Baking to Stay Hopeful



I baked almost every day this week as Pakistan geared towards elections (May 11). For the first time, the youth of the country mobilized, marched out into the streets in sweltering heat to vote for change. All day today, I sat in bed with a nasty cold and refreshed my computer screen constantly to see how the race was going.

The results were disappointing, not only because the candidate I was supporting didn't win, but also because there was mass-scale rigging and outright sabotage at the polls, which was caught on camera - facebooked, tweeted, posted on national and international news websites.

Tonight, on the eve of Mother's Day, in order to remain hopeful and keep a strong faith that my country is indeed well on its way towards a positive change, I decided to bake Joy the Baker's White Chocolate Rose Cake with Strawberries. Unfortunately, Rebecca wasn't here to take pictures, so I have to subject you to my poor photography using the mediocre camera of my phone.




 Rebecca came by yesterday and took the photos below (edited: 5/13/2013).


Chai - & - Announcing 1-recipe/week from Bon Appetit

Chai has featured more or less consistently in my writing. A series of poems I have written and posted on Desi Writers Lounge is called Chai and a Poem. The poems aren't all about chai, but doesn't it create a powerful image? A cup of steaming chai next to a piece of paper with words scribbled on it that make a poem - a few phrases married to each other to create compelling meaning. Most of the prose I have written recently has chai in it - a girl sitting on her balcony sipping a cup of chai, watching the city breathing, writhing, teeming below her; a woman breaking the coat of milk-fat forming on top of her chai and wondering if this is how her relationship with her father is breaking apart - one touch of a finger and a million cracks running all over the thin wrinkled brown layer; a boy and girl on a rooftop in Lahore during Basant, the festival of kites, a teacup breaking as it slips and falls between them, a meet-cute. I use chai consistently in my poems, too. The brown ring of chai left on a glass-top table, a reminder of somebody no longer there. Burnt chai. Strong chai. Weak chai. Chai the color of someone's skin. Chai that burns. Chai that soothes. Chai that reminds you there is much to live for yet. Not long ago, my good friend, the amazing Editor of Papercuts, and humorous blogger Afia Aslam asked me, "Why didn't we call your blog Chai and a poem?"

There is something inspiring about this humble drink. It is a beverage that crosses all class barriers in Pakistan. The cleaning girl, the errand boy, the washerwoman, the driver - they may have a separate set of china for their chai, but it is poured out of the same pot as Bibi Jee's or Sahib's. It is what sells year-round on the street in chipped porcelain cups (or small narrow glasses if you're across the Wagah Border). Every home has a way of brewing it. And when guests arrive, the hosts ask, "Chai? Thanda?" (Chai or something cold?). Until recently, my image of an arranged marriage, which is common in Pakistan, was one of a demure young lady wheeling a tea trolley with kebabs, samosas, scones, pastries, and the queen of the arrangement, chai in a majestic teapot, to the drawing room.

The oft-overlooked, humble chai is quite an inspiration. If you don't believe me, just look at the pictures Rebecca took!

Chai is the first thing I really learned how to "cook." I spent a long time coming up with just the right recipe. The best kind of milk (whole milk), the right amount of Lipton Yellow Label Orange Pekoe (sorry, PG Tips), the perfect additions (crushed green cardamom), and the right length of boiling. I mastered it. It's what I did on stressful afternoons back in Davis with an exam looming in the near future. It physically made me overcome my stress, relaxed my tense muscles one by one, made me realize it was going to be OK. It was strangely therapeutic for me, this act of making the perfect cup of chai. And now I feel the same way about cooking (and maybe even baking).

This is my perfect cup of chai
And this is a great segue to the second part of this post - the announcement! I will be cooking 1 recipe per week from past issues of Bon Appetit magazine that have been accumulating in my kitchen for over a year now. Posts will be labeled with the "1-recipe/week from Bon Appetit" tag. I will be cooking on Mondays and posting pictures (taken by Rebecca), an accompanying blog post, and a link to the recipe by the end of each week - Friday-ish. Stay tuned for....drumroll please....Fallen Chocolate Cake....coming soon!

Photos by Rebecca McCue

Grammar Police

me: I don't want anyone but my family to know that I am hungry for compliments
 Sent at 2:52 PM on Monday
 usman:  i see
she really like your profile
and I keep telling you the same things
on paper your the most ideal candidate any university is looking for
its just how you execute now
will determine your admission
you have great experience
well rounded personality(not literally)
 me:  the grammatical errors in your sentences above are blowing my mind
 usman:  lol
 Sent at 3:01 PM on Monday

The Ocean And The Baby

I have always had a fear of open waters. Despite living in California for ten years, I have been to the beach only a handful of times and have stayed resolutely away from the shore. 

When I was in Pakistan, my father took us to Karachi once. I wore sneakers to the beach because I had no intention of going anywhere near the sea. I came home with sand stuck into each nook and cranny of my shoes. I hated the beach. In Lahore, we used to drive by the River Ravi often. I would look at it from a distance at different times of the year. Sometimes, the water receded and I could see children running along the bank. Other times, the river swelled, its strong current bringing full nets of catch to the fishermen, frequently claiming lives of poor children who wore discarded tires as tubes around their waists to float on stifling summer days, characteristically interrupted by monsoon showers. 

It surprises me how motherhood has changed me in small yet profound ways. Over the weekend, we took Jahan to the beach to expose her to the freezing waves, the wet shore, the warm fine sand. I thought she would be ecstatic to find herself in an endless sandbox. I imagined she would rush up to the ocean. I was certain that her face would break out into a gleeful grin. But she was afraid. As soon as her feet touched the sand, she let out a mewling cry and started clambering up my leg. I was shocked. I had not factored the possibility of her not liking the beach into my expectations for the day at all. Like mother, like daughter, right? Wrong. 

I have never gone this close to the ocean so willingly and without fear as I did yesterday. I carried Jahan and walked up to the waves, waded into edge of the icy cold Pacific Ocean. I bent down and touched the water hugging my ankles briefly before receding. I took Jahan's little hand and immersed it. She looked at me, cried, and clung to me fiercely. Carrying her made me brave. Her arm resting resolutely around mine gave me a strange comfort as I ran into the water, willing her to feel happy, free, much like the calm surf of Pescadero Beach. 

Being Jahan's mama has made me brave enough to look my fears in the eye. I know she will be walking along the waves with me very soon.    

Photo by Rebecca McCue

Love Like Garlic

The King and His Daughters


Pakistan

There was once a king who had several daughters. To the first he said, "How do you love me?"
"I love you as sugar," said she.
To the next he said, "And how do you love me?"
"I love you as honey," said she.
To the third he said, "And how do you love me?"
"I love you as sherbet," said she.
To the last and youngest he said, "And how do you love me?"
"I love you as salt," said she.
On hearing the answer of his youngest daughter the king frowned, and, as she persisted in repeating it, he drove her out into the forest.
There, when wandering sadly along, she heard the tramping of a horse, and she hid herself in a hollow tree. But the fluttering of her dress betrayed her to the rider, who was a prince, and who instantly fell in love with her and married her.
Some time after, the king, her father, who did not know what had become of her, paid her husband a visit. When he sat down to meat, the princess took care that all the dishes presented to him should be made-up sweets, which he either passed by altogether or merely tasted. He was very hungry, and was longing sorely for something which he could eat, when the princess sent him a dish of common spinach, seasoned with salt, such as farmers eat, and the king signified his pleasure by eating it with relish.
Then the princess threw off her veil, and, revealing herself to her father, said, "Oh my father, I love you as salt. My love may be homely, but it is true, genuine and lasting, and I entreat your forgiveness."
Then the king perceived how great a mistake he had made, and there followed a full reconciliation.
Source: Charles Swynnerton, Indian Nights' Entertainment; or, Folk-Tales from the Upper Indus (London: Elliot Stock, 1892), no. 27, pp. 78-79.
 -From Love Like Salt - folktales of types 923 and 510. Translated and/or edited by D. L. Ashliman

 Every summer, as soon as the monsoons arrived in Lahore, so did my paternal aunt and cousins from Faisalabad for three months of story-telling, late-night snacks, PTV drama commentaries, and aiding in the interminable task of completing summer homework. My cousins, several years older than me, used to tell old folktales, stories of their village, a haunted banyan tree, farm life, their 2-mile trek to school each way, weekend trips to the city. I listened to them with fascination. Living in the city, their lives in the village sounded like a rustic vacation. I don't remember most of the stories my cousins told me, but I do recall the one I wrote above clearly. 

 After listening to this story, I remember telling my father, who often complained that his daughters didn't show any signs of loving their poor old Papa, that I loved him as much as salt in daal. I followed up with this story, and my father, the writer that he is, butchered my metaphor. He claimed that it simply did not work, because the salt content in our food is always high. The beauty of the metaphor is that even a little salt goes a long way, but it simply didn't apply to our food, he informed me. It wasn't about the quantity of salt, I argued. It was about the quality it gave to the dish. We agreed to disagree. 

 Now that I have re-discovered this story, I actually think that the kind of love I crave, want, and give is not like salt at all. Salt represents an overpowering kind of love, it emboldens the dish, or makes it bland, or if used in excess, makes it bitter. It is the trying-too-hard kind of love. Or playing hard-to-get kind of love. It is the stalker kind of love. Or the reckless kind of love. It is the kind of love that dragged me across an ocean to this country at a precarious age for a boy. It is the dangerous kind of love. It is young love. Careless love. Short-lived love. Or overburdened love. It is the love that cuts deep and is often unforgiving, all-consuming, maddening. 

 I no longer subscribe to love like salt. Not anymore.

 I love differently now and demand that the affection I get in return should be qualitatively distinguishable from love like salt. My love is like garlic. It is like the aroma that lingers outside a kitchen, hovers around windows and screen doors on summer evenings, when the cook throws in a few cloves of garlic into extra-virgin olive oil and the pale pieces begin to turn golden around the edges. It is like the flavor that makes a plain plate of rice superior, delectable, gourmet because it's tossed in sauteed minced garlic. It is the personality change that a pasta dish undergoes when you crush some garlic into the creamy sauce. It is Emeril's BAM!, Rachel Ray's Yummo!, Bobby Flay's throwdown - it is the secret weapon of home-cooks, cooking enthusiasts, chefs and sous chefs and iron chefs, novices, experts, one and all. The metaphor of garlic gives love the flexibility of being subtle or bold. It inspires malleability, patience, forgiveness, sacrifice. It imparts confidence. It stands for a final flourish, a strong statement, a love that pleases the senses, appeases emotions, understands differences. A love that does not cause those who practice it to clash with each other, to break each other, to embitter each other. I am talking about a responsible kind of love. A respectful kind of love. The enough kind of love. A love that says "It's OK!" or "I love you just because" or "I'm sorry." A love that does not compete or compare or demean or judge.

 I love this kind of love. Love like garlic, a humble ingredient that gives all of its essence to the dish it is added to, never compromising its personality, never losing the richness of its flavor. 

Photos by Rebecca McCue 

The Secret Banana Bread

I have always maintained that I am not a baker. 

I enjoy the intuition that accompanies cooking. I love the vibrant colors of my spices, the flourish of a spatula as it scrapes the bottom of a pan when I stir - a smooth stroke, the smell of onions caramelizing, garlic roasting, chilies sizzling, the crunch of seeds and sticks of spices grinding underneath my marble pestle, the feel of dough between my fingers as I knead it, and the sight of roti swelling with steam as I put it on the open flame. 

I do not enjoy the clutter of measuring cups, the tedious tasks of lining and buttering baking pans, preparing ingredients separately (wet and dry), and sitting idly while the oven does its magic. I know baking is therapeutic for some people, but it has always been an annoying task for me. This is why I have never served homemade dessert when I entertain (and I do a lot of that). Dessert always comes as an afterthought to me. I plead with my husband to run to the store and buy some ice-cream. For birthdays, I order expansive (and expensive) custom cakes because they are gorgeous and I can never pull off anything even close to what they look and taste like. Plus, I don't have a sweet tooth. Yes, I know I am very, very strange. 

Almost two years ago, our youngest sister came to visit us for the first time. And boy, does she love sweets. And so, for her, I decided to revive an old recipe of banana bread I had tried years ago with marginally good results. Little did I know that trying this recipe would actually lead to a mission to make the best banana bread possible. After much experimentation, some of it fun, some of it bordering on unpleasant, I have now come up with a foolproof recipe with two secret ingredients that I am about to reveal. This banana bread is loved and devoured by all, including the baby.

I hope you'll try it and give me your feedback!

Ingredients:
All purpose flour - 2 cups
Dark brown sugar - 1 cup
Large eggs - 2
Ripe bananas - 3 to 4
Unsalted butter - 1 stick
Ground cinnamon - 1 teaspoon
 Salt - 1 teaspoon
Baking soda - 1 teaspoon
Baking powder - 1 teaspoon
Half and half (or milk) - 1 tablespoon
Chocolate chips - half a small packet (I just eyeball them)

Secret ingredients (obviously no longer a secret now that they are on this blog):
Vanilla essence - 1 teaspoon
Ground nutmeg - 1 teaspoon

Method:
Pre-heat oven to 325 F and prepare a loaf pan for baking.
Mix the brown sugar with butter to make a creamy mixture. 
Mash in the bananas.
Add two eggs, one at a time, and mix in.
Add milk and vanilla and mix. 
In a separate bowl, mix all the dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg.
Mix the dry and wet ingredients together. 
Add chocolate chips and mix. This will be a thick creamy mixture. 
Transfer it into the loaf pan and bake for 60 to 65 minutes.
Cool for at least an hour before slicing.   

Enjoy with a cup of cardamom chai.

Why Mama Knows Best or Jahanara at 18 months

Jahanara, my darling girl,

I hope you will find in me a friend for all seasons when you grow up. I hope we will have lots of ordinary moments on ordinary days and somehow sharing them with each other will make them extraordinary. I know we will have arguments. Mama's friends say mama is very, very opinionated and very, very stubborn (sometimes). You are so mild-mannered and gentle-tempered, but I know you have the same germs - I mean, genes. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, after all. 

When we argue roughly a decade from now, these are the reasons why you will not be allowed to win the argument. They're unfair, but well, they are true:

1. You are 18 months old now. I have not had more than 6 straight hours of sleep since I went into labor three days before you were born. I don't expect this to change anytime soon. Don't get me wrong. Your sleep habits have been great from the beginning, but mama has a job and mama likes a clean house, so it's just a matter of not having enough hours in the day. The cleaning has to come after you go to bed, which makes my bedtime much later than I'd like it to be. Also, I wake up naturally every 2-3 hours, which is very annoying, only so I can check on you.

2. In the past 18 months you have thrown food, milk, vomit, poop, pee, drool, snot, et cetera on me.

3. I have given you a good-night massage every single day of your life. 

4. I cook delicious food for you every day, including your favorite banana bread on weekends.

5. For me, you always come first.

6. In these formative months, on average, you have shown more love for Elmo than me. 

7. You are the first person I look at when I wake up, the last one before I go to sleep, and most nights I dream happy dreams of you.

8. You are allowed to cuddle with me endlessly and on demand. You are allowed to give me slobbery kisses. You are also allowed to pinch me when we are cuddling (how did  you get this habit?) and watching videos.

9. I have thrown/will throw you a fabulous birthday party every year (inshallah). 

10. No one in this whole world loves you more than I do. 

So, you see, it is simply impossible for you to win any arguments in the future. I could never defeat your grandmother in our debates. She always pulled the mom card. Or the I-carried-you-for-nine-months-and-went-through-a-C-section card. Or the signature hurt-emotional- blackmail expression. I used to wonder how she did it every single time. Now I know. If I am feeling generous, I may let you win sometimes, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. 

With all my love always, 
Mama

P.S. The list above is highly abridged and it's only going to grow, so you see how you'd be up against a beanstalk...don't you?    

Photo by Rebecca McCue   
   

All Kinds of Crisis

Over the last two days, there have been a lot of different opinions on the underlying racism and prejudice in America that have come forth as very broad and bold overtones in the media coverage.

I have thought a lot about this today, and spent some time sifting through my tangled thoughts. I debated on whether or not to write this, but feel that I must. When I first heard news of the explosions in Boston, my immediate thought was, "They've done it again." I had to take a few deep breaths at the heel of this thought and admonish myself. Let me explain. I am a Muslim. I am also Pakistani. These two very significant aspects of my identity are often proceeded by the word "terrorist" in the news. Islamist terrorist. Muslim terrorist. Pakistani terrorist. Pakistani Muslim terrorist. When I thought, "They've done it again," I did two things at once. I reacted exactly the way the media has trained me to: This must be the work of a Muslim terrorist group; and I divorced myself from my identity by employing the pronoun "they." Without proof, without question, without reason, I, a Pakistani Muslim woman who is ordinarily rather well-adjusted as an immigrant in California, decided to extricate myself from "my people" because I demonized all of them collectively. 

My second reaction to this news was fear. "What does this mean for me?" Yes, I am in California, the liberal wild-child of America. Yes, I have been so lucky as not to have faced, experienced, or witnessed any overt actions of prejudice or racism. But what if speculations feed the media frenzy? Worse, what if this terrible crime was indeed committed by a Muslim? It was a selfish thought, but this is a place to tell the truth. The fact is, I don't know what it means to be a Muslim in this country, or anywhere in the world anymore. It is unpredictable. You have a last name like "Saeed" and you're held in immigration for five hours because they need to run a background check on your name. "Do they know how many Saeeds there are in the world," you wonder. When you get randomly selected to be patted down at the airport enough times, even when you are visibly pregnant, and the "female assist" asks you to hold out the elastic waistband of your maternity pants so she can look down just to be sure, only because you had the audacity (and the pregnancy hormones) to be irritated with this secondary security check, you internalize a kind of fear for how others view your identity. 

 I digress. 

 The last two days have been hard on a hidden level. Life goes on as usual, but in quiet moments, when I am doing the dishes, or trying to sleep, or driving home, thoughts and feelings ebb and flow and whisper to me. 

 Today, I saw the smiling faces of three people who lost their lives in Boston, two women and one eight year-old-child. The shock I felt was real and strong. Is it because I live in this country? Or is it because I think it is a bigger crime for a bomb to go off amidst civilians in America than in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, or anywhere else in the world? Is it because I have seen so many pictures of funeral biers and fathers carrying bloody corpses of their children in all these other countries that I have begun to think that it's simply something that happens there, to those people? And now all of a sudden, it is happening here, to me. Is death on this continent more meaningful and more heart-breaking? No, any loss of life is expensive - I don't use that term crassly, I use it thoughtfully - for life should be treated as such. So, I cried today for Boston. And for Sandy Hook. And also for Pakistan and Iraq.

Whenever I think about the aftermath of the Boston explosions, a cold fear ripples through my spine. What if we find out that the perpetrators of this incident had skin the color of mine? What if they call God by the same name as I do? What if they look like me? 

But then I think that this courageous young woman also looks like me. She, too, has a green passport. She tells the truth with her pen. She wears her faith with pride around her head. I also remind myself that the true legacy of my country comes from this man. And he needs no words.

Goodbye, Old Friends...

Unfortunately, this month's selection for my book club is not available as an audiobook, which prompted me to tell the members that I will not be joining this round. Having an 18-month-old very active toddler while also working full-time means that the little time I do have in the day is spent in cooking, cleaning, and generally loving my family. It's these little matters that matter after all.

 And where do my other loves factor in? My love for reading and writing? Well, I cheat a little, you see. I satisfy the love for writing by having a dedicated block once a week, during which I typically compose entries for this blog. The love for reading, well, it was suffering terribly and actually spiraling very quickly down a slippery slope about to disappear into oblivion...so, it had to evolve. Sometime last year, I started to listen to audiobooks, very hesitantly at first, but with an increasing passion ever since. I am at a point where I look forward to my commute every morning, because I am eager to get back to "reading." Sometimes when I get home, I circle around the block a few times so I reach a point where I feel comfortable "closing the book." It has honestly changed my life for the better. I spend 2 hours every day on the road - that's 10 hours a week, it's very, very significant, because let's face it, people - I could be at home cuddling with my very cuddle-worthy baby during those 2 hours. It is important for me to spend this time enjoyably and productively, so that it comes at least marginally close to being as good as cuddling with the aforementioned baby. This does NOT involve listening to popular morning radio jockeys talking about whether a particular celebrity is cheating on their significant other - a couple of Adele songs peppered into their pointless banter cannot be its saving grace.

Last weekend, I decided to reorganize the garage, part of which also serves as my home office. I haven't used it in months and everything in that space looked neglected and had a layer of dust thick enough that it caused my allergies to flair up with the slightest disturbance. I filled up 5 boxes full of books I have read and enjoyed, but have not even touched since switching to audiobooks. It is time for my "real" books to make someone else very happy - someone who does not have a feisty toddler trying to extricate the book from their hands forcefully, or maybe someone who does - I don't know. The point is, I have taken all the juice out of those books. They will continue to sit on the shelves of my bookcase, gathering dust, silently screaming insults at me every time I park my car in the garage and walk past them. They are probably very unhappy in this dark space. They deserve to be in a library with good lighting and ventilation, someone to dust them off every once in a while, curious hands drawn by a strange pull from the force of their words, people picking them up, leafing through their pages, maybe finding a passage I underlined, a question I wrote in the margin, and thinking..."Hmm, this is interesting." With a heavy heart, I have to say that I must let my books go. 
Of course I am keeping some books that I simply cannot give up. All Harry Potter books. My signed copy of Labor Day by Joyce Maynard. My collector's edition of Wicked. On Beauty and White Teeth by Zadie Smith. Fragile Things and Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. My Margaret Atwood books. Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen - I read that book at a lonely time in my life. It's misery made me realize I have had good luck so far. Unfamiliar Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri. The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai. All books on writing technique and poetry. Poetry collections of Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Billy Collins, Yeats, Li-young Lee, and Adrienne Rich. Toni Morrison books. Collected works of Shakespeare and Edgar Allan Poe. Short story collections by Alice Munro and Joyce Carol Oates. And some others...

 I have not yet donated the 5 big boxes of books. I want to open them up another time, just to be absolutely, positively sure that I am doing the right thing. The fact is, I am parting with books I have loved and read and loved and read and loved and read and traveled with - I have uprooted my life from one country and flown across an ocean with some of them, and moved 8 times in the last ten years within California with others. I have bribed, threatened, begged, and manipulated friends to lug my boxes of books from one place to another just because it was too difficult for me to part with them. 

 All for what? So they could sit forlornly on shelves with dust particles settling deep into their pages, along their spines. They will be much happier in a library. The question is, will I be much sadder without them?