Recipes for Trouble

Where I come from, Tradition comes with a capital “T”, and maybe with a refrain from Fiddler on the Roof.

I’ve tried tweaking the traditions, especially at Christmas. But Ukrainian Christmas is what it is. Twelve dishes, each of them labour-intensive. The solemnity of a sacred meal that draws unabashedly from Saturnalia, agrarian ritual, and Christianity.

This year, I was too tired for the whole shtick. I’d been working nonstop; there was more work waiting for me after Boxing Day. I momentarily longed for the earthy aromas of buckwheat, cabbage, fish, beets, and the warm unsettling chaos of my blood family, and then just tried to repress.

And this was the year my mother got sick just days before Christmas; this was the year I couldn’t be there. So I sent one of those emails I thought I’d later regret. Instead, the family rallied. My lovely, smart niece Krystyna phoned me on December 21st. She sounded nervous: We didn’t want you to worry. We’re all pitching in. I’m helping Baba make the perogies right now.

Kryssy explained how cabbage rolls had been outsourced to a nephew and niece, Stephan, and Zorya, and their mom Olya. Two other nieces, Sonya and Natalie, were scheduled in for further prep the next day. My brother Taras was in charge of the borscht, and the master “work roster”, created on an Excel spreadsheet, to be posted on my ma’s fridge. It was your threat that did it said my brother Michael. By then I had forgotten what I’d said in the email. You said you’d expose them all on Facebook if they didn’t pitch in this year, he reminded me, chuckling.

I cried after that phonecall. I was relieved of guilt. I was freed up from tradition.

So I made Moroccan Lamb Tagine for the Christmas Eve meal at my lover’s house, with her daughter, son and son’s girlfriend. While the young folk decorated the house as they do each Christmas Eve with a wild assortment of ornaments, I happily sauteed onions, cubed lamb, and chopped the myriad of garnishes: figs, dates, cilantro, mandarin oranges.

Eaten with raisin and almond studded couscous, it was delicious.

To be able to do something different on that memory, ritual laden eve, and enjoy it; for me, it was a first.

Later, I phoned my family as they digested their twelve dishes and opened gifts. I got passed from sibling to niece to nephew. I received a blow-by-blow account of my grand niece opening her gift from me. I told Sonya about the Moroccan food, knowing she’d understand in her funky bohemian way. We. Should. Do. Moroccan. Food. Next. Christmas. Eve. she said. It. Would. Be. A. Lot. Less. Work.

I burst out laughing at the very thought of it.

Moroccan Ukrainian Christmas. Indeed.

Moroccan Lamb Tajine
(serves 6 to 8)

I lifted this recipe whole from the Spring Mill Café website (164 Barren Hill Road, Conshohocken, PA). It was perfect, required no tweaking, though I did throw some of the garnish into the stew before serving.

Ingredients:
1/3 cup of olive oil
4 onions, finely chopped
5 lbs. of lamb shoulder, cut into 2 inch pieces
2 lbs. of fresh tomatoes - peeled, seeded and chopped
3 tablespoons of ground cumin
2 tablespoons of turmeric
1 tablespoon of freshly grated ginger
1 pinch of salt
1 bunch of fresh cilantro, finely chopped
1 generous teaspoon of red pepper flakes
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup of chopped, dried apricots
1/2 cup of chopped, dried figs
1/2 cup of chopped, dried dates
1/2 cup of toasted, slivered almonds
1/2 cup of Moroccan black olives
1/2 cup of sliced Mandarin oranges
5 cups of couscous pasta
5 cups of chicken stock
Harrisa (spicy Moroccan red-pepper condiment)

Heat the olive oil in a large earthenware pot at medium temperature; add the onions and the lamb and cook for five (5) minutes. Add the tomatoes, cumin, turmeric, ginger, salt, red pepper flakes and 3/4 of the cilantro. Stir, cover and cook very slowly until the lamb is tender (approximately 45 minutes).

Make couscous according to the instructions on the package, replacing the water with the chicken stock. When the couscous is done, toss with the raisins and almonds.

Serve the tajine on a bed of the couscous; garnish with the apricots, dates, figs, black olives, Mandarin oranges, the remainder of the cilantro and just a dab of the Harrissa on the side.

Christmas. Is All. About. Loss. she said, several weeks or was it months, ago.

That stayed with me. Like a pit in a peach, or a rogue seed in an otherwise silky tangy mandarin orange.

Christmas carols in a car, on a dark velvety Christmas Eve. Phone calls across the country. Missing my nieces. And my brother, long gone. Gifts, the desire and the anticipation and the disappointment. Good food, and laughter at all of the season’s excesses and touching absurdities. The longing for childhood, and all the ways we regress, watching children’s cartoons made for the season, wanting and not wanting and then wanting, family.

A Moroccan lamb tagine I made for Christmas Eve, salty, sweet, she and her son loved it, her daughter chewed solemnly on grilled ribs. We’re. Excited. About. The. Present. We. Made. For. You. The daughter, the son, his girlfriend, holed up for two days before, making crafts. Their sweet, determined glee.

In another city far away, my mother, surrounded by a tangled net of sons and daughter, grandchildren and great grand daughter. I am away from everything I know. I am with the person I love, and her children, of whom I am very fond. Everything I know and love recedes from me, comes towards me, and the ground beneath me, like a beach you stand on as the tide rushes in, seems to move and slide even though I am, for once, standing still.

The day arrives, and wherever I am, whomever I’m with, there are always tears in the morning. Christmas is all about loss. Her sister is dying. She cries after being on the phone, her mouth an oval, open, at a loss for words.

The day rises and falls, like breath. There is music, there are books, there is food. She plays Scrabble with her children, and they are close that day. I am outside of the circle for that moment. There are always circles, opening and closing.

We seize an hour for ourselves and a walk on a beach. Magic hour light - pink, orange, gold - draws us back to each other.

Alongside the boardwalk, there is a memorial tree, decorated with red baubles. I exclude the inscription from the frame of my camera lens. I have my own memorials - entire cities of them, really.

Christmas, Hanukah, Solstice - all emerging from the same root. The deep and primal need to both embrace, and light up the darkness. The loss of light, the loss of another year. Those who are with us, those who are not, one who is poised to leave this earth. And the hope, that rushes at us, full, unbidden, and necessary.

There are some who find Christmas baking a joyful and relaxing experience.

I am not one of them.

An invitation to a cookie-baking party - The Girlfriend and her two lovely grown offspring, The Theatrical One and The Boat Guy - had me researching shortbread recipes in advance. I raised the question on Facebook. I asked my friends and co-workers. At parties, I demanded recipes of intoxicated hostesses.

Almost everyone I talked to suggested the recipe on the side of the Canada Cornstarch box.

I cannot put cornstarch in shortbread. I will not.

Instead, I turned to the blogosphere. Found a recipe from a pastry chef I trust. Brought it to the baking party.

These folks - The Girlfriend & Co. - are pros. They’ve been making Christmas cookies as a family since before the turn of the century. Hundreds of bright, shiny, sweet, crunchy, addictive items of Christmas crack were effortlessly produced that night. Hoping to impress, I assembled my ingredients and even brought a box of Jewish cookie cutters to appease The Girlfriend’s spiritual needs.

Reader, I was the weakest link in the chain.

The recipe, I think, was in weight, not volume. (Sometimes the Pastry Chef’s recipes are more for her fellow-professionals than for the common baking joe like me). Notice the over-abundance of butter…

There are no images of the results. I was too devastated. Ashamed, really.

The Girlfriend, The Theatrical One and The Boat Guy were very kind. We’ve. Made. Every. Mistake. In. The Book,said The Boat Guy, in his charminly agreeable way. It. Just. Takes. Practice.

Perhaps it was a metaphor. A learning experience. A revelation. Maybe I was trying to hard to fit in, with the fancy-schmancy recipe and the politically correct cookie cutters.

So, there’s no recipe at the end of this post. I await suggestions. Comforting words. And a foolproof shortbread recipe so that I may redeem myself sometime before the year is out.

Classes are over for the fall semester. Snow has been falling all day, making my town look like a 1950’s Christmas movies. Between bouts of marking and research, I have found myself wandering the neighbourhood, Now that I’m not running to perform the next lecture, my head is up and my eyes are open. The world returns to me, like a gift I was putting off opening.

More new foodie places:I dropped into Grain Curd and Bean (1414 Dundas Street West) one quiet Sunday morning. The place, pristine and hopeful and not yet quite full of product exuded the warmth and earnestness of its owners. I grabbed a coffee and a crusty Harbord Bakery chocolate-croissanty-thing, sat at the counter, cracked open a Saturday Globe & Mail and eavesdropped. People from the ‘hood dropped by saying how glad they were that a cheese & bread shop had opened in a neighbourhood were previously only Portuguese cornbread (yummy but tedious after a few years) and sharp gouda-like Portuguese cheeses could be found. After making their vaguely ethnocentric comments, they’d leave without buying a thing.

Gayley’s Cafe provided breakfast as I drifted from cafe to cafe: friendly staff, decent eggs Florentine and odd homefries;”everything homemade” according to the proud owners. I continued to peruse The Globe. Lots has happened during those shut-in days of marking. More war: newspaper like a propaganda machine. Politicians doing their thing, but this time people are talking. This time, people aren’t letting them get away with it.

Walking west, I saw a new bar has opened, Hen House, decked out with the de rigeur 50’s furniture that is code for hipster in these here parts.

And across from The Hen House, Multiple Organics, one of two health food stores that have sprung up on this stretch. They have local fruit, vegetables, cheese and meat. I went in and got distressed by the lack of listed prices. Is the chard two dollars or ten? Couldn’t cope, didn’t want to ask. I think I was overtired.

The day of cafe-surfing ended at Pantry up on College. I pulled a theory book out of my bag, ordered a cappucino and a chocolate chip pecan cookie, sat at the wide wooden common table, and re-entered the world of my research.

Not so bad, to take a break and then wander among ideas again, a steaming cup of coffee by my side.