Feeding the Hungry Ghost (7 page)

Marcella could not cook. When I was little, her scrambled
eggs — overdone, brown, rubbery — made me cry. She was renowned for her vile coffee, watery yet corrosive. She was not your traditional grandmotherly type with a soft and available lap. Back in the 1920s, Marcella had road-tripped from Florida to California with her soon-to-be sister-in-law, my great-aunt Rose, the fussiest woman on earth. How they managed is anyone’s guess. There was no getting to the bottom of it when I’d ask them, and there’s no one alive to tell the tale now.

Marcella married and became a mother and then grandmother, but she never quite settled down. She smoked and drank and played cards with the girls — even when she and “the girls” were well into their seventies. The most grandmotherish thing Marcella did was knit, but she was keener on golf and swimming, and had a swimmer’s broad shoulders and a thrill seeker’s nature. For Marcella, the spirit of adventure came naturally; it was part of who she was. In me, it needed cultivating. I was a shy, bookish little girl of seven, and my idea of adventure was getting lost in stories. I’d been in an acute
Tales of a Thousand and One Nights
phase when I wound up in Marcella’s tow one afternoon while she ran errands. We went to the yarn store, where bosomy women pinched my cheeks (why do they
do
that?), to the dry cleaner, with its chemical smells and the racks of clothes spinning from the ceiling, and finally to a place I’d never seen before — a Middle Eastern grocery.

It must have been the only one in Miami at the time. It was small, dim, with narrow aisles lined with shelves stacked high with bags and bottles and jars of things totally mysterious to me. And yet somehow not mysterious. I knew this place. I knew it from
Tales of a Thousand and One Nights.

My heart pounded as I peered about for Scheherazade in gauzy robes and bangles. But the only other person in the store
was the slightly terrifying owner, who regarded us from beneath a ledge of bushy black eyebrows. I wanted to rub every jar in the store, to find one that conjured a djinn, or at least plunge my hands into the bins of lentils and bulgur, sweeping them up and letting them fall, like playing in sand without the beach. But the owner scowled, and I didn’t dare. Disapproval came off him as sharp as the scent of sumac and feta, which mingled with the other smells in the store — tangy, cured grape leaves, heady saffron, sweet cardamom.

I slipped my hand into my grandmother’s. Clearly, we had left the sanctity and security of the known world. It didn’t bother my grandmother any. From one of the bins, she measured out a scoop of the dried apricots she loved to snack on, curled and furrowed like little ears, but sweet and tart and chewy. She asked the owner for some feta, which he kept in a refrigerated case, an immense white cake bobbing in its own briny bath. She also asked for a wedge of something that sat next to it, a mound of something tan. He sliced it and was about to wrap it up in butcher paper, when she reached over and broke off a piece right there in the shop.

I braced for the man to produce a scimitar and hack us into bits.

My grandmother, oblivious, gave me a nugget. “It’s halvah.”

So this was to be my last meal. I ate it. It was both like and unlike anything I’d ever tasted. It was sweet, it was peanut buttery, it was just a little bit gritty, then whoom, it dissolved in my mouth and was gone. I instantly wanted more.

“Halvah,” I said. And the name was sweet in my mouth as well, a magical incantation. The owner ceased glowering and beamed.

You could say halvah was my gateway drug. From then on, I was always game to try new foods, and Marcella was happy to be
my guide. Baba ghanoush, one of her favorites, was an easy sell. It’s garlicky, yes, and unlovely but has a name like one of Scheherazade’s heroes. Guacamole, which Marcella insisted on calling “guamacole,” was a staple during summer when her avocado tree bore abundantly. I came to like it after she let me make it with her. I squished the avocado between my fingers; she rubbed bits of it on her face — free moisturizer.

Then came my grandmother’s beloved limburger. My grandfather banned it from the house. Or tried to. Marcella kept it tightly sealed in a jar at the back of the fridge and only let it out — like a bad djinn — when he was away. She’d phone out of the blue and say, “Your grandfather’s out. Let’s have lunch.” This meant limburger and onion sandwiches on pumpernickel, a combination that makes my eyes water just thinking of it.

Or maybe my eyes water because Marcella died years ago and we are no longer each other’s gastronomic partner in crime. I miss the way her eyes lit up with pleasure when I introduced her to something new, like Indian lemon pickle — too much salt, too much chili, too much oil, can I have some more, please? I wish she were still alive so she could try pomegranate molasses, puckery and intense, but with a sweet finish. Or natto — pungent fermented soybeans — a Japanese dish that gives limburger a run for its money. I wish I could make her kimchi and harissa, their flavors fierce, fiery, tangy, offering bright flashes from other lands.

My grandmother traveled the country; I travel the globe. She was a passionate eater. I’m a passionate eater and cook. I feel her presence at Ecuadoran cevicherías, in Moroccan souks, and in my kitchen when I make harissa and halvah. I can imagine her peering into bowls and dipping her finger in to taste.

What I loved about
Tales of a Thousand and One Nights
was that it did not end. Stories opened up into other stories. Food is
the same way. One culinary adventure leads into the next, and the djinn can be anywhere — in a Moroccan tagine, a Turkish
guvec,
their names almost as magical as
halvah,
or just as easily in a great pot of coffee you share with someone you love.

Turkish Millet and Greens for Marcella

Offering whole grains, fabulous greens, and haunting flavors, this dish is a one-pot wonder. However, if you feel it would be lonely by itself, it pairs very nicely with fennel. A side dish of roasted fennel drizzled with balsamic vinegar has a nice chewiness. For a crisp contrast, shred raw fennel or enjoy the millet with the Pink Grapefruit and Fennel Salad (
page 39
).

Serves 6 to 8

¾ cup walnuts

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

1 cup millet

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

1 to 2 teaspoons red pepper flakes, or 1 or 2 dried red peppers, crumbled

1 bunch greens (collards, kale, chard — whatever’s green and fresh), chopped into bite-size pieces

cup finely chopped fresh dill

One 15-ounce can diced tomatoes

2 tablespoons tomato paste

½ cup pomegranate molasses
*

1 teaspoon ground coriander

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

1 bunch fresh cilantro, chopped

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Coarsely chop the walnuts and pour into a shallow baking pan. Bake until they’re golden brown and have a wonderful buttery smell, about 10 minutes. Set aside to cool.

In a large saucepan, bring the vegetable broth to a boil over high heat. Add the millet. Cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer until all the liquid is absorbed, about 20 minutes.

Fluff the cooked millet with a fork and set aside to cool. (The cooked millet can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for a day or two; bring to room temperature before proceeding with the recipe.)

In a large pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion, garlic, and red pepper flakes. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are fragrant and softened, about 8 minutes.

Add the greens, a handful at a time, and the dill, and cook until the greens just wilt, stirring occasionally, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the walnuts, cooked millet, and tomatoes, stirring gently to keep the millet clump-free. Stir in the tomato paste and pomegranate molasses. Add the coriander, stir to combine, and season with salt and pepper. (The millet and greens can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for a day or two; reheat just before serving.)

Stir in the cilantro just before serving.

GENTLE NUDGE
the
SECOND: DISCOVER
the
POWER
of
LITERATURE — YOUR OWN

I kept a diary in my teens, chronicling my angst and misadventures and brain-bending crushes. It was, of course, puerile, self-absorbed, all of it. But you know
what Oscar Wilde said
— “I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.”

It’s time you kept a diary, too — a food diary, where you record everything that goes in your mouth. What could be more sensational than you?

The hardest part of sticking to a food regimen — or any regimen — is the human factor. We lie to ourselves. All the time. A nicer way to say this is we fudge — oh, dangerous, delicious word — on the truth. We cheat. We start out great guns, but then we cave. We get tired, bored, cranky, tempted.

I can’t keep you honest. That ain’t in my pay grade. A food journal will do the work for you. Do it for real for one month, and you’ll have something more thrilling than a Kardashian tell-all, and more authentic besides. It’ll reveal your own eating behavior.

According to the dog whisperer who trains both our wayward puppy and me, there’s always a behavior pattern. We all have blind spots, things we rationalize. The trick is to keep notes so you can recognize yours. So watch and learn.

Don’t judge yourself, don’t forbid yourself anything, especially food you love and associate with comfort (because why else would you eat it?). But when you start seeing how much you eat and when — what the behaviorists call triggers — you may come to that aha moment and feel ready to make some tweaks. That’s how I got myself off my soda jones.

Uh, yeah. Full and shaming disclosure — I used to drink
soda, your worst dietary offender. And I used to drink a lot of it — close to two liters a day. I justified drinking it the way we all justify bad habits: could be worse, I could be an ax murderess, so what’s so bad about a can of soda?

Well, for one thing, that’s where a lot of calories and sugar are. According to a
University of North Carolina study
, we drink 21 percent of our calories. That’s double what it was in 1965. Our waistlines have doubled as well, not just from soda, but alcohol, fancy coffee drinks, juice, and so-called energy drinks.

I was strictly a caffeine-free Diet Coke girl, as though that made me superior. Talk about denial. My body was still a playground for soda’s unwelcome chemicals, including phosphorus, which was busily leaching away the calcium from my bones.

I knew I had to kick the habit. It was a matter of health, but also one of hypocrisy. Drinking soda became harder to square with what I’d learned writing about food. You can’t talk the talk when you’re not walking the walk (unless, apparently, you’re in public office, but that’s another matter).

Being a weenie, I went for a step-down approach, the slow switch, the same kind of approach I advocate for you. For a couple of weeks, I allowed myself a soda whenever the mood struck. The caveat — I had to drink a glass of water first. That way, I figured, I’d be getting good hydration and getting in the habit of drinking more water. This turned out to be true.

It got to be that once I drank the water, I didn’t want the soda.

I got down to one Diet Coke to enjoy with dinner. The rest of the day, I drank mint tea or water with a wedge of lemon for festiveness and flavor. Water became the beverage of choice, and by keeping a food journal, I discovered I’d drink anything if it was next to my computer while I was working — soda, hemlock, whatever — so it might as well be water.