CONTENTS 2
Pasta Fazool
Lola Palooza
essay
4 6
A Sense of Wonder “Rosemary”
essay poem
7 11 14 16
Sticky Sesame Balls Hand-Fed “In Memoriam” Tura’s Sweet Potato Pie Everyday Food British Sunday Roast in Coyoacán Asian American Tarot
Robin Labe Laurie Ann Guerrero Julia Vulcan Alisha Porter Robin Labe Xeturah Woodley Jackie Hall Wendy Harvey
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Pastitsio “The Land Where I am From” Chicken & Dumplings
comic essay poem essay photography essay
Simi Kang
ink & watercolor Eleni Philippou essay Tabitha Parry poem Collins Savannah essay Johnston
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS cover illustrations originally drawn by John Burgoyne & published in Cooks Illustrated magazines
Pasta Fazool Lola Palluza
I didn’t know that it was written as pasta e fagioli until I took an Italian language course. “We ate spaghetti. It was a very romantic dinner,” he tells me when he spoke about his date night. I want to say that spaghetti is probably the least romantic and unimpressive dish that you could serve anyone. I ate it every Sunday afternoon at my grandmother's house. A lady says to me, “You are Delphine's grandchild? Oh, I bet you ate lots of amazing Italian dishes!” I smile and nod to be polite. Does she not know that my grandmother prepared and served American meals too? Her name was Delfina by the way. Third Place. That's right. My grandmother won Third Place once. Her Home Economics Club of ------ County had an Italian cooking contest. She was born in Naples, grew up in Jersey City, New Jersey, spoke Italian, Neapolitan dialect, and English, and she did not know how to cook typical American food when she married my GI grandfather. His sisters taught her how to make food for his taste buds. Third Place. I was told that she was so insulted that she stopped participating in the club events “Don't you put brown sugar in your sauce?” When a friend asked me this question I heard my grandmother roll in her grave. My first cousin-once-removed posts to Facebook: “English should be our official language. Any immigrant 2
who comes here should be required to speak English!” He states he hates the immigration policy in the USA. He wants that WALL built. His posts are peppered with Conservative and controversial memes- typically the sort that express the most recent Fox News themed outrages of the day. Later, he'll send a private message about how he misses hearing my grandmother and her family members speak Italian. He laments that he had not had good Italian food since she passed away. He writes that he has fond memories. I remind him that she spoke Italian and English. I write that she was dismissed from school when she was six because she could not speak English. (The nuns told my great grandparents that she could return when she was able). I tell him that he certainly enjoyed that immigrant food and I bet it was really good. I point out that everything he posts does not mesh with his fond memories and to spare me the stupidity. I ask if his wife is doing well. She’s from Austria. He blocks me. #unfriended. My brother later tells me that this cousin writes and asks if I am doing well. I don't respond. “I don't remember how Mom made her sauce”, my uncle says to me. I want to say, “If you had sat in the kitchen and watched rather brushing up on how to get high with your friends, you would have learned.” I teach him anyway. Stroffoli, zeppole, sfogliatella these words are lost on my younger cousins. The only Italian word they know is “ba fangool.”
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A Sense of Wonder Robin Labe
In an article on the blog, Treehugger, Melissa Breyer reports the story of a cow who escaped from a slaughterhouse in the Netherlands in 2018. The humor with which the events are relayed is consistent with how we tend to see other animals and belies the terror that the cow herself most certainly felt. Breyer writes: “A spunky cow by the name of Hermien has captured the hearts of freedom lovers everywhere as she remains on the lam in the woods of the northwest Netherlands, elusive to all efforts of capture. Her break for liberation came as she was being loaded onto a truck heading for the slaughterhouse. No one puts Hermien in a corner, apparently. She hoofed it to the woods, where she has been hiding out since December!” We also learn that a crowdfunding campaign has raised €48,000 to relocate the “social media star” to a shelter where she will be well cared for until her natural death. I am relieved for Hermien, yet I can’t help but think of the billions of animals who also want to live, but do not manage this feat. Hermien’s escape persuaded people to actually SEE her. Unlike most cattle (whether raised for their milk or flesh), whose anonymous lives will end on the killing floor of a slaughterhouse, she became worthy of our attention. Her desire for freedom and for life itself resonates with our own desires. Her courage 4
awakens our empathy, and in so doing she becomes an individual instead of a “unit of food production.” When cows in a field come toward the music of a live jazz band, we recognize something familiar, but we also begin to sense that there is something about cows of which we just aren’t quite aware. We see something unexpected and moving, and we may even feel wonder. Wonder can turn us from blindness into witnesses of the intangible beauty that connects us all. Wonder can inspire us to reenlist our compassion for each other, whatever species, and recognize both what we can know of another, and what will forever be elusive to us. Hermien’s flight toward freedom reminds us that the label of “food” no longer can encompass her wholeness. We find ourselves able to walk alongside someone we didn’t previously notice, and in so doing we begin reimagining ourselves as liberators instead of oppressors.
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Rosemary
Laurie Ann Guerrero
When I was in Italy, a beautiful old man told me that where rosemary grows, a strong woman resides. I was 26. All these years, I have never been able to grow rosemary: I over-watered it. I took too much. I forgot about it. Now, though, it grows wild in my yard‌ and reminds me of every lesson, every step, every heartache, and every bit of courage. rosemary for remembrance.
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Hand Fed
Alisha N. Porter
“The Dude” liked pickles, chips, cookies, ice cream, and Lotaburger. He also like enchiladas, frijoles, tortillas, salsa, and anything that came out of our grandmother’s kitchen that was not on the designated I Will Not Eat list. Andrew, “The Dude,” would not eat a hot dog or a freezer pot pie to save his life. When he was with me, he knew he didn’t have to. Andrew was on a dysphagia #2 diet and it required significant planning. I didn’t think about it like that though. Feeding Andrew was one of my favorite things to do. Andrew loved to eat but he couldn’t pick up a fork. He had Duchenne muscular dystrophy and when he lived with me at 18 he hadn’t walked by his own power for more than a decade. Hand feeding Andrew was probably how I got so close to my brother. Eating together was joyful. It was necessary, and it was often just us. The intimacy of a shared meal is significant.
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The intimacy of many shared meals is more so, and the intimacy of many shared meals in which I hand fed my brother every bite of those meals we shared was definitely intimate.Andrew loved all things Spider Man-he called himself Peter Parker and had a crush on Mary Jane. I was his best friend and he addressed me lovingly as “sister.” He often addressed me knowing how to “get my goat” as our grandmother used to love to point out. Andrew could talk to me in a way that he wouldn’t talk to other people. It scared me because Andrew would not communicate his needs to others like he did with me. I used to urge him, “Tell them Andrew. If they don’t know you’re thirsty, they won’t give you a drink.” Often, he would not, or more likely, he could not tell other people what he needed. Andrew eventually left my care and went to live in a nursing home in town. I would visit him daily for many hours and I took on many routines I had with him at home. I would sometimes show up late to dinnertime and find that he was sitting alone next to a full dinner tray with no one to feed him. Smelling the food and feeling hungry. He would often say to me, “Where were you sister?” when I had not come when he expected me to. I can only imagine him, sitting next to a food tray, wondering where I was. Hungry, and maybe sad. He was often sad—a nursing home is a lonely place for a 20-year-old. Franklin was an honorary pallbearer for Andrew because he was one of Andrew’s favorite nursing assistants. Watching Andrew and Franklin together made me happy as I often walked in on them talking about girls, cars, and Spiderman. Franklin and I sat to talk before Andrew’s funeral and he told me that his
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traditional beliefs allowed for him to make an offering of food to his deceased loved ones at every meal. Franklin told me this is done because, “Now he is watching over and taking care of you.” I remember this every time I sit to a meal that Andrew would have enjoyed and think about him telling me to “Share, sister.” The last year and a half of Andrew’s life, he was no longer hand-fed by me or by anyone. Andrew had several heart attacks and ended up relying on a feeding tube for his nutrition. The rhythmic hum of a g-tube pump replaced the laughter, love, and intimacy that a bowl of beans and tortillas created for us. I still mourn the loss of preparing and feeding Andrew his meals.
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In Memoriam Robin Labe Number of animals killed annually to support the U.S. food supply*: 8,822,695,000 Chickens; 232,398,000 Turkeys; 28,752,000 Cattle; 115,425,000 Pigs; 27,749,000 Ducks; 2,224,000 Sheep; 3,747,000 Fish; 43,109,000,000 Shellfish *Statistics compiled by animalclock.org Prick up your ears and hear the muted screams of the unseen. Howl and holler cry and yell and shout for all the lives negated in the hidden chambers of the slaughterhouse all the individuals for whom no word was written no eulogy recited no song sung for the trillions of commodified, objectified,
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nullified souls for whom there are no graves no markers of their having been or having passed no resting place no remembrance. It’s as though they never lived. And yet, there are ghosts amongst us.
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Tura’s Sweet Potato Pies Xeturah Woodley
I cooked my first sweet potato pie for a Thanksgiving dinner when I was about 15 or 16 years old. I watched my grandmother, the woman who raised me, cook from the time I was a little girl. The best part was when she cooked desserts. Mama, the name we called her, loved sweets and she cooked them whenever we had a big family gathering. Mama’s sweet potato pie was legendary in the family and it was the #1 choice until I served my pie. Cooking in my family was always the woman’s role, in addition to being the primary breadwinner for many of us. Most of the women in my family are excellent cooks and each of us adds our own flair and twist to classic dishes. It is how we individuated from the other women in the household and gained respect from other women in the family. In my case, the two signature dishes that bear my name are Tura’s deviled eggs and Tura’s sweet potato pies. Desserts are the queenly dishes The majority of people in my family live with what we call the sugars, diabetes. Diabetes runs on both sides of my family and my grandmother was no exception to that rule. She had to take insulin to control her sugars. It was always funny to me that something so deadly would have such a sweet name. But people referred to it as having the sugars because the sweet desserts on the soul food menu accounted for a lot of the adult onset diabetes that most Blacks in my family suffered with. And so, Mama took her insulin shots partly to control her diabetes but mostly so she could eat the desserts that fed her soul. Homemade desserts were a luxury so they were only made available during the holidays and at big family gatherings. They were an opportunity to indulge in the pleasures reserved for kings and queens. Desserts, in my family, gave
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the women access to the love and pleasure that may have been missing in other parts of their lives. Desserts gave us an escape from the tyranny of the White food we ate throughout the year at school, work and at mixed-race functions. Homemade desserts were a celebration of our Blackness because our deserts were made with our Black female hands in our Black kitchens. It was food, for us, by us and about us. And the Blackest of all was our sweet potato pies! Preparing the pies The first thing you need to make my pies is a canned yam. My grandmother would cook her own sweet potatoes but I really like the flavor of yams that have been sitting in the syrup. Although it is not the healthiest way to make them, the syrup helps soften the yams and presweetens them. Canned yams also produce a smoother and creamier consistency than fresh sweet potatoes in my cooking. The first step is pouring the syrup from the can into a cup. You will use some of it later in the recipe. Once you’ve drained the yams, you pour them into a bowl. You squish and mash the yams with your hands. This connects you to the food and it is a great way to feel if there are any things in the yams like hard spots or rocks. It is rare to find anything in the potatoes but you mash them by hand just to make sure. The yams feel course and soft as they move through your fingers. They also smell like sweet roots as you break them open. My mouth usually starts watering from the aroma. Next is mixing in the ingredients one by one. It is important to mix in each as well as you can before adding another. That way you don’t have some parts of the pie tasting too sweet and other parts more tart. So the eggs go in first and they add sheen to the potatoes. By adding them first, you get to see that they are completely broken up and you can
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pick out any shells that might accidently fall in. While the mixture is still mostly orange it is easy to see white shells. After the eggs comes more moisture so you add the vanilla and some of the evaporated milk. The scent from the vanilla reminds me of Thanksgiving and Christmas. I feel like something good is coming whenever I smell vanilla. The butter gets mixed into the sweet potatoes. The scent of the melted butter hitting the vanilla and milk reminds me of the warm milk that Mama used to give us on Christmas Eve. She would give it to us so we would fall asleep so she and Daddy, my grandfather, could play Santa. Now you mix in the sugars, white and brown. I always joke about how well the colors and flavors mix in my pie. Oh, that we could do that as human beings. The spices are the last to be added to the mix. The scent of the whole pie changes as the spices are added. Cinnamon is a powerful scent but nutmeg can hold its own in the mixture. The allspice adds a spicy, peppery scent to the mixture. That is the one ingredient that makes my pies so unique. Most people will just use cinnamon and nutmeg but I like the cloves in allspice. Finally, you taste the filling before you go any further. You are looking for it to taste sweet, well seasoned and creamy. The consistency should be a like a softened pudding, which is a little firm and not too runny. All of the ingredients should be well-integrated and very aromatic. Once you have it to the consistency and taste you like, pour it into the pie tin, filling it to just below the edge of the crust. Cover the crust edges with foil to prevent burning. Be sure you don’t get the foil in the pie filling or it will mess up your pie when you pull it off. Now, place it in a 350° oven for 50 – 60 minutes. It is done when you put a toothpick in the center and it comes out clean.
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I am so empowered when I’m in the kitchen because it is a space of authority and creativity for the women in my family. It is a place where mothers teach their daughters how to budget, plan meals, and care for the family and themselves. It is where we learned traditions, customs, religious practices (praying over the food as you prepare it) and even family secrets. The kitchen is a space for self-expression, creativity and healing. It is a place where I became a woman the year that the sweet potato pie “queen title” got passed from Mama to me.
Tura’s Sweet Potato Pie 1 40oz. can candied yams 1 stick butter 1 8oz can evaporated milk 1 tsp. vanilla extract 2 large eggs 1 c. golden brown sugar (packed) ¾ c. white granulated sugar 1 tsp. ground cinnamon 1 tsp. ground nutmeg 1 tsp. allspice 1 9” prepared pie crust Preheat the oven to 350° and wash your hands. Pour the juice from the candied yams into a cup and set aside. Empty the yams into a mixing bowl and squish them with your dominant hand until they are all broken up. Use a wooden or plastic spoon to remove as much of the yams as possible from your hand. You want to leave as much in the bowl as possible. Wash your hands again. Add both eggs to the yams. Use a hand mixer to begin integrating the eggs with the yams. Add the vanilla and
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about 2 ounces of the evaporated milk. Mix with the hand mixer. Melt the butter in the microwave then blend it into the mixture. Mix in the white sugar adding 2 ounces of the evaporated milk to help with the mixing. Mix in the brown sugar. Add the cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. Mix it thoroughly adding more evaporated milk, and some of the yam juice from step 2 above, as needed for moisture and smoothness. Use your index finger to taste it. Add additional spices, evaporated milk, vanilla, or butter as needed until you have the right taste for your preference. The consistency should be closer to a soft pudding than to water. Once you have the right flavor and texture/consistency: Pour the mixture into the pie crust. It should come right to just under the brim. Smooth out the tops and sprinkle with a little cinnamon, if you’d like. Cover the exposed pie crust rim with foil to protect it from burning. Place the pies in the oven on the middle rack to bake for 50 – 60 minutes. It will be a little puffy when you pull it out but it will lie down as it cools. Let stand for 15 minutes before serving.
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Everyday Food Jackie Hall
Eek my big kids will be home soon, it's been too long!! I have some of their favorite snacks ready to go!
Jackie Hall
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Horchata chai tea! Why am I now just thinking of this!? Jackie Hall
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My sous chef
Jackie Hall
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Good morning and MERRY CHRISTMAS! It's time to make PosolĂŠ
Jackie Hall
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I was feeling homesick so I busted out the limonada, elote en vaso, and mangos. It will help a little
Jackie Hall
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British Sunday Roast in Coyoacán Wendy Harvey
It was a bright and unusual morning because it didn’t rain so much back then. The two of us left our apartment to walk to the center of Coyoacán to buy the ingredients for the evening dinner. He said he was going to make it. It was very special for him, and for me too because I had never tried it and, except for my parents, nobody had ever prepared a special meal for me. In fact, I never thought that anyone would do this for me and so I have never forgotten it. I remember that it was not me making the meal, but my husband, with whom I have been married for many years, but we don’t notice the time because we are well together. We had invited my parents to our apartment for a special meal as we had decided to get married and we wanted to celebrate this day with them. It was also a formal way for my husband to ask for their permission for him to marry me. My husband prepared a delicious British meal: roast chicken with vegetables. He showed me how to make the stuffing with a mixture of bread crusts and herbs. The recipe is quite simple. They say that the special part is in how the meal is prepared. I remember how my husband prepared it. For the stuffing, he broke up the bread crust in little pieces, then he chopped a lot of celery and some onion in very small pieces. I did not want to watch what was going to be a surprise for me. He later told me that the trick with the stuffing is in how it is prepared. I remember too that he put a whole onion in the cavity of the chicken a way to stop the stuffing coming out when it was being cooked. He then separately cooked the potatoes for about ten or fifteen minutes and put some butter on them before placing them in the oven to roast. He peeled carrots to roast in the same way, and on the stove top boiled some Brussels
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sprouts and made the gravy when the chicken was almost ready. It now seems similar to a Thanksgiving dinner, which I have come to know since. What he was cooking came from his culture. My husband was able to draw on his memory of food as a child growing up in Liverpool. As in many British homes, his family had the tradition of eating a “Sunday roast,” the weekly meal when all the family would get together and enjoy some kind of roast meal. It could be roast beef, pork or chicken, along with roasted potatoes and other vegetables, topped with gravy. My husband learned how to prepare the Sunday roast from his family and enjoyed sharing this tradition with me and my family. He used the same methods, recipe, and ingredients as he had learned at home. In this way, he was able to maintain his identity through food memories. The only problem was that roasting food in an oven takes a lot longer in Mexico City than in Britain. My husband is from Liverpool, which is at sea-level, while Mexico City is at 7,200 feet (higher than even the tallest peak in Britain, which is Ben Nevis at 4,400 feet). My husband had not taken this into account and we had invited my parents to eat at 8:00 pm. They arrived around that time and we were sitting and chatting, while my husband kept getting up to go to check on the chicken and panicking as it was not ready. An hour later it was still not cooked, nor at 10 or 11. It was about midnight when he could finally announce, “dinner’s ready!” My parents were not bothered by the wait and we all just chatted in the meantime. My parents asked him about his family, what it was like in England, and the typical dishes people eat in England. When the meal was finally ready, we all enjoyed the juiciness of the chicken and the potatoes, carrots, stuffing and gravy. We were all very happy and the lateness did not matter, although we were all getting a little tired. Soon after the meal was over, my husband said goodnight and went to
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bed. I stayed up longer chatting with my parents and one of my sisters who had arrived during the evening. I think that my husband shared what he knew best of his family’s cooking. It was something that he grew up with. We were able to find the right ingredients, and he was able to prepare the dish in the way that he knew best, making it an authentic British meal. The only difference was the time that it took to cook. We laughed at how our belief in British punctuality was shattered by the altitude of my city, but the occasion was saved by an intercultural exchange that brought us closer together. My husband contributed to the idea that food is a powerful tool of communication, and not one that only involves women. That is the way my parents taught me to treat people from other places, with friendliness and a desire to share my culture and city, its museums, parks and special places. That is how my husband got to know more of Mexico City, accompanying me to places where he learned about different Mexican dishes. Another popular dish is bread fish fillets that are served as a snack with beer in some of the more “underground” cantinas in downtown Mexico City. My brother and I used to joke that the fish looked like “celecantos” (a name for a pre-historic fish known as coelacanth). We enjoyed them all the same and it was part of the night-life culture to eat in popular restaurants, cantinas or at the many taco stands along the street or near the subway stations. This was in the later 1980s and, in those days, it was possible to stay out late until 3 or 4 am. There were no cellphones to interrupt our conversations, nor televisions in restaurants to distract us from each other. It was a safer and friendlier city and we enjoyed the company of friends and family, as well as strangers that we would meet. We were young and enjoying life in Mexico City. I showed my husband a lot of popular places where we could eat good and healthy food for much less than in the tourist places. Similarly, I was the outsider when we travelled to
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England. In each case, we adapted and learned from each other. Another aspect that I consider important is that my father moved from Durango to Mexico City to give his children the opportunity to study. He wanted all of us to study and so I did not grow up in a patriarchal family. My mother taught my father many things and, after she passed away in 1991, he applied this knowledge, becoming an excellent cook. He always prepares meals for our family and we all know he has a very good sazรณn. I can say we are still married after 31 years. We have travelled to many places since we got married and have enjoyed foods from different cultures, for example, in Chiapas, where I also spent part of my childhood, and England, where my husband grew up, studied and worked. We have also visited many parts of Mexico, such as Cuernavaca, Michoacรกn, Oaxaca, Puebla and Guerrero. The recipe I have described here reminds me of the most relaxed, lovely and enjoyable times of my life. We still cook this roast chicken dish. If it were not for by husband, I would not have known British food, nor visited England, where I also tasted Indian food. You can improve the recipe, for example, by adding different vegetables or changing the stuffing in the way that you want. Roast Chicken Ingredients 1 whole fresh chicken For stuffing: Potatoes Bread crusts, crumbled Carrots 1 whole Onion Brussels sprouts half onion, chopped Butter, to taste Celery, chopped Salt and pepper, to taste Marjoram and other spices, to teaspoon of flour taste
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Method Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Clean the chicken and cavity ready for stuffing Prepare the stuffing: sautĂŠ in a frying pan some chopped onion; in a bowl, mix the bread crumbs with the sautĂŠed onion and herbs. Stuff the chicken and place a whole onion in the cavity, place in the preheated oven. Baste as needed during the cooking time, until browned and cooked inside. Keep some of the oil aside for making the gravy. Boil potatoes for 10-15 minutes and drain some of the water into a bowl to use for gravy Peel and cut potatoes and carrots into small pieces and place on a baking tray and cover lightly with some butter. Place in the oven and turn every 15-20 minutes to brown them all over. Remove when cooked. When chicken is almost ready, prepare the Brussels sprouts by boiling in a pan of water. Mix the water from the potatoes and Brussels sprouts with some oil from the chicken, add a little flour and warm in a pan until brown and with the desired consistency. Keep stirring to avoid lumps. Add more flour if gravy is not thick enough. Remove from heat when ready and pour into a serving dish.
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from Asian American Tarot
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Simi Kang
Pastitsio
Eleni Philippou I still remember my paternal grandmother’s chaotic movements as she cooked my favorite dish: Traditional Greek-Cypriot pastitsio. She is the best cook I’ll ever know. One of my favorite dishes she made was pastitsio. GreekCypriot food has always been my favorite. The food not only reminds me of my grandmother, I feel like I am at my second home. The ingredients for pastitsio are: two pounds of ground meat, pastitsio noodles or two boxes of ziti or penne, six eggs, half a gallon of lukewarm milk, two cups of flour, two tablespoons of butter, two cups of grated parmesan, two tablespoons of Cinnamon, salt and pepper, and two small cans of tomato paste. The pastitsio noodles can be found at most ethnic stores or sections. If you cannot find the noodles, you can substitute with ziti or penne. The eggs, milk, flour, butter and parmesan cheese should be separate to make the crema (sauce similar to béchamel). The way I have learned to begin was by first boiling water then adding the pasta. While the pasta is cooking, add ground meat to a skillet. When the meat is a little brown, add one to one and a half cans of tomato paste. Then add salt, pepper and cinnamon. Boiling the pasta and preparing the meat are the short and easy steps for preparing pastitsio. From personal experience, I find the crema longer and more difficult to prepare. All six of the eggs are mixed with half a gallon of milk in a large pot. I prefer to beat the eggs prior mixing. Add one cup of flour to the mixture and whisk continuously until thickened and smooth. The mixture will be extremely thick. The heat should be turned to low. Continue stirring. When the lumps are gone and the texture is precise, add two tablespoons of butter and one cup of freshly grated parmesan cheese.
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Once the pasta is finished boiling, drain it and put it a large bowl. Add one and a half cups of the crema and threefourths of a cup of parmesan. Mix everything together. Half of the pasta mixture is then put into a greased 9 x 13 baking dish. Similar to Lasagna, begin layering. The meat is layered over the noodles. Repeat the layering until there is no leftover pasta or meat. The crema is the top and final layer. The crema is spread. Scatter one fourth of a cup of parmesan. Place the dish into the oven and bake at 350 degrees for forty-five to fifty minutes or until the top is somewhat brown. Let the dish cool off for fifteen minutes before cutting and serving. I wanted to learn to cook pastitsio so I could have it any time I wanted and not depend on someone else. I also wanted to have a part of my heritage and grandmother with me. I see pastitsio as the perfect dish for me because I love noodles, ground meat and crema. Although pastitsio is similar to lasagna, I prefer pastitsio. On the journey of self-discovery, I learned that I enjoy cooking not only for myself, but for my friends and family. I want to share what I put my work and love into so others can enjoy. I want my loved ones to know that I appreciate them. The first time I made pastitsio was when I was staying with my friend and her family. I suggested that we cook a Greek meal. The whole family was excited to try something new. My friend had the experience of eating and the process of a new dish. It took my friend, her sister and me around three hours to complete the dish. We purchased the ingredients and prepared the meal according to directions I found online. When purchasing the ingredients, my friend and I could not find the pastitsio noodles. We substituted with penne pasta. We also substituted the ground beef with ground lamb. Lamb is a more common meat in Cyprus and Greece. I usually prefer lamb over beef. Our teamwork made the
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experience of cooking fun and accomplishing. Although our pastitsio was delicious, it did not meet up to my grandmother’s talent. My grandmother was born and raised in the small village of Goudi (woo-thee) in Paphos, Cyprus. In a society and generation oppressed by patriarchy, she was raised to be domestic, just like the other women of her generation. Rather than getting an education and a job, she became a mother and housewife. Her job was to clean, cook, raise the children, tend to the farm animals, help work in the fields and take care of her husband. These were also the responsibilities of the other women in her peasant class. Their lives revolved around patriarchy-giving men the power over women. My grandmother’s domestic responsibility of cooking became her talent and one of the many qualities friends and family remembered. She learned to cook at a young age. If she did not learn, how would she feed her husband and children? Men cooking for the family was unheard of during her generation. My grandmother learned to make many dishes passed down from generation to generation. I do not remember being told that my grandfather ever cooked. His role was to be the provider-make money and provide food for the family. He and his son (my dad) would hunt and my grandmother would cook. My grandmother spoiled me while I was growing up. By assuming her traditional grandmother role, she cooked for me. pastitsio was only one of the many dishes I loved. Other dishes included dolmades, keftedes, trahana soup, potatoes and vegetables. She would spend hours cooking. I remember being excited to know what she would cook next. My best memories were of her dishes.
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Cooking and food play great roles in the Greek culture. Greeks, especially women from villages, show their generosity through food. My grandmother always wanted to feed anyone who came into our home. She would cook extra portions and not eat to make sure everyone else was fed. She was willing to risk her own health for the benefit of others. Greek food, not only pastitsio, holds a great significance in my life. I remember growing up as one of the very few Greek children in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Being Greek made me feel unique. In elementary school, my lunches would stand out from my classmates’. Many of my friends and classmates would ask what I was eating. I explained each food to them. The majority of those who tried the food enjoyed it. Others saw it as too strange. When I cook, I do not see myself as a victim of patriarchy. I see cooking pastitsio and other dishes as independence. Learning to cook for myself broke me away from depending on others to feed me; family and restaurants. I learned to cook for myself; not for a future spouse or future children. I prefer being an adult over a dependent child. The key to being a modern woman and feminist is independence. Cooking is a form of independence and a sign of maturity. I am an independent Greek-Cypriot American woman. Pastitsio and other Greek food will always be a part of my life. Food holds the memory of my grandmother and my visits to Greece and Cyprus. What I regret is not paying attention to how my grandmother prepared each meal. If we cooked together, we would have had a closer relationship.
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The Land I Am From Tabitha Parry Collins I am from the land of Dusty earth, Running barefoot Through the village Wild, crazy and free. I’m from the excitement Of rainy season. A chance to experience Those cold, wet drops Falling onto your face. A rarity, at best. I am from the taste of a ripe mango, Juicy and fresh And perfect for sinking Your teeth into. I’m from running down roads and Stealing barely ripe bananas From scolding neighborhood mothers, Then climbing mulberry trees To enjoy stolen treats While hiding from punishment. I am from a place where Mothers call gently in the evening “Mulombe, musimbe! Come in for dinner.” The smells of nshima and relish Drifting through the village Beckoning all children Home to eat.
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I’m from mosquito nets Over every bed and The sting of the yellow fever vaccine To keep you safe from harm. Horrible medicines forced upon you To keep the burning fever at bay Because malaria is almost Inevitable. The land I’m from Has sunsets of unimaginable color The earth is warm and comforting And everything is beauty and light Even in the darkness.
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Chicken and Dumplings Savannah Johnston
There is a space of years of in my memory, maybe three, four years, where I can’t recall seeing my mother eat. Now she refers to that time as the Divorce Diet. These were the years when commodity foods lined our pantries, cans of vegetables and meats, all in dire need of salt. The canned beef was labeled with a drawing of a steak (canned milk got the drawing of the cow), the corn with a corn husk, et cetera. We were poor, and my mother’s hair was short--she lopped off her waist-long hair when my father left. It was one of the many markers of his absence. For all the eating I never saw her do, my mother always made a meal for us. She had, and still has, a gift for making something out of nothing. Her nature is perpetually optimistic, and the meals she made for us reflected that. Most often, she would make our meals in the stock pot, a chipped, iron thing, making enough to last at least a couple of days. Before she begins, she sets her ingredients on the counter: canned chicken, bouillon cubes, vegetables (canned or frozen, depending on the week), Argo, and Baking Mix. Commodity food packages often come with 5 pound bags of Baking Mix, flour and baking powder, in lieu of loaves of bread. My mother is a cook without measurements. Water, set to boil, bouillon crushed in the bottom of the pot, giving the water a saffron tint. Our kitchens are always small, and my mother demands an empty kitchen when she cooks. She adds the chicken, then tosses in a handful of Argo. I will not know what Argo actually is until years later, when my mother is coaching me via phone in my first apartment, 1700
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miles away from her kitchen. Needless to say, I will not have cornstarch on hand and will substitute flour, and my broth will be gluey. Back home, by the time she adds the Argo, the stock pot is already boiling, and the smell of food, not yet unique to one dish, begins to fill the house. Spices are kept above the stove, always, regardless of which house we live in. Salt, pepper, garlic powder: these three get good shakes over the pot. The contents of the spice cabinet change. In our first house, there was a rack with three rows, eight labeled jars on each shelf, but the spice rack stayed with the house when we left. Now the jumble of spices are all different sizes, different brands. Onion powder, sage, oregano, basil, crushed black pepper, cayenne pepper, McCormick Season All, Creole Spice (bought on a trip to the grocery store without her glasses): the chicken and dumplings do not discriminate. Every spice in the cabinet has a place in the stockpot. The broth is thickening, the color of Campbell’s Cream of Chicken, when she adds the vegetables. The vegetables are usually canned, but when she can they are frozen; she likes frozen vegetables better but she makes do with what she has. One of my mother’s favorite phrases remains “Feast or famine.” The aroma fills the house now, distinctly chicken and herbs, erupting from each bubble of the broth. While she cooks, we sit outside the kitchen, amusing ourselves, never far from her. She provides that kind of comfort that only our mother can give us by proximity. Love by osmosis. She likes to listen to music while she cooks, and in these years she prefers the Original Broadway Soundtrack of RENT. The summer after my father left, her sister took her to New York
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City and they saw the play in its original run. She blacked out the curse words in the liner notes, but we still learned all the songs by heart. Lastly, the dumplings. There are never enough dumplings; sometimes, on day two of Chicken and Dumplings, she will fire up the stove and make more dumplings for the halfbatch that remains in the stock pot. It’s the simplest part, she insists, but it’s more like alchemy. She puts the Baking Mix in a large glass bowl--measurements imprecise, always-with a splash of milk--maybe two--and whips the mixture with a wooden spoon until globs of dough form, ragged like drop biscuits. Carefully, with the precision of an architect, each ball of dough is dropped into the roiling broth, turning over as the heat escapes from beneath. She washes her hands, slinging the wet dough into the sink. She puts the glass bowl in the sink, filling it with soap and water. The empty cans are put in the trashcan--it’s the nineties, and no one we know recycles. The time this takes is insignificant, but she always take this time before putting the lid on the stock pot. With the lid securely on, she replaces her apron on its hook and goes outside for a cigarette. We follow, of course, lured away from hunger by our need to shadow her. We go back inside when she stubs out her cigarette butt in the ceramic bowl that serves as an ashtray. In the house, the smell is overwhelming. I am suddenly so hungry that I am nauseated, and she cannot fill my bowl fast enough. My youngest sister is what they call a picky eater. My mother stacks her bowl with dumplings and chicken, straining out the vegetables with a slotted spoon. Then my other sister’s bowl, with more vegetables, because that is her eccentricity, then, finally, mine.
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We always eat dinner at the table, because my mother believes in routines, but we are always served in the kitchen. We sit at the table with our bowls, our glasses of milk, my mother at the head of the table, a glass of water or juice at her place. She smiles and watches us as we eat. The chicken is tender, the broth thick, the dumplings warm and doughy. My way of eating is to eat the vegetables first, popping each pea between my teeth, biting the carrots into tiny pieces. Once I finish the vegetables, I eat the chicken, each bite with a spoonful of broth, almost a gravy, really, but saltier. I suck the juice out of the chicken. The dumplings: the best and last part. The outside of each dumpling is wet with broth, a burst of steam from the soft middle. I clean the bowl with my last dumpling.
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About the Contributors Tabitha Parry Collins was made in Zambia and exported to the United States in the mid-90’s. They are a PhD candidate, feminist, and educator. They are passionate about multicultural education, destroying gender binaries, and dismantling the patriarchy. They were shaped by their time in Zambia and sometimes write about those experiences. Born and raised in the Southside of San Antonio, awardwinning poet Laurie Ann Guerrero was appointed the Poet Laureate of the city of San Antonio (2014-2016) and Poet Laureate of the state of Texas (2016-2017). She is currently serving as the first writer-in-residence at Texas A&M, San Antonio. Jackie Hall is a home-schooling stay-at-home momma and foster parent who loves her high school sweet-heart husband of ten years and rambunctious kids ages 2, 4, & 6. She enjoys hikes, photography, camping, and spending time with her 2 cats and 2 dogs. She lives in Colorado Springs, CO and graduated from NMSU in 2010 with a Masters in Criminal Justice and Minor in Women’s Studies. Wendy Harvey is a student in the Interdisciplinary Doctoral program in Curriculum & Instruction and Rhetoric & Professional Communication at NMSU. Her research concerns food, cultural identity and gender, with an emphasis on conservation of food varieties and culinary knowledge Savannah Johnston is an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. She received her undergraduate degree at Columbia University and MFA in fiction at New Mexico State University. Her work has appeared The Portland Review. 42
Simi Kang is an artist, writer, community advocate, and Ph.D. candidate in Feminist Studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Her tarot cards were originally part of a full Asian American Tarot deck created for a special issue on Mental Health by Asian American Literature Review in 2017. Robin Labe is originally from Allentown, Pennsylvania and currently resides in Las Cruces. She has degrees in sociology and in fine arts, including a MFA degree in painting from NMSU. She remains optimistic that awareness will lead us all to question our most basic assumptions about animals and food, and that animal rights will soon be acknowledged as a pressing social justice issue whose time has finally come. Lola Palluza exists in dreams. She lived in Terre Haute, Indiana with a French girl and her cats. They shared laughter, tears, and amazing stories. Eleni Philippou was born and raised in Las Cruces, New Mexico. She holds a BA in Women’s Studies and English from New Mexico State University. Her work has been published in Social Justice Zine Vol. 1: and What is Reproductive Justice? the Student Alliance for Reproductive Justice Zine. She is the proud daughter of a Greek-Cypriot father and a Mexican-American mother. Alisha N. Porter is an intersectional queer feminist (wannabe theorist) who looks toward thinking through social phenomenon with a critical and queer frame. Using her experiences and body as a site of meaning making, she explores her experiences as a criminalized woman of color that has struggled with addiction. Julia Vulcan graduated from NMSU with degrees in microbiology and gender and sexuality studies. In her free time she draws, doodles, paints, sketches, and does other 43
such things of a similar nature. Some of her creations can sometimes be found on her Instagram @jujuthevuvu, where she usually posts digital drawings, sketchbook pictures, and silly selfies. Dr. Xeturah Woodley is an assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at New Mexico State University, where she teaches instructional design and technology. Her research, teaching, and service weave together Black womanist thought, critical race theory and social justice praxis as she interrogates the inherent biases that plague American higher education.
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SJZ: Social Justice Zine
vol. 3: food matters Spring 2018 sjz is lovingly cut and pasted together by the academic program in Gender & Sexuality Studies at New Mexico State University. It is a collaboration between undergraduate students, graduate students, alumni, faculty, and others who love food and are also committed to social justice. This third annual issue centers on the various ways that food creates relationships, evokes memories, reflects power and offers comfort, pleasure, and resistance in our lives. Gender & Sexuality Studies at New Mexico State University offers a B.A., minor, and graduate minor in the interdisciplinary, intersectional study of gender and sexuality. Our major, minor, and courses are offered both online and face-2-face. Gender & Sexuality Studies is deeply connected with examining the social from decentered, decolonized positions and skills gained from our degree and courses translate into vital career resources. We are dedicated to social justice issues, feminisms, and works focusing on issues connected to gender, race, gender identity, dis/ability, migration, LGBTQIA*, borders, the Borderlands, and transnational positionality. We are open to entries from current NMSU students and alumni as well as people in the community and beyond. genders.nmsu.edu