Feeding the Hungry Ghost (31 page)

Over time, I have come to realize detachment is not the same as not caring, not loving. Love all you want; it’s no skin off Buddha’s ass. On the other hand, you —
I
— still have to be aware of, accept, and roll with the constant impermanence of things, what Buddhists call
anicca.

We can’t be sure of anything a hundred years hence. We can’t be sure of much. All we have is this moment. That said, I still choose to love people fiercely. I’m not made any other way.

The fabulous Chicago couple parted company with us on that wondrous afternoon in Paris. They kissed our cheeks in French fashion, melted into the crowd, and disappeared. But the day did not vanish with them. Though Benjamin and I shared no more than an hour and a glass of wine with them, it is still a fragrant memory, something warming in winter I can conjure with a mere mushroom.

Bring your finger to the bridge of your nose. Right there on the other side of the nasal bone is your amygdala, the almond-shaped part of the brain conveniently close to your center of smell. This part of the brain houses memory. It’s like an iPod for recollection. It’s not into analysis; it stores the whole sensory gestalt of things. It also plays a role in the way we process emotion.

There’s the whole physiology behind what makes us hungry for more than dinner. It’s the mystery, the romance of it that enchants me. I cook. I create. And I remember. A smell or taste can bring the richness of a past moment roaring back and infuse the present with sweetness, from the golden sunlight and Sauternes that wonderful day in Paris to the way the halvah Marcella gave me melted on my tongue when I was a girl. It’s such a clever part of us that it makes all our design flaws a soupçon more tolerable. It also shows there’s power and opportunity in everything we do.

Both the planet and you are miracles, superior in form and function to anything we mere mortals have dreamed up. Both maintain a complex series of operating systems and usually manage them so effortlessly, we don’t even notice. Okay, one of us is much, much larger than the other, so much as to make you feel insignificant at times. Don’t be fooled. You are madly significant. The fate of the whole world depends on you, including what you eat for dinner.

We are badly worn by what has become of our environment, our food system, ourselves. What nations and religions have done and are doing to each other could turn us all bitter, take us farther apart. So how can food be the answer?

So much unseen has gone into the meal before you, the seasons the planet spent producing it, be it grapes, truffles, and hazelnuts, or rice and beans. There’s the labor and care of those who make the wine, forage for the truffles, and fuss over the vinaigrette, or harvest and dry the grains and legumes. There’s the culture and place and faith and history infusing any dish. You bring unseen magic to each meal, too, by way of your own unique memories and emotions and associations. The simplest meal is in truth a deliciously collaborative effort, a mystery both divine and earthly.

When grown and prepared with love and shared with others, food feeds our hunger now, but more than that, it feeds who we can be. It lights a path to understanding, to overcoming the dark, hungry parts of ourselves. A single moment, a single taste, can flavor a whole life and feed a primal hunger — for love, connection, a sure if fleeting faith that for once, all is right with the world. The question is, why? I’m willing to say it’s there for us to be grateful for all we have. Gratitude is the soul’s Lipitor. It opens our hearts. It gives us faith. It gives us energy to go forward. A Buddhist prayer ends, “May we accept this food for the realization of the way of love and understanding.” Food should always lead us to that. And to each other.

Here are lentils and millet and garlic and saffron and cumin, the foods that have sustained us since before the Bible. Here are kale and broccoli and vibrant field greens that bespeak life force. Here is crusty, yeasty flatbread, still warm from being turned out of its pan. Dip it in this olive oil that flows golden green and tastes
of grass and pepper. Here are dates and mangoes and figs and pomegranates to dazzle you with their sweetness. I will pour you wine the color of pomegranates, grown from old, wise grapevines. I will pour you hot, pale tea, fragrant with flowers, to heal your heart and feed your searching soul. They are all too precious to savor alone; they must be shared.

This kind of food, this kind of feeding, is a benediction, a seed that can take root. Look — watch it grow and blossom even as you look, Janus-like, forward into a whole new year.

It is not within me to smile like Buddha or the Mona Lisa and say everything happens for a reason. But I have faith enough to be grateful for now, to know,
as Wordsworth did,
“That in this moment there is life and food / For future years. And so I dare to hope.”

We’re here and alive. We’re still in the game. Everything is possible. So come to the table.

*
To blanch almonds, pour whole raw almonds into a small heatproof bowl. Cover with boiling water and let sit for 15 minutes. Drain. The almond skins will slip off easily, leaving you perfect, pale nut kernels.

*
Orange-flower water is available in Middle Eastern and gourmet markets.

You know I can’t let you go without a good meal.
Cooking for people is an ancestral calling in my blood. Maybe I’m working off some bad karma from a past life. It feels like good karma to me, though. From Marcel, my genius friend and his magical soupe joumou to the women in Marrakech, singing as they worked, so many people have nourished me in so many ways. Food is always the way I think of to repay them. That they might prefer a gift card is something I only consider after the fact.

Whether it’s inviting strangers to drink your wine or friends to eat your food, the shared meal has defined hospitality in every faith and culture I know. And yet these days we do it only rarely. We are too busy, or too timid, or too stuck in our ways. We would rather text — quicker, easier, no fuss, no muss. What we risk losing is the subtext — our glorious mess, our humanity. What is the point of having people in your life if you can’t cook with them, feed them? If you can’t eat and drink and talk and laugh together, all crowded around the table?

Every meal —
any
meal, no matter how humble — can offer the opportunity for deeper connection, for a communion for people of every faith or of no particular faith at all. We begin when we begin, be it the first day of the new year according to the Gregorian calendar, the Julian calendar, or the lunar calendar or when we’re hungry. We create celebration when we gather. We create plenty by being our most authentic selves.

The Hebrew word for “blessing” or “prayer” is
baruch.
In Arabic, it is
baraka.
In Morocco, it means the same, but baraka is also its own kind of blessing. It is showing gratitude for the food you have by sharing it. It is creating abundance. It is the power to multiply food. You don’t have to be Jesus to do it, either. This kind of blessing, the law of increase, requires a practical magic, of making the most of what you have, even when it’s very little. Some people, like Marcel, are born with this gift. However, it can be learned.

Fresh, local produce is vibrant in the mouth and easy on the wallet. Whole grains and dried beans keep in your pantry like money in the bank. They’re cheap, comforting, nourishing, and, with clever application, feed a horde. Steaming a pot of couscous or barley causes the tender grains to swell and expand. You can keep resteaming so the grains fluff and seem to proliferate, feeding as many as are at your table. With a little creativity, a well-stocked larder, and a desire to feed those you love, you’ll be sure no one goes hungry.

I am grateful and fortunate to know Paula Wolfert, goddess of Moroccan and Mediterranean food ways. She not only taught me about baraka; she exemplifies it. I hope to follow her gracious example with this recipe, adapted from hers in
The Food of Morocco.

Many Moroccan lamb or chicken tagines include preserved
lemon and olives — a wonderful, haunting combination. Many recipes for vegetable couscous include a handful of raisins. Many vegetable couscous recipes — even the classic seven-vegetable couscous — also include lamb or chicken. But not preserved lemon and olives. This does not seem to me the least bit fair. Not only do lamb and chicken receive unique culinary treatment, but they greedily find their way into messing up an otherwise lovely plant-based dish. With this vegetable couscous, I have hoped to right a terrible wrong. I have left out the raisins. And lamb. And chicken.

Cheap, simple produce seasoned by a miserly amount of extravagant spice served over a mound of whole grains, this Moroccan dish employs some of the techniques of a tagine but is served over whole wheat couscous or barley. It is baraka itself.

Vegetable Couscous with Preserved Lemon and Olives

Chopping the vegetables into larger pieces in this recipe helps them maintain their integrity during slow cooking. The olives should be good, imported ones, be they Moroccan or Greek or French or Italian, such as oily kalamatas or mild green Picholine or a combination. Traditionally, they’re enjoyed whole, not pitted. Break with tradition as you wish.

Serve with every bit of the luscious broth over whole wheat couscous or barley and pair with Flatbread from a Starter (
page 214
).

Serves 4 to 6. Recipe may be doubled, even tripled, depending on how many surprise guests you have. There will always be enough.

2 tablespoons olive oil

4 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped

1 large onion, coarsely chopped

4 carrots, coarsely chopped

4 stalks celery, coarsely chopped

1 red bell pepper, coarsely chopped

1 zucchini, coarsely chopped

1 tomato, coarsely chopped

2 cups cooked chickpeas or one 15-ounce can chickpeas, rinsed and drained

1 cinnamon stick

Pinch of saffron

½ teaspoon ground ginger

½ teaspoon turmeric

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

1 cup whole wheat couscous or barley

1 preserved lemon, finely chopped
*

cup olives

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

1 bunch cilantro, chopped

In a large soup pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and onion. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables soften, a few minutes. Add the carrots, celery, red bell pepper, zucchini, tomato, chickpeas, cinnamon stick, saffron, ginger, turmeric, and broth. Stir to combine. Cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer for 10 minutes.

Uncover the soup pot and continue cooking until the vegetables are tender and the sauce has thickened and reduced, about 20 minutes.

Prepare the couscous or barley according to the package directions.

Stir the preserved lemon and olives into the pot with the vegetables and spices. Season with sea salt and pepper. Just before serving, stir in the cilantro.

Pour the couscous into the bottom of a tagine or into a large, shallow serving bowl. Form a well in the center. Fill with the vegetables and broth. Enjoy.