Brick Lane and Bengali Spiced Red Lentils

Brick Lane by Monica Ali is the story of Hazneen, a Bangladeshi girl who moves to London when she is eighteen for an arranged marriage to Chanu, a middle aged municipal worker.   Hazneen and Chanu live in the housing projects of London, and the novel follows about twenty years of their lives.  The book gives an insightful portrait of the immigrant experience in London, but is mainly the story of one woman's personal growth and awakening.   There is lots of mention of food in the book, as Hazneen spends a lot of her time cooking for her family, though she never eats with them.  She is always sneaking into the kitchen when her family is asleep or away and eating cold food - cauliflower curry, rice and dal (lentils) - eating alone is her way of coping with her unhappiness.  I dug around the internet looking for Bangladeshi recipes, and it was so hard to decide what to make.  I decided to go with the basic Bangladeshi/Bengali red dal, thinking it may be kind of boring, but was the type of food Hazneen's family would eat every day.  Well I was wrong about it being boring - this is a highly spiced dish that is both warm and comforting and exciting to eat.

Read more »

Unfinished Desires and Oatmeal Cookies

This week's book, Unfinished Desires, is about teenage girls and all the drama that they bring to the table.  The book is about a "toxic year" at Mount St. Gabriel's, an all girl's catholic boarding school in North Carolina.  The stories of multiple generations of students and teachers (nuns) are told in the book, with the events of one generation inextricably tied to the events of the generation before.   The way girls and women treat each other - Mount St. Gabriel's is referred to in the book as a "hotbed of bitchery"- are depicted by Gail Godwin and an incredibly insightful and real way.  The women and girls that fill the book are each interesting and honest characters, all of them are likable in some way and horrible in others.  The oatmeal cookies do not play a big part in the book, but were merely a passing reference to a favorite dish of students made by one of the founders of Mount St. Gabriel's, Mother Fiona Finney.  

Read more »

The Shadow of the Wind and Spanish Codfish Fritters

Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind is a fun, suspensful and rollicking novel which at its heart is about the love of books and storytelling.  The novel was originally written and Spanish and translated.  I usually like to read novels in their original language, but this translation was great and felt really natural.  The book takes place in Barcelona and tells the story of Daniel, a lonely son of a bookdealer, as his obsession with a mysterious novel takes him on a dark journey as he grows from boy into man.   The Barcelona in the book is a moody, damaged place still unsure of its future after civil war and fascism.  Food does have a place in the book, mainly as the subject of desire and enthusiasm of Daniel's strange and amusing friend - Fermin.  Fermin provides the heart of the book as well as its comic relief.  He has a big appetite and often requires Daniel to stop on their adventures for a bite to eat.  They seem to eat a lot of spanish ham sandwiches, but that seemed to boring for the blog (and I doubt I could get my hands on real spanish ham).  So I went with a traditional spanish tapas, codfish fritters, made with salt cod.  These were easy, though you must plan ahead since the cod must be soaked for several days before cooking.

Read more »

Super Bowl Sunday Chili

No book today, later this week I will be posting a review and recipe for The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, but for now, here is some Super Bowl appropriate (and winter appropriate) simple beef chili.

Read more »