The question is not whether I’d sing to an apple tree, but rather where I can find an apple tree to sing to. My Oklahoman neighborhood just doesn’t deliver the crimson fruit. Regardless, I will tipple this wassail with a cheer (wassail literally means “wes hail”, or good cheer)- after all in 2014 I’m learning about celebrations around the world, a suitable follow-up to completing our first adventure: eating one meal for every country in the world. January is all about wassailing. What is wassailing? Wassailing is the Southern English art – yes, art – of cooking up some of last year’s apple crop with cider – sometimes with a flush of orange peel, warm cinnamon stick, flecks of nutmeg, or maybe allspice. To make it… just… Roast some apples. Click on the burner and clank on a pot of cider and spice. In a moment, heat shimmers through the pot and those first bubbles pop the surface. Seconds later, sweet apple and spice billows through the house. The roasted apples are whipped into a froth, then stirred to …
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Nearly four years ago, when I set out to cook a meal for every country in the world, I didn’t know I was embarking on a pilgrimage. I just had a bout of wanderlust. A picky husband. A baby I wanted to raise with an appreciation for the world’s inherent beauty. I wanted her to love the world (and I wanted her world to love her!). I cooked, cooked, cooked. I took thousands upon thousands of photos. My husband, Keith, filmed Ava, week after week. I was so focused on checking countries off my list, I didn’t notice the hole in my own spirit. What the real adventure was all about. From the time I was a little girl, all the way into my twenties, I struggled with separation, loss, death. There were foster homes. There was estrangement. Again and again, I had to relearn what family meant. I had to figure out where I belonged. How to love and be loved. Unconditionally. When life is filled with one challenge after another, it has a …
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The marathon is complete. We did it. We ate every country in the world. (Breathe in, breathe out) The first thing Ava said about completing our challenge? “Can we start cooking the world all over again?“ And, later: “When are we going to start another Global Table Adventure, mama?” This child was barely seven months old when we started. Here she is with Afghanistan… (sigh) I can’t look at this photo without tears coming to my eyes. I just… can’t. It symbolizes how much happens in four years. How much changes. I had the strangest sensation as I was taking my last bite of candy cake for Zimbabwe. Every time I blinked my eyes, I’d open them expecting to find my seven month baby nestled in my arms. All over again. That’s probably not what Ava meant when she suggested we start over. But every time I opened my eyes… there Ava was… all grown up, four and a half years old, talking about staying “hwydrated.” I kept blinking. I kept hoping for a moment of …
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I don’t think I’ve ever done this. I’ve always told you the menu. Every Wednesday for 195 weeks, my choices have been in this space, recorded in black and white. But today… I’m just not ready to tell you what I’m making. Perhaps it’s panic. What if I make the wrong choice this week? Or perhaps it’s denial. What if I’m not ready for it to be over? I can tell you this much: there will be pumpkins and squashes. There will be peanuts and peanut butter. And there will be, I assure you, some kind of dessert. Because I just don’t know how to celebrate the ending without a little something sweet. So, bear with me, friends… The first recipe will be up tomorrow. UPDATE: 3 Quick Recipes for Zimbabwean Pumpkin and Squash [Recipe] Three amazing recipes: 1) Acorn squash roasted with corn and cheese 2) Peanut Butter Butternut Squash 3) Cinnamon Pumpkin Zimbabwe Candy Cake | Chikenduza [Recipe] A dense, yeasty cake with sweet icing. A favorite in Zimbabwe’s city bakeries. And here’s a proverb …
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Yesterday, I mentioned my fear of crossing “the chasm”, towards the final post of this Adventure. And yet, here we are. Time stalls for none. This is the first step over Victoria Falls from Zambia to Zimbabwe. There are a few restaurants near the falls, like the Rainforest Cafe, where you can get a Crocodile Tail Wrap with wasabi. Talk about fusion! As one travels further into the heart of this southern African country, more traditional foods appear, like pumpkin greens (bowara) cooked with peanut butter, peanut butter stews, and even pumpkin and peanut butter. (Here are three recipes for pumpkin and squash enjoyed in Zimbabwe) Not enough peanut butter for you? Next time you boil up rice (white or brown), stir in a few spoonfuls of peanut butter – just enough so that you can shape the rice into balls. This is called Mupunga une dovi. Serve your meal with anything from the tradtional sadza (a maize-based, stiff porridge), to the cities’ sweet buns made with yeast and sugar. Many foods you might recognize from …
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Between Zambia and Zimbabwe lies the stunning chasm of mist and water called Victoria Falls. The water flows through both countries like some stealthy border walker, never fixed to one particular country. Never tied down. In this poetic space, where rapids, danger, and sparkling, spraying joy all tumble together, I see meaning for our own little cooking adventure. I’m on one side of the end, metaphorically sitting in Zambia, looking at Zimbabwe. Wondering what comes next. I’m so close to reaching my goal of eating every country in the world. So. Close. And yet, the “end” feels so, so, so far away. Almost unattainable. By this, I don’t really mean the cooking . Cooking one more country will be easy. I know how to research recipes. I know how to cook them. Sure, I make mistakes from time to time, but after four years, the process feels like breathing. No. It’s something else that feels far away, that feels unattainable. Perhaps it’s that I don’t know how to reach a goal of this magnitude. Not …
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“Talk to a person who can understand and cook for a person who can be satisfied.” Zambian Proverb I’m in the final phases of writing my memoir. By the end of November, the manuscript will be sent off to National Geographic to do their magic. At that point, they’ll work on final edits, layout, and publicity. And then, boom, next year there will be a book. My book. It’s the story of my search for food, family, and home – and I can’t wait to share it with you. But right now, I’m in crunch time and the Zambian proverb above really spoke to me because, with my book, I’ll be talking to you and cooking for you. I’ll be telling you the story of my life, and the recipes that carried me through troubling times. Hopefully, as the proverb reads, you’ll understand and be satisfied! These recipes and the meal review will be posted throughout the week. Spiced Tilapia Stew [Recipe] Typically made with dried tilapia, our version uses more readily available fresh fish, …
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While you’ll find caterpillars and grasshoppers on the menu on the tropical plateaus of Zambia, maize (a.k.a. sweet corn) is far more common. This southern African nation will enjoy maize as a stiff porridge called nshima, in a beer called chibuku, and in sweet loafs (similar to our cornbread, but made with fresh corn [Recipe]). Like many African countries, the groundnut (a.k.a. peanut) is beloved, especially when stirred into stewed greens. Peanut oil is also preferred by many Zambian families, as for when they fry up a batch of sliced plantains. There’s also the peanut sausage. According to the World Cookbook for Students: A vegetarian “sausage” named after the wild orchid tubers called chinaka or chikanda (depending on the ethic group) used to gel them. Amazing. Fishing has a big influence on the diet of Zambians who live near the many lakes, and it is often salted and dried for preservation or travel over long distances. The salted fish is later used in stews and soups, perhaps with a few onions and tomatoes [Recipe]. Much of the population …
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“Oh yeah…” Keith says, chewing thoughtfully. “These are good!” I look at him a moment, scanning his eyes, wondering if he is being truthful. Then I look down at the plate to check if he’d eaten the right thing. Sesame coated, almond stuffed dates. Yup. Could he really think the Stuffed Date Balls are good? To be fair, he had no idea what they were when he ate them, except I did warn him that the crunchy thing inside was an almond. Still, these date balls seem more challenging to me than sushi, more challenging that the raw beef soup for Laos, more challenging than the frankincense ice cream. More challenging for me, at least. We all have our difficulties when it comes to certain textures and flavors. And dates have always been mine. Could it be that we project our fears onto our friends and families, expecting them to react the same way we will? If so, no one has a chance. The favorites have been decided before anyone takes a bite. The funny thing? …
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Yemen happens to coincide with Halloween. Halloween means trick or treating. Tons of candy and dressing up as a dream – as someone else. Or something else. This year, Ava is going as “the night sky and harvest moon.” Because, well, why not!? We made her dress with tulle, and she sewed her moon together from felt. I helped affixed it to the front of her dress. In the spirit of Halloween, we dressed up eggs and dates for our Yemeni menu. I’m not sure either recipe would work for the average trick or treater. What about at your house? Both recipes and the meal review will be posted throughout the week. Yemeni Shakshouka [Recipe] Ava loves eggs. So, when I learned Yemen had their own version of Shakshouka, I knew we had to try it. While most North African and middle eastern shakshouka uses poached eggs, the Yemeni version is a scrambled egg treat prepared with tomatoes, onions, and peppers. The key is in the spices, a blend of cumin, turmeric, cardamon, and clove. Stuffed …
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“Work like an ant and you’ll eat sugar.” Yemeni Proverb I can’t decide if the country of Yemen looks like a check mark or a bow tie. It depends on the map. Still, every time I thought about how to begin this post, I kept coming back to that check mark – the kind you get when you do a good job on your homework. Probably because Yemen is the third to last country on our list of countries. Check, check, check. I can’t. believe. it! But there is, indeed, more to Yemen than her shape. This mountainous country is situated on the Persian Gulf, across from Africa. The Yemeni people enjoy ful medames, the breakfast bean dip we sampled for Egypt [recipe], kebab, lentil soups, and lahooh, the leavened “pancake” like bread we enjoyed for Djibouti [recipe]. Shakshouka [Recipe] is another beloved breakfast item in Yemen, which is popular throughout the gulf and north Africa. I noticed a lot of yogurt when researching recipes, too, which can be used in drinks or dips. One interesting recipe …
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“The husband eats hamburger; the wife eats spring roll” “Ong an cha ba an nem” Vietnamese Proverb Even though Keith loves hamburger as much as he always has, and I love salad just as much, if not more… I’m of the mind that there is no reason to eat different food at mealtimes, as long as everyone can assemble their own plate. This week, I put that theory to the test. The fresh spring roll recipe we tried contains both meat and a garden’s worth of vegetables. Perfect for all appetites. There was just one problem: any time we’ve dined at a Vietnamese restaurant, Ava has turned up her nose at the spring rolls. I never thought I’d be able to get her to try them. Which is exactly why I wanted to make them for this week’s Global Table. Given our past experience with sushi, wherein Ava only had to fill and wrap one roll to become a forever fan of the Japanese food, I thought it was worth a shot at having her …
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