Taking Over My Grandmother's Kitchen; Kosher Tribulations; Grandmother's Okra.

I'm generally ready, willing and able to step into anyone's kitchen and help out, or flat-out take over. I find it a fun challenge to figure out what utensils are available, what spices are in the cupboard, and what other staples are on hand. If anything, I need to take an extra moment and make sure that my interference is actually welcome, although as I've become more experienced--i.e. tidier--I feel less and less diffident about weighing in. Nonetheless, I can be territorial in my own kitchen, and try to remember that I could be treading on toes elsewhere.

With that in mind, it's been a weird experience taking over my grandmother's kitchen here. This is the one kitchen that has been part of my life throughout its length--everyone else I know has moved at least once. And until this visit, the most I ever did in my grandmother's kitchen was raid the fridge for fruit (or, when I was a kid, yogurt), arrange dried fruit, nuts and crackers for guests, make tea or coffee, cut up watermelon in summers and prepare salads. I never did anything with the stove--my grandmother had it all under control.

This time, things are different. Today I'm going to share something I made for my grandmother that's sort of in line with her style of cooking but involves some different ingredients, talk a bit about the challenges of serving from the kosher kitchen my grandmother's style, and share another of her typical creations.

My grandmother can't chew well, so we've been making lots of soups for lunch (which is the main meal here). You know what a fan of golden food, and of sweet potatoes, I am (I yam!)--I decided to make a lentil soup with sweet potato to celebrate and share that. I've never seen a sweet potato in this house before--they grow them here in Israel, but it's a new-fangled food. Bearing in mind that there are no measuring utensils here, measurements are approximate. On the other hand, this is super-easy and quick, plus delicious.

Lentil-Sweet Potato Golden Soup
1 teaspoon coconut oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon cumin
2 teaspoons sweet paprika
2 teaspoons turmeric
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 medium sweet potato (yam), coarsely grated
3/4 cup red lentils, soaked
2-4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 inch piece fresh ginger, minced
2 tablespoons lemon juice
4-6 cups water
salt to taste

minced parsley and kale chips for garnish.

Saute the onion and spices, adding water as necessary.
When the onions are transparent, add the lentils and shredded yam (you may have to do this in two installments) and stir together.
Add water, bring to a boil, and simmer for 30 minutes or more, stirring occasionally and adding a little water if necessary.
When the lentils are done and dissolving, stir in the garlic and ginger, squeeze in the lemon juice, stir, taste, and add salt as necessary.

I served this garnished with minced parsley (my grandmother's taking folic acid, and parsley will boost that and be well absorbed) and, for those of us without chewing problems, I added some kale chips I'd brought with me.

A bowl of goodness, with familiar lentils, familiar spices and the less familiar yam blending in with a fine supportive role. I think she liked it.

This so-familiar kitchen has its challenges!

I mentioned before the absence of measuring utensils, which is kind of inspiring in a way, and which reflects my own tendencies too, or vice versa. There is also no sieve, which baffles me in a cuisine that soaks rice and lentils so regularly--only an ancient colander with huge holes and an ancient flour sifter that's full of gluten! Some of the gas burners work just when they feel like it, the oven doesn't work at all (it blows the fuse), and the tea kettle suddenly burned out a few nights ago. The fridge is prone to flooding.

All this, I'm pretty used to. What I never quite get used to for all the time I've stayed at my grandmother's is "the kosher thing." The "no cooking on Shabbat" part works out nicely--you do a ton of cooking in the days before, and then you put the lid on the stove and plug in the "platter," a hot-plate that keeps things warm without requiring you to hit a switch (i.e. kindle a fire). There's a pan of soup on the left, a pot with eggs on the right, and in the middle my mom put a pitta bread wrapped in foil.

Before they had electricity, they had little flames that would last 24 hours--one of my uncles blew them out one shabbat when he was little, and it remains in the family memory as a prime 'naughty boy' story.

The part that's difficult, for me and for everyone else who comes into the kitchen, is the segregation of 'meat' and 'dairy' utensils. There are pots that can cook dairy but must not cook meat, and vice versa. There are plates that can serve meat, but not dairy, and vice versa. And Has ve Halila you get it wrong! When my grandmother was making the kibbeh the other day, my mom brought her water for the batter in a 'dairy' bowl and she wouldn't even pour water from the bowl into the meat-destined-but-not-yet-meaty batter! There are even two sponges at the sink, one for washing 'meat,' one for washing 'dairy.'

As if this wasn't onerous enough, there's no rhyme or reason or logic to which utensil is 'meat' and which 'dairy.' There are plates with a ruffled edge that are 'dairy,' but the matching bowls are 'meat.' At least the white-handled silverware are 'dairy,' but the rest of the silverware's a crapshoot, except for a few that look identical to each other (and thus likely to be for the same use) but have 'dairy' or 'meat' printed on their ends, so you have to read before you use. In most households, there's at least a color scheme or some other simple way to tell which is which.

None of this has ever made much sense to me--in my experience, once you've washed a utensil really well, it carries no trace of what was there before. Besides, I eat neither 'meat' nor 'dairy,' and really am only endangered by gluten contamination, so I've never paid much attention so long as the dish is clean. And when I cook, since everything I cook is 'parve'--permissible both together with 'meat' and with 'dairy,' I don't have to worry about the wrath of god descending on me if I'm using the wrong pan. But when I'm putting milk in my grandmother's tea or spreading cottage cheese on her bread, I try to get it right--partly out of respect, partly out of self-preservation. I've had to ask "am I allowed to use this for this?" a number of times.

Moving on...
I was so happy when I found bamia (or I guess I should call it okra) at one of the produce stores--its season is over here, so maybe it was imported, and was frightfully expensive, but I bought a package to make with my grandmother. Here it is, topped and tailed, in the colander I mentioned above.

Again, like most things, you start by frying an onion with some turmeric and black pepper.
Then add tomato paste and lemon juice "according to your eye and taste," and add about a pint of water.
Bring to the boil and add the okra.

Let it simmer, covered.
There followed several rounds of me carting the pan out to my grandmother for her to inspect, sniff, taste and command more tomato paste, or more lemon juice, or a pinch of sugar or, to my continuing surprise, more water.
We left it to simmer on a low fire for a long time, until the sauce was thick and most of the water evaporated.

 We've had sunshine, which has made photography difficult but has gladdened me immensely. So that picture doesn't do the dish justice.

For full disclosure, my grandmother would often steam kibbeh in the same liquid and serve the kibbeh on a bed of bamia, but we didn't do that this time--we just enjoyed the yummy bamia as it was. Yummy warm, delicious also as cold leftovers. My grandmother was pleased and repeated that it's a delicacy.

It's not that different to gumbo, right? But I was raised on this stuff long before I ever heard of gumbo or knew to call it okra.

Happy almost Thanksgiving! I should have one more post to share before I start my journey home...