was always at the swings. Mrs. Blake in her black wraparound skirt and a turtleneck, silver hoops on her ears, her blond hair tied in a loose bun, lacquered chopsticks holding it in place. She pushed Sam, then Rory, who sat on the wooden planks in matching big-buttoned cable knit cardigans, swinging to and fro, Higher Mummy, higher! they shrieked. I’d arrive in the early evening when the days were long and the remains of a meal, the last sips of red wine, a heel of bread, covered the rose metal table in the yard. I liked taking her place, that she seemed happy to see me, and that I didn’t have to go inside just yet. But Sam and Rory’s lips trembled when she bent to kiss them goodbye. Don’t go Mummy. Why must you go? as if it was something they said that made her leave. They’ve had poached eggs on toast but they’ll need a bath before bed, and she was gone, taking her wine glass with her. Always poached eggs and toast, never a word about what I could eat. So I learned to save half my sandwich from lunch to eat after I had tucked in the kids.

Often we stayed outside for an hour or more after they were gone, in no hurry to go inside, pretending we were being defiant staying out so late. I stood behind them listening to a sweet banter, their British accents still fresh, not ironic, little fingers curled tightly around makeshift chains, the half-moons of their fingernails glowing in the waning light.

I carried them inside in the crook of my arms and they giggled when I called them sacks of russet potatoes. We’re not rusty potatoes! they protested.

In the kitchen they climbed the stools knees first while I stirred Ovaltine into their milk and peeled and sectioned green apples. They watched intently as I ran the knife in a perfect spiral, paring the fruit the way my grandfather had taught me, crying:

Mummy never peels apples!

Then what does your rabbit eat?

We don’t have a rabbit, silly!

Are you sure? I thought I saw a bunny under your bed!

A game of hide and seek would follow—all three of us squealing, giving chase to the invisible bunny, ending at last in the bathroom. While I ran the bath, I urged them to undress and get in with bunny because he was very dirty from playing in the yard and they needed to scrub his ears, handing them each a soapy sponge. And while they washed the rabbit, tugging on its ears and letting it slip away causing a great deal of splashing, I shampooed their soft curls and sang the same silly rhymes my mother used to sing to me in the bath, and neither of us cared about water pooling on the bathroom floor. I lifted them out one by one. Rory first because he was the Maharajah and I had to wrap his turban just so, and then came Sam, grinning into the folds of the towel I draped around her shoulders. We curtsied and called her: Your highness.

They padded to their bedrooms where I insisted on making their rumpled beds, smoothing the sheets and tucking the corners. What’s the use of that? they asked. What’s the use? Oh, what’s the use? I’d chant, fishing out a sock, a small airplane, a barrette, throwing them over my shoulder, and they’d run to catch them, giggling like crazy. At last in their pajamas, they yawned in synchrony under comforters I pulled to their chins. I told them the story of the old woman who lived in the woods, each time adding a small detail to a well worn tale of that snowy evening, when there was a knock on the door just when the little old lady was about to make a cup of elderberry tea. One by one, all the animals in the forest came to her cabin seeking shelter from the cold. Soon, a bear, her cub, a mouse and his wife, a donkey, a parrot, a wolf, and so on, curl up by her fire until there is no more room, and she latches her door, calls goodnight to each of them, and I whispered goodnight to Sam and Rory.

It was always just after eight when I checked the clock on the stovetop. Ravenous, I would eat my sandwich standing up in the kitchen. On the third or fourth Tuesday night, I opened and closed every cabinet until I found a box of After-Eights and ate two, only to go back again and again, because who eats only two mint chocolate wafers? And bolder still the next Tuesday, when I scooped coffee ice cream into a cereal bowl and held a spoonful in my mouth, letting it melt slowly on my tongue, for I had never tasted coffee ice cream before. Standing in the kitchen doorway, I observed the quiet domestic still-life of the Blake’s living room, the random composition of their objects suddenly filling me with longing, a yearning to be an adult, with a record collection and wine glasses—all still too distant to ever belong to me.

I looked through their albums and chose Bob Dylan, lifting the cover off their turntable to remove Sarah Vaughn. I drew the curtains in the front window and turned off the lights to dance alone in the dark with a bowl of ice cream. What was it about being in someone’s living room, eating their chocolates, coveting silver hoop earrings, hearing these lyrics: Why wait any longer for the one you love, when he’s standing in front of you?, that at eighteen, I was suddenly so tired of being a girl? Tired of homework and final exams and clay bottles of Blue Nun for candelabras. Tired of scented lip gloss and wireless bras and flannel nightgowns. Slamming car doors interrupted my reverie and I ran to hide the bowl and yank Dylan from the turntable. I looked every bit the interloper, blinking wildly when they opened the front door and stopped mid-sentence to watch me sprint outside, not waiting for my money, and poor Mr. Blake shouting: I can give you a lift if you like!

All week I expected Mrs. Blake to call our dorm number and cancel next Tuesday night, but the call never came and the pattern of our evenings remained unchanged. No sooner had I tucked in the children, that I played house with myself, once even brewing a pot of coffee to pour over the ice cream, and another time, a splash of cognac. I even tried on Mrs. Blake’s silk robe that hung from a hook on the bathroom door and tied the sash, then quickly took it off—a line I couldn’t cross. I relied on these unaltered rituals, the dancing in the dark, the After-Eights, Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin, the coffee ice cream they kept replenishing, though we never spoke of it, to measure the hours, the days, the weeks before my next birthday when I imagined I would be transformed.

When summer came, there were teary goodbyes to Sam and Rory with promises to write. The Blakes returned to England and I went to Macy’s. I had spent little of my earnings and I bought myself an ivory silk robe.

Thirty years later, in a living room with vases and candles and photographs in silver frames, I keep the freezer stocked with ice cream and make our babysitter a nice dinner before leaving for a night out. I hope she, too, will tell a good bedtime story, that she will keep herself awake with chocolate and sugar. I doubt she will find the cognac, and whatever she listens to on her Ipod, I’ll never know.

Humble Pie

2011-12-16T11:20:00.000-08:00

Apricots by Amy Weiskopf, Courtesy Hirschl-Adler Gallery

I took my knives to Austin wrapped in a thick kitchen towel I bought years ago at the Saturday market in Buonconvento, Italy. That day, the apricots were so ripe, I bought the dishtowel to swaddle them, and carried them in their makeshift sling back to our apartment where they tumbled out playfully on the kitchen table. I ate them standing up, one hand cupping my chin. A kilo of “albicocca”, just like that—the very word makes me smile.

The trouble with traveling with the tools of your trade is checking your bags. To plead innocence, I made sure to tuck a harmless gadget like a zester next to them. I imagined the furrowed brow of the security guard scrutinizing the contents of my bag relaxing when he saw a ten-inch knife nestled next to a melon baller. Before 9/11, when I was a young chef cutting my teeth, I traveled frequently with my knives in a canvas carry-on pouch. I didn’t care if my suitcase was lost as long as I had my tools. I never wanted to arrive in a kitchen and ask to borrow a boning knife. In my youth it was a matter of honor to carry my blades sharpened, my initials painted with red nail polish on the handles. It worked in my favor dozens of times when I was looking to get my foot in the door, from The Pierre in San Francisco, to Le Crillon in Paris.

But these days, I’m through with proving that I’m the hardest working cook in the kitchen. I carry two knives in a cotton dishtowel with faded apricot stains and find my way to a lakeside resort in Austin where I’ve been invited to teach a cooking class and talk about my book. This will be the last stop on a book tour that began in Chicago one October evening, and took me through Wichita, Lansing, Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor, Los Angeles, Santa Cruz, Mountain View, San Francisco, Oakland, and Seattle.

To recount anecdotes from each place is to restore the warmth I experienced at independent bookstores and small inns along the way. Everywhere I stopped, I was greeted with open arms wide enough to hug a tree. In Illinois, I read in three libraries, like visiting three bookish aunties. At Highland Park library, the elegant Beth served hummus and pita bread, in Lake Villa, Naomi brought me homemade jam, in Lake Zurich, there was a heated discussion about setting the table with china and silver even when you have take-out. In Chicago, when I arrived at my hotel after driving for hours in pouring rain, Gina took one look at my travel weary face and ducked away to return a moment later with a plate of stuffed peppers, remnants of their staff dinner, and poured me a goblet of red wine fit for Henry VIII. At Watermark Books in Wichita, they had been featuring recipes from Maman’s Homesick Pie in their café for days before my arrival. My cousin drove three hours from Kansas City to come to my reading. We talked late into the night and slept facing each other, our pillows close, like we used to when we were little. The next morning at dawn, when my cab didn’t show up for my early flight, Helen, who had greeted us so graciously the day before—“I read about your book in The Wichita Eagle!” she exclaimed, like Madonna was checking in—grabbed her keys and took me to the airport.

Shiraz restaurant in Grand Rapids had printed flyers announcing my arrival to read at Schuler’s books. The lovely owners made trays of dolmas and brought them to the bookstore. And that night, Fred and Gail, the same cousins’ in-laws, treated me to a delicious dinner and presented me with a pouch of you-make-your-own-luck polished pebbles—a take-off on the story of Stone Soup.

In Ann Arbor, after searching strip malls for a Detroit Lions sweatshirt for my son, I took a break and had the best cappuccino of my life at Comet Café tucked in the Nickels Arcade. For a few short moments, I basked in the youthfulness of the Michigan campus, entertaining ideas of becoming a teacher so I could walk along those leafy paths and share their sense of possibility. That evening, at Nicola’s bookstore, I was humbled by the display of my book in their front window, and their dogged search for The Swiss Family Robinson I intended to bring home for my son. Best of all was meeting Kit, a classmate from Iran I had last seen thirty three years ago, now a professor of Mid-East studies. She sat in the audience like a proud sister, flanked by friends she had brought along. And in Seattle, I gasped at the feast my childhood friend, Jackie, had orchestrated at the Book Larder, where I was lavished with more affection.

All this back and forth has not been easy on my family. They left the meatballs and baked ziti that lined the freezer untouched. Instead, I would call home around dinner time to learn my husband had invented a new dish, fried rice with a leftover pork chop, eggs in a basket, chop chae, and I loved the delight in his voice that our son had devoured it and would take the leftovers in his lunch box. But I could hear, too, a weariness, a when-are-you coming-home-mom, in my son’s “Goodnight, maman.” I would look in their gleeful eyes when they’d pull up to the curb to pick me up at the airport and think, how can I leave again in three days?

So I left for Austin, and once again, like Cinderella arriving at the ball, I found the utterly beautiful Lake Austin Resort, welcoming me at dusk. I hung my gown, a pressed chef’s coat and checkered pants, in the closet, and sat down on what had to be the fluffiest duvet, to gaze out my window at the lake. This sanctuary, with its dim lights, its enormous bathtub, its lake view, and private patio, was mine for two precious nights. Later, I walked underneath an arbor along a gravel path to a barn where I discovered an Olympic size pool! Ah, the sight of all that blue against the warm cherry wood. And like a kid on the first day of summer vacation, I swam until I saw the first stars in the sky.

I went to dinner exuberant, hungrier than ever, and sat with Victoria from New York. We talked about my cooking class the next day and when she asked about my book, I told her how humbling it had been to share this story with perfect strangers who received me like they had always known me, who told me again and again: “I wish I had known your mother.”, who were inspired by her recipes, enough to walk into their kitchens and make Persian dishes. “So it’s not tedious, all that traveling?” I must have looked at her like she had a screw loose. “Guess not!” she chuckled.

We ate scallops and risotto and talked more about what it was like to lose your homeland: “It was like your Katrina.” she said. Oh, I nearly kissed her! In all the years, and number of times I have tried to recount the tale of exile retrospectively, I have never been able to convey the utter despair, the mayhem, the heavy and sinister aftermath of a storm that leaves people, an entire nation, unmoored. Then I remembered watching footage of Katrina and sobbing, a growing pile of tissues at my feet. “Yes, in the sense that there was no home to go back to.” We said goodnight and I walked back to my room. But before collapsing onto the world’s fluffiest duvet, I unfolded my bundle of knives to inspect the blades, to cradle the handles, and trace the initials of that young cook who grew up to learn that there was still so much to learn.

My Katrina. It happened thirty three years ago. Noah made an ark, I made stone soup.

Wish You Were Here

2011-12-09T12:13:00.000-08:00

Soup (Red Plate), 1997 50x58 inches Mitchell Johnson

When I was in college, my roommate Megan came back from Thanksgiving break with news that her Uncle Arnold had dipped his head into a bowl of chestnut soup and then left it there. His heart had simply stopped beating. Everyone at the table assumed he had had too much Jameson. “My Aunt Mary didn’t even budge!” Megan exclaimed.

I recall that story from time to time, and after so many years, the image of Uncle Arnold with his head in a bowl of soup has a certain patina. I imagine that I was there, too, watching Megan’s extended Irish clan raise their glasses to make a toast while her uncle perished.

This brings me to the relative period of silence since my post in November. This Thanksgiving, one minute my husband was playing checkers with my little niece, and a moment later he disappeared into the bathroom indefinitely. I knew enough not to make Aunt Mary’s mistake, and discreet knocks on the bathroom door only revealed a meek: “I think I overdid it.” I sighed and slipped him an Alka-Seltzer, then continued to calmly serve pie, cranberry cake, and coffee as if his vanishing act was quite ordinary.

What a fretful night he had and suffice it to say that my brave husband has an immense threshold for pain. His surgeon praised him post his appendectomy and fended off his rapid fire questions about how soon he could get back into the pool—he is an avid swimmer. He is also a terrific patient and recovering quite nicely, showing off his belly to whoever stops by with candy and puzzles.

Leaving my family for a few days to resume my book tour, I learned he is back on his bicycle and swimming a few thousand yards a day. Earlier in the week I did a reading for the Ross School Book Fair in Marin and I was so touched that the parents had made my date bars and my mother’s quince marmalade to serve with scones. The Book Passage had done a beautiful job selecting the books for the fair and I was glad to do some Christmas shopping there. The following day I left for Seattle for a reading at the brand new Book Larder, a most inviting space, its shelves lined with gorgeous cookbooks, and Lara, the owner, calling out a warm hello to everyone who walked through the door. My childhood friend, Jackie, who lives in Seattle, had made posters announcing my arrival and driven around town pinning them up in all the coffee shop windows. She and her “Maman” had made trays of baklava and Persian rice flour cookies scented with rosewater for the event. Cardamom tea bubbled in a silver urn and everyone who braved rush hour traffic, came in from the cold to be folded into Jackie and Lara’s welcome. I wished for time to slow down so I could take it all in, all this affection tucked into layers of filo dough and drizzled with honey. I wanted to take slow sips of tea and talk about my maman till dawn. I wish you had been there, too.

Our Thanksgiving may have been thwarted by a trip to the emergency room. There may have been hours of hand wringing waiting for surgery. But the real thanksgiving came later, when Papa came home from the hospital and asked for cream of wheat with brown sugar, and later in the week in Seattle.

Breaking with Tradition

2011-11-19T10:05:00.001-08:00

Edouard Manet Still Life with Fish, 1864

Imagine a long table laid with tempting bowls and dishes on a white cotton tablecloth with scalloped edges. Each bowl holds an exquisite sample of the cook’s inspiration. It’s a smorgasbord, a selection of appetizers, a buffet of zakuski. One platter may be pirogi filled with forest mushrooms, another, corn blinis with caviar, cabbage bundles stuffed with game, pickled cauliflower and beets flavored with dill, smoked sturgeon, and tiny fried anchovies. The room is lit like a theatre, the table illuminated by a single chandelier, and the guests dance around it and nibble gaily with a liveliness that can’t be contained in a chair. Chilled glasses of vodka and brut champagne circle like the rings of Saturn.

This is a table my father would have loved. Once, while on a Scandinavian cruise line for their second honeymoon, he crashed a wedding having caught a glimpse of just such a table in a room he happened to be strolling by. No one questioned the handsome doctor in a double breasted pinstripe suit who accepted a flute of champagne and clicked his glass against the beautiful blond next to him and said, “Skaal!” He was the perfect guest, he ate, he drank, he danced with the Swedish dames, and when my mother, after a thorough search, finally found him and dragged him away like a cork from a bottle, he smiled sheepishly and said, “Ah, but I could not resist the zakuski!” If there was one ritual my father cherished, it was a “buffet russe”, the Russian tradition of sampling multi appetizers while knocking back icy vodka shots, all the while circling the table, slapping backs, and laughing with your mouth full.

My father preferred to begin all parties this way, guests milling happily, a generous variety of hors d’oeuvres arranged beautifully (no waiters in tuxes teasing you with mouse morsels) and little glasses of good drinks. Only later, much later, when he was feeling the warmth of the smoked fish and vodka, when everyone was a comrade, and he could loosen his tie, hold my mother’s waist and twirl her around the room, was he ready to stroll to the dining room, to collapse like a sea lion into a chair for the hot meal. He felt trapped if he were served chips and dip and a modest glass of scotch, then quickly called to the table to sit for a lengthy meal next to someone he couldn’t get away from.

So this Thanksgiving, because I think my father played a big role in awakening my culinary enthusiasm, I want to begin with zakuski, to imagine him in that pinstriped suit and polished Bally shoes, a candlelit look of rapture on his face, tempted by bowls of spicy, warm, cold, red, green, and pink. In the freezer, we will line glasses near the Grey Goose. Champagne and pinot blanc, cradled in starched white napkins, will lean in ice buckets. And to slow the pace of our evening, we’ll crack pomegranates and drop the seeds like rubies when we pour the vodka. Our guests will be less inclined to do shots when there are pomegranate seeds floating in their drinks. I will iron my best tablecloth, a white Basque cotton with bold red stripes, a gift from my husband for our fourth anniversary. There will be red roses and candles floating in glass bowls filled with cranberries, and bouquets of crabapples with maroon twigs.

We can’t afford caviar, but we will serve poor man’s roasted eggplant caviar with good fried bread, mushroom tarts, a pâté with prunes soaked in cognac, pickled cauliflower and beets, smoked trout with dill crème fraîche and cucumber. Our aim is variety, not necessarily harmony. Let the flavors crash into each other like ill-assorted relatives, all the ones who avoid each other all year long and are then thrown together in your dining room to make merry and break bread. We will invite them all and their grudges, too. The buffet will jolt them into a new routine. Gone are the chaste crudités with sour cream dip, the sideboard with the old silver gravy boat and serving spoons, the orange mums and tapered candles. They will be forced to get up and serve themselves from the beautiful platters of braised red cabbage and turkey, fried sweet potatoes, butternut squash and ricotta turnovers. The newness of it will spark amity, even allowing a newfound affection for the sister-in-law or cousin or brother who grate on each other, chew noisily, sweep brussel sprouts to the rim of their plate, let their kids run amok, or manage to offend with a compliment.

The next day, you won’t find us resentful of the pile of dishes, the glasses that won’t fit in the dishwasher, and the linen napkins that need to be laundered and ironed. We’ll bask in the afterglow of a good party, select a few leftovers to have for lunch with the last drops of pinot blanc, and clink our glasses to the handsome doctor in the pinstriped suit.

Call Me L'il Broiler

2011-11-19T09:21:00.001-08:00

Monet Les Dindes, 1875

Every year we name our Thanksgiving turkey. It started when my son was five and we had checked out Robert McCloskey’s, Homer Price, from the library and he could not get enough of Homer’s only-in-Centerburg stories. We even had the books on tape and he liked to pop them in his Fisher Price tape recorder and listen to Freddy, Homer, and Uncle Ulysees spin their tales while he built towers with his Legos. I had to buy D batteries in bulk to put new ones in every few days. That year, with twenty five guests coming for Thanksgiving, I bought a twenty five pound turkey and when my son saw it slip out of its plastic bag into the sink, he named it Homer.

I did what I always do three days before—we washed and dried Homer, rubbed him with olive oil and the zest of five or six oranges and lemons tossed with plenty of thyme, kosher salt and fresh black pepper, wrapped him up, and put him to bed until Thanksgiving morning. Over the next few days I caught my son peeking in on him in the garage fridge and I’d say: “So, how’s Homer doing?” and he’d reply: “He’s still here!” I didn’t worry that he would harbor any feelings for Homer—he loves to eat too much. Actually, naming our turkey had elevated his status, becoming an icon, revered for his sacrifice.

And he truly was delicious. My husband carved, popped juicy morsels in his mouth, and declared Homer the best turkey ever. Until next year, when my son became a football fan, and he chose the name of the 49ers quarterback, Alex Smith. It was a miserable season for the Niners, but Alex was tasty. So were Simon (when he went through and American Idol phase), Henrietta, and L'il Broiler (both characters from the Walter Brooks "Freddy" series).

This year, an obvious choice pops into my mind: Mr. Cardinale, my son’s fifth grade teacher. Since the school year began his jokes and antics have invaded our dinner table, his toilet humor has interrupted our meals, prompting us to beg our son to leave it at the doorstep. Granted, it’s a welcome respite after years of school as something to be endured. Better to see my son happily leave for school every morning and return eager to share the day’s ha-ha moments, than the long Monday morning I’d-rather-work-on-a-slave-ship face. We’re thankful for Mr. Cardinale and what better way to show our gratitude than to make him the centerpiece of our Thanksgiving table?

My Afghan Brother

2011-11-19T09:19:00.000-08:00

A friend once described a compulsive habit I recognized well in myself. He called it “Bakery Tourette’s”, a condition I had long enjoyed but in this new light seemed suddenly embarrassing. My husband smiled at me knowingly and reached for my hand. Was this some kind of intervention? My relationship with bakeries stems from my earliest childhood yearnings. Some kids look up at the sky and wonder how airplanes can fly, I only wondered how a simple yellow cake could have such a perfect dome, how it would yield to a knife and spring right back up, what held the crumbs together and why did they dissolve in my glass of milk? How could a warm bun with butter and jam make me cry when I came home from school, opening a range of emotions I had kept in check all day long and now helped me recover from an ugly incident on the playground? Flour, butter, eggs, and sugar repeated themselves in magical patterns that mystified me until I went to France and learned to bake. I was unstoppable then, but still lured by bakeries.

I can’t recall ever passing a bakery, including a Happy Donuts, without feeling that tug on my sleeve. A magnetic field would reach, even if I was across the street, and pull me into oncoming traffic and through the glass doors. I have seen this irrational behavior in some women in the vicinity of jewelry shops, so I tell my husband: Just be glad I have a croissant tic. The odd twist to my condition is that this involuntary draw is most powerful when I’m in the vicinity of bread. Good bread, fresh from the oven, to hold against my chest. Only a baby is better.

Take Acme in Berkeley. I would stand in line under a hailstorm for their bread only to reach that unadorned counter and the person behind who looks genuinely happy to see me. Patiently she listens as I order one of everything with a friendly reminder that it’s cash only. Never just a baguette for me, I’ve driven across the bay to take as much of this place with me as I can fit in my car. And never in the trunk, I need to be enveloped by the scent of these warm loaves on the long way home. There’s Poilane in Paris. I like to leave it for my last day, after I’ve already been inside dozens of patisseries and boulangeries and sampled lemon tarts and éclairs and madeleines. I make my way slowly to the narrow rue du Cherche Midi, appreciating everything in this beloved city where I learned to cook, from the pearl gray sky to the pretty shop windows. This stop, an essential part of my pilgrimage, offers few choices, insisting instead on making the same outstanding bread over and over again without fanfare. I inch my way inside to find the ladies are still there, exactly how I left them a year ago, two years ago, fifteen years ago, slicing the enormous loaves of pain au levain into halves or quarters, counting dark raisin rolls that could sustain you for a day or two, weighing irresistible petit sables, tiny butter cookies, that transform coach to first class on the plane ride home.

I have brought you this far, only to make a staggering confession. I have forsaken them all since I found bread nirvana in a loaf of Afghan naan. A few weeks ago I went to the Persian market to stock my pantry with a few spices that were running low, but really I go there when I’m homesick for Iran. I like to eavesdrop on the banter between the old guys at the register and sniff packages of sumac and dried rose petals. When a delivery van pulled up with fresh bread, I smelled it before I saw it. Unlike the flatbreads I usually bought like lavashor sangak, with its sharp sourdough bite, this long slipper naan, part whole wheat and sprinkled with black sesame seeds, smelled of toasted nuts and wheat fields. Standing in line to pay I heard a man with a loaf of his own exclaim to no one in particular, God Bless the Afghan bakers! Indeed. There is a wholesomeness to this bread that when toasted and spread with feta cheese, fresh shelled walnuts, and mint, makes you feel instantly loved and nourished. Any variation, with sliced cucumbers, tomatoes, and sea salt, dates, honey, or fig jam, is at once the ultimate open-faced sandwich. It is what you crave when you’re hungry, and what comforts you. My family laughs when I tell them it has changed my life, that my urge to make impulsive u-turns when I spot a bakery has waned.

After I made my discovery, I had to do some detective work to track down this Afghan baker. The Persian market was not forthcoming with the location of the bakery and the number I begged for was disconnected. It wasn’t until I asked Sarah, the stunning Afghan woman who cuts my hair, that I had a lead. She knew instantly: Ah, Maiwand Market! and gave me the address in Fremont’s Little Kabul, cautioning me to wait until a few days after Nowruz, the Persian New Year that coincides with the first day of spring and is also celebrated in Afghanistan. It will be a mob scene if you go now. Of course, we never have to stand in line, my father knows the owner. I had half a mind to call Sarah’s dad and ask him to take me. Exactly three days after the spring equinox, during one of the season’s raging storms, I talked my husband into going to Fremont promising a bowl of Vietnamese pho on the way. Only you would brave a tempest for a loaf of bread, he said. Only you would indulge me, I replied.

I have worked with three-star Michelin chefs and I confess that my enthusiasm for meeting this baker far exceeded my anticipation of cooking with master chefs. Sorry, Michel Bras. We pulled up to an ordinary corner grocery and ran inside. At the far end was the bread counter behind which stood the most haggard looking men I have ever seen with brown pockets under their eyes so deep like they were staring at me through binoculars. How long had they had stood before those clay ovens? Since they were boys, barely tall enough to pull bread from the fire? Had their small hands learned to shape and ripple the dough? These guys made line cooks look like honeymooners. One man handed me a hot slab of bread the length of a piano bench and held up two fingers. Two dollars? I asked. He nodded. I held the bread to my nose with my eyes closed and what happened next was a wave of nostalgia that welled up and I was once again eight years old with two coins pressed into my palm sent out to buy bread. Am I old enough to go by myself? I asked my mother. Old enough, but still afraid, afraid of the young men who straddled the path that curved past our house in Tehran. I even worried about the bushes that lined the road, of what may lurk behind them, underneath them. The worst part was the entrance to the bakery where several men always stood in the shade of its awning laughing coarsely and leering at me. At last inside, the baker stood in his undershirt, he, too, unshaven and haggard. Radio Tehran blasted the national anthem before the noon news hour and the announcer’s voice reassured me that the world is as it should be, that my mother was home waiting, that we would have lunch together and I must buy the naan sangak and leave quickly. By now the coins had left deep impressions of the Shah’s profile in my palm and I let them fall, one, two, on the glass countertop with a faded travel poster of Isfahan underneath. I held the long oval loaf like a shield against my chest. Now invisible to the men, I ran home.

We drove home in the rain, my face pressed into the still warm bread while my husband did the math: I don’t know honey, ten bucks of gas, five for the bridge toll, for a two dollar loaf of bread? And still there remained an unsolved piece of the puzzle because at the store they told us they don’t deliver bread anywhere. So I was back to square one, wondering where the original loaf had come from. Days later I was given another phone number and the man who answered spoke as if he had been expecting my call. Where do you live? he asked me. Where are you from? What is your name? And when I told him, he immediately switched to Dari, which is charming and effusive:Donia jan, you are like my sister, you are the world, your voice is kindness itself, how is your family? How are the children? I am so happy you called. How much bread do you need? I will bring it to your doorstep every Saturday. At this I chuckled and gave him our address thinking he’s pulling my leg. So I gasped when he rang on Saturday afternoon to ask me how many loaves I needed. Sure enough, around eight thirty, a green Hyundai pulled up and Kabir walked up to our porch cradling his bread like a child. As much as I wanted to hug him, I knew it would freak him out so I held out a cup of tea and some cash.

How could I keep it a secret? When I told Sarah, she exclaimed: My mom will be so jealous you have your own delivery man! When I told my friends, they quickly put in their orders and our house became the drop off location. Kabir did the math and it’s worth his time. He likes his tea with two lumps of sugar and we always have a nice chat. We learned he had fought with the Mujahedeen, that he had watched his country fall, and to spare him his father had sent him abroad. He learned how to bake bread from the bakers in Little Kabul and opened a place in San Jose. So many wars and families torn apart, he laments.

How little we know of ordinary Afghan people, of the ones who were left behind, of the children sent out to buy naan at the market, of those who never return, blown to bits, their bodies defenseless behind soft shields of bread, and of the ones among us who straddle two worlds, who craft new lives and watch the battleground that was their home on the evening news. God bless my Afghan brothers and sisters.

Nose Dive

2011-11-19T09:16:00.000-08:00

I started swimming regularly when I was pregnant with my son. Slowly at first, a tentative breaststroke, with my head held high above the water. I watched the clock and climbed out after twenty minutes. Within weeks after my son was born, the lap swim lanes at our nearby pool closed and the only way I could continue swimming was to join the masters’ team that practiced there. I balked at the idea. I had seen those masters in the locker room, many of them former college swimmers, loud, muscular, and fiercely competitive. I had never been on any team. Title Nine did not exist when I was growing up in Iran, and at thirty nine, I thought I was too old to learn how to swim.

My husband, an excellent swimmer, convinced me that I had nothing to lose. Easy for him to say, he didn’t have to show off his doggy paddle to our “team”. And so began our new routine, bundling our infant boy in his car seat and driving to the pool to join the morning workout. And while he snoozed on the deck, I learned to stroke and breathe, to keep my chin tucked, to reach and pull the water, and flutter kick “like your feet are in a shoebox” – this from a fellow swimmer’s husband who stood on the deck with a thermos of coffee and never hesitated to correct my form and technique. I owe my stroke to Dick’s belligerent, incredibly effective hollering. But progress was slow. Standing in the shallow waters of lane six, I gazed longingly at the swimmers in the faster lanes, their arms like eggbeaters churning the water. From where I stood, they were swimming in the ocean and I was a turtle in the baby pool just trying to get to the other side.

Months went by before I stopped long enough at the wall to realize I wasn’t alone, that I shared a lane with some wonderful people. Unlike lap swimming where you grudgingly acknowledge the half-naked person next to you, the camaraderie in my lane was reason enough to show up at 5:45 am. Barely recognizable to each other in our street clothes, we were best friends in the pool – asking after our kids, jobs, or aging parents between sets, and urging each other forward during the swim. If you were gone too long, everyone asked where you’d been. We commiserated over sore shoulders and aching backs. And in the showers, a wet and noisy crowd exchanged recipes, news of our kids’ birthday parties, soccer games, and college applications – all of us yelling at once over the din of hair dryers. I felt lucky to be a part of it.

Every week that went by was marked with small improvements. A hundred yards didn’t take an eternity and boy was I flying when I put on fins or paddles! Our coach, the extraordinary Tim Sheeper, gave quiet, thoughtful tips, and I pushed off the wall, more mindful of my stroke. It wasn’t long before I realized what the others had always known, that he has never once repeated a workout. As a chef, I may never make the same dish the same way twice, but it isn’t brand new and unrecognizable each time. Tim’s uncanny ability to compose a completely original workout day after day, unlike any written before, is as remarkable as a composer writing a new opera every day. I’ve given up trying to figure out how he does it but when we pull up to the wall to hear the next round, my mind immediately organizes his set into an order like the one a waiter takes at your table in a restaurant. Somehow, I remember the sequence better when I picture tasks and I work up an appetite for breakfast. Soon we’ve finished the set, I’ve witnessed another pink and orange sunrise, and I feel a sense of possibility that I remember from childhood.

People often say things like. “If you had told me twenty years ago that someday I would be a vegetarian, I wouldn’t have believed it.” Similarly, if someone had told me that someday I would be on a swim team, I would have said “Yeah, right!” My son is ten years old now, marking a decade since I joined Menlo Masters. Throughout the years, my husband has been my loudest cheerleader as he’s often been when I’ve faced seemingly insurmountable tasks. He will yell “Good job!” across the five lanes that separate us and give me a thumbs-up. It’s corny, but it motivates me in an oh-gosh-thanks-didn’t-know- you-were-watching kind of way. Dick passed away leaving us rookies bereft, so any encouragement, any correction, goes a long way. My butterfly is dismal, flapping my wings and going nowhere, but the backstroke is coming along thanks to Ann, Dick’s wife. Her stern yet enormously generous coaching keeps me in line. And Coach Tim, who has brought us all together, stands on deck, day after day, before the break of dawn, in the rain, in freezing temperatures, challenging you to beat your time, swim with your shoes on, take fewer and fewer breaths, and you wouldn’t dream of wimping out, ever.

I’m still going to the pool when it’s dark and everyone in my house is asleep. I miss seeing my baby boy swaddled under the canopy of his car seat. I’ve moved up a lane or two and I watch the clock only to measure my speed. Counting clears my head of all the noise, lists, schedules, and emails waiting on my desk. My most complex thought may be whether I’ll make pancakes or oatmeal for breakfast. In that hour before the sun comes up, I am only aware of the bubbles from the swimmer ahead of me and the silhouette of the person behind me, and I know without exchanging a word, who it is, by the unique way they swing an arm, or kick mostly with their right leg, or tilt their head for a flip turn. Then I wonder if fish recognize other fish in their school from a similar data of gestures. No wonder I don’t recognize them at Trader Joe’s without their cap and goggles.