Feeding the Hungry Ghost (16 page)

In a stockpot, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and red pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the garlic and red pepper sizzle and are fragrant, a few minutes. Add the
chard, a handful at a time, and cook until it just wilts, 4 to 5 minutes. Transfer the chard to another large bowl.

No need to clean out the stockpot. Drain the farro and pour into the pot. Heat over medium-high heat. Stir until the farro toasts and gets a little luster from the residual oil, about 2 minutes.

Add the vegetable broth, stir, and bring to a boil.

Cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer until most of the liquid is absorbed, about 30 minutes. (The farro will continue to soak up liquid as it cools.) The farro will be thick and creamy with a risotto-esque consistency.

Stir in the chard and the currants. The currants, which start out tiny and wrinkly, will plump up from the heat.

Season with salt and freshly ground pepper. Gently stir the pine nuts into the farro, reserving 1 tablespoon for garnish.

To serve, mound into a serving bowl or spoon onto individual plates. Sprinkle the last of the pine nuts on top.

The farrotto can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for several days; reheat just before serving.

the
GLOBAL STEW

As a fledgling existentialist in my tweens, I coined the Existential Stew Theory, which posits you are a carrot. Or an artichoke. Or a mushroom. Or a sprig of basil. You are significant, with your own character, your own unique flavor and qualities. You are whole and independent. Yet you are a necessary ingredient in an elaborate stew. Take away any one ingredient, and the dish suffers. But when you hang out with your fellow ingredients, you enhance each other, you bring out the best in each other. Together, we become even better than what we are individually. And isn’t that
the point of being human, to bump up against other humans and help each other out?

Not bad as a theory — it’s reality where things get complicated. I would pay good money to avoid bumping up against some people. They do not bring out the best in me; they send my shoulders up around my ears and make me hiss like a cornered possum.

Apparently, other people feel the same way. About
me.
How can this be possible? But how else to explain the fence our next-door neighbors put up around their house? It is eight feet high, with wooden planks standing side by side, admitting no light in between. It totally encloses their home from view. It’s a box around their house. What’s next? A moat?

They call it a fence; I call it a corral. It might look more fitting out in the country. But we are not out in the country; we are smack dab in the middle of a city block, and their fence comes right up against the property line of our tiny lot. It casts unfortunate shadows in my backyard where my arugula would otherwise flourish. It’s an affront to the eye. And it’s such a snub. Perhaps the fence makes them feel safe. From what? From me? Obviously, my neighbors are deeply disturbed. Also misguided. Because if they think they can just shut me out, they’ve got another think coming.

There are also people you might prefer not to bump up against. But bump we do, and there’s no fence big enough to keep us all apart. There are seven billion of us at the table now, and we’re facing a case of too many mouths and not enough food. The world grows enough grain so every one of us seven billion can have two pounds of it per day, plus all the produce you can eat (and you should eat more than you do — just saying). Alas, a third or more of that grain goes to feeding livestock, while one
out of every six of us goes hungry. With not enough for us all, the political, religious, economic, and cultural differences between us can appear large. And ugly. Fear and hatred make us not so pretty, either.

I don’t mean you, of course. You are magnificent. But you are not the only flavor the world has to offer. We are all here to live. And it’s not always easy.

I know what you’re thinking — let’s get all this eating and enlightenment stuff out of the way now, so I can get back to work, my family, my laundry, and maybe grab a coffee and a Pilates class. I’m so sorry. I wish it worked that way. If life and spirit and dinner could be reduced to a tweet, I’d be on it. But it takes time and patience to appreciate how it all connects. You have to relax into it. Patience and relaxation are nothing I’m good at, but I know you can’t rush connection any more than you can hasten the slow-cooking magic that goes into a pot of stew.

Yes, stew. It turns out my twelve-year-old self had some wisdom. We are all together in the great global stew. We depend on each other. Not as directly as we did when our ancestors took in strangers, but just as much. Not loving each other madly doesn’t change that. Putting up stupid-ass fences between us doesn’t change that, either.

So I try to breathe and be my bigger, better self, to deal with our differences with some compassion, some humility. And some dinner.

Of course, what happens in a church or a mosque or a synagogue matters, but I’m more interested in the food we share when we come home. Almost every religion, every culture, has its own holiday soup or stew. It may contain a spice or seasoning that’s not in your pantry — or comfort zone; but strip away the differences, and you have a pot of commonality, ingredients every
culture knows. They’re rich in tradition but easy on the belly, simple and sustaining.

Stews are cultural comfort food; they are the people’s food. This is food that takes down the fences we build between us, that bridges our otherness. Good thing, too. We all gotta eat. In the synchronistic way life sometimes has when you play your cards right, I discovered gumbo z’herbes, New Orleans’s amazing green gumbo, in the spring, when collards, chard, spinach, watercress, sorrel, parsley, tatsoi, kale, dandelion, mustard, and turnip greens all conspire to explode from my garden, community-supported agriculture (CSA) box, and farmers’ market.

I can’t tell the kale, “Not now, darling. Come back next week,” or ask the collards to please shrink down from their elephant-ear size to something more manageable. Not only is it peak season for greens in my part of the world, but this überabundance happens at the right season as far as the Catholic Church is concerned.

Silly, heathen me, I’d been smitten with it because it tasted so good and made me feel so good. Who knew it could be penance grub? It turns out gumbo z’herbes is an Ash Wednesday tradition, complying with the Lenten abstinence from meat. Carnival, as Mardi Gras is also known, comes from the Latin
carne vale —
literally, “farewell, meat.” Please note it does not mean “farewell, fun.” Gumbo z’herbes is meatless, but it shows your mouth a good time. It takes the sting out of forty days of prayer and austerity. You can enjoy in good faith. Truly.

You can, as I did, pronounce it with a French accent, but in Louisiana, they looked at me as if I was crazy. There, they say “gumbo zav.” And they created it, so who am I to argue? And I can’t argue with any recipe that lets me use leafy and so-called lowly greens, spin them into culinary gold, and make room in my refrigerator, too. We’re talking a lot of greens. Pounds of them,
as many kinds as you like, as long as they’re an odd number. This is believed to bring good fortune, and if not exactly sanctioned by the Catholic Church, it makes a good story. I think we’re as hungry for narrative as we are for food. Or maybe that’s just me.

If you prefer your meal without backstory and religious significance, gumbo z’herbes will still come through for you. It’s crazy with calcium, iron, antioxidants, and whatnot. But you also get your RDA of a kind of nourishment even collards can’t supply — the nourishment of the spirit. Fulfillment, joy, connection are built right in.

Here’s another opportunity to use your vegetable broth. It’s a time investment — you don’t want to rush a roux. There’s something leisurely, expansive, luxurious about making gumbo z’herbes, and you know, when you spend the time making food, you’re well on your way to a feast. If you’ve got a food processor, you’ve got it made. Most of the work happens in the pot without your help, and the result is amazing. It’s a labor of love with a big flavor payoff — just what you’d want to make for people you care about. Serve over cooked brown rice; keep your favorite hot sauce handy.

CSA Gumbo Z’herbes

Gumbo z’herbes is green gumbo — just what kind of green is up to you and what’s fresh and available. I use what comes in my community supported agriculture box — escarole, collards, tatsoi, rainbow chard, and beet greens. Remember, use an odd number of greens for good luck.

Traditionally, gumbo z’herbes is ladled over white rice. I prefer brown rice, both for its nutty flavor and its greater, grainier nourishment. Either way, this gumbo makes a big, serious bowl of green.

Serves 8 to 10

5 big bunches greens (escarole, collards, tatsoi, chard, beet greens — whatever’s green and fresh)

Table salt for the greens

cup plus 2 tablespoons olive oil

½ cup whole wheat flour

2 onions, coarsely chopped

6 cloves garlic

4 stalks celery plus their leaves, coarsely chopped

2 red bell peppers, coarsely chopped

6 cups Stone Soup (see
page 84
) or other vegetable broth

1 handful fresh thyme leaves

1 bay leaf

¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Wash your greens really, really well. This is the most important step, as a mouthful of grit is not pleasing. The best way I’ve found to clean greens is to plop them down and rinse them thoroughly in your sink. Then pick them over. You can reserve the odd stemmy bits for broth. Shake in some table salt and rinse again. (The salt helps rid the greens of stubborn sand and such.) Give a final rinse and blot dry.

The old-school method for cooking gumbo greens is to blanch or boil them, but I prefer steaming, which keeps their color bright and their lovely nutrients intact. Steam greens in batches in a covered steamer or double boiler. Fill the bottom pot halfway with water. Bring to a boil over high heat. Place the greens in the steamer inset, or the top pot of a double boiler, the one with the holes at the bottom.

Cover and steam so the greens are just tender yet still vibrant and bright colored. Time varies for the different greens. Soft-leafed greens like spinach steam in 3 to 5 minutes. Sturdier greens like collards may take twice as long.

Place the greens in a colander with a pot beneath them to catch all the good veggie broth.

Meanwhile, make your roux. In a large soup pot, heat
cup of the olive oil over very low heat. Whisk in the flour and cook, whisking occasionally, for a really long time, maybe 45 minutes, or until the roux starts to give off a toasty scent and turns chocolaty in color.

Meanwhile, in a food processor, pulse the onions and garlic until they’re finely chopped, not mushy, about a minute, tops. In a large skillet, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat. Stir in the onion-garlic mixture.