bookcooker: Await Your Reply and AgroDolce Caponata

It is hard to know what recipe to make for a book that opens with one of the main characters getting their hand chopped off, ya know? Dan Chaon's Await Your Reply is a dark, bleak book with lots of unhappy characters, untimely deaths and really no upside at all. That isn't to say I didn't like it. I did, it was gripping it at times. But this is not the book to read if you are looking for a happy or light beach read (I will be giving you some serious froth next post). When describing this book to others (and I told a few people about it in hopes of getting some ideas for a recipe), I first refer to the movies "21 Grams" or "Babble." These are movies that tell the dark stories of seemingly unrelated people throughout, with the connections between the stories and people eventually revealing themselves. This is exactly what Await Your Reply does - it tells the story of Ryan (he of the chopped off hand), Lucy, an eighteen year old runaway, and Miles, a sad middle aged man searching for his twin brother who is schizophrenic. All the characters are in precarious situations, all of them are deeply unhappy and all of them are somewhat connected to stolen identities. There is no food in the book, the book takes place across a nondescript Midwest landscape (sometimes Nebraska, sometimes Cleveland, sometimes Michigan, but the author doesn't give these places any local color, they are all depicted bleakly). I was going to make some sort of mistaken identity food (e.g. a meatloaf and potato concoction dressed up to look like a cupcake), or make a pizza with three different sections/toppings. I settled on something agrodolce - the Italian word for sweet and sour. I thought it fit a key character in the book, Miles' brother Hayden - specifically the agrodolce concept - the "agro" suits the character better than the term word sour (and I know that agro in Italian probably means "sour", but you know what I am trying to get at - "agro," meaning agressive). I picked this agrodolce Caponata since it would be great use of summer vegetables!

Await Your Reply is a novel with three seemingly unrelated story lines, all three dark and depressing. First we have Ryan, a college age kid who, as I said above, starts out the novel getting his hand chopped off. Ryan, who grew up in Iowa, is a struggling college student who discovers that his parent are not actually his parents but his aunt and uncle - his real father is a drifter/troublemaker named Jay, who he always knew as his uncle. Ryan decides to leave college and move in with Jay, who lives in an isolated cabin in the woods and runs an identity theft business. Ryan becomes involved in this business, which inevitably leads to bad situations (see hand chopped off above). Second we have Lucy, an unhappy high school student (again somewhere in the Midwest), who runs away with her high school English teacher. They end up at an abandoned hotel in Kansas, with Lucy spending her days isolated in an old house that reminds one of Norman Bates' house. Her high school teacher George is not who he says he is and identity theft issues become relevant to this story line too. Finally we have Miles, a depressed man heading towards middle age who works in a mail order magic supplies business in Cleveland, his hometown. Miles seems aimless but what drives him is his search for his twin brother Hayden, a schizophrenic who travels the country/world taking on different identities and then leaving them behind (along with, perhaps, some dead bodies) just as Miles gets close to finding him. Miles is obviously tortured by guilt concerning Hayden and Hayden seems to know that and taunts Miles by sending mysterious letters and leaving clues for him around the country. In addition to the three different story lines, the author also jumps around a bit with time, and by the end it is clear that these three stories do not happen simultaneously. The connection between the stories comes out at the end, but about 2/3 of the way through you can guess what may be going on. But there is no neat and tidy ending where everything is resolved. You leave the novel feeling uneasy and unsure, just like the characters. I definitely enjoyed the book, Chaon really captures the bleakness of his characters outlook and location - it just seems into your bones as you read. So that doesn't make the book a fun or uplifting read, but you feel it, and in my book, that is a good thing.

AGRODOLCE CAPONATA
Adapted from Michael Chiarello recipe of Foodtv.com

This recipe is a great way to use summer veggies. The agrodolce sauce is sweet and sour - it is reduced vinegar with sugar. I changed the recipe a bit, reducing it by two thirds and switching the olive type and cutting back in the capers, which I don't love. But the recipe is super forgiving and feel free to play with it a bit. The recipe calls for cooking all the veggies separately, which is time consuming. If I had to do it again, I think I could cook the summer squash, zucchini and eggplant together if I was pressed for time. I served this with bread, but you can serve this so many ways! With pasta, as a side dish, with eggs. It is just super yummy.

Ingredients
1 medium eggplant, large diced
1 large zucchini, quartered and sliced into 1/4 inch pieces
1 large summer squash, quartered and sliced into 1/4 inch pieces
2 stalks celery, diced
1 onion, chopped
1-2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1/4 cup capers
1/3 cup green olives
1/3 cup thinly sliced roasted red peppers
handful chopped italian parsley
handful chopped fresh oregano
~3/4 cup prepared marinara sauce (I used jarred but fresh would be better)
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil as necessary

Directions: Heat some oil in large saute pan. Saute each veggie separately till it is cooked and lightly browned, probably about 5 minutes per veggie.
Eggplant

Zucchini

Squash

Celery

Cook the onions and garlic together

Toss all the veggies in a bowl, then add the red pepper, olives and capers. Toss all this together.

Meanwhile. In a saucepan combine the vinegar and sugar, cook over medium high heat till reduce by two thirds. I would say 4-6 minutes should do it. Add this to the veggie mixture and stir/toss.