That coral pink sludge we used to buy from the Sainsbury’s closest to our dorm was usually scooped up with salt and vinegar crisps. Taramosalata it was called. My Greek friend MM had introduced me to it, but I am sure it was quite different than the real stuff she was eating back home in Athens. We all loved it, we thought we were the ultimate gourmandes, eating in the common room together, bitching about that Italian Econometrics professor who didn’t really know what that damn Monte Carlo algorithm test was- and neither did we.

Then there was tzatziki, a Greek yoghurt and cucumber dip, also bought at Sainsbury’s. It was probably thickened with gelatin and how they kept the cucumbers ‘fresh and crunchy’ for so many days, well, that would be thanks to the chemistry of preservatives galore. Anyway, we ate that, too. We were proper gourmandes, after all. And with the salt and vinegar crisps to go with the dips, we were really on to something new.

Ah, life in our twenties, when we were so easily pleased. A trip to London on the train to have a coffee at Cafe Nero (ultimate symbol of cool-ness), a meal at some shady Chinese restaurant in Soho where noodle dishes were ample and the stir-fried beef was questionable. Sugared melon juice at a Lebanese place on the Edgware Road and a carb-laden-oily dim sum at Poon’s. A walk through the Covent Garden and finally a film in Leicester Square before taking the train back to our uni town, whilst eating packets of Quavers (don’t judge, please) or some other delectably greasy bag of crisps.

I miss those days not because I yearn for that tzatziki or that awful packaged taramosalata, but because it took so little to make us deliriously happy.

My husband is taking me to Montreal this weekend to celebrate my birthday, and we plan to walk around the alleys of the city, visiting the Montreal bagel bakeries and lazing around at bistros sipping wine. To be deliriously happy with the simplest of pleasures in life.

For those of you who like to work in cups, my recipe is in print in Edible Toronto, here.

Serves 4-6 as an hors d’oeuvre with bread or crisps

Ingredients:
*500g full-fat yoghurt (Greek-style or Balkan-style)
*2 English cucumbers (small cucumbers), peeled and diced into small pieces
*50g chopped walnuts
*1 clove garlic, minced
*1 tbsp dried mint, plus extra for garnish
*salt of your choice to taste (I use fleur de sel or maldon)
*dried rose petals, optional, available in Persian grocery stores
*extra virgin olive oil for drizzling

Preparation:
*In a medium bowl, add yoghurt, cucumber, walnuts, garlic, mint and salt. Stir well to combine. Transfer the mixture to a serving dish. Lightly sprinkle with dried mint and dried rose petals (if using). Drizzle with your best extra virgin olive oil.

NOTE: When preparing this recipe in advance, do not add cucumbers to the yoghurt. Keep the diced cucumber and the yoghurt mixture in separate containers, covered, in the refrigerator. Drain the cucumbers in a sieve prior to stirring the solids into the yoghurt mixture.

It was the sort of evening where dessert had to be eaten first. It was the end of June and the tiny, scarlet, sweet-as-jam wild strawberries, le fragoline di Nemi were in season. Baba was visiting me in Rome from Bucharest and on the weekend our dear friends, Uncle Iqi and Aunty Neeman graciously drove us up into the Castelli Romani to the small town of Nemi. They always knew where to take us for the best medium-rare steak or the crispiest-thinnest pizza in Rome. And this time, they invited us for early season porcini mushrooms and le fragoline in Nemi.

All the local cafés there were serving le fragoline in tall glasses with clouds of fresh, whipped cream, or atop a creamy vanilla gelato. And then there was my favourite, brought to you in bowls with a splash of balsamic vinegar, the sweetness of the strawberries coaxed by the tart and earthy tones of the aceto di balsamico.

Uncle Iqi chose a restaurant overlooking the silver lake which is so perfectly still and calm that it is referred to as Il Specchio di Diana; the mirror of Diana. But prior to dinner, Aunty Neeman said we needed a fix of these wild strawberries at the café, so as Uncle Iqi sipped on his wine and chatted in his charming baritone voice, Baba lingered over his caffè latte whilst us girls tucked into our naughty pre-dinner desserts. Italians love their culinary rules: no grated cheese with spaghetti alle vongole, no cappuccino in the afternoon, but Aunty Neeman assured me there was absolutely nothing wrong with having some spoonfuls of Nemi’s strawberries before our dinner.

Later, the four of us shared plate after plate of bruschetti, crowned with fresh tomatoes glistening with olive oil and verdant leaves of basilico. After this carb-gluttony, Baba and I decided to share one primo of taglioni, tossed with roasted, intense-flavoured porcini mushrooms, and to bind the dish, a generous heap of grated pecorino romano. The grassy olive oil spread all over our lips as we kept twirling our forks into the taglioni, adding a fresh grind of pepper here and there. The patrons at the other tables wondered who this odd father-daughter pair were- how odd that they were sharing one plate of pasta.

But it was one of those inexplicable father-daughter moments.

And of course, the indulgence continued with bowls of fragoline di Nemi to round off our meal.

Aunty Neeman and I strolled back towards the car, with Baba and Uncle Iqi ahead of us, savouring puffs from their Partagás as the sun was setting late into the night and the silvery sheen of the lake now gone.

The local Ontario strawberries remind me of that evening in Nemi and all the other times I have indulged in scoops of fragoline di Nemi gelato in Rome.

The creaminess of the Greek yoghurt is just the sort of base that accentuates the sweetness of the strawberries- that, mingling with the fragrance of rosewater, and all you need is a dusting of crushed pistachios and a gentle swirl of your preferred honey over the berries.

Serves 4

Ingredients:
*350 g / 1 cup full fat Greek yoghurt
*200g / 1½ cup strawberries
*½ tsp rosewater (this can be found in Persian, Lebanese / Syrian, Pakistani or Indian grocery stores- (if you live in Toronto- it can be found at a local Rabba corner shop)
*2 tsp crushed, unsalted pistachios
*your preferred honey for drizzling

Preparation:
*Place yoghurt in a medium-size mixing bowl. Add rosewater and gently stir. Set aside.
*Hull the strawberries and slice as thinly as possible on the vertical (the strawberries will look heart-shaped when sliced).
*Transfer 4 tbsp of the rosewater-spiked yoghurt to each individual plate / bowl. If using a plate, you can transfer with an icing spatula to spread the yoghurt in a circular pattern.
*Arrange strawberry slices on top.
*Dust with crushed pistachios.
*Drizzle with your favourite honey. I use lavender or manuka.

Her name was Bridget but we called her Aunty Brige. Not pronounced ‘bridge’, like the one which connects two points across a river, but Brige, with a long ‘i’, as in liege. She was tall and wore lots of white, flowing dresses which looked beautiful with her crown of wavy, strawberry blonde hair. One could imagine her sitting elegantly next to a harp, with her fingers plucking at the strings. Aunty Brige had light eyes; I cannot remember if they were green or blue or hazel, and they were always hidden behind large spectacles.Aunty Brige was the wife of the Irish Ambassador to Nigeria, and became my Ami’s dear friend when we lived in Lagos. On weekends, Aunty Brige and her husband, Uncle Aidan would invite us to go motoring through the Lagos Lagoon in their boat, towards the Tarkwa Bay. The boat would sometimes rock up and down and Aunty Brige would squeeze my hand and say, “Ah, it’s very choppy today.” Terrified, I just wanted to cry and get the hell off of that boat and build my sand castle at the Bay. She loved little girls, especially since she had six boys of her own and just one daughter. She told my Ami that when her last child was born, while the nurse swaddled the newborn baby, she asked Aunty Brige what she would like the name to be. Exhausted after labour, she simply waved her hand and said, “Oh, anything, Tom, Dick or Harry.” The nurse laughed and said, “Mrs. Mulloy, I don’t think your daughter would appreciate those names.”

It was during our years in Lagos that my youngest sister was born. Ami was away in Washington with my younger sister for the delivery, whilst Baba and I stayed back. Knowing I was feeling lonely without my mother, Aunty Brige would bring me soft cakes made with marzipan, which she knew were Ami’s favourite. On weekends they would invite us to their home for lunches. Uncle Aidan, a gourmand, loved having chilled soups during lunchtime; he found them particularly cooling in the tropical heat of Lagos. It was my first time trying a cucumber-yoghurt soup and it was unforgettable: mainly because I couldn’t drink more than a few spoonfuls. My childhood palate never let me forget how awful it tasted back then. It was cold, and I couldn’t understand why we were drinking cucumber juice mixed with yoghurt, out of a bowl, and that too, with a spoon.

After we left Lagos for Washington DC, Aunty Brige continued to send me birthday cards every year, but soon after that I moved to Lahore to live with my grandmother, and we lost touch with them all together. I heard from a friend, many years later, that Aunty Brige had passed away from cancer. Sweet Aunty Brige, who took photos of me building sandcastles in Tarkwa Bay.

All these years later, I came to appreciate cucumber-yoghurt soup, which always reminds me of Uncle Aidan and Aunty Brige. Especially that time in my childhood when not many things tasted very good, don’t forget, I was drinking a lot of Campbell Chicken Noodle Soup back then. My tastebuds were almost ruined.

This is just the sort of soup I would make for my Aunty Brige, but with my own Persian spin on it- chilled, with beads of crunchy cucumbers, fragrant with mint and a bit of earthiness from the walnuts. And finally, topped off with crackly fried shallots which melt into the cool soup as caramelised ribbons.

Serves 4-6 as a first course or 10-12 in smaller portions for a cocktail party

Ingredients:
*1 shallot, sliced thin
*1 tbsp olive oil
*6 English (mini) cucumbers (approximately 300g)
*handful mint leaves (no stalks)
*1 garlic clove
*salt to taste
*1½ cup or approximately 350 g Greek or whole milk yoghurt
*½ cup or approximately 60 g walnuts, plus some more for garnishing, crushed and chopped by hand
*Dried rose petals for garnish- found in most Persian grocery stores (optional)

Preparation:
*Slice shallot thinly;
*Place a small frying pan on medium-high heat and add one tablespoon of olive oil;
*Add shallots and fry till a dark golden colour;
*Transfer to a newspaper or paper towel and allow to dry.
*Set aside;
*Peel the skin from cucumbers;
*Slice each cucumber lengthwise and with a teaspoon, gently scoop out the seeds. Divide cucumbers into two separate batches;
*Take the first batch of cucumbers and slice into very thin strips lengthwise. Then dice into very small pieces, approximately less than ½ centimetre and 1/8th of an inch. (See photo above).
*Set first batch of cucumbers aside.
*Take the second batch of cucumbers and garlic clove and place in a blender or food processor. Blend till completely smooth.
*Add mint leaves to the blender or food processor and pulse just so the mint leaves are shredded but not completely blended in. You want to be able to see small specks of the mint leaves.
*Transfer the puréed cucumber and mint to a mixing bowl. Add Greek yoghurt, walnuts, the first batch of diced cucumbers and gently mix to combine. Add salt to taste.
*The consistency should be like that of a thick soup. If it is too watery for your liking, you can add more Greek yoghurt, if it is too thick, add some ice cold water, tablespoon by tablespoon till you get the desired consistency.
*Place in the fridge and allow to chill for 2-3 hours.
*Serve in a soup bowl or in tiny glasses and just prior to serving, garnish with crunchy shallots, crushed walnuts and (optional) dried rose petals.

I first tried “gossip” when I lived in Rome. No, not that kind. I learned what gossip was in the kindergarten when my ‘husband’, Jamie and I paid Gina for a pound of tomatoes and instead of putting the two plastic yellow coins in the till, she put them in her pocket. And instead of tommies, she handed us bananas. By recess time, everyone knew about the dreadful thing Gina had done to us.

But the other kind of ”gossip” I tried for the first time in Rome during Carnevale was rectangular and crackly, dusted with icing sugar. And each bite sounded like chatter, just like gossip, which is why it is called chiacchiere by Southern Italians. In celebration of Carnevale, all the pasticceria windows in Rome are full of chiacchiere. I remember on weekends little girls and boys dressed up in their costumes would arrive with their parents to buy the fried goodies. The little ones would watch eagerly as the man behind the counter would carefully place each crisp rectangle on a golden paper tray. But before wrapping paper around it and sealing it with a bow, he’d hand one treat to the children, who would devour the chiacchiere, licking the sugar dust off their lips with each bite.

My friends and I loved having these fried treats after lunch with a thimble of dense, inky caffè, at pasticceria Tornatora, near our office. Shattering with each bite, the sugar would spread all over our mouths. And there we would stand, against the bar in our coats and knee-high boots on that lethal sugar-and-caffeine-high, doing some real chiacchiere (gossip) before heading back to our offices. Those were the Roman tail-end-of-winter days I particularly adored. And the sweet, crispy treats reminded me of tea-time at home in Pakistan with my family.

The Afghan kitchen has an equivalent of chiacchiere which we call gosh-e-feel in Dari, for their elephant ear-like shape. We sprinkle them with sugar just like the Italians, but we add another layer of colour, flavour and texture to it with crushed pistachios. They are just the ticket with tea on a cold afternoon…

Or, if you’re like my husband, back from Pakistan and jet lagged, you may want to have one, two, three, five, ah, maybe more, when you’re up at 4am- only to have your wife wake up a few hours later to find that the tray of gosh-e-feel she was supposed to take to work is one-third empty…Ah, bless him…

Makes 30-40 7cm treats
You will need a round cookie cutter (size of your choice), a wok or deep fryer and a rolling pin.

Ingredients:
*200g + 50 g flour
*pinch salt
*2 eggs, whisked
*30g butter, melted
*1 heaped teaspoon granulated sugar
*50ml full-fat milk
*neutral oil like corn or sunflower, for deep frying
*caster / icing sugar
*1 tsp cardamom powder or crushed cardamom seeds (optional)
*handful unsalted pistachios, crushed with a rolling pin
*handful edible rose petals, available at Persian or Middle Eastern grocery stores

Preparation:
*Sift the two portions of flour separately.
*Add a pinch of salt to the 200g portion.
*You will keep the remainder of the 50g of flour on reserve whilst you are kneading the dough.
*In a large bowl combine whisked eggs; cooled, melted butter; granulated sugar; and 50ml of milk.
*Add 200g of sifted flour and knead on a floured surface till it comes together and forms a dough.
*If it is seems wet and sticky, slowly add flour from the reserve till it begins to bind well.
*Knead for 10-15 minutes.
*Divide dough into two portions, cover with a teacloth or plastic wrap and allow to rest for 1 hour.
*Roll out first portion on a floured surface with a floured rolling pin till dough is half a centimetre thick.
*With a cookie cutter (size of your choice) cut out circles and pinch/pleat the sides with your thumb and forefinger so the circle resembles the ear of an elephant, as shown in the photo above.
*Place on parchment paper as you shape them and cover with a teacloth.
*Take the leftover scraps from the cookie cutter and knead it into the second portion of dough.
*Repeat the process of rolling out the dough and cutting out circles, as you did for the first portion.
*Place a wok on medium high heat with enough oil for deep frying. Test with a small piece of dough, if it floats freely to the top, the oil is ready.
*Fry the gosh-e-feel 3-4 at a time , 5-10 seconds on each side till golden brown. Keep transferring to a plate lined with parchment paper or paper towels.
*Sprinkle with icing sugar, cardamom powder, crushed pistachios and rose petals.

Bon Bons in Lahore

Mini Market in Gulberg was less than a kilometre away from our family home. On hot summer nights, after dinner, we would walk to the market with my parents, cousins- Saadiya & Ashi, my uncle- Kaka Tarik and my aunt- Aunty Shahla. With 10 rupees to call our own, Saadiya, Ashi and I  would buy a Polka mango flavour ice cream, the kind you eat out of the cup with the tiny wooden spatula. Then we’d move on to buy Mitchell’s bon bon sweeties from the nearby kiosk to add more sugar to the mix.

Emerging from our gated home, we’d walk past the khajooron wala ghar; the home with the date tree. “That house is haunted,” my cousin Ashi would tell us, her brown topaz eyes widening, “there are jinn which wrap themselves around that tree at night.” Ashi had guzzled a whole jug of a goat’s fresh blood when she was 5. And we knew it was true- because she had told us all so, even if we had not seen it. She continued to tell us the story about the jinns with her ponytail swishing left and right. Ashi had hair that I envy to this day- like golden brown spun silk.

For 1 rupee you could get 4 bon bon sweeties. So for 5 rupees we could get 20. Each sweety was brittle from outside, almost cracking your teeth, and inside was this soft, gooey sweetness. My favourite was raspberry. As the vendor stuffed the sweeties into the khaki envelope one by one, I made sure he didn’t add any lemon or lime flavours. And if he did, I’d just palm them off to my Baba. He liked sour sweeties.  The adults would buy a chocbar or maybe have some paan with a bottle of cool of RC Cola. Ashi would buy imli tamarind paste candy which is sweet and sour and makes your mouth pucker up with each bite. (Imli was verboten, as it would “catch” our throats and make us cough, but we didn’t fear our parents’ wrath; for it tasted far too good.) Saadiya would buy an asssortment of Mitchell’s sweeties. And once home, we would pile it all together and share the goodies whilst playing carom board till the wee hours of the morning.

Ashi always used to win.

Maybe it was that goat’s blood she had had as a child.

Those days are long gone now, as we can no longer walk to Mini Market due to the traffic congestion and the sprouting of commercial buildings near our home. In fact, no one walks along the streets of Lahore, the city of my birth, anymore. I miss those dense summer nights, with Kaka clutching his cane, walking behind us as we scurried ahead of him, giggling and looking forward to getting our sugar fix.

These Persian sweeties I prepared are a far cry from the bon bons of my childhood, but think of these more as sweeties for adults. Caramel notes from the honey with currents of saffron running through it, almonds for textural crunch, and pistachios for adornment. The heady taste of sugar sends me right back to those evenings walks to Mini Market with my family; especially Saadiya and Ashi.

Serves 4 during tea time
You will need a tray lined with parchment/wax paper
NB: Don’t let the colour of the sugar darken. I have deliberately recommended that the colour be light golden. I have found that if you let it caramelise (darken) too much, it will mask the flavour of saffron. If you prefer your brittle darker, then you can let it cook a few more minutes than what I have recommended.

Ingredients:
*1 cup sugar
*3 tbsp butter
*2 tbsp honey
*1 1/2 tsp saffron, crushed in a mortar and pestle, add 2 tbsp of water to it
*1/2 cup slivered almonds, unsalted
*1/2 cup slivered pistachios, unsalted

Preparation:
*In a medium saucepan, add sugar, butter and honey on medium heat.
*Stir for 7 minutes or till the sugar melts and the colour turns a light golden. (NB: Be careful not to let it darken too much, or it will taste bitter.)
*Add the almonds and stir gently, do not over mix. Slowly, the mixture will begin to darken.
*At this point, add the saffron water.
*Drop a spoonful of the mix on the parchment paper, if it quickly solidifies, turn the heat to low and start to dollop a spoon each onto the parchment/wax paper.
*Allow to cool for 1 hour.

Mirza Ghasemi

We kicked off our snow-covered boots and entered my friend B’s parents’ home through the side entrance. Our feet found their way onto the rose pink carpet from Tabriz, intricately woven, just like the delicately embroidered shawls my Ami wears.

The Hosseini home smelled like caramel. Sheets of sangak, an Irani bread dotted with white and black sesame seeds were lying in the kitchen, cloaked in a pink cotton sheet. They smelled nutty and of burnt sugar. Like a crème brûlée. B’s mum, Aunty Mehrnaz had brought this freshly baked bread from the Irani bakery for us. B and I tore off pieces of it, tucking some creamy feta and fresh tarragon leaves into it. Aunty Mehrnaz scolded us- we had a large meal ahead of us and we were not to spoil our appetities. Aunty Mehrnaz is from Gilan, a province in Iran, and she was going to teach us how to prepare some typical Gileki dishes.

Sangak

But first, we sat down to amber-hued cups of Persian tea, fragranced with cardamom. And there was even some milk chocolate from England. I had a chocolate caramel, which melted in my warm mouth as the tea went down…

While the snow settled on the trees and rooftops, softly outside…

B & Aunty Mehrnaz

Aunty Mehrnaz and B brought bushels of herbs to the kitchen table…liquorice-scented tarragon, verdant coriander, spicy mint, sweet curly parsley.

I stood there with Aunty Mehrnaz tearing off each leaf one by one for sabzi khordan…

For the Baghala Ghatogh, Aunty Mehrnaz had soaked some pach baghali; small white kidney beans, from the night before. It is difficult to find these outside of Iran, perhaps an Irani grocer may carry them. She had meticulously peeled each and every single bean, freeing it of its skin. I sautéed slivers of garlic in olive oil, adding a mound of a vermillion turmeric, and spoonfuls of dried dill; it was such a heady, beautiful fragrance. We added a little bit of water and replaced the lid, allowing the beans to steam and all the flavours to continue coming together.

And like in all Irani households, it was time for tea again…

Aunty Mehrnaz took out her book on the cuisine of Gilan, whilst B’s father, Uncle Bijan read us couplets from Nicholson‘s translation of Rumi’s Masnavi…

And then back into the kitchen to prepare Mirza Ghasemi, a Gileki dish. To prepare this, aubergine is slow roasted in the oven till it slumps, hisses and sighs, then it is scooped out from its skin. Mashed in a bowl, it is added to a frying pan with garlic…

You make a well in the middle and add chopped, blanched tomatoes and dustings of salt, pepper, turmeric and black pepper. Then some fried eggs with soft, pudgy yolks are added and mixed into the velvety aubergine.

You keep sautéing it for a few minutes (and turn to look into the camera for just a split second, as I did, here).

While Uncle Bijan continued to read and write Persian poetry…

in this beautiful home…

And then it was finally time to set the table…

Decant the tah dig; that rice with a crunchy base…

…which you douse with gravy and the oozing egg yolks from Baghala Ghatogh…

and Mirza Ghasemi, tucking pieces of fragrant herbs and bits of spicy radish into our mouths with each bite…

We gathered in the family room for more tea and dessert, but by that time the camera had been stowed away and we talked about Aunty Mehrnaz’s and Uncle Bijan’s family in Iran and the stories behind all the sepia photos I saw strewn in their home…

A huge thank you to Aunty Mehrnaz and Uncle Bijan for a beautiful weekend in their home.

Mirza Ghasemi:

Serves 4 with bread or rice

Ingredients:
*2-3 tbsps olive oil
*6 medium aubergine
*4 cloves garlic, sliced thin
*3 medium tomatoes; skin removed by blanching, chopped
*1 heaped tsp turmeric
*1 heaped tsp black pepper
*4 eggs, fried
*salt to taste

Preparation:
Heat your oven to 400F
*Pierce each aubergine with a fork, arrange on a tray and roast in the oven for 1 hour or till they look soft and wilted.
*Allow the aubergines to rest and come to room temperature, then scoop out the flesh and discard the skin.
*Mash the aubergine flesh with a potato masher.
*In a large frying pan, add olive oil, garlic and turmeric and place on a medium flame. Sauté the garlic for 2-3 minutes.
*Add aubergine flesh and turn heat to medium-high. Sauté till the liquid from the aubergines water begins to evaporate.
*Make a well in the middle and add tomatoes. Continue to rigorously sauté.
* Add the fried eggs and mix together. Chop the eggs into small pieces, incorporating them into the aubergines and tomatoes with your spatula.
*Serve with rice or sangak

I am featured on my favourite website this morning- The Kitchn. Click here.

Zain, my husband and I never go out for brunch on weekends — because Saturday and Sunday are the two days when he gets deep into the kitchen and prepares all sorts of omelettes for us. We call them “farmers’ omelettes” because they are prepared with whatever is in our fridge that particular morning (no farm here, sadly). Some days it is caramelised shallots and roasted tomatoes with brie folded in, which softly oozes out with each bite; other days it is mushroom, thyme and Swiss cheese. And there is always a little bit of caramelized garlic in them.

One morning, in the mood for an omelette in the Italian manner — a frittata, I entered the kitchen with Zain to prepare it. He took out Roma tomatoes, Irani feta and the fresh herb of the week, tarragon. Zain peeled the roma tomatoes with a potato peeler while I whipped the eggs. After pouring a few globs of olive oil into the frying pan, I added the chopped Roma tomatoes. Over a slow flame, as we sipped our cardamom tea, the tomatoes slumped and yielded, becoming soft and jam–like. In went the eggs and as Zain swirled the pan with a flick of his wrist, I added lots of soft, creamy, crumbled Irani feta. As it began to come together along the sides, we transferred it under the broiler for ten minutes. Flipped over onto a plate was a thick circle of eggy goodness—a sort of savoury custard, garnished with strands of fragrant tarragon. And since we had just returned from Istanbul, we had to give the frittata a dusting of pul biber, the prized semi–moist, red chili flakes from Turkey. We scooped up the custard–like frittata with our favorite pumpernickel bread using our hands.

Photo by my husband, Z.

Below is my latest published piece for Edible Toronto’s Winter Issue. You can also view it on their website here. See end of post for recipes.

I know, it’s long- but it’s a piece I wrote for a magazine lots of photos at the end

Where The Sun Comes From

Memories of My Grandmother

By Shayma Saadat

Shameem was the given name of my paternal grandmother. Her favourite drink was Crème de Menthe, which she always drank chilled, and she was the best tango dancer in Lahore. My father tells me that the band at the Lahore Gymkhana Club would strike up the tango as soon as my grandparents entered the ballroom. They had won many tango competitions and their favourite song was Bahía Blanca. With my grandfather in his tuxedo and my grandmother in her silk sari, they would twirl around the outside of the dance floor in true Argentine style – long, elegant steps – her sari’s folds sashaying with each move. I often wonder how she did the legendary gancho, or leg hook, in her sari. I wish I could ask her, but she passed away in our home in Nairobi, Kenya, when I was sixteen years old.

We affectionately called her Mader, which means mother in Farsi. Everyone called her that. My parents, my friends, the fruit-wallah in Lahore who would save the freshest neon-orange persimmons for her, and the owner of Ajmer Bakery who kept a dozen vegetable patties aside for her every Thursday. Even our cook, Lala Ashraf, who learnt to make lasagne verde from her, called her Mader.

Born in Lahore, Pakistan in 1916, Mader lived there for most of her life. Widowed when she was sixty, she came to live with us in Washington, D.C., but the pull of her homeland was too strong; she returned after two years. When I was thirteen I was sent to Pakistan to live with her for a few years. She taught me how to speak Farsi, paraphrased Shakespeare’s Richard II for me, and sat next to me all night when I studied for my final exams. She made sure the fruit basket in my room was always full and lunch was ready when I came back from school at one o’clock. I remember sitting with her for lunch and having our preferred dish of potatoes and aubergines made with roasted tomatoes and caramelized onions. We would chatter as our fingers scooped it all up with a chapati.

Mader had gone through a double mastectomy and had heart trouble, preventing her from standing up for long periods of time. On weekends my cousin Saadiya and I would go into the kitchen and, as Mader sat on her stool and instructed us, we would cook together. Mader loved making fresh mayonnaise. Lala Ashraf would set the mise en place on the marble counter. I would then begin to slice my knife through the tiny lemons that came from the Chinese dwarf tree in our garden and Saadiya would measure out the olive oil. Then eggs would go into the blender and Mader would guide us as oil was added, drop by golden drop, into the blender. Like alchemy, the ingredients would come together, transforming into a glob of pillowy, creamy lusciousness. And finally, we’d add Mader’s secret ingredient: a tiny dusting of brick-red smoked paprika. Lala Ashraf and Mader would spread this fluffy emulsion on soft, crustless slices of bread and add chunks of roast chicken and plump tomatoes. We would sit in our breakfast room and enjoy these sandwiches with the rest of the family, washing them down with glasses of mango squash. Saadiya was a talented baker, and there would be a slice of one of her spongy cakes with fresh fruit for dessert.

Mader’s father had passed away when she was a mere nine years old, leaving her mother with the responsibility of bringing up four daughters. Each piece of heirloom jewellery was sold so that her daughters could be educated. Mader was one of the first women in Pakistan to obtain an M.A. in economics. In addition to educating her daughters, she made sure they were also taught to cook. As a child, I always saw Mader in the kitchen with Lala Ashraf – cutting, chopping, and grinding on the marble counter from her stool. But the dishes she prepared didn’t seem like the ones her mother would have taught her. Back in the 1960s Mader had taken cookery classes from a Pakistani lady who taught Cantonese Chinese cooking, but her real interest lay in French food. She enrolled for classes at the French Cultural Institute in Lahore known as Cordon Bleu. I wonder if chefs were invited to Pakistan from this prestigious cookery school in Paris or if the instructor merely used recipes from the school to teach the students. Either way, she emerged from this school armed with recipes for Béarnaise sauce and how to make a perfectly airy chocolate soufflé.

As a wife, mother and civil servant, Mader took these classes in her free time. She would often make pommes au four with a cinnamon stick wedged in the middle of each apple and serve it to her husband and two sons with a good pour of crème anglaise; a dish my father craves to this very day. Some days she would request the chef of the U.S. Consul General to teach her how to make American-style pies and casseroles in her home kitchen. And from her American tenants who were in Lahore on a Ford Foundation scholarship, she learnt how to make a perfect pot roast with golden roasted potatoes.

All the dishes Mader prepared for me when I was a child were those that she had learnt from her cookery classes. Some days there would be a zucchini gratin with béchamel, the kind that comes out of the oven all bronzed and bubbly on top, or a lemon-yellow Victoria sponge cake sandwiched together with homemade apricot jam. And my favourite, a Cantonese chicken corn soup which was stirred and stirred for hours. I loved watching her perform the last step – the whisked raw eggs being poured in, metamorphosing into strands of silk floating lightly in the soup.

As for dishes from her heritage – Pakistani or Irani – I suppose that as a working woman who didn’t cook on a daily basis she felt those were best left to the experts, the cooks in her kitchen. I have heard stories of my grandmother’s Irani ancestry, but by the time I became keenly interested in finding out more about where her family had come from, Mader was long gone. My father tells me that Mader’s grandfather, Syed Nadir Ali Shah, was a Sufi Saint from Iran. He came from a province in the northeast called Khorasan, the land of saffron and zereshk – barberries. As a young adult, Syed Nadir Ali Shah migrated from his abode in Iran to present-day Pakistan to spread the Sufi word. Whilst there, he came across a beautiful girl with hazel eyes and hair as black as licorice, and married her soon after. This woman was Mader’s grandmother. He made a home for himself in Lahore and never returned to Sabzevar, the city of his birth.

Mader had taught me how to make a béchamel sauce, and to speak Farsi, but she never shared anything about her Irani heritage with me. I wanted to know more about Syed Nadir Ali Shah: did he miss his country of birth; how did he teach his wife and children Farsi; and did he tell them that the province of his birth, Khorasan, means Where The Sun Comes From in Farsi? As I became more curious about the land that Mader’s grandfather was from, I began to research Sufism in Iran and also delve into Irani cookery. The kukus: baked frittatas, some made with fresh, verdant herbs, others with roasted aubergine; the delicate polows: rice dishes with candied orange rind, zereshk and pistachios; khoreshts: the warm stews that are simmered on the stove for hours and eaten with mounds of steaming rice. I continued to cook Irani dishes as a tribute to Mader, my grandmother who was an enigma and a fascinating woman from that era, the lady who taught my father how to make ikebana flower arrangements and who passed away silently one night at our home in Nairobi.

 I would love to have been able to create tah-chin, a traditional Irani dish, with her. It is much like the Neapolitan pasta timbale I learnt to make when I lived in Rome, except that this dish is made with rice and chicken and has intense currents of saffron’s golden, musky aroma running through it. I would like to have been in the kitchen with Mader, at the marble counter in our family home in Lahore, grinding saffron threads in the mortar and pestle, adding drops of water and then seeing it all transform into a brilliant vermillion syrup. I would have watched her, seated on her stool, mixing steamed rice with egg yolks and yogurt. Then together we would add the saffron water into the rice mixture, watching the colour bleed slowly into it, a transformation from yellow to gold.

Finally, how wonderful it would be if Mader and I could sit down to have a meal together, like we did when I was thirteen years old, and say nosh-e-jan – bon appétit. Except this time I would pour her a small glass of chilled Crème de Menthe as a digestif.

Shayma Saadat is a Pakistani-Afghan of Irani ancestry and the author of the food-memoir-style blog “The Spice Spoon: Cooking Without Borders” (www.thespicespoon.com). She was born in Lahore and grew up in Pakistan, the U.S., Nigeria, Kenya, Bangladesh, and the U.K. Two years ago, Shayma moved from Rome, Italy, where she worked for the United Nations, to Toronto, where she is a Senior Policy Advisor to the Canadian government. She lives in Toronto with her husband.

Here is the recipe for tah-chin.

Here is the recipe for mast-o-khiar.

Kadu Bharta.

Two words which sent shivers down my spine as a child-that Pakistani roasted squash dish which I just could not abide as a child. I don’t know whether it was the nursery food-like texture on my tongue of the cooked vegetable or the sight of it; one amorphous mound on my plate. I remember my parents scooping it all up with a chapati and adding spoonfuls of piquant mint chutney to the equation. It wasn’t for me.

So on those nights, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese dinner was on my plate (I know, I know). As an adult now, I’d rather go hungry than eat ‘Mac&Cheese’, let alone any other sort of boxed meal. And, I have come to love kadu; butternut squash immensely now. Roasted in the oven till they are candy-like and blitzed with plump roasted garlic, some homemade herby chicken stock, a dash of cream and you have a soup. Sauted in the pan with roasted cumin seed and caramelised onions the way my Ami makes them. Served with a mango pickle on the side. On top of rocket, with some Iranian feta crumbled on top. Some walnuts for textural crunch.

And finally, my favourite, served as verrines in the Afghan manner: tossed in spices, roasted crisp along the edges, then layered with dense, creamy Greek-style yoghurt with a dusting of Irani mint on top to cut through the sweetness.

Gorgeous with a thick bread, freshly warmed in the oven.

Or you can serve it in traditional Afghan style as a borani, a slathering of yoghurt, topped with half-moon shapes of squash.

Serves 4 as a first course

Pre-heat oven to 400F

Ingredients:
*Large baking tray (cookie sheet tray) lined with parchment paper
*1 medium-sized butternut squash, halved lengthwise, peeled, de-seeded and and sliced into 1/4 inch slices (they will look like arcs)
*Olive oil for roasting
*1/4 tsp turmeric powder (haldi)
*1/2 tsp coriander seed powder
*1/2 tsp cumin seed powder
*3/4 cup thick Greek-style yoghurt
*sea salt to taste
*dried mint + extra for garnish

Preparation:
*In a large mixing bowl, combine sliced butternut squash with a good drizzle of olive oil (enough so it coats each piece), turmeric, coriander seed powder and cumin seed powder.
*Transfer to cookie tray, (spread evenly across it) and place in oven for 20 minutes.
*When roasted, sprinkle with sea salt and allow to come to room temperature- around 15 minutes.
*Spoon yoghurt into individual glasses and layer with butternut squash slices. Or you could slather a layer into individual small plates and place butternut squash slices on top.
*Dust with dried mint and a drizzle of olive oil.
*Serve with pillowy bread like nan-e-barberi from an Irani store. Or you could use pita bread.

The Toronto air is so cold that it’s almost brittle. But it is familiar to me now. Just like the street outside my home with its pedestrian crossings or our neighbourhood Korean-owned Japanese restaurant which serves an insipid salmon roll, but a perfectly spicy kimchi soup. It is just the ticket for a cold evening.

Toronto is the place where, for the past year and a half, I have made a home with my husband and invited friends over for platters of basmati rice served with prawns drenched in fragrant coconut curry. It’s the place where thousands of dollars have been raised by my non-Pakistani colleagues at work when the floods struck Pakistan, my country of birth. The place where people are curious to know more about my culture and where I am from. The place where its people have welcomed my husband and I into their homes and their land.

I still haven’t been to cottage country, done any cross-country skiing or dived into the crisp cool lakes this summer. But I have found a café which we call ours. My husband and I walk down our street every Sunday morning to a gourmet grocery store with a corner café, and order a caffé latte in a tall glass, the kind you probably had a milkshake in as a child.

We have found a spot in the north of the city, where we like to go on Friday nights when we need an Irani koobideh kebob fix. We sit in this hole-in-the-wall on stools, eating glistening kebobs, wrapping them with torn pieces of soft lavash. Alongside the kebob sits a plump, grilled tomato, its skin papery and blistered. We wash it all down with fizzy doogh, fragranced with mint.

Oh, and I have stalked Margaret Atwood by going to her favourite food haunts, but in vain. Well, it’s not really stalking if you’re guided by a piece in the Financial Times in which the celebrity has publicly listed her preferred Toronto spots.

Gail (right) and Jodi and I (left)

I have also come to know and become friends with fascinating women, one who raises funds for the Sick Kids Foundation and zips around town on her bicycle in orange stilettoes. And two others in particular, my friends Jodi Lastman and Gail Gordon Oliver. These two ladies have inspired me and introduced me to other women who are interested in food, in the same way I am. Jodi Lastman, is one of the organisers / founders of Women In Food and Gail is the editor of Edible Toronto. Gail commissioned me for a piece in her magazine earlier this summer, about my move from Rome, Italy, to Toronto after marriage.

Last week Women In Food hosted a potluck event at Merchants of Green Coffee.

Jodi’s roasted beet with peanuts and Gail’s sweet-and-sour-chicken with cranberries and brown rice

I took an Irani dish- a platter of noon-e-panir-e-sabzi as an appetiser, which literally means bread, cheese and greens in Farsi. Bread is served alongside fresh, verdant herbs…

You take the piece of bread and layer it with herbs. My preferred herb is mint…

Then some creamy Irani feta…

Adding walnuts…

Then sultanas. At least that’s the way I eat it, you can eat yours in any order you like.

At the event, there were crostini with grilled mushrooms and globs of goat cheese; cheese-onion popovers; homemade tomatillo salsa with corn tortillas; gluten-free pumpkin muffins; duck rillettes- everything was homemade. And slippery and saline oysters were generously gifted by Oyster Boy and served alongside a mignonette sauce.

Some of the scrummy homemade dishes brought by other women at the event

Eight volunteers gave Pecha Kucha-style presentations related to why food matters to them or their latest project, while glasses of Pelee Island Winery’s merlot were passed around as the evening progressed.

Pakistan will always be a part of me, but I am beginning to call Toronto home, too.

Serves 4-6 as an appetiser

Ingredients and Preparation:
*Bread- I used noon-e-barbari, which is a leavened bread found in Afghan, Pakistani or Irani supermarkets. You can also use lavash which is a very thin flatbread. Cut it into rectangular bite -ize pieces the way I did or serve whole and let guests tear off pieces;
*Cheese- I used a soft Irani feta;
*Sultanas- I used green sweet and tart ones which are from the shindu khani grape, available at Irani or Pakistani supermarkets;
*Dried Cherries (optional)
*Walnuts- It is preferable to use fresh walnuts, but since those are hard to find, soak shelled walnuts in cold water for an hour or more, wipe dry with kitchen paper towels, then serve;
*Herbs of choice- I used mint, as it is one of my favourite herbs, but feel free to add tarragon, thyme, coriander, etc.
*For garnish on cheese: olive oil, dash of paprika and dried mint.

No set rule, eat it as you like. I place a leaf of mint on my bread, then stack it up with cheese, a sultana, a cherry, and lastly, a walnut.