MAKES ENOUGH FROSTING FOR A ONE-LAYER CAKE, but can be doubled for a two-layer cake.
EGGPLANT BHARTA
{2008}
I THINK THAT BY NOW I AM OLD ENOUGH, THOUGH, to know why SUCH THINGS HAPPEN, OR AT LEAST HOW TO cope with the ramifications AND COMPLEXITIES OF LONELINESS, WHICH IS BY NOW MY INTIMATE AND, I believe, MY FRIEND
M. F. K. Fisher, The Gastronomical Me, “Sea Change”
I WAS NAÏVE, IN SOME WAYS JUST OUT OF MY MOTHER’S womb. Though twenty-six is considered to be a fully-grown adult by most standards, I still looked to others for direction and approval in the way that children do.
Perhaps it was because I was raised in a family of fiercely intelligent, headstrong, hard-nosed women—women so outspoken that there was not much space for me to fill with my thoughts or opinions before it was simply filled with theirs. It could have also been that my parents were just surviving, multitasking the heavy responsibilities of a household so full of daily needs. In reality, there was only enough to care for the family as a whole, and to take energy with temper tantrums or for my individual needs would have felt selfish, and I was probably told so. I was observant and careful not to be a burden. So from the time I began to speak, I also learned how not to.
And after some time, I forgot how to speak altogether.
I
G AND I MET WHEN WE WERE BOTH WORKING AT A LARGE design firm in Vancouver. During design college, I had become determined to gain my family’s approval. Since my family gauged intelligence with academic successes, and I hadn’t found many in that area, I was labeled a “lost cause” in my younger years, and I later became intensely ambitious in order to prove everyone wrong. Though my dreadful insecurity still plagued me, like so many people in their twenties, I hid behind an exaggerated display of confidence and a defiant fuchsia streak in my long black hair.
G was tall and sinewy like a jute rope, always dressed entirely in black, with dark, curly hair drooping to his shoulders and sunken eyes with hazel-colored centers that changed depending on the light or his mood. Charmingly quiet, he was self-assured and mysterious, which gave him an air of being rebellious. As we worked closely together, pushing out projects at all hours of the day and night, I found myself drawn to his confidence and unexpected sense of humor. He rarely spoke, but when he did, his surprising wit delighted me, and loud laughs jolted from my mouth before I could catch them.
We fell in love quickly. We spent hours talking, like children under the covers with a flashlight, up past our bedtime. In intimate whispers, we explored the existence of God, past lives, this life, questioned if there was more. What we didn’t know just excited us. For the first time, I spoke aloud all the thoughts I had kept only for myself: I told him that I dreamt of traveling around India, that I wanted to move to another city, that I thought I was meant to do something that would help people one day—I didn’t know what—that I was afraid I wasn’t good enough, and G understood it all. So we decided to marry.
The night before the wedding, after months of rigorous planning, my bridesmaids, my mother, my sister, and I huddled on the floor of my parents’ living room, chatting about our freshly painted nails. I quietly noted the significance of the moment to myself: I was surrounded by my closest friends and on the edge of entering a new life. Then, after the slightest pause in conversation, my mother said in a strangely casual tone, “I don’t think you should marry G.” She had a strained smile on her face, as if a smile would lessen the impact of her message. After another short pause, my sister admitted the same, her words hurried, as if she had been torturously holding her opinion for so long that the moment she was allowed, she ran to relieve the urge.
Silent stares filled the room. A cold sensation ran over my scalp like a rush of air, and I felt a fist-sized knot burn in my chest. I didn’t have a response, so I cradled the feeling, the shock, inside of me for a moment, held it close, and felt myself curl inward for protection.
When I finally thought of what to say, I inquired with detached curiosity, “Why?”
“Because I heard you fight once…remember?” said my mother, trying to justify her case.
“And?” I elongated the syllable. I needed more.
“And…he doesn’t put the toilet seat down,” my sister chimed in.
Silence.
One of my bridesmaids rerouted the conversation quickly, and I waited until the mood bubbled happily again on new topics before I got up and went the bathroom, where I cried, releasing my disappointment quietly so no one would hear me. Why would they wait until the night before the wedding? What was I supposed to do now? I felt so alone without their support, and in that moment, I couldn’t see my mother’s concern for me; I simply felt abandoned, betrayed.
Before I left the bathroom, I dusted the remnants of tissue off my face from wiping my eyes and I surveyed myself for any signs of damage. As I stared into the mirror, the emotion drained from my reflection. In that moment I made a resolution never to include my family in my marriage. If G and I fought, I wouldn’t lean on them or ask my mother or sister for advice. I vowed to speak only words of happiness, love, and respect about my husband. I would never allow my family the satisfaction of being proven right. And I would keep this moment a secret from G for our entire marriage, to protect him.
II
THE WEDDING WAS AN EXHAUSTING 350-PERSON ORDEAL full of Chinese traditions I knew little of. I focused on our honeymoon as the light at the end of a tunnel built of toasts, handshakes, and family photographs.
Our three weeks in Greece, punctuated with a stop in Santorini, were pleasant enough. I liked the souvenirs of olive oil and oregano the most. On the second morning after we arrived, we woke in the bright, whitewashed hotel room surrounded by the bluest sea. I was indulging in the luxury of rest, glad to be rid of weddings and errands, stretching off sleep with a playful fancy to stay in bed and sprawl like a cat for a moment longer. I don’t remember who suggested we start our day of exploring, but I said in a light and lazy sort of way, “Why don’t you hop in the shower first and I’ll follow you?”
“Why should I? Why don’t you shower first?” he asked, his tone abrupt and cool.
“Well I didn’t think it was a big deal, I just wanted a moment,” I explained.
“Well if it’s not a big deal, then why don’t you go ahead?”
I was so shocked by the faint breath of bitterness coming from him. I had never seen him so offended before. Shocked and unsure of what to do next, I turned over to read a book, pretending not to notice much. I half-expected us to laugh at how ludicrous the situation was, but this inexplicable encounter transformed itself into a silent feud.
We sat there, silently, for so many hours that when what was once the morning sun began to set, I finally gave in. I got up and went to the bathroom to shower.
As I stood under the shower, I began to hit myself repeatedly on the face, the sound and my cries muffled by the hot, streaming water. It came out of nowhere like an instinct, to hit myself, and I did it out of an intense confusion, not knowing what to make of G’s cold reaction. It came from frustration for not knowing what to say, for feeling cornered for reasons I didn’t even understand. I detested myself because I felt mute, as if I had betrayed myself, abandoned without words to explain it all.
III
DESPITE BEING RAISED BY SO MANY DOMINANT WOMEN, I was somehow firmly invested in a husband’s right to guide the direction of a family and the wife’s duty to follow. I had absorbed the idea that married women were to act modest and wholesome, that they should be careful with speech and dress for some doctrinal reason. Wild words like “fuck” and “shit” were to be avoided.
Of all the quirky things I assumed about marriage, I’m very grateful I believed this particular myth: that all wives cooked and baked. When G and I returned home from our honeymoon, I dusted off my kitchen skills for the first time in a decade and reacquainted myself with an old love.
We took turns cooking. G was extremely fair, di
viding everything down the middle with the accuracy of a mathematician. At times this was done superbly, but other times he forgot to—and realistically no one could entirely—account for all the variables of life when putting them on a scale. How could one accurately measure things like joy or passion and what it is worth to another to experience them? And it’s difficult to compare the value of a gift when it holds more than can be counted. But when it came to chores, we decided that he would cook one week, I would wash dishes, and then we would trade.
We cooked every night, allowing ourselves an inexpensive meal at a restaurant once a week and fine restaurants four times a year, on our birthdays, our anniversary, and on Valentine’s Day, as a way to stick to a strict budget. We were saving for the future—maybe kids or a house, for everything and anything.
But as our marriage progressed, the budget began to feel more and more constricting to me, though I didn’t fully stop to understand and acknowledge it. We rarely traveled at all, taking mostly just local weekend trips every now and then. And although I had been promoted quickly and made a very healthy salary, I had a monthly spending allowance of $225, which was to cover everything deemed “extraneous,” like coffee, clothing, makeup, glasses, books and magazines, hobbies, going out with friends, and entertainment that we didn’t do together as a couple.
So, in addition to our budget, G both implied and vocalized thoughts on life, behavior, dress. And since I hadn’t truly learned to wonder what I thought, I had a void where my opinions should be, and I looked to my husband to fill it. I took his word for all of it. The more I forced him to lend me his opinions, the less I trusted myself to know my own. Though his decidedness to my uncertainty was likely what attracted me to him in the first place, that role in our marriage began to feel suffocating.
G was private. He kept mostly to himself, had just a few friends that he spoke to on occasion, and rarely went out. He insisted that we not answer phone calls from unknown telephone numbers or open the door to friends unexpectedly dropping by to say hello. I believe it was to protect our privacy, but over time, I longed to invite friends over for dinner, on weekends for coffee, and especially over the holidays. Entertaining had been such a large part of my childhood, but G felt that it was an invasion of his personal space. I didn’t disagree, and I didn’t see how I could.
Then, little by little, I disagreed even less. I stopped trying to suggest artwork to fill our blank walls, or that we should buy bedside tables for the bedroom, or a paper towel holder, or a new kettle, because G wanted every decision to be jointly made, and it was exhausting. It was rare that I could spend money on things that he found illogical, like a glass of wine, coffee, or travel, because I couldn’t justify them in his mind. I was never allowed to spend money independently, outside of my allowance, because decisions to spend $10 or $1,000 needed to be jointly made, too, and I was never good at debates. So I gave up, and the more I conceded, the more I felt as if I was living in a room being filled with G’s boxes, making it harder for me to find space to breathe.
But food, lucky for me, was a necessity. We had to eat, and we had to cook because we rarely ate out. And because we took turns cooking, we didn’t have to decide together, and G didn’t have to agree and didn’t get the chance to disagree either. I was free to cook what I liked, try something new, make decisions, buy ingredients. I found space in the kitchen to be free, and I abused it exhaustively as a way to express my creativity and independence, and as a means to exercise my need to explore. I made French cakes that took days to create. I tried complex dishes I’d never tasted before but was so curious about, like mole sauces and handmade tamales with only a recipe, Googled pictures, and Wikipedia descriptions. I submerged myself in food as a way to be distracted from all the feelings I couldn’t yet make sense of. It was not only a safe hiding place and a playground, but when the cakes came out moist and the sauces ethereal, I was proud of myself and slowly felt that maybe I was capable.
One night when I was alone at home, I stumbled on a recipe for eggplant bharta, a dish that I had never tried. Maybe it was the description of it that I found alluring (“Indian-spiced mash smoothed with a swirl of yogurt”), or the fact that eggplant was one of my favorite vegetables (passive, with a notable ability to hold every good flavor within it). It looked comforting, exotic, and on inspection of my cupboards, I realized I had all of the major ingredients. So I began cooking, taking time, feeling the knife under my palm, running my fingers along the shiny black skin of the eggplant, and toasting the spices slowly until a fragrant gust rose up to me. I added the onions and caramelized them until they were dry and sweet, stopping to taste at every step and feeling the warm sensation of ginger or the tang of tomato on my tongue. I simmered the curry for as long as it took for the disparate elements to fold into one another, surrendering their own individualities to a greater good.
And when it was ready, I ate each bite with a fluffy mound of basmati rice, closing my eyes alone at the dinner table, feeling the delightful pop of each little green pea in my mouth every now and again.
IV
THE AUTUMN BEFORE THE BAKERY OPENED, G MOVED out. The night before and the day of his move, I stayed with a friend, away from our apartment. It was a way to survive. I couldn’t watch it. The morning G left, my friend and I went for a croissant at a pâtisserie, sat at a round bistro table, and slowly sipped coffees and chatted as if nothing was out of the ordinary. And after enough time had passed, after I was sure that G was gone, I returned home.
I hesitantly opened the door to the home I had shared with my husband for the last eight years. When I walked in, I found that he had moved out. There was almost nothing left: no couch, no bed, only the dust that collected around the spots where the furniture had been, delineating the emptiness. He had taken exactly what we had agreed upon one night at the dining room table, but the place seemed emptier than I envisioned. My home was no longer a home. It was hollow.
I paused for a moment, imperceptible to anyone but me, and then immediately jumped into action, walking straight into the apartment, the center of the pain, exposing myself and hoping the repeated exposure would dull it enough for me to come out the other side better in some way. I forced myself to vacuum, and then I created a makeshift sofa out of an old futon, a bedsheet, and some pillows. Since G and I had been sleeping in different bedrooms, with me in the smaller of the two, I moved my bedroom furniture back into the larger room.
Over the next few days, I did all the things I’d wanted to do for the last eight years: I painted the walls a sleepy rose color, and I went out and bought a paper towel holder.
When I had changed the apartment to an arbitrary “enough,” I collapsed on my bed, drained of every ounce of will, and I called my mom.
“Hello?”
“It’s me, Jackie.”
“What’s wrong?”
“He’s gone,” I said so quietly she couldn’t hear me.
“What?”
“He’s GONE.”
And I sobbed, mournful sounds that no one had heard since I knew how to be ashamed, wails coming from beneath the pain and loss. And my mother just cried with me, knowing to love me in that way, in that moment.
EGGPLANT BHARTA
I know this recipe is far from traditional, but I don’t think the original was meant to be either. I have also evolved this recipe from the one I originally made, because I, too, have evolved and so it should be.
3 large eggplants (about 3½ lb total)
¼ cup mustard oil (or substitute vegetable oil)
1 tsp whole cumin seeds
2 tsp coriander seeds, crushed
½ tsp whole mustard seeds
2 medium yellow onions, finely chopped
2 tsp salt, divided
1 green chili or small jalapeño, seeded and finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbsp grated fresh ginger
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 tsp red Kashmiri chili powder
4 r
ipe medium tomatoes, finely chopped
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp garam masala
1 cup fresh or frozen peas
¾ cup chopped cilantro
⅓–½ cup whole milk or plain yogurt
Garam masala, for serving
Preheat the oven to 500°F.
Place the shiny eggplants on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil. Pierce the smooth skins all over with a sharp paring knife or fork. Bake them in the oven for about 45 minutes to 1 hour or until the skins are scorched and crumpled, the bodies are sagging, and the flesh feels very soft when pressed lightly. Set them aside to cool until you can handle them with your fingers.
Peel the crisped skin off the flesh, and collect the flesh into a large bowl, scraping it off with a large spoon if it sticks to the skins. Mash the flesh coarsely with a fork and set aside.
Warm the oil over medium-high heat in a large pan. Sprinkle in the cumin, coriander, and mustard seeds and cook until they begin to sizzle, become fragrant, and pop, about 10 seconds. Turn the heat down to medium for more gentle cooking and stir in the onion and ½ teaspoon of salt, and cook until the onion is soft and translucent but not browned, 5–10 minutes.
Add the chopped green chili, garlic, ginger, tomato paste, and chili powder and cook, stirring slowly and constantly. A spicy aroma will rise from the pot. Continue cooking for about 2 minutes, careful to just warm the spices without allowing them to burn.
Scatter the fresh tomatoes and another ½ teaspoon of salt into the pan, and stir, scraping the spices off the bottom of the pan to incorporate. Simmer for about 10 minutes, until most of the liquid has evaporated, the sauce thickens, and your entire kitchen is scented with spice. Add the turmeric and garam masala and stir for another 2–3 minutes until the spices meld into the dish.
The Measure of My Powers: A Memoir of Food, Misery, and Paris Page 5
