Fall has arrived in San Diego. This morning on our hike Jeff and I could see our breath in the blustery morning air. We loved it.
There's nothing like a chill October morning with a crisp blue sky to evoke feelings of nostalgia. Within minutes of our hike, our talk turned to missing New England and our autumn traditions, like apple picking, pumpkin carving, and decorating for Halloween.
One person in particular has been on our mind: my grandmother, Nan. Last October 5th, Nan turned one hundred years old. She had no idea of the significance of the day. But she did love her whipped cream covered chocolate cake with pink roses, so much so, that she ate two big slices. Watching her enjoy that cake was the best part of the day.
This past July, Nan passed away peacefully, with my mother by her side. Yes, she was fortunate to live to 100. Still, I miss her. We all do.
Food, Family and Memory
Food, Family, and Memory
Growing Up With The Help
The Help surprised some people that Southern whites could
treat their servants with so much inhumanity in the 1960's. I was
shocked by a few specific incidents, but not surprised. I saw it close
up as a child. Not in Jackson, Miss., where the story is set, but in my
hometown of Beverly Hills where the help was almost exclusively
'negro,' before the Black Power Movement and the influx of Hispanic
housekeepers and nannies in the late 70's and early 80's.
My overly emotional reaction to the film puzzled me. Good story, great performances, but floods of tears? On the drive home, memory hit and re-opened an old wound that I had hidden away. Of course... ESMUS HEMPHILL, our black maid in the 50's & 60's who was let go when I left for college and who I never thanked enough for all she did or properly protected her against my mother's unconscious cruelty towards her.
My mother, born into working class Memphis in 1925, became politically liberal, but personally she still carried a few racist seeds in her DNA. She would sit at the head of our dining table in Beverly Hills and ring a sterling silver bell to signal to Esmus that it was time to serve.
A Fork By Any Other Name
A fork by any other name would still be a fork. Unless you called it your hands. Then the fork is rendered moot. Hands are more versatile than forks. They posses a way cooler gadget. The opposable thumb (come-up of all evolutionary come-ups) possesses some remarkable moves.
Unfortunately we don’t often get to put those moves into practice with familiar western cuisine. But why rely on some intermediary device to enjoy that most intimate sensation of eating? Some form of artifice, really, when we consider that we already have what it takes.
My earliest inclinations were to forgo tools and bound the gulf between food and eating (associations begin firing at Lacan’s l’hommelette, a slippery slope). My favorite foods (burritos, sushi) can technically and efficiently be eaten with one’s hands. Still, my lifetime eating career has been dominated by silverware.
Until my wife introduced me to her native cuisine. Nepali food predates industrial metal forgery and globalization. Silverware was not a concern when the recipes took shape, nor is it a concern today when they’re served.
Sitoo - Nostalgia - Main
Sitoo means grandmother in Arabic, a deeply respectful title.
There was a small Syrian market and bakery called Sitoo George’s in the next town from where I grew up that sold the ‘necessary’ ingredients to recreate the taste of Syria for the immigrants that migrated to America. Two brothers and their wives ran it, naming it Sitoo, an homage to their grandmother who taught them to bake before the left their homeland. With the skills and her recipes they immigrated and opened a small store.
When they first opened the wives would bake spinach and meat pies called fataya and the brothers would make pita bread in a small home oven. When the word spread, they couldn’t bake fast enough. Construction started and a bakery was born. As time passed and demand increased they slowly became automated.
The new kitchen had large windows for customers to watch the process. A slot in the wall was made to accommodate a heavy canvas covered conveyer belt to transport the pies to their wives as they came out of second hand pizza oven. The two sisters-in-laws at the check out either bagged them or plucked them off the belt to sell to waiting customers.
Savage's Sugar Cookies - AL
When I was a kid growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, my favorite food in the whole wide world were sugar cookies from Savage's Bakery in Homewood. Made fresh daily, from before I could even walk, I used to go in there with my mother to buy bread and other baked goods, knowing that every trip to Savage's always ended with a big fat old-fashioned buttery cookie, cooked to the perfect yellow consistency and coated with the best flakes of sugary sweetness that would melt in your mouth.
Old Mr. Savage used to laugh everytime I came in the door saying he remembered me coming there when I couldn't even open the door by myself, always wide-eyed in hopes that there was a fresh batch of cookies hot out of the oven. Whenever he or one of the women behind the counter saw me walking down the street, they would usually greet me holding one out for me as soon as I walked inside.