He kissed me, not a soft kiss, but a forced, hurried one, right between Period 4 and Period 5, we stood there in a secret rushed moment of youth, I, at the ripened age of eleven and him, a much wiser and older twelve, he kissed me.

And it was disgusting.

Utterly disgusting.

Not what little girls tucked comfortably away in their pink canopy beds dream about or are read to in tales of princes and peas where the kiss is The Event of Grandeur, ever so tender and complete and enveloping. The girl loses senses. Knees buckle. Long perfect blonde hair cascades between them. A tiny sigh is heard. And life as we know it is renewed.

This is what I had expected, what I’d been promised, in countless years of fairy tale ...Read on]]>

He kissed me, not a soft kiss, but a forced, hurried one, right between Period 4 and Period 5, we stood there in a secret rushed moment of youth, I, at the ripened age of eleven and him, a much wiser and older twelve, he kissed me.

And it was disgusting.

Utterly disgusting.

Not what little girls tucked comfortably away in their pink canopy beds dream about or are read to in tales of princes and peas where the kiss is The Event of Grandeur, ever so tender and complete and enveloping. The girl loses senses. Knees buckle. Long perfect blonde hair cascades between them. A tiny sigh is heard. And life as we know it is renewed.

This is what I had expected, what I’d been promised, in countless years of fairy tale grooming. And even though it was the seventies, an era where women proudly burned bras and demanded from men things that had never been demanded before, this little girl expected to swoon, blush, and feel whole and refreshed by her first kiss.

Instead, oceans of bubble gum grape saliva had infested my mouth. I’d always been a big fan of Hubba Bubba, heck, my sister and I nurtured our reputations based on the proud acknowledgement that we knew the guy who’d invented its unforgettable flavor, but, the critical difference was that I chose when to taste it and between Period 4 and Period 5 in the stairwell that day was not one of those moments.

My kissing mate misread my initial hesitation as a moment of shyness (one of many poor calls in judgement) and proceeded to plunge further into my mouth; his thirsty, clumsy tongue digging deeper and deeper in feign attempts of pleasure he swept my throat for tonsils, it seemed. And I fought this alien creature slivering inside me, eyes watering, mind spinning, I wondered why I’d been fooled into believing this would be the luckiest moment of my life (and with a sixth grader no less!) But instincts are uncontrollable things and mine kicked in after the initial moment of horror wore off. I ripped myself away from my self-appointed courter and, right there, between Period 4 and Period 5, on his Nike-clad feet (coveted shoes hard to secure in Venezuela back then) I spat, spat, spat that Hubba Bubba flavor in desperate efforts to remove the memory from mind.

I looked up to find a small ego staring back at me (for no one had used his toes as a spittoon before) and my eyes winced as my body moved away (wishing now I’d taken the main stairs and gotten a good seat at World Geography instead) and not a word transpired between us, two fallen lovebirds, both equally shocked by the action of the other, we drifted away leaving the stairwell with its memory and puddle of grape saliva.

The first time I saw my rabbi dressed up as Buzz Lightyear I knew I was in the right place.  Most adults stared uneasily, not sure what to make of this grown man bounding happily in a bright green and white suit, but I felt right at home.  My children were with me at the time and quite naturally declared:  ”Look, there is rabbi Andrew!” just as they would if they’d seen him at Publix, the park, or up on the Bima.  There was no mention of the outfit, I assume because he wore it quite well, quite naturally.  I’d step out on a limb and confess he even seemed more comfortable in it than the stiff grown-up jackets he’d have to, on many occasions, wear.  This was, after all, Purim, the Jewish holiday that, not only allows, but expects ...Read on]]>

The first time I saw my rabbi dressed up as Buzz Lightyear I knew I was in the right place.  Most adults stared uneasily, not sure what to make of this grown man bounding happily in a bright green and white suit, but I felt right at home.  My children were with me at the time and quite naturally declared:  ”Look, there is rabbi Andrew!” just as they would if they’d seen him at Publix, the park, or up on the Bima.  There was no mention of the outfit, I assume because he wore it quite well, quite naturally.  I’d step out on a limb and confess he even seemed more comfortable in it than the stiff grown-up jackets he’d have to, on many occasions, wear.  This was, after all, Purim, the Jewish holiday that, not only allows, but expects silliness to reign. So it seemed fitting that Ramat Shalom would have a real life Buzz Lightyear headed your way.

Sure, there’s the whole logical story behind it:  Purim commemorates how Queen Esther and Mordechai saved the Jews from Haman, the evil minister of the Persian king.  On this holiday, costumes are worn and the Megillah (the Book of Esther) is read to recount this tale of survival.  Hamantaschen, (also called “Oznei Haman”, or Haman Ears in Hebrew) are the treat of choice.  I nibble on my husband’s ear on ocassion, but it pales in comparison to this: tiny triangles of tender, buttery pastry curled up against a dollop of tangy apricot, hearty prunes, or, for the lucky ones, rich melted chocolate.

For my kids Purim is equally important in their repertoire of holidays.  I assume they’d have to agree with Rabbi Andrew and say it’s because of the costumes- the opportunity to relive the splendor of Halloween, without having an ominous light to it.  Catalogues of costumes are meticulously scanned by my daughter and of course, there will be the mandatory visit or two to the party store to scour through their costume section.  It is much leaner than the selection they carry in October, but then again, so are the crowds of shoppers, so I don’t mind going several times to appease my kids.

They look at pictures of witches and fairies and superheroes and eagerly discuss amongst themselves what they are going to be.  Then, they both turn to me and their eyes light up, two sets of beautiful almond eyes flanked by swooping long lashes lock on me and I know I am in trouble.  Their eyes are pools of irresistible power and when they shine in the light just so, swirling in a sea of butterscotch and they blink blink blink those eyes are powerful weapons and I know, whatever it is they want, I know they will get.  They know they’ve got me by the way my body just slows to a stop and I wait.  Wait for it. Whatever it is.  They smell victory.  They are good at this, they know.  Years of practice pays off.  So they ask me, not if, but what I am going to dress up as?  If I weren’t under their spell I’d try to tell them Purim is just for the kids to dress up, but I can’t say that, I won’t.  After all, their rabbi knows it’s all about goofy fun and is headed to infinity and beyond, so why shouldn’t I?

This week I almost offered my ten-year old daughter a buck to eat her fruit. And by fruit I mean, two teeny tiny strawberries sliced in cubes a toddler could gulp down and not notice. It was a moment, like many, of weakness and sheer desperation where I delved down deep into my heart of capitalism and nearly paid her for the service of leaving me alone and putting something healthy in her body instead. But something held me back. Maybe it was the image of my son, sitting right next to his sister, wolfing down whatever fruit possible at the speed of sound. Maybe it was the memory of having grown up in a tropical country where fruit played a critical role in my household; very different from the way my daughter sees it today. There were ...Read on]]>

This week I almost offered my ten-year old daughter a buck to eat her fruit. And by fruit I mean, two teeny tiny strawberries sliced in cubes a toddler could gulp down and not notice. It was a moment, like many, of weakness and sheer desperation where I delved down deep into my heart of capitalism and nearly paid her for the service of leaving me alone and putting something healthy in her body instead. But something held me back. Maybe it was the image of my son, sitting right next to his sister, wolfing down whatever fruit possible at the speed of sound. Maybe it was the memory of having grown up in a tropical country where fruit played a critical role in my household; very different from the way my daughter sees it today. There were no saran-wrapped watermelons or Styrofoam-packed nectarines, or, God forbid, bag of sliced apples. In Venezuela fruit was readily available at every street corner, dangling off heavy transport trucks or in tiny but cramped fruit shops where it would be regularly purchased and taken home leaving a sweet and delicate fragrance throughout our house.

We used to have a carved out tree stump as our fruit basket. This may sound absurdly large, but it deemed itself necessary, as every week, mom would make her trip to her favorite fruit store, Siempre Fresco (Always Fresh) where the savvy and flirtatious owner would offer her free samples of papaya, mango, or pineapple in order to make his sale, or, as I believed, speak to the pretty gringa lady.

She would return home with bagfuls of tropical delights: pineapple, passion fruit, papaya, mango, guava, carambola, and of course, at least three different kinds of bananas. All of these made their way into my diet, whether as my nanny Yolanda’s famous fruit salad, where she’d meticulously dice each fruit into ¼ inch bites and douse the final product with fresh orange juice, or just simply offered up in slices after a heavy meal. And to my daughter’s credit, I wasn’t always gobbling the stuff up either. There where many moments where I craved God’s gift to Venezuelan children: the candy bar such as Carlton, or a Susy, (both crispy wafers bathed in rich chocolate) instead.

But then I’d hear that warm familiar call from Yolanda, or Yoli, as I’d call her, who’d been busily working in the kitchen as I struggled over algebra homework at the dining room table. I knew whatever she was doing in there had to be something good because by problem number five I was already in a stupor over the distracting aroma emanating from the kitchen: a combination of cinnamon and butterscotch and the sweetness the comes from the earth after a rainstorm.

“Niña!” Yoli would shout. “Ven a comer tu dulce.” I needed few excuses to abandon algebra, but when I heard this command, “Child, come eat your sweets,” all the pieces of the puzzle came together and I understood it could only mean one fantastic thing: I was getting a free trial sample of her famous Baked Bananas. She and I knew that this was meant to be for dinner only, but she and I knew how much we loved to share moments together, especially if it involved food, and more power to it if it temporarily suspended painful tasks such as mathematics.

The lethargy that had guided me through variables of x and y evaporated as quickly as the morning dew on a hot day and I shot my way to the kitchen where Yoli was already ready and waiting for me with a sample of her signature banana dessert. I don’t know how she did it but biting into that dessert always made me melt like butter. The banana was sweet and luscious and oh so comforting, happily swimming in a sauce of butter and rum and cinnamon that had baked into drunken butterscotch perfection. We both knew we had only seconds before La Señora, my mother, would sense my absence in the room next door and come to make sure I was fulfilling my academic duties. But this moment was worth all the risk, with Yoli’s adoring eyes gazing at me as my soul filled with warmth and love and pleasure as I greedily gobbled her amazing baked bananas, inevitably sighing back to that fabulous woman brimming with love and begging her desperately for more, knowing surely my banana plea had given me away and I’d soon find myself facing more horrid algorithms.

cambur con ron al horno: una feliz distraccion de álgebra

Esta semana casi  le ofrecí a mi hija de diez años un dólar para comer su fruta. Y por fruta quiero decir, dos fresas diminutas cortadas en cubos que un niño podría tragar y no dares cuenta.  Esto era en un momento, como muchos, de debilidad y desesperación donde  busque profundamente en mi corazón del capitalismo y casi le pagué para el servicio de dejarme en paz y poner algo sano en su cuerpo en cambio. Pero algo me detuvo. Tal vez era la imagen de mi hijo, sentando directamente a su lado devorando toda la fruta posible con un gusto delicioso. Tal vez me paro la memoria de haber crecido en un país tropical donde la fruta desempeñó un papel crítico en mi casa; muy diferente de  la identificacion con fruta que mi hija lleva hoy. No había patillas ya picadas, nectarinas embaladas en plastico ni bolsas de manzanas cortadas. En Venezuela, la fruta existia en cada equina de la calle, guindando sobre camiones o en tiendas de fruta diminutas pero apretadas donde sería con regularidad comprado y llevada a casa, dejando una fragancia dulce y delicada en todas partes de nuestro hogar.

Solíamos tener un tocón de árbol forjado como nuestro canasto de la fruta. Este puede parecer absurdamente grande, pero se juzgó necesario, cuando cada semana, mi mamá haría su viaje a su tienda de fruta favorita, Siempre Fresco, donde el dueño (un italiano coqueto) ofrecería sus muestras libres de papaya, mango, o piña a fin de hacer su venta, o, mas bien, hablar con la bella señora gringa.

Mi madre volvería a casa con bolsas de placeres tropicales: piña, parchita, papaya, mango, guayaba, carambola, y por supuesto, al menos tres clases diferentes de cambur. Todos éstos hicieron su camino en mi dieta, en forma de la famosa ensalada de fruta de mi niñera Yolanda, donde meticulosamente picaba cada fruta en pedacitos de ¼ de pulgada y empapaba el producto final con jugo de naranja, o simplemente ofrecido en rebanadas después de una comida pesada. Y al crédito de mi hija, yo no siempre quería comer fruta tampoco. Habían muchos momentos donde me provocaba un Carlton o Susy (el regalo de Dios a niños venezolanos: obleas crujientes bañadas en chocolate rico) en cambio.

Pero entonces yo oiría la llamada familiar de Yolanda, o Yoli, como le decia, quien ya había estado trabajando furiosamente en la cocina mientras que yo luchaba sobre la tarea de álgebra en la mesa de comedor. Yo sabía que ella tuvo que haber hecho algo delicioso porque por el problema número cinco yo estaba ya en un estupor sobre el aroma  que emana de la cocina y tracionaba mi concentracion: una combinación de canela y caramelo de mantequilla y el olor dulce de la grama después de una lluvia torrencial.

¡“Niña!”  Yoli gritaría. “Ven para probar tu dulce.”  Necesitaba pocas excusas para abandonar el álgebra, pero cuando oí esta orden entendí que esto sólo podría significar una cosa fantástica: me tocaba una muestra de su Cambur al Horno famoso. Ella y yo sabíamos cuánto amabamos compartir momentos juntas, sobre todo si esto implicaba algo de comida y más aun si esto temporalmente suspendiera tareas dolorosas como matemáticas.

El letargo que me había dirigido por variables de x y y evaporaron tan rápidamente como el rocío de la mañana durante un día caliente y pegué un tiro hacia la cocina donde Yoli estaba lista y esperando con una muestra de su postre. No sé como ella lo hizo pero mordiendo en aquel postre siempre me hacía derretirme como mantequilla. El cambur era dulce y delicioso y ay tan consolador, felizmente nadando en una salsa de la mantequilla y ron y canela que había horneado en la perfección de caramelo de mantequilla borracha. Nosotras ambas sabíamos que teníamos sólo segundos antes que La Señora, mi madre, sentiría mi ausencia en el cuarto al lado y vendría para asegurarse que yo realizaba mis deberes académicos. Pero este momento mereció todo el riesgo, con los ojos de adoración de Yoli que me miraban fijamente mientras mi alma llenaba de calor y amor, inevitablemente suspire a aquella mujer fabulosa que rebosaba de amor y la pedi desesperadamente para más, sabiendo que seguramente mi súplica de cambur me habia desubierto con mi madre y pronto me encontraria afrontada por algoritmos más horrorosos.

Cambur al Horno de Yolanada

Este plato originalmente requiere cambures titiaro, un cambur pequeño, salvaje que crece en la selva de Amazonas. Usted puede encontrarlo en algunos mercados, pero si no, esto trabaja perfectamente con la clase convencional.

1 taza de agua

1 taza de azúcar moscabada

15 plátanos titiaro maduros, o 6 plátanos maduros, pelados y cortados en a mitad longitudinal

4 cucharones de mantequilla

¼ taza de vino Oporto

¼ taza de ron oscuro

1  cucharilla de canela

½ cucharilla de jugo de limon fresco

helado de vainilla

En un sartén grande, profundo no reactivo, combine el agua con el azúcar.  Cocinar sobre el calor medio hasta que el azúcar se disuelve. Añada cambur, mantequilla, Oporto, 2 cucharadas de ron ron y canela. Hierve y reduzca el calor. Suavemente hierva a fuego lento, embastando cambur con la mezcla de azúcar, 25 minutos. Añada el jugo de limon ¼ taza de ron.  Sirve con el helado de vainilla.

Sirve 6

This is the day that your headache won’t go away, regardless the amounts of Advil you’ve wolfed down with a Tums chaser so you won’t get an ulcer with the water so you’re not left with chalk jammed in your teeth. This is the day you’ll be stuck behind Grandma driving 37 miles per hour on the freeway and you will honk and curse and huff and puff like an idiot in a rush to go nowhere just because it’s that kind of day.

You can’t see her well, Grandma. She’s shriveled down to a solid 4’8” and that’s including the lavender hair but you could swear when the sun hits at an angle just so and you squint and look at her rearview mirror, well, you could swear that that little old lady is smiling at you. ...Read on]]>

This is the day that your headache won’t go away, regardless the amounts of Advil you’ve wolfed down with a Tums chaser so you won’t get an ulcer with the water so you’re not left with chalk jammed in your teeth. This is the day you’ll be stuck behind Grandma driving 37 miles per hour on the freeway and you will honk and curse and huff and puff like an idiot in a rush to go nowhere just because it’s that kind of day.

You can’t see her well, Grandma. She’s shriveled down to a solid 4’8” and that’s including the lavender hair but you could swear when the sun hits at an angle just so and you squint and look at her rearview mirror, well, you could swear that that little old lady is smiling at you. Or at life. Or at something you certainly aren’t smiling with her about.

We’ve all had these days but the grin on Grandma during mine threw me for a loop to the extent that when the steroid-happy 18-wheeler finally flew by me on my left side, allowing a window of opportunity to pass Grandma’s cruising rate, I opted out and obediently chugged along behind her, suddenly wondering what that mind that held that grin was so damn happy about.

It could be her grandson’s bar mitzvah she was going to, I concluded silently. She was so proud of that boy. Michael was her oldest of 12 grandchildren but he was her favorite (even if his hair was too long.) He held her same smile, no doubt, and she was pleased at how assertive and grown up he was becoming. He would be outfitted in an oversized dark blue suit and nervous as hell. But then her outfit was too casual for a bar mitzvah. I could see that from here (as I realized how precariously close I was to her Cadillac).

Maybe she was returning from bingo with the girls. Or bridge. Or some sort of social cliché for octogenarians. She would spend a couple of hours of company, away from the solitude of her tiny apartment, together they’d drink Old English tea (sometimes a shot of something to loosen the morning along) and many shared laughs. She’d almost always win too. Again, the smile: a dead giveaway of some sort of glorious happiness.

But then I noticed some bags poking out of her trunk, which I realized wasn’t properly shut. (I also realized it was time for me to back off a bit.) They where grocery store bags and it all clicked as I understood the smile. Grandma was a cook. She was having the whole clan over for brunch and it would be the typical spread with eggs and lox and bagels but what would make this meal stellar would be Grandma’s killer blintzes. They would be moist and tender and slightly salty on the inside, snuggled within a blanket of dough and doused with a fresh berry sauce, none of this canned jelly stuff from the diner.

Grandma would have stories about picking berries like these off the mountain as a child while hiking with papa in some distant European land. She would retell tales of her youth as everyone bit into her clouds of heaven and in quiet oohs and ahhs they’d listen, with eyes closed, as if this where a symphony of memory with taste and everyone in that table, yes, everyone, I know, would grin. Because grandma had the power to do that. Even to me. Even on such a day. Even at 37 miles an hour, how I longed to follow her home.

Blintzes de Queso con Compote de Fruta: Decifrando una Sonrisa

Este es el día que tu dolor de cabeza no se marchará, ni si quiera con las cantidades de aspirina que has tragado y las tabletas Tums para no terminar con una úlcera de tanta pastilla tomar. Este es el día que manejarás detrás de la Abuela que conduce 37 millas por hora en la autopista y blasfemarás y resollarás como un idiota en una prisa no para ir a ninguna parte sólo porque es aquella clase de día.

No la puedes ver bien, la Abuela. Ha marchitado como una florecita vieja y casi no las vez detras de su volante, incluyendo el pelo de color lavanda pero si podrías jurar que cuando el sol golpea en un ángulo y bizqueas y miras su retrovisor, pues jurarías que aquella pequeña vieja señora esta sonríendote. O a la vida. O sobre algo que tu seguramente no compartes con ella.

Hemos tenido todos días como este pero la sonrisa de la Abuela me dejo pensando y cuando tuve oportunidad de pasarla, opté no hacerlo y seguí tras ella obedientemente de repente preguntándome que era esa sonrisa que la hacía tan feliz.

Esto podría ser el bar mitzvah de su nieto al que ella iba, concluí silenciosamente. Ella estaba tan orgullosa de aquel muchacho. Michael era el más grande de 12 nietos pero él era su favorito (aun si su pelo fuera demasiado largo.) Él sostuvo su misma sonrisa, sin duda, y ella estuvo contenta en que tan asertivo y crecido estaba. Cargaría puesto un chaleco azul oscuro que le quedaría demasiado grande y estaría nerviosísimo, el pobre. Pero entonces ví que su vestido era demasiado informal para un bar mitzvah.

Tal vez volvía del bingo con sus amigas, o alguna clase de cliché social para octogenarios. Gastaría un par de horas de la compañía, lejos de la soledad de su apartamento diminuto, juntos ellos beberían un té ingles y compartarían cuentos de los nietos o los novios…Ella casi siempre ganaría también. Otra vez, la sonrisa: símbolo de alguna clase de felicidad gloriosa.

Pero entonces noté algúnas bolsas saliendo de su tronco, que realicé no fue correctamente cerrado. (También realicé que esto era el tiempo para echarme atrás un poco.) Y entendí la sonrisa: Abuela era una chef! Ella tenía el clan entero para el desayuno-almuerzo y esto sería la comida típica con huevos y salmón curado y bagels, pero lo que haría esta comida estelar sería los famosos blintzes de la Abuela. Ellos serían delicados y deliciosos y ligeramente salados en el interior, bañados con una salsa de moras frescas.

La abuela tendría historias sobre la recolección de moras de la montaña como niña yendo de excursión con su papá en alguna tierra europea distante. Ella volvería a contar cuentos de su juventud cuando cada uno de su familia mordía sus nubes del cielo y en oohs y ahhs ellos escucharían, con ojos cerrados, como si una sinfonía de memoria con el gusto estaria tocando y cada uno en aquella mesa, sí, cada uno, sé, sonreiría abiertamente como la abuela tenía el poder de hacer esto. Incluso a mí. Incluso durante tal día. Incluso en 37 millas por hora, como tuve ganas de seguirla a su casa.

Blintzes con Compota de Fruta

(Adaptado del Libro de Alimento Judío, por Claudia Roden)

Para el blintz:

1 taza de harina

1 ¼ taza de leche

2/3 tazas de agua

1 huevo

½ cucharilla de sal

1 cucharón más para engrasar la cazuela

Para el relleno

1 libra de queso cottage

½ libra de queso de crema

½ azúcar de taza

cascara de una naranja

3 yemas

½ extracto de vainilla de cucharilla

2-3 cucharones derritieron la mantequilla

nevazucar para rociar encima

Añada la leche y el agua a la harina gradualmente. Añada el huevo, la sal y el petróleo y golpee el rebozado hasta liso. Deje al rebozado sentarse, 1-2 horas, preferentemente durante la noche.

Para la compota de fruta:

2 ½ tazas frambuesas congeladas (aproximadamente 11 onzas)

2 tazas 1/2 moras congelados (aproximadamente 11 onzas)

12 onzas de fresas frescas, partidas por la mitad

1 taza de azúcar

1 cucharilla rallyada de cáscara de naranja

1 cucharon de maizena

jugo de medio limón

Combine las frambuesa, mora y fresas, el azúcar y la cáscara de limón en un tazón grande. Dejelo a temperatura de cuarto hasta que las frutas se descongelen, el azúcar se disuelve y forma jugo en el tazón, moviéndose de vez en cuando, aproximadamente 1 ½ horas.

Cuela las frutas y reserva el liquido. Agriega maizena en cacerola media pesada. Gradualmente añada jugos reservados a la maizena, batiendo hasta liso. Bate sobre el calor alto hasta que el jarabe está grueso y claro, aproximadamente 2 minutos. Quitalo del fuego y enfriarlo 15 minutos. Agrega frutas a la mezcla de jarabe. Ajuste la acidez con el jugo de limón. (Puede estar listo 3 horas delante. Tapa y enfrie.)

Precaliente el horno a 375 grados. Caliente un sartén de 8” (o una cazuela de crepes si usted lo tiene) sobre el calor alto medio y engrase ligeramente con el aceite. Prepárese como un crepe: vierta una cucharada grande en el centro de la cazuela y haga girar la cazuela en el movimiento circular hasta que la superficie entera este cubierta. Cocine un minuto y el de le la vuelta con una espátula para medio minuto más. Siga hasta que todo el rebozado sea usado y montóne blintzes en un plato. Para el relleno, mezcle el queso cottage y el queso de crema con el azúcar, cascara de naranja, yemas y vainilla en un mezclador. Tome cada tortita, 1 a la vez, y ponga 2 cucharones que amontonan del relleno en el fondo mitad, plegado del borde de la tortita sobre el relleno y doblando los lados para cerrar. Enróllelo apretado, como una tortilla mexicana. Coloque los rollos lado al lado en un plato de horno engrasado. Rocie de la mantequilla y hornee durante 20 minutos. Haga la compota de fruta: Sirva caliente con nevazucar del y compota.

Hace 12 blintzes

If someone presents you midway through your meal with a sweet cream flavored ice cream enveloped with wild flowers, cilantro and other herbs, you’d take pause.  You’d reach down to the pit of your basic ice cream knowledge (well formed for us Americans) and take pause.  Because you know chocolate well.  Many a passionate night you’ve spent together.  And vanilla goes without saying; it brings on a whole new meaning to nuts and sauces, sprinkles and maraschino cherries; basically anything with horrifying numerical dyes that linger in our system for seven years. There are even others ice cream flavors on the standard list: coffee (for die-hard, strong personalities like my seven-year old son), strawberry (for a touch of delicate whimsy), and rum raisin, (for drunken decadence and in my case, nostalgia as it was my mother’s favorite flavor).  But this? ...Read on]]>

If someone presents you midway through your meal with a sweet cream flavored ice cream enveloped with wild flowers, cilantro and other herbs, you’d take pause.  You’d reach down to the pit of your basic ice cream knowledge (well formed for us Americans) and take pause.  Because you know chocolate well.  Many a passionate night you’ve spent together.  And vanilla goes without saying; it brings on a whole new meaning to nuts and sauces, sprinkles and maraschino cherries; basically anything with horrifying numerical dyes that linger in our system for seven years. There are even others ice cream flavors on the standard list: coffee (for die-hard, strong personalities like my seven-year old son), strawberry (for a touch of delicate whimsy), and rum raisin, (for drunken decadence and in my case, nostalgia as it was my mother’s favorite flavor).  But this?  Beyond the fact that it purposely doesn’t mark the end of the meal (huh?) there’s this, made to pull the rug out from under you and rethink your whole concept of such a basic delight as ice cream.

This is Chef Andoni from Mugaritz, of course.  Who else could it be?  And when I visited him back in June at his restaurant in the lovely northern Spanish town of Errenteria, he proudly and candidly explained the purpose of his cuisine:

“You are always on the edge between, ‘Can this be real? ‘ and the experience being real.  You are always questioning these principles.”

Chef Andoni is jovial, vibrant and infectious with his energy and passion about food.  He is also a bit of a philosopher mixed with genius all wrapped in his chef’s jacket. As we stood amongst his well-orchestrated staff in his tiny but effective kitchen, his eyes glimmered as he pointed at the emblem stitched on his chef jacket.  It is a leaf bearing a delicate central vein with smaller lateral veins sprouting out left and right.  “See”, he points out.  “That balance is even in the emblem.  That thin line of questioning runs right through the middle.”

Andoni assured me that he doesn’t strive to be like a traditional restaurant and he is quite successful at that.  For starters, I spent five hours at his place.  To wrap it up, I’ll never forget it.

I’d say the experience was more like a museum for the senses.  My guests and I began seated in the outdoor garden, bursting with beautiful flowers and calming gray stone, sitting in plush but minimalist furniture, where we enjoyed the traditional Cidra sparkling wine and were introduced to our first of many moments of double take as a basket filled with rocks was served to us.  Taking extra long sips of our Cidra, the waiter relieved us of further quiet distress (am I going to have to eat rocks here?) by explaining these were not rocks, but rather potatoes that had been cooked in edible ash. The only rock there was the warm one on top, to help keep the potatoes nice and toasty.

We actually did several double takes on that one because we would have sworn these all to be a basket of rocks.  But, I am an adventurer at heart, and the waiter did have warm, trusting eyes, so I decided to go for it and take a bite, and really, it was from that bite forward that I was cast in the spell of Mugaritz.

The potato was creamy, luscious and smooth on the inside, with a slightly sweet flavor to it.  If butter could be a starch, this was it.  The ash offered the perfect border to the fluffiness, a defined close with an almost dry touch, carefully enveloping the flavor into one.  A dipping sauce was offered, some creamy something or other my husband adored, but quite frankly, the potato worked amazingly on its own, even better with eyes closed.  I was easily immersed.

From there we moved on into the main building, a ivy-covered neutral toned space where we headed to a large round table decorated with a moving sculpture of forks, knives and spoons which the three children in our group (all under the age of ten) where fascinated by.  Now you’d think a place of this caliber would have rights to be snooty and pretentious, but the staff at Mugaritz seemed like clones of the most patient nana, babysitter and teacher in one, always kind and accommodating to the kids’ needs and completely unperturbed by their rambunctiousness, which, got a little out of hand by hour number three.

Dishes came and swept us off our feet with flavors.  There were so many, all boasting with local, organic and ridiculously fresh produce.  Gnocchi’s made out of a nearby farm’s Idiazabal cheese arrived swimming in a broth of Iberic ham, each of the four gnocchi’s crowned with a different herb that had been hand-picked from Mugaritz’s garden and strategically placed with tweezer precision.

Grilled foie gras, from geese that are locally grown and required to run around freely, were served with a fresh mustard sauce and greens and proved to be smooth, simple and explosive with flavor.  There were many more dishes that came, all at the appropriate time and beautifully presented.  There was fish and lamb and a dizzying array of local Euskal cheeses served with a delightful pear juice, the ice cream, and the traditional Spanish dessert of Torrija, which is a wonderful French Toast Extreme that in this case came with a crunchy caramel coating and a lovely goat milk cream. Even the kids got their own meal:  a tender and juicy fish accompanied by thick slabs of the Spanish prerequisite side dish of patatas fritas (French fries), only these where one-inch thick slabs that came all stacked up and ready for Lego-building action:  a definite hands-on presentation that served as an easy half an hour of food play, readily encouraged at Mugaritz.

When you arrive at your table you are encountered by numerous note cards with simple but powerful messages:

150 minutes…submerse yourself

150 minutes…rebel against yourself

150 minutes to feel, imagine, relearn, discover, contemplate.

This is Mugaritz in a nutshell: a haven of rediscovery, not only with food, but also with yourself:  letting go of preconceptions and looking at the world through a different lens.

And as for the ice cream…it was spectacular.  Better.  Indescribable really, except if it were possible to convert the most colorful and amazing firework show into a culinary experience, that ice cream would be it.  My husband was so moved by it and, of course, was brash enough to ask the waiter for a second serving (the man has no shame.) Being Mugaritz, they graciously complied.  I was dying for more of that flavor.  What was it that made it so?  The dandelion?  The iris?  Parsley? Thyme?  What?  I didn’t know but I liked to be haunted by it.  I liked to be left longing for more and I knew that is where I had to stop with this incredible dish.  I was right on Chef Andoni’s line. Craving it.  Thinking about it.  Twisting and turning the symphony of unique flavors Andoni had cursed and blessed me with.  This is Mugaritz:  a gem that will leave you more alive, more relaxed, and more thoughtful at the same time.  And whereas some will only splurge on this experience once, my husband and I know we cannot.  Once introduced, we already long to go back.

I approach it every once and a while ...Read on]]> It’s silly I know but I can’t get rid of what’s left of my first blender.  Its base sits timidly in the shelf of my garage pantry (the glass top having cracked years before), accumulating dust and accompanied by assorted missing socks, loose change brought back from my husband’s trips from Slovenia and Mexico and Venezuela, and, even though I occasionally become inspired to clean that pantry top so that I can view its plastic wood surface for a day or two and feel a sense of restored order (I know it won’t last, I know my family can’t bare to see its empty space and it will inevitably be cluttered by discarded Bakugan balls and marbles and matches) the Oster blender base always stays and oversees this small cemetery of forgotten items.

I approach it every once and a while with the intentions to let it go.  I think to myself, ‘what good are you now, just a shiny metal base without its complementing top, decapitated and unable to whir or stir or blend anymore?’ But I can’t; I simply can’t. There is too much history between Oster and me, a history that began on a blustery Boston afternoon twenty years ago when I first bought her with the money given to me by my beloved nanny, Yolanda.

It was an incredibly kind gift to a college student barely starting out in life with a huge hunger for cooking and a stifling budget to feed it.  Yolanda, whom I had left in the comforting and delicious tropical nest of my home in Venezuela to tackle the independence of college in the bitter New England weather, offered the gift of a blender just as a mother offers her toddler a pacifier for a long and otherwise tormenting car-ride.

Every weekend I’d call back home to report to my parents on my budding adulthood:  yes, I am learning my way around campus, yes, the philosophy professor is amazing even if the class is ridiculously large, and of course, I was making friends and good choices.  But the chats I’d most look forward to were the brief and bright ones I’d have with Yoli:

“Como estas, mi amor?” How are you, my love? She’d gingerly ask, and her voice would lap over me like the sweet molasses strewn gently over her baked bananas, sticking to my heart and clinging tightly to it; it would inevitably break my streak of independence and I’d feel so very small and sad and lonely without my Yola to guide and nourish me.  And just when I’d feel I was about to lose it, that it didn’t matter if I knew the bus schedule of my foreign, new city, or that what I most yearned for was the tropical, familiar chaos of Caracas (even if you couldn’t walk down the avenue without being hissed at), she’d sense even that (because Yoli who had helped raise me since the day I was born could sense my every whim) and she’d gently ground me back to my own strength with her next simple but cleverly construed question:

“Que preparastes hoy, mi amor?” What did you prepare today? And that would start it, just that:  an explosion of quiet actions that connected us over miles of distance and cultures and weather, we’d speak and I would tell her about her Crema de Berros, Cream of Watercress soup, that I had whirred to smoothness in the blender (gracias Yoli) and how funny that here watercress comes all fancy and shriveled in a pretty packaged bag and we’d take a moment to chuckle at that, both of us quiet on the line imagining the man at the Mercado who offers up large bundles of earth-crusted fresh watercress housed in nothing but a piece of loose twine, delivering his freshness in a sealed and scentless bag.  She’d share her latest recipe with me:  she was a voracious reader and an avid cook and this time she’d learned how to up a traditional Nicaraguan dessert of Tres Leches by creating a Cuatro Leches- the fourth milk being coconut cream in addition to the traditional cow’s milk, condensed milk,  and evaporated.  I’d have to try it when I returned for a visit, I’d promise.

This talk was my nourishment on those long and cold homesick moments and it would inevitably end with talk of her flan, the dessert staple of my childhood home. Yoli would coax me to give it a try, after all, she claimed it to be so simple, and easy to do in the new blender.  But I refused to give it a shot, preferring always, to come home and find a newly made flan awaiting.

Every visit home she’d prepare one for me. It was the staple welcome home dessert: a luxurious balance of sultry and sweet, delicately cutting through my dry palate and enveloping me with all the sweetness of her love.  All the other flans I had tasted where wrong next to this one:  too sugary, too dense, too hard.  But Yoli’s was not. And every visit home she’d show me how to make it.  The last time she showed me, back in June 2008, I watched and absorbed with the usual glee, of course, completely unaware that this would be our last flan session together.  Three months later, Yoli passed away from an unexpected and aggressive bout with cancer.  I miss her smile.  I miss her mischief.  I miss the way she’d jump to life and recount crazy stories of my youth with such relish you’d bet they’d happened only minutes ago.  She carried the blueprint of my life with pride and never missed an opportunity to roll it out and share it with the world.  But most of all, I miss our conversations and our lovely food connection. And most certainly, I miss her flan.

El mejor flan del mundo: mi Yoli inolvidable

Sé que es una locura pero no puedo deshacerme de los restos de mi primera liquadora Oster. Ella se sienta tímidamente en la esquina de mi despensa del garaje, acompañado por calcetines ausentes variados, cambio suelto devuelto de los viajes de mi marido de Eslovenia y México y Venezuela, y, aunque yo de vez en cuando me inspire a limpiar aquel desastre, nunca puedo desaserme del Oster roto.

Mí historia con esa liquadora comenzó hace veinte años atras en una tarde lluviosa e fria de Boston cuando compré mi primer Oster con el dinero dado por mi nana querída, Yolanda.

Esto era un regalo increíblemente amable para una estudiante universitaria con un apetito enormme para la cocína y ningun prespupesto para suplementarlo. Yolanda ofreció el regalo de la liquadora como consolación.

Cada fin de semana llamaba a casa para informarle a mis padres mis triumfos en el mundo de adulto:  sí, el profesor de filosofía es asombroso aun si la clase es ridículamente grande, y por supuesto, yo tenia amigos y clases intersantes. Pero las charlas que mas anticipaba eran las breves y brillantes que  tendría con Yoli:

¿“Como estas, mi amor? ¿” Ella preguntaría cautelosamente, y su voz daría una vuelta sobre mí como la melaza dulce que usaba en su cambur horneado, ateniéndose a mi corazón y adhiriéndole fuertemente.  Esto rompería inevitablemente mi raya de independencia y yo me sentiría tan pequeña y triste y sola sin mi Yola para dirigirme. Y sólo cuando yo sentiría que estuve a punto de perderme, que no imporataba si yo supiera la nueva ruta del autobús o que lo que mas añoraba era el caos tropical de mi casa en Caracas , ella presentería  mi tristeza (porque Yoli,quién había ayudado a criarme desde el día que nací podría sentir mi cada capricho) y ella me  pregunatría :

¿“Que preparastes hoy, mi amor?” Y asi comenzaría una explosión de comunicación culinaria que nos unía sobre millas de distancia y culturas y tiempo, hablaríamos y yo le diría sobre su Crema de Berros que había liquado en la Oster (gracias Yoli) y que gracioso que el berro de aqui viene prelavado y embolsado y tomaríamos un momento para reírnos imaginando al hombre del mercado de Chacao que nos  ofrece bultos grandes de berro fresco llenos de tierra y amarrados solamente con un pedazo de hilo. Ella compartiría su última receta conmigo: era un lector voraz y una cocinera ávida y esta vez me explicaba como habia cambiado el postre nicaragüense tradicional de Tres Leches creando uno de Cuatro Leches-la cuarta leche siendo la crema de coco. Yo tendría que intentarlo cuando volvería para una visita, le prometería. Esta conversación era mi alimento durante aquellos momentos nostálgicos largos y fríos y nuestras dulces charlas terminaría inevitablemente con la conversación de su flan, el sello de postre de mi infancia en casa. Me habia criado con el Flan Famoso de Yoli , y cada vez ella trataba de enseñarme su secreto, usando su liquadora y susurros de que era tan simple, tan fácil de hacer. Pero rechacé intentarlo, preferiendo siempre, venir a casa y encontrar un flan recién hecho por ella.

Esto era siempre una bienvenida perfecta: un equilibrio lujoso de lo bochornosos y dulce, delicadamente  envolviéndo mi paladar con todo el dulzor de su amor. Todos los otros flanes que yo había probado fallaron: demasiado dulce, demasiado denso, siempre algo. Y cada visita a casa ella me mostraría como hacerlo. La última vez que me mostró era en el junio de 2008.  Miré y absorbí con el regocijo habitual, por supuesto, completamente inconsciente que este sería nuestra última sesión de flan juntas. Tres meses más tarde, Yoli falleció de un combate inesperado y agresivo con cáncer. Me hace falta su sonrisa. Me hace falta su travesura. Me hace falta la manera en que ella brincaría a la vida y contaría historias locas de mi juventud como si ellos habían pasado sólo hace minutos. Ella cargaba el plano de mi vida con orgullo y nunca perdió una oportunidad de compartirlo con el mundo. Pero sobre todo, me hace falta nuestras conversaciones y nuestra pasión mutual por la comida. Y más seguramente, me hace falta su flan.

I went to the Greenbrier Inn last week to attend the Symposium for Professional Food Writers.  I had been chosen as a finalist for the James Peterson Food Writing Passion Scholarship and arrived with every arrogant intention of  launching my career into high gear.  But ...Read on]]> I have to start with the chair, because it was green, so bright green, and it greeted me with such gusto and verve as I entered my Greenbrier room and began acclimating to the hyperactive wallpaper (which I obviously had the chair as hostesses to) somehow reassuring me that the week I would spend there would end up being one filled with learning and good food and it would all begin with this rolling fit of laughter as I got to know and love this green chair, my green chair that I’d sorely miss.

I went to the Greenbrier Inn last week to attend the Symposium for Professional Food Writers.  I had been chosen as a finalist for the James Peterson Food Writing Passion Scholarship and arrived with every arrogant intention of  launching my career into high gear.  But just as soon as I arrived and started attending the talks, I realized I may need to tinker with a thing or two before hitting the best seller list.  For starters, a lot of talk revolved around the ever-changing blogosphere and I quickly questioned my tactics on this venue.  Paired with the blog talk was the word “platform”, which got thrown around a lot:  building one, having one, nurturing one, engaging with one.  Platform is who you are as a writer and how you sell yourself as one.  Logic has never been a forte for me but I soon realized that without any scheduled appearances on Oprah or any best selling books my platform = my blog = you guys.

Sitting on my green chair after many grueling sessions loaded with information and self-discovery, I munched on tangy orangettes (provided by the Greenbrier as a welcome snack), I knew I had to improve my platform by revising my blog and making it interactive.  Extremely.  Interactive.  I love posting my thoughts, but this whole set up has become quite lonely.  I need you guys to help me out.  Which means,  you don’t have to get out of your green chair (or rocker, or car, or Starbucks, or wherever the warped sensed of curiosity strikes you to view Culinary Compulsion) but it certainly would be fabulous to have you participate a bit.

It’s kind of hard not to bond with a bunch of food writers when you are spending a whole week nestled in the hills of West Virginia in a gargantuan relic of a hotel nicknamed “Old White.”   We’d cruise down abandoned corridors luxuriously decorated by the legendary Dorothy Draper (rumor has it our group of 45 where the only occupants in the 800+ rooms hotel), devising plans to film the remake of The Shinning here (picture twins and tricycles).

And, in between sessions about platforms, blogs, and publishing, we’d eat.  Floating from meal to meal we’d sit at tables littered with an endless supply of (opened) wine bottles, and talk food, politics, and life.

I could send out a big thanks to absolutely everyone for that intense 4-day experience, but particularly to Steve Dolinsky, Chicago’s “Hungry Hound” for ABC News who taught us about the art of brevity (key to any good writer.)  Don Fry, speaker and writing coach who seemed to subsist on an endless supply of Tab (neatly lined up for his consumption) claimed that he lacked social skills but went on to teach and dazzle about the art of finding your writing voice.  He proudly sports several, one of which can be enjoyed on his blog. Check it out and then let me know.

Let me know.

Let me know.

(Remember the word platform.)

Michael Ruhlan, author of a ton of interesting books (Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking, The Elements of Cooking: Translating the Chef’s Craft For Every Kitchen and The Soul of a Chef: The Pursuit of Perfection, to name a few) was one of the guest speakers.  One would be tempted to easily get lost in the piercing blue eyes of this tall, tanned man with lightly tossed wheat blonde hair and a relaxed aura until he opens his mouth and you forget about all that and are quickly transfixed in his cool, calm, and level-headed advice on publishing, blogging and marketing: words that seemed to evaporate from his skin and readily be absorbed by the attendees.  One session consisted of Michael and Russ Parsons, food editor of the Los Angeles Times, sitting on their own set of bright green chairs and casually chatting to each other about the writing process.  It was Food Writing Porn: we sat perched on the edge of our seats in this scrumptous moment of voyeurism: two food writing greats to be savored fully and quietly.

Other speakers shared their personal publishing journeys.  Andrea Nyguan used her experiences from her new dumpling book to emphasize platform and inevitably left my stomach growling each time.  I slipped her a card in the hopes she’d consider me as a taste tester on her next book! Ann Taylor Pittman, editor of Cooking Light, and Martha Holmberg, from The Oregonian Food Magazine talked about demystifying the query letter while literary agent Judith Weber and  editors Sydny Miner  and Bill LeBlond where there to beg us to never send book proposals in a pretty binder. Never. Ever.

And then there was Andrew Schloss, simply known as Andy, whose sheer energy force would serve as enough inspiration (who else sleeps two hours, volunteers to hosts extra sessions, and bike rides?) Andy was the alloted money man and by the end of the conference his name had turned into a verb:  to schloss something means to make it profitable.  By day four we were all transforming our writing from the tiny baby we nourish and cradle and love to a product for sale worthy of big bucks; worthy of schlossing. I think I fell in love with Andy’s advice when he announced he doesn’t believe in the word “rejection” when talking about query letters and book proposals.  Like in the film Jerry Maguire when the teary-eyed vulnerable chic claims ‘you had me at hello’, Andy got me with his rejection of the word rejection.  His alternative word, “pass” feels much better.  As he explains it, your proposal or query letter is merely a venue to sell a product and if an editor sends you a rejection letter, he or she is merely sending you a “pass” on your product and you must just go on and sell that product elsewhere.  Clean.  Simple.  No tears or bleeding heart or even extra tequila shots necessary.  Just a sale that didn’t take place yet.  I dig this.  I dig this a lot.  And so I begged Andy to shrink to the size of a small African grey parrot so I could place him on my shoulder to whisper such advice on those dark and gloomy lonely days as a writer, but the shrink bit  didn’t fly with him, he seems to be a man of his own agenda, so I look forward to the advice continuing in other venues, if not off my shoulder.

Of course the Symposium was bombarded with food.  Although it was not running at full capacity (a sidekick of the recession), the kitchen is large and worthy of its reputation, with apprentices competing to attending two-year stints.  The pressure was on for these folks hosting a bunch of food writers.  One day a group of us were invited on a kitchen tour.  As we wandered the underground tunnels that run alongside the famed hidden bunker (built by the U.S. government as a fallout shelter for the members of Congress during the Cold War) I tried to envision this place 100 years ago, in its fullest glory, filled to the brim with chefs and food and orders, a constant buzz of energy and cuisine.

Dishes ranged from Southern Classic (country grits)  to Southern Classic with a Twist (lobster burgers with a slab of foie gras) and even jumped away from American cooking and into the futurist high-cuisine coined “molecular gastronomy” inspired by the famed Spanish chef of El Bulli restaurant, Ferran Adria.

Sugar Sphere at The Greenbrier

Some attendees where generous enough to bring food.  Barbara Sharon, the Big Yummy Gooey Lunch Box Cookie Lady scattered brightly striped lunch boxes filled with samples of her baked goods such as Mocha Chews and Oatmeal Raisin.  Her sister, Linda Sendowski, came bearing colorful tales of their Sephardic Jewish upbringing highlighted with culinary proof housed in tiny silver boxes bearing two cheese bourekas up to par with those served by my Great Doda Rachel in Jerusalem (it made all the painful cheek-pinching from mothball-smelling relatives that I endured as a child all the worthwhile).  Then there was Mark Bitterman, simply known as “The Salt Guy”, and rightly so.  I’ve never met someone so passionate and knowledgeable about salts and I’ll tell you now, such enthusiasm is dangerously contageous.  Mark set up a salt tasting for us using only tidbits of buttered bread, thin slivers of cucumber and the salts from his Portland store, The Meadow.  My palate learned of salts from Iceland, Japan, Australia, France and the Himalayas, and after those two hours I came out of there never looking at salt the same way.

Varieties and usage are endless and the flavors vary as well. Did you know that the Japanese have a salt extracted from seaweed and then smoked? Man, that stuff is hauntingly good!  Check Mark’s store out and change your salt attitude for the better.  Then come back and tell me about it.

Come…back…and…tell…me…about…it.

Of course, guiding us through this entire electric creative process was the ever-calm and ethereal presence of Antonia Allegra, the Symposium’s director, simply known at “Toni.”  Toni made it a point of welcoming each and every one of us with a warm and genuine embrace and constantly nourished both first-time attendees and old-timers alike.  Everyone gravitates towards Toni, and, spend five minutes with her and you’ll quickly know why.  She is calm and graceful yet matronly and nuts-and-bolts about everything; offering a safe-haven for writers to replenish and nourish while  extending a practical venue to equipt oneself with the tools to thrive in the trying career as a food writer. So I got this idea while munching on my orangettes:

I think I’m gonna shake things up around here, give you foks the opportunity to be more participatory, because, I am told, that is what blogs are all about.  And I promise not to ramble on like this again. I am just beyond myself with information from my week at the Greenbrier and am banking on your goodwill to use this venue to spew thoughts out.

Summer is at our doorstep so I am thinking of tackling fruits and veggies head on.  I suggest a series on these and invite you to join in on the conversation:  share a memory or recipe or delicious link.  If you’d like to see a topic covered, please do tell.

Oh, and if you see a bunch of Spanish stuff you may not understand, don’t panic, I’m not keeping a culinary secret from you.  I’m just trying to follow advice first given to me by my Spanish brother-in-law and reconfirmed by a new Greenbrier friend, Kris Rudolph, owner of La Cocina cooking school in San Miguel de Allende (Mexico), both of whom adamantly insisted I open up my thoughts and recipes to my Spanish-speaking friends.  Asi que, bienvenidos, empezaremos pronto con compulsiones en español!

So there you have it, a week filled with inspiration and growth!  I look forward to our culinary conversations!

I could say if I just look at the slope of her nose (ever so slight with a generous finish) I’d recognize that it is exactly like mine and unmistakably connect us but I know what you are thinking: there is so much more to a face, so many more crevices and cracks to throw you off course. You’d say the eyes, the chin, even the hair. And I’d agree, one cannot gage another by merely the slope of the nose but in this case it really is all it took.  Because when she turned and I saw her profile, I saw myself in her; ten, maybe fifteen years earlier I was there, only with different colored hair and different colored eyes but still me and I knew right then and there, that even though we never crossed ...Read on]]>

I could say if I just look at the slope of her nose (ever so slight with a generous finish) I’d recognize that it is exactly like mine and unmistakably connect us but I know what you are thinking: there is so much more to a face, so many more crevices and cracks to throw you off course. You’d say the eyes, the chin, even the hair. And I’d agree, one cannot gage another by merely the slope of the nose but in this case it really is all it took.  Because when she turned and I saw her profile, I saw myself in her; ten, maybe fifteen years earlier I was there, only with different colored hair and different colored eyes but still me and I knew right then and there, that even though we never crossed paths before, we were indeed sisters.

Of course, the story doesn’t start or end there.  There are many hurdles and heartbreak and mending when one learns one’s father has led a double life and has a whole separate family as a result. It took years to get here and years I was grateful my mother was not alive to live this.  But the slope of the nose is where we met and it was followed by the big-hearted smile and the prominent chin:  all trademarks of my father’s Abbady genes I had thought for the most part of my life I carried alone only to quickly learn those traits where clearly molded on one of my half-sister’s face as well.

We met on a chilly foggy night in the Andean city of Quito, the remote spot my father had picked to form another life that on this memorable night merged with mine.  There was too much past to clutter a future with these two young women, my two half-sisters I never knew about, and so it was time to move forward together. 

And with the reliable mediator of food, we did.  To begin with, there was the fact that I had landed on the equator, which opened up the door to plenty of exotic and delightful Amazonian fruit with equally strange names such as parcha, tomate de arbol, and naranjillo.  There were many I had already encountered growing up in Venezuela such as maracuya (passion fruit) and mora (blackberry), all of which begged to be gobbled up with nothing but impulsiveness and greed.  All my mother’s proper Philadelphia stock was put to shame as I dropped any social etiquette and lost myself in a world of sweetness and flowers and juice which I couldn’t fully experience without fingers, extra drool and a very drippy chin.  To think Eden lost it all for a measly apple?  Oh the damage that could have happened here!

We had the fortune of our visit coinciding with Semana Santa (Holy Week), which, in a country where Roman Catholicism reigns, is taken very seriously, right down to the food.  Large makeshift shacks abound housing sweaty women stirring big pots of fanesca, a traditional hearty soup served during this meat-prohibited time consisting of beans and dried cod and garnished with eggs, fried plantains, heart of palm, and (if you’re fortunate) fried cheese empanadas.  You can pick any crowded intersection in Quito, drag a dirty plastic chair up to the communal table and dig in alongside businessmen in grey Armani suits, families overflowing with children, or curious tourists like me.

 There were other succulent flavors with the indelible stamp of Ecuador: Ceviche de Camaron, plump, marinated shrimp swimming in a bath of citrus, cilantro and red peppers or Encocado, which translates to “in coconut” and is the country’s trademark fish dish of sea bass bathed in fresh coconut sauce served alongside fried green plantains and a big mound of white rice.  Salchipapas, the popular street food consisting of thick slices of fried hotdogs served on a bed of French fries and coated with your choice of pink, yellow or spicy aji sauce easily elevated frankfurters to a whole other level.

Of course, we ate our way through any awkwardness, quietly comparing notes of our parallel lives guided by the same patriarch and by the end of each meal we were fuller and better for it, one step closer to closing the enormous gap of secrecy and time that lay before us.  And then we had our Passover dinner, the ultimate family meal for a group learning to be a family.  There was laughter and prayers and countless glasses of sickly sweet wine, and then, alas, there was food, lots and lots of food.  My sister and half-sisters where all there, the children ran around freely and my father, with his partner Lucia by his side, had a twinkle in his eye I hadn’t seen in years.  And just as this strange trip began to settle into a faint sense of normalcy, something happened that seemed to seal the deal:

                        Dessert was served.

And not just any dessert.  A delicious dessert. A wonderous dessert.  A very Abbady dessert.  Something I could see my aunt Miriam present in her cramped Jerusalem apartment along with a pot of Café Turki.  After all, this was Crème Bavaria, an Israeli favorite.

The ethereal square of white gently drizzled with rich chocolate and dusted with a bit of chopped walnuts was placed before me.  Lucia sat humbly next to my father, weathering the silence of a group of already tough critics.  Her eyes jumped nervously between my sister and I and our families as she contended with the room’s silence.  But the silence was soon broken by harmonious oohs and ahhs as, one by one, we all fell prey to the smooth and light creaminess of her Crème Bavaria, quickly and gently forgiving the misstep of using leavening during Passover as we bit into the rum-infused sponge cake resting on the bottom. 

It was an instant of wonder and hope where I realized that as painful and real as many of the circumstances that created this group where, there was a chance that through such delicious moments, things could and should get better.  My half-sister and I were sitting across each other.  Half way through our dessert, among the buzz of contentment, our eyes met and we grinned the same grin.  We were both blissfully stuffing ourselves with Crème Bavaria, making a start in the right direction guided by a happy, full stomach.

I justify my insensitivity with this sugary fluff as a cultural deficit.  I grew up in Venezuela, where Peeps are non—existent.  Instead, I hoarded bars of Carleton (a thin crispy wafer doused in dark Venezuelan chocolate) and guzzled down bottles upon bottles of Frescolita, the local soft drink that boasts a neon red color ...Read on]]> Every holiday season they seem to sneak past my culinary radar and invade the shelves of my well-groomed pantry, usually sitting next to the rosemary chocolate and the cans of Portuguese olive oil.  I sigh in disbelief when I see them; their creative metamorphosis amazes me every time.  After all, they are only reconstituted marshmallows, which is reconstituted sugar, but no matter what holiday, be it Halloween, Valentine’s Day, or Easter, there is a Peeps for the occasion and every single one of them enters my household.

I justify my insensitivity with this sugary fluff as a cultural deficit.  I grew up in Venezuela, where Peeps are non—existent.  Instead, I hoarded bars of Carleton (a thin crispy wafer doused in dark Venezuelan chocolate) and guzzled down bottles upon bottles of Frescolita, the local soft drink that boasts a neon red color and equally intense sweetness.  Of course, my all-time favorite treat was the “raspao”, a street slush of ice and your choice of tropical flavored syrup (coconut, passion fruit, tamarind). These where the stamps of my childhood glucose memories; marshmallow mush formed into pumpkins, chics and hearts was another story all together.

My daughter would tell me that my lack of appreciation for Peeps is wrong, so very wrong.  Of course, as she tethers along the dawn of pre-adolescence, it seems I hear nothing about being right.  But she is a culinary child, born with a whisk in one hand and a tasting spoon in another.  This is the child that will bypass chicken nuggets shaped into stars for grilled octopus with fresh thyme any day.  This is the child who, at two, was thrilled to slurp miso soup (extra tofu please) for breakfast every day while on a trip to Los Angeles.  This is the child who can tell apart an unforgettable foie gras from a mediocre one (and then proceeds to slather it all over the crustiest baguette available.)  She is my food prodigy, so sometimes, I do listen.

I watched her with her newest Peeps purchase:  vanilla crème marshmallow hearts.  She was giddy with excitement grasping the pink and red package that housed 9 cramped foamy hearts sprinkled with colored sugar.

“Pleeease mom, can I have three, pleeeease???”  We were in the midst of our usual negotiations.
“One”, I barked back.
“Two?” Her rebuttal.
“One”, I barked back.
“Two, oh please please please,” her desperate rebuttal.
“One”, I barked back.
“Please mom please please please two two two please I’ll do anything please two???” (This is never going to end.)
“Two”, I say, just to see if she is listening.

She is, tearing the package open and barely giving herself time to smile before gulping two hearts for the price of one.

As she skips away I approach the ravaged package.  Two hearts are missing and the other 7 look frightened, smushed, and very artificial.

I am tempted to seek such giddiness and take a bite, but I know it will be an empty experience for me.  This is not my memory.  It is hers.  Mine stands on the corner of a crowded Caracas street waiting for school to be out, housed in a tiny portable ice cream cart with a hyperactive ringing bell and vocals shouting full force, “el raspao, raspao, raspao, vengan pa’ el raspao:  tenemos parchita, coco, tamarindo, raspao raspao raspao.”  Like a racehorse bursting out of the gate, I’d charge down the hill at the end of the school day, dashing for a quick purchase before clambering on the bus for the hour-long ride home.  The five-second sprint was when I’d consider what flavor I was in the mood for, but it usually narrowed down to two: for a sour flavor I’d go for the tangy parchita (passion fruit); for something mellower, coco (coconut) would do the trick.  If I felt like merging tangy and mellow, I’d ask for the tartest of them all (tamarind) and order the bonus topping of leche condensada (condensed milk) which would dutifully be drizzled all over the top.

This was no doubt the highlight of my day, when I’d be stuck in a glorious limbo of no-more-school and not-time-for-homework yet.  All I would have was my favorite tropical fruit slushy and one hour of bumpy peace to enjoy it in.  Grasping that sticky, mushy Peeps would never be able to transport me there. Carefully, so as not to distort the left ventricle more than my thumb already had, I placed it back into it’s pink plastic cage and left it to wait for its rightful owner, who had her own set of memories and feelings attached to its fluff.  It would only be a matter of minutes before she’d begin negotiating for more.