A Blithe PALATE

Dispatch from Ex-Exile

The title is a conceit because in all truth, I've never been in exile. That would suggest that Vietnam is a country to which I am denied entry; but as I've pointed out previously, the country into which I was born does not exist any longer, has not been extant since April 30, 1975. Therefore, my entry into the unified Vietnam isn't a reprise from expatriation; it's a tourist stop.

Ovid. Now that dude was in exile.

______

Hung is my favorite cousin, not because I love him more than I do any of my other cousins (okay, maybe I do slightly), but because he gets me on a level few people do. I like to think it's because we have more genetic markers than first cousins commonly share. After my paternal grandmother died in childbirth, my paternal grandfather took as his third wife Hung's grandmother; she was the younger sister of my grandmother. Thus we joke that we are 3/4 related rather than the normal 1/2 that exists between first cousins. I grew up pretty tight with my maternal family, but when I met Hung sixteen years ago, it felt like familial tumblers falling into place and locking me into the last, shrouded part of my paternal family. Outside of the Bones, our beautiful adoptive family from Macon, my father's part of the family tree had always been somewhat obscure.

As with all my cousins, we refer to one another as "Cuz." 

This is probably a good thing as he has this wicked predilection for introducing himself thus: "Hi, I'm Hung."

"CUZ!"

Innocent naiveté of an English-as-a-second language-speaker (or a really good impression thereof): "Whaaaaaat?"

When we get together, it plays out like a series of vignettes about two people in pursuit of food, alcohol, and music, while talking incessantly.

To wit:

On the second day I am in Saigon, Cuz and I make plans to meet for lunch, after which we will spend the day together. He doesn't even ask me what I want to eat because he already knows, so he has my aunt and me meet him at Đông Phố, a restaurant in District 3 which specializes in Huế dishes. Its chef is from Huế, her husband a transplant from Paris, where he lived for nearly 44 years, having moved there from Vietnam at age 11. Đông Phố is the name for ancient Saigon.

Cuz orders for my aunt and me, a procession of Vietnamese tapas comprised of my favorite dishes and others I'm enjoying for the first time. They include: chả giò, bánh bột lọc, gỏi cuốn, bánh ướt thịt heo nướng, bánh lá chả tôm, and of course, bánh bèo. 

He's already ordered the first of my three cà phê sữa đá, the sweetened Vietnamese ice coffee. 

My aunt (not related to him as she is on the maternal side) wipes the table with her napkin, then tries to wipe the fish sauce that has spilled onto one of the plates. Cuz reacts viscerally. "Ack!" he exclaims. "No! Unsanitary!" It's so spot on, such an affirmation of our genetically immutable OCD that I laugh for a good five minutes. My aunt, who knew my dad's own hygienic predilections, shakes her head in perfect understanding.

_______

"What are we going to do today?" I ask as we exit the restaurant. We part ways with my aunt and wait for his car.

"Let's drive around the city and eat."

It's a good plan and not without precedent. Hung's daughter is my cousin Wendy, who commands as much of my affection as he, and whom I've referenced many times previously. On one memorable trip to San Francisco, she and I food hopped for five hours, hitting up six restaurants for one course each.

_______

We hop into his car, and he tells me: "We're right around the corner from where you used to live."

When we turn on the road, there it is, the home in which I spent my first five years, the home I left on April 28, 1975. The entire building has undergone massive renovations recently, and is now a luxury condo development; three additional stories have been added to the previous three floors. The courtyard below where I onced observed a mother and son arguing has been closed off, a garage having been expanded over that open space. But our first floor corner unit still has its wrap around balconies. They have not been altered and they are still just as I remembered.

Across the street is a dilapidated building which, in my mind's eye, looked oh so different nearly 40 years ago. Then it was pristine, a two story building that ran along the block. Now it's worn down, abused, neglected. This district is relatively desirable so I think that in another year or so, some enterprising Singaporean company will take it over and convert it into luxury digs.

But the streets...they are still lined with tamarind trees. 

"Let's drive by your dad's old office. It's off an alley a few minutes away. It was a secret location. Looked pretty obscure from the street, but once you drove down that alley, security would swarm your car, check IDs, search your car, the whole thing. The only reason I know where it is is because I visited your dad a couple of times." 

It's all I can do not to squeeze him to death. Of course he understands, has this absolute ken about the things that are meaningful to me.

Then it's really hard to see outside the car windows because you know, tears just have this stupid habit of blurring everything.

_______

Saigon is surprisingly cosmopolitan and pretty. Shady, block long parks, tree-lined streets, and modern buildings densely packed against remnants of an earlier age. Some historical buildings remain - the Saigon Notre-Dame Basilica, a cathedral in the downtown established by French colonists, sits caddy corner to the Belle Epoque-designed Old Post Office; and the French colonial style Opera House on Đồng Khởi looks like its French counterpart on Rue de Scribe. High end stores - Chanel, Burberry, Salvatore Ferragamo, and Marc Jacobs cluster in the district, ready to serve moneyed Việt Kiều ("overseas Vietnamese") and successful entepreneurs in the city. It's a thriving city.

We drive past the old Presidential palace on Nam Ky Khoi Nghia Street, now known as the Reunification palace. He points out the middle gate, the one Colonel Bui Tin drove a PAVN T-54/55 tank through; it's fixed now. 

"Why would you call it a presidential palace?" I wonder aloud. "I mean, it seems like a contradiction in terms!" Ah, the extravagance of growing up in a democracy, to note such incongruities.

________

"We need coffee," he announces and we stop off at a little café off Đồng Khởi and Ngô Đức Kế in District 1. It's a westernized little shop and we grab what we need. 

Walking down what was formerly known as Catina, one of the main thoroughfares in Saigon, he drinking cà phê sữa đá, me nursing an iced latte. It's an American, not a Vietnamese thing to do: traversing down the street with coffee in hand.

"What was it like on May 1?" There's no need to refer to a year. He understands my question. His answer is slow, gentle, measured.

"It was sad, cuz, so sad. It was quiet, the people were scared. And the streets were filled with uniforms of the South Vietnamese army. Soldiers were stripping off their uniforms and throwing them away, trying to get back to their families, to escape the inevitable punishment.

The image of the city streets littered with the regalia of a conquered and despairing army is haunting and vivid.

"And they marched the students out into the streets to cheer for Ho Chi Minh." He was eighteen then, a student. I try to imagine saying these same words and I know that they'd catch in my throat with razor blades and barbed wire.

________

"Bánh mi!" he screams after our jaunt to the Bến Thành Market where we played Good Cop/Bad Cop to get me a hat from one of the (extremely aggressive) vendors therein. Although in our case, we did Speaks Vietnamese/Doesn't Speak Vietnamese. The price was good, in my estimation. I know my mother and aunt will berate us for not haggling more vociferously. But for now, we're feeling smug.

"YES!"

And he takes me to what amounts to little more than a street cart sheltered inside the ground floor of a building, a couple of tables and stools set up to suggest the idea of a restaurant. But really, it's a cart and opposite it is a small oven in which one of the workers is toasting fresh baguette. The cart has a shelf piled high with sliced pork belly, sausage, grilled pork, pork patties, cha and other Vietnamese deli meats.

Street food requires a certain set of culinary brass balls and if you're lucky like me, built-in third world flora and biota from 1970-1975. Never mind the tub of pâté and the hotel pan of mayonnaise, exposed, unrefrigerated, and unchilled in 95 degree weather with near 100% humidity attracting every known microbe and bacteria. No, what bothers us instead is the that girl who makes the sandwich doesn't change her glove after she handles the money. For clean freaks, that is the slap in the face, not the likelihood of serious food poisoning.

But the bánh mi was every damn bit as good as he told me it would be. It's entirely possible that for the first time ever in my life, I've had bánh mi better than my mom's. 

________

Dinner starts in District 2 with a plate of sushi, the fish locally caught, including ca núc (mackeral), the distinct taste of which always reminds me of my maternal grandmother. She used to make a caramel clay pot sauce for the mackeral and we'd eat it with rice on the weekends at her house.

Our cousin once removed, Chuong, arrives at the sushi joint to meet us. He was named after my dad and I am named after his grandfather, who was my uncle Chau.

"That was payback, though," he claims. There's this custom where you're not supposed to name a child after a living member of the family; but Chuong's mother named him after her uncle. According to cousin Chuong, my dad retaliated by naming me after his eldest brother. Uncle Chau was apparently incensed by the lack of propriety.

We're not done eating, but Chuong is not fond of sushi, a potentially fatal friendship flaw, except he's my cousin so he gets a pass. 

"Let's go for mi," Hung decides. The restaurant, Mỳ Thiệu Ký, is legendary for its egg noodle soup, which it's been dishing out for almost a hundred years. It is 25 minutes away.

"So we're going to eat noodles that cost $1.50 but blow $20.00 in gas driving there?" Chuong says incredulously.

Hung and I in unison: "Damn straight."

What else would you do when there's good food to be had?

In District 11, the driver stops and lets us out at a long, dark alley. Cuz gestures for me to walk down this sketchy gantlet.

"Cuz! What the fuck?" I exclaim. Hung just laughs. It won't be the last time an alleyway figures in our hunt for good food on this trip.

The alley empties out into an tight little square, flanked by several storefronts with stalls and carts offering food to locals in the know. Not a single westerner do I see grabbing a stool at the flimsy tables set outside. The bowl, when it arrives, is piled with minced shrimp, pork, slices of roast pork and beautifully shaped hoanh thanh (pork dumplings). 

The ubiquitous and suicidal motorbikes come down the alley and drive past us. We do not pay attention, consumed with a perfect bowl of mi.

"What next?" Chuong asks around a mouthful.

"There's a bar. Good live music," says Cuz.

______

At the bar, Hung settles us in the VIP section. A tray of appetizers and pastries appear along with a bottle of Shiraz.

"Dark and Stormy, cuz?"

I shake my head. "Gin and Tonic."

Hung goes to the bar and orders with a caveat: "I'll pay you whatever you want for the drink, but I'm going to make it." The bartender hands him a tumbler filled with ice, tonic water, gin, and a slice of lime. Cuz demands a whole lime. He's going to slice the lime himself.

That OCD thing about hygiene, remember?

______

“Our native soil draws all of us, by I know not what sweetness, and never allows us to forget.” 
― Ovid, Tristia (The Poems of Exile).

 

The Rain in Huế

"There are two seasons in Huế," our guide tells us, "The hot season, and the rainy season. It rains all day long Huế during the rainy season, but without the rain, Huế would not be Huế."

________

A week before our family's return trip to Vietnam after a 38 and a half year absence, Typhoon Haiyan was predicted to centerpunch central Vietnam; then, improbably, it skipped the area and cruised north. In the near four decades since we escaped on April 28, 1975, only our mother and two of my sisters have returned to Vietnam. This occasion sees the five of us and our mother all reunited in Vietnam. The only person missing, of course, is my father.

All my life, Huế has been a word and a story, the home my father yearned for and knew he could never see again. He left her when he was fifteen and was returned to her embrace only a year ago when my mother brought half his ashes back and spread them over his mother's grave. There was no question that Huế would form an integral part of my itinerary in Vietnam, the other half dedicated to my mother's home town of Phan Thiết.

I'm told before my flight to Huế that it's expected to rain nonstop. Instead, a cool, bright day meets me when we land. I give a silent salute to Dad, almost certain that he's pulled some strings to make my first day in Huế a sunny one. I'm accompanied by my brother and our friends, Mike and Eileen. 

Seven generations of my family have lived and died in Huế. After 1975, only cadet members of the family tree remained; everyone else left, immigrating to other countries, or being forced into re-education camps for siding with the westernized Republic of Vietnam. My brother was born in Vietnam, was two months old when we fled. And here we are, the oldest and the youngest of our branch of the family tree. We don't belong here and yet we do.

________

Huế is the former imperial capital, the seat of the Nguyen lords, later to become Emperors. Its cuisine allegedly accounts for 1400 of the 1700 known Vietnamese dishes because the royal palates were so discerning that the Emperors demanded new dishes every day.

My cousin aptly describes Huế food as Vietnamese tapas, a progression of interlocking flavors and textures designed to please, rather than overwhelm. These are dishes seldom found on the menu in a Vietnamese restaurant. They're time consuming to make and they're generally shared among family. Some of the dishes can be esoteric to western palates accustomed to dishes no more exotic than the ubiquitous phở or chả giò. Mike and Eileen, who have known us for over two decades and who have eaten frequently with us, are astonished to discover heretofore unknown Vietnamese dishes. 

________

Driving into Huế from the airport is at first disappointing, the road flanked by houses of every conceivable style, ranging from tin shanties to three story French colonial houses. The outskirts of Huế make for a distressing and bemusing ride. Oh God, I think. This could not possibly be the misty city which called to my father all his life? Of course it isn't; because once we enter the actual city, it's a different story altogether. The Perfume River cuts a blue swath through Huế and the city teems with life, the lovely streets shadowed by large trees. There are echoes of imperialism in the colonialist architecture, and the remnants of majesty linger. 

We are staying at the Hotel St. Morin. Built in 1901, it was once known as the "Grand Hotel of Huế" and was the primary meeting place for the French colonial community. It overlooks the Perfume River and retains its Indochine colonial glamour. I am every where surrounded by the lilting Huế accent, which makes me miss my father even more impossibly than I already do.

For the first two days, it's warm, sunny. Everyone tells us this is unusual, as during this time of year, Huế is normally cloudy, grey, and raining steadily throughout the day. Vietnam's answer to Seattle. On the first day, we make our way to my family's gravesite in the mountains; mausoleums, family cemeteries and sepulchers cluster along the mountainside like a giant valley of the dead. The mountain itself is a necropolis.

The burial site is relatively small, housing the raised grave beds of my paternal grandfather, his younger brother; his first wife; and his second, who was my paternal grandmother. Originally, they had been buried in the gardens behind my grandfather's sprawling residential complex in the city. But in 1975, when the new government seized control, they appropriated the residence and demanded that the bodies be removed. My father's younger brother had the task of digging up his family members, then reinterring them in the mountains where they now rest. It is over my grandmother's grave that half of my father's were spread, in accordance with his wishes. 

On our way back to the city, my uncle takes us to Hàng Mẹ, renowned among the locals for its food. The owner/third generation cook brings us: bánh bèo, bánh lá, bánh bột lọc, bánh nậm, banh ram, and bánh ướt tôm cháy. It's little more than street food and we choose to ignore the "kitchen" set up which would drive any US city health inspector absolutely, freaking insane. It's a good tactic because the dishes are heavenly, perfectly authentic. 

________

On the second day, after an impossibly generous buffet at the St. Morin, where I indulge in Bún bò Huế, the region's famous spicy beef and pork noodle soup, fried bánh chưng (savory rice cakes filled with mung bean and pork and steamed in banana leaves), and of course, my beloved bánh bèo, the steamed rice flour crepes with shrimp, we visit the Citadel and the Forbidden City. The grand residence and complex housed the Emperors, their families and their courts. In the grand esplanade, where the civilian and military mandarins gathered twice a month to meet with the Emperor, I stand next to one of the stelaes on the left. My paternal grandfather was a civilian mandarin, with governing responsibility for three of the provinces and this is where he would have stood.

 That night, we go to a lovely restaurant whose second story gives us the illusion of being in the tree tops. If only good food had not likewise been an illusion. I'm so incensed to have had a bad meal in Vietnam that I rant and vent at my mom and my aunt on a phone call that night. They are likewise aggravated and call the tour operator to cancel all his preplanned meals and restaurant stops. 

"I don't care about views," I tell our guide. "I care about good food. Clean is important, but great food is a must. I cannot be in my dad's hometown and eat crap food." He's a local. I leave it in his hands to take us where the food is made for locals, not tourists.

We are much more pleased the next day at Ancient Huế restaurant, with its French colonial design and upscale interiors; but mostly because the food is as delectably refined as Hàng Mẹ's was simply rustic. It's here that Eileen encounters bánh khoái, a fried rice flour crèpe filled with pork, shrimp, bean sprouts, onions and greens. A Huế taco. My dad would laugh at that description, I know he would have.

________

Dad, why did you never tell me about the rain in Huế?

________

It begins to rain that afternoon, the sky dark and pensive, a fine mist of rain steadily increasing to a melancholy patter. Our guide notes the downpour and says, "Without the rain, Huế would not be Huế." He tells us how some of Vietnam's finest poets, writers and musicians and lyricists are from Huế; and how the persistent and sometimes gloomy rain influenced much of their romantic and mournful works.

I'm watching the torrent from the St. Morin, observing the locals as they move along the street, some with umbrellas, others with plastic ponchos; they do not rush, they do not run. They are in sync with the rain, accepting the precipitation as a natural part of their daily rhythm. 

"Miss! Ma'am! It's raining out! Would you like to come in?" The staff of the St. Morin don't know what to make of my standing outside in the steady drizzle.

"No, thank you," I demur, waving away the offer of an umbrella. I don't want to explain that I'm baptizing myself in the waters of my forebears.

Huế settles over me like a second skin and something inside sighs and says, "Yes. This."

________

There's a Welsh word, "hiraeth" which, roughly translated, means a homesickness affected with yearning, longing, nostalgia, and wistfulness for a place that was, or might never have existed except in one's imagination.

It's almost as if the word was invented to describe how I feel about Huế.

A Eulogy For My Father, Part 2

The last meal my father ate was bánh bèo. They are a specialty of Huế, in central Vietnam, where he was born and lived until he was sixteen. It’s a small, steamed rice pancake, topped with chopped shrimp, scallions, fried shallots, and served in tiny little round dishes.

It’s served with a sweetened garlic fish sauce. It is one of the specialties of Huế, the ancient royal capital of Vietnam. My cousin brought it to him in the hospital, the week before his decline began.

 ___

Vietnam is not the country of my birth. The country in which I was born is no longer extant. The Republic of Vietnam was extinguished on April 30, 1975 when a NVA tank barreled through the main gate of the Presidential Palace.

In 1987, Mr. Nguyen, a Vietnamese immigrant who taught at my high school, told me about how he was on the deck of a boat filled with escaping South Vietnamese. The captain received word that he was to take down the flag of their country: yellow with three red horizontal stripes. As the standard was taken down, the captain told the refugees: “The Republic of Vietnam is gone.”

People began to cry. A young woman on deck jumped into the Pacific and drowned, an act of suicidal solidarity with a dead country. An anguished, ridiculous loss of life as patently fucked up as the geopolitical dick swinging that had led to that moment.

My mother upon being told this story, pragmatic: “But why? She’d gotten that far, she could have had a new start, a life!”

But she didn’t have what my mother has always had in fierce abundance: hope.

Vietnam has never been a country I’ve ever wanted to visit. It was dead to me. That simple.

____

My dad died on a Thursday night. He had been wavering between worlds for several days, sleeping; anticipating his departure, we had been camped out at the hospice. But I knew he was going to die that night because my sister called me and said, “We’re going to go eat [with our cousins] tonight. Do you want to go?”

“No,” I said, my throat tightening. And unsaid: Dad’s going to die tonight because we’re no longer holding vigil. We are doing what he expects us to do: we’re all moving on with the daily rhythm of life.

So my siblings left that evening to go have dinner. My mother, three uncles, two aunts were in my father’s room when I pushed my son’s stroller around the hospice ward in an effort to lull him to sleep. When I made a pass past the common area, I saw my mother and relatives having a coffee.

“Who’s with Dad?” I asked.

“The staff are changing his sheets,” my aunt said.

Now. I knew. Now.

I sprinted back to his room with Ethan. The staff were just finishing. As they left the room, I considered my sleeping father. I went to him and leaned down.

“Okay Dad,” I whispered. “If you need to go, it’s okay. There’s nothing left for you to do here. We’re all going to be fine.”

 At that moment, he turned, the first conscious gesture in almost two and a half days. He eyelids fluttered, and he opened his eyes.

I ran to get my mother. “Mom,” I said. “Dad’s eyes are open.”

She followed immediately. When we returned, he stared at her, and I pulled Ethan up on my hip so my dad could see his grandson and namesake.

“He’s leaving us,” said Mom.

I called the relatives back to the room, I called my sister on her phone and told the siblings to come back because Dad was departing.

____

My dad’s eyes were a dark gray, rather than the typical black or light brown of those of Asian descent.

____

“Dad, if you could go back to Vietnam, where would you go?”

“I want to go to the mountains in Huế and visit my mom.”

He was born on August 27, 1932. His mother died on September 9, 1933. It took them seventy-seven years to be reunited; seventy-nine if you count subsequent years before my mother was able to spread his ashes over his mother’s grave.

____

My sister once said that going to Huế was like meeting another part of herself, the part that was all Dad; and how much she liked it.

It’s fitting that it was her (and her husband’s joint) “birthday party” in Vietnam that led to our family being reunited in this earth that is our homeland in spirit if not in letter.

____

When I fly into Vietnam, into the same airport from which I fled with my mother and siblings thirty-eight and a half years ago, it is not an emotional moment. It’s excitement rather than contemplation that fills me. My cousin Wendy told me to surrender to the moment. I have heeded her advice.

I've decided to allow myself the joy of experiencing Vietnam as a tourist and not an ex-pat.  That will have to come later.

The first thing I ask to eat: bánh bèo.

Shaved Fennel and Apple Salad with Gorgonzola

This is a shaved fennel, apple and gorgonzola salad. It's tossed with a white Balsamic vinaigrette for a piquant and refreshing dish. I'd eat it except for one problem.

I hate the taste of licorice. 

Apparently it's a trait I share in common with my siblings. Twizzlers = the devil.

As pretty as it is, as much as I want to love the idea of it and eat it... this is really food art rather than a meal for me.

But in the event you don't have problems with licorice, I'm told by friends I've made this dish for that it's quite delicious.

 

Til We Meet, Barbara...

If you are a regular in the food blogosphere, you likely knew Barbara. You've either read her blog, Winos and Foodies, or you've seen her comments as she visited other food blogs. You might have known her as the founder of Hay Hay It's Donna Day, or A Taste of Yellow, her annual food event to raise awareness for cancer which coincided with LiveStrong Day.  You may have even known her as a photography enthusiast.

If you didn't know Barbara, I envy you and I pity you.

May I tell you about my friend?  We began writing our blogs at roughly the same time and we became friends when she reached out to encourage me, to cheer me on and to engage me. So many others will tell you this is how they became friends with her, too.

For as long as I knew her - she was living with, or fighting cancer. But you'd never know it. While she openly shared the challenges and the hardships, cancer did not define her. Because she originally turned to blogging to distract herself from her illness, it was not something she dwelled on.  No, what made Barbara so memorable was her vitality and her joie de vivre, her insistence on living as fully as she could. Her blog was all about living, eating, traveling, family and friends, not necessarily in that order. Her chemo and her treatments were simply something she endured.  She was a passionate cook, a devoted foodie and a consumer of life. 

As she was in Australia, and as I do not sleep, our waking moments often overlapped, allowing us the wonderful luxury of frequent real-time chats. She delighted in hearing about my young boys, sharing stories with me about her own boys, Chris and Mike. She told me about Bryan, her beloved husband, soul mate and life's co-adventurer. We bonded over our mutual love of Joshual Bell and the Beach Boys, particularly Brian Wilson. 

We made plans to meet and take my sons to play on the beach in Australia in 2010. That year I lost my father, my best friend and another friend. And there was Barbara, gently counseling me, comforting me, distracting me by making plans to eat and play in Australia.  She had bought beach toys for my children and was already planning all the fun things we could do together.  Another setback that year cost us our chance to meet: my younger son began to struggle with a developmental disorder that we could not identify and could not combat (then). Right at the point that we should have been booking flights for Australia, we learned that he had an autism spectrum disorder. And there was Barbara yet again, encouraging, and adamant that I should focus on getting my son the help and treatments that he needed. We will find another time to meet, she said.

I focused on making it through 2010 and 2011, became consumed with learning everything I could to help my son. I stopped blogging about food; she was among the few who had access to a private blog where I catalogued my son's journey, where I went to pour out my private frustrations and fears. You're still blogging, she said, just not about food right now. She never stopped encouraging me to return to food blogging. 

She was among the first friends I made in the blogosphere, and no friend could have been more vital or signficant in my life, though we never met. That's another refrain you'll hear from many of her "virtual" friends.  It did not matter how geography separated us: Barbara was present and constant in our lives...in my life.

Over and over she defeated her cancer. So when she went into the hospital a few weeks ago for a procedure to inflate her lung, it never occurred to me that she would not again emerge triumphant. Last Friday, Barbara passed away after a long and valiant struggle. She went on her terms, her room filled with those who loved her.  Such was Barbara's impact and presence that when her family announced her passing on her Twitter account, the Twitterverse was flushed with tributes and mourning from around the world. Can you imagine how this one singular lady should have graced so many lives that in the wake of the Tom/Katie divorce announcement, she trended on Twitter?  

I could not enumerate all the ways in which she is now missed, and will be missed for her insanely genuine kindess for the years to come. Really, who is this nice?   

 Barbara, that's who. Bryan, Chris and Mike; and to all of Barbara's family and friends: my deepest condolences.

If you knew Barbara, then we are comrades in our bereavement, we are one in our grief as we miss our dear and lovely friend.  

If you didn't know Barbara, I envy you and I pity you.

I am sorry that you will never get to experience first hand Barbara's sparkle and warmth, that magic that was simply Barbara.

I envy you because you will get to discover Barbara for yourself, and see what we are all talking about, what we are all mourning.

I invite you to meet - and then miss - the incomparable Barbara Harris.

Barbara, I can't wait for us to meet some day. Rest in peace, my friend. I raise a glass of champagne tonight in your honor, one week after you left us far too soon.

Within the Confines: Gluten, Casein and Soy-Free Goldfish

John Milton had a great second act.  He wrote "Paradise Lost" after he went blind.  He also wrote a poem that at once lamented the loss of his sight, and celebrated the wideness of the inner world he determined and discovered in the aftermath of blindness.

When first informed that gluten, soy and casein needed to be expunged from my younger son's diet, my first reaction was to curl up in a tight ball and ponder how on earth to feed my child.  At that time, his pickiness and fussiness regarding food were despair inducing and I was afraid that I could not possibly find foods outside his otherwise limited repertoire.  But in the three months since, I've found substitutes for him that have replaced his stalwart favorites; I've found parents whose children are similarly afflicted who have generously shared their knowledge, their wisdom and their recipes; and I've found that deprived of the foods that were harming him, Ethan has started to eat and experiment with foods and textures I never thought he'd consider. 

The victories are small but significant: finding quinoa pasta to replace gluten-based pasta; finding a milk substitute that he liked which didn't amount to poison in his system; finding gluten, soy and casein free chocolate chip cookies for him; and from there, the natural slide back towards my desire to make things for him: learning how to make my own Ethan-friendly chocolate chip cookies; learning how to make pasta from scratch using quinoa flour; discovering substitute flour blends. 

Finding ways, in short, to widen the narrowness of my expectations by chipping away pre-conceived ideas about what food really means.

I did not think he'd ever get to eat cheddar crackers again. But other enterprising mommies had already found a way to make vegan or gluten free goldfish, or both, so it was just a matter of trying the recipes and modifying over and over until I found something that Ethan liked.  So here you are.  Gluten, soy and casein goldfish that are as crunchalicious as the originals; and with enough resemblance to cheddar to make the kid happy.

Within the confines of the rules in which we now cook and bake, I've found a far wider world than the one I imagined it would be.

The Popover Question

 

Popovers are a favored weekend treat to which all the boys look forward; but in light of our younger son's recent gluten, dairy and soy-free diet, it seemed that the weekend tradition had come to an end. 

In recalibrating all of Baby's favorite foods, I've been challenged because soy is often used as a dairy substitute. Nowadays, finding gluten-free products is relatively easy; dairy-free substitutes abound; and soy-free is also easy - but finding something gluten, casein AND soy free is a bit more difficult.  The culprit in dairy that affects Baby is casein, a protein found in most mammalian milk.  Its structure is similar to gluten, which is one reason why gluten-free diets are sometimes also "dairy" free.  While the majority of dairy items are off the table for him, I realized one particular, critical element isn't:  butter.  Or more specifically, ghee. 

Ghee is a clarified butter that has been has been melted slowly over low heat until the milk solids separate and settle at the bottom (this is the protein, or casein, that gets discarded), and the water in the butter has evaporated.  What's left is a golden liquid that's got an intense, rich flavor and a higher smoking point, so cooking doesn't result in the burnt butter taste.  Commercial organic ghee can range up to $15 for a 13-ounce jar; or, you can make your own (I prefer to use Plugra unsalted butter). 

With ghee, I've been able to make cookies and cake for Baby; and today, with the help of a good recipe from King Arthur which I modified, was used to excellent effect in making puffy, golden popovers that had all the golden crispy exterior and steamed out airiness that is inherent in a popover. Side by side with the regular popovers they looked just as puffy and airy and more importantly, once coated with melted ghee and cinnamon sugar, there wasn't too significant a difference.  These popovers were a little chewier than the gluten packed version, but all the same, Baby can have popovers again with everyone else so I'd say that's an easy tradeoff for the first go round.  I used Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour so I wonder if that's why they came out denser.  Enough of what I've read online suggests Bob's Red Mill flours aren't always so great, so I'll go back and try again with either the King Arthur gluten-free flour blend, or make my own.  We've got more weekends to fill in with popovers.

 

Getting Lost.

Years and years ago, I made a deliberate decision to get lost.  

It came about after a strange "A ha!" moment of realization that until then, I'd spent most of my life in rigid self-control and structure; and thus, had likely missed a life enriched by unexpected adventure and opportunistic flights.

So I began to get lost.  And I was always rewarded with the new experiences and the unique things that emerged because I travelled without a compass.  

For the last fifteen months, I've been pretty lost, mostly without choice.  So lost I had no idea how to document the trip.  The journey has been devastating, humbling and revelatory.  Concurrent to the trio of deaths of those whom I loved was an illness from which my younger son was suffering; an illness that remained unknowable, defiant of diagnosis or comprehension until I was finally able to unmask it.  And the initial fears, while not necessarily unfounded, were not as shattering or as overwhelming as I had originally thought. But while his struggle is not nearly as difficult as autism or a similar developmental disorder, it does fall in the same biologic chain; and I learned that one of the things I could do to help him was to change his diet.

So thirty days ago, I changed my son's menu completely.

No more gluten. No more dairy (or more specifically, casein). No more soy.

I, who have worshipped at the altar of butter and cream; who have swooned in baguette and cookie heaven; who have looked to Julia Child as a my culinary North Star...could no longer feed my child the things that I thought made life most worthwhile.

Sometimes, it feels like karmic retribution for all the times I sneered at vegans and preened in priggish joy at my ability to consume anything without ill effect (oh the joy of third world bacteria with which to line one's cast iron stomach).

But in the last thirty days of learning to remake his favorite foods, reading new blogs to educate myself and starting from scratch in so many ways, I realize that in getting lost, I've entered the wonderland of an entirely new cooking and baking body of knowledge.

I'm having epic fails in the kitchen. But it's okay. Because I'm learning.  And when something goes right, it's all I can do not to dance a little.

Baby loves chocolate chip cookies. So this was the first thing I had to learn how to make for him.  Gluten free recipes were easy.  Finding vegan chips that were soy-less were harder, but they turned up as well.  And the results?  Close to the real thing.

__________________________________

If you want to give me directions, point me to blogs and recipes and books I should know about, or people I should meet on this journey, please do.  

I'm lost.

But it's okay.  I don't mind. I like to peregrinate.

Cookbook Spotlight: Sugar Baby

You want this book and you want it NOW.

 

Giveaway: Gift Card from HSN

HSN's Cooks Spring Weekend Event, presented by Bon Appétit takes place March 26-27.  The event will feature chefs including Wolfgang Puck, Ken Horn, and the Lee Bros. (whom I adore!).  

HSN gave me a $10 gift card, good for any item on HSN, which I'm giving away to a reader.

Send me an email to: ablithepalate (AT) gmail (DOT) com if you want to be entered in the giveaway; a random drawing will be held April 1 (no, really).  Be sure to include your name and snail mail address.  Pug or Hoss will pick the winner.