What day it is

I open up my eyes, thick with sleep, to the half-moon in my window. Abruptly it seemed, it took the place of a crescent, thinner than a clipped thumb nail, overnight. I spend the next minute struggling to remember where I am, what day it is, and if I have to hurry to be somewhere. It's like waiting for a Polaroid picture to develop, unimprovable blankness at first, followed by thin traces of objects captured -- a stack of books on the floor, blue unblinking stare of the TV screen on Anthony's face, he is deep asleep on the couch, his head nestled in his folded arms, his lips parted, unaware. It's quiet, except the clacking of the clock in the other room. I reach for my phone. 6.43 am. Then it hits me: I have overslept for work by an hour. 

I cut up an apple, its skin crisp and alert, and scoop a spoon of peanut butter out of the glass jar. No time left for anything else. A carton box of oatmeal and a measuring cup I set next to the stove the night before to make myself porridge for breakfast remain untouched, later they will be a reminder of the morning's haste. I stifle my cough not to wake Anthony. The skin under my nose feels raw, scalded by a cold. 

The air grips the skin on my face the moment I start off on my bike, the temperature out looks to be close to zero. It will take another hour before the day gets lighted, but the darkness is starting to kneel as the strip of dawn on the horizon unweaves itself forward. 

Later that day I'm in a chiropractor's office, on the table that looks like a gym apparatus for back extension, only this one is flat.

"Breathe out," he says. My arms crossed, I feel his weight on my chest.

"You have to breathe out," he pushes down. I hear cracks in my spine, but they seem so muffled that it feels we both eavesdrop on what occurs behind the closed doors. I breathe out again, my face, sticky from the day's work, is close to his muscled neck. I forgot to put on deodorant, and I'm convinced I smell of leeks. Another twist and push, and then another one in the opposite direction. I stand up and walk around -- my back still hurts. 

"Is it a burning pain?"

"Not quite. It feels simililar to when a dentist's drill brushes against a nerve ending, you know."

"I've never had a cavity, but I now what you mean," and then he adds, "You probably wouldn't tell I'm forty-five, would you?"

I'm on the table again. It's as if I'm receiving cardio-resuscitation, but on my back. I hear more cracks. Also, my stomach growls. I realize I haven't had much else since breakfast, except for two boiled eggs for lunch at work. 

"You should be straight now. Give it a few days to heal. You want to hear something funny? I had this patient the other day, gay, he had complaints about his back. So I said, "Alright, let's make you straight", and he turned around and said, "I don't think so, it aint gonna happen."

On my way back home it starts to drizzle, but soon wind pulverizes it into the cold spray. It feels clean; the air smells of fresh pencil shavings. Sea gulls in the canals look like crumpled sheets of white paper scattered about the water that's under the cement of the clouds turned into the undiluated ink.

I step through the doorway, and the half-moon is already in my window again.

Mujadara (moo-jha-dra)
Adapted from Orangette
Yield: 4-6 servings

Officially this is an ancient dish of green lentils, rice and caramelized onions highly regarded throughout the Arab world, unofficially -- one-pot miracle. It's such low maintanence to make, and it pays back tenfold. One, it's not costly to assemble; two, it gets better as it sits (so make it the day before if you can); three, it's nourishing to no end. It may not please the eye, but it will please the mouth. It absolutely will. You just really need to caramelize the life out of those onions; the flavor of the dish hinges on them and them alone. It's a slow process -- the time may vary depending on your stove and the pan's size -- but at least thirty minutes, ideally an hour, should pass until the onions are ready, amber and sweet. 

60 ml (1/4 cup) olive oil
500 g (1 pound) onions, peeled and sliced lengthwise
200 g (1 cup) green lentils (such as de Puy), picked over for debris
100 g (1/2 cup) basmati rice
Water
1 tsp salt, or more to taste
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper, or to taste

In a large skillet or sauté pan warm the oil over medium heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until they are caramelized through and through (once they start taking on color, scale the heat down to lowest to avoid scorching). This process should take from 30 to 60 minutes.

Meanwhile, place the lentils in a medium pot, cover with plenty of water and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Lower the heat to a simmer and cook, undisturbed, for twenty minutes. Then drain the lentils and set them aside. 

Once the onions are ready, stir in the rice, along with the cooked lentils, the salt and pepper, and two cups of water. Mix very well and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a lazy simmer, cover, and cook. Depending on the size and shape of your pan, this step can take from 20 to 40 minutes. 

After 20 minutes, remove the lid and give the lot a careful stir. If there is still liquid visible, replace the lid, and cook more until it's fully absorbed. If there is no visible liquid, check the rice for doneness. If it's tender, the dish is ready. If it's not, add a splash of water, cover, and cook until the rice is done and the liquid is absorbed. Add more salt and pepper, if needed. Garnish with fresh flat-leaf parsley (optional).

But it happened in Paris

Last Wednesday I ground my heels to a pulp and exhausted my hamstrings on my visit to Paris, which was my first. 

Paris intimidates me. I mean, it overwhelms me. I could have gone sooner, but I postponed because I always felt there should be a purpose for me to go to Paris for the first time, a vector that would define my direction amidst the streets laid out with millions of stories and more crumbs and keep me grounded in the constant flow of bon jour, oh la la and oui oui mixed up with the scent of yeast every other block and expensive perfume.

My good friend Morgane was going to hold her art jewelry exhibition in La Ville-Lumière.

I woke up in the depth of morning to catch the 6.34am train to Paris. The darkness seemed unfriendly. My brain and body weakened by the soft pillow and blanket, I felt against the trip. Anthony was supposed to go with me, but had gotten sick. I was at an arm's length from telling Morgane that I, too, won't be coming, but she cleared her schedule to wander with me, and her show was the main motive for my little grand tour. Still, I got out of bed at a quarter past five, half an hour later. I secretly wished to miss the train. Slowly I got ready, as if daring the clock. I poured myself a bowl of honey granola, the rustle of the grains against the porcelain, but left it undisturbed. I tucked the remnants of a chocolate bar in my handbag and made my way outside. The roads and sidewalks kept quiet, the stillness calmed me. I arrived at the train station early and gave Anthony a call. How are you feeling -- any better? I'm still not sure if I should go alone, I'll decide the last moment when I see the train. Try and get some sleep. 

The train pulled in on time, my carriage right in front of me. I stood there tormented by uncertainty when a conductor reached out to see my ticket. I stepped in. The bar carriage was next to mine, it pleasantly smelled of coffee inside. At 9.40am I was in Paris, and I had nine and a half hours till my train back.

I took few pictures and didn't see the Eiffel Tower. The famous Rose Bakery's (46 rue des Martyrs) carrot cake -- plus a carrot salad and a muffin with fresh figs and blackberries -- check. Admittedly the best falafel sandwich -- eaten on the street (L'As de Falafel, 34 rue de Rosiers); cool infrequent rain drops on our faces in contrast with the fiery sauce on our tongues -- in Paris, check. Six hours of pure walking, check. Gold, Butter & Ripe Lemons -- thoughtful and stylish -- check. I saw necklaces, brooches and penchants by six different artists, and a lemon-shaped brooch that Morgane made out of plastic and that had more bubbles in it than the most sparkling water in Paris. 

It was a hot day. Apart from a pack of stray rain clouds in the late afternoon, the sun showed confidence. Those with jackets and coats on had to take them off. Walking down the hilly roads away from Montmartre, we were about to cross over when a shuttle bus slowed down at a stop and obstructed our way. As we walked around it I felt the heat of its exhaust fumes around my bare ankles. No smell, it felt soft and pleasant, like a human breath. I thought, it could have happened anywhere, but it happened in Paris. I liked it.

They have arrived

1979. My mother is a music student (piano). There is a tour to Bulgaria organized by her conservatory, and she applies to go. The application process involves an evaluation talk with a Komsomol commission, the members of which will have to decide if she is trustworthy enough to leave the country's borders. (To Bulgaria! So pro-communist then that it was known in the internal circles as an unofficial Soviet republic at the time!) In the end, it's a no. It's all unspoken, but she is dressed in clothes that look too Western (where does she get those from?); her last (maiden) name ends with -ovich and is therefore Jewish?

1989. My mother, now thirty one, is on a plane to Vilnius, Lithuania. Together with my late grandmother she is going to buy a luggage-ful of men's and women's clothes and maybe some footware to be sold among friends and acquaintances. Those goods are as close to Western as one can get. They are one of a kind in Shakhty and go fast. (From this trip I, then five, saw two summer dresses with short lantern sleeves -- one dress with butterflies and the other with chamomile flowers -- and a pack of Donuld Duck bubble gum.)  There followed two more Vilnius-bound trips, now alone. It would be alright but for one thing. My mother kept bringing the nicest looking attire as opposed to the better-priced one, and convinced that such approach disserved the "business", and besides, a mucisian would never know how to negotiate numbers, my late grandmother, a natural enterpreneur, "dismissed" my mother off her duties as a buyer. And so, Vilnius was as far abroad as my mother ever got to, and considering that back then Lithuania was still a part of the USSR, technically it wasn't even abroad.

The furthest my father went was Eastern Russia. No enteprenueral venture, this was his latest month-long work trip, in the grasp of winter, and the most memorable part of the month for him was seeing the endless Siberian taiga from the plane on his way back home.

This afternoon my parents flew in to Amsterdam for a ten-day visit. We were on the phone last night to iron out all the details -- what's English for this and that, what to say to a customs officers, and other such things -- and I could hear they were excited, a little proud even. I understand why. They are both in their fifties now. For two thirds of their lives a possibility to go abroad had been unimaginable because of the ideology and politics, then for another third because of the poor economy. For a change, I'm on the receiving end today and they have arrived. (Big thanks to the airport staffer who kindly walked them to the passport control after they had wandered off into transit zone and with an intention to collect the luggage stood in line for a flight to Mexico City.)
  
There will be important museums and the glimmer of canals and interesting faces and tall, tilted houses to look at and around. They will probably see Olivia the Cat Lady, and, with a little bit of luck, catch a glimpse of The Butt-Naked Man (I haven't seen him in a long while.) But so far, I cooked an Indian meal and baked banana bread for them tonight. They didn't have a banana bread like this before, I don't think. Heck, I didn't have a banana bread like this before either.

Here is what's unusual about it. First: instead of banana mush there is banana mash inside this one. Nigel Slater -- whose recipe it is and whose latest book, Kitchen Diaries II, in vein with his others, is magic! -- doesn't crush bananas into a smooth puree. He mashes them, ripe, almost sickly, with a fork to a lumpy state. This is smart, because later, when the bread is baked, these lumps will be those pleasant chunks of the moist and fragrant fruit that I always miss in a banana bread. (O how I'm upset with those banana breads whose only ties to a banana is in the title.) Then, there is chocolate, and its amount here is so right that it doesn't overpower banana flavor one bit. What it does is mingle with those banana lumps mid-mouthful and excite the palate. What's good for banana besides chocolate? Caramel. Its notes are here too, thanks to muscovado sugar.

Nigel Slater's Chocolate Muscovado Banana Cake (Bread) 

Adapted from Kitchen Diaries II, by Nigel Slater

Yield: 1 loaf

I will avoid the discussion of whether it's bread or cake, this. It's all in the baking vessel, isn't it? Commonly, cake comes from a baking tin and bread from a loaf pan. But seeing that Slater christens it as chocolate muscovado cake and bakes it as a loaf, I'll go ahead and say this: no matter. To me, banana bread rolls off the tongue, and banana cake does not. But never mind.

If you have the book, you will notice I upped vanilla extract to two teaspoons here. For me, a teaspoon is somewhat unnoticed amongst such heavy weights.

250 g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder
125 g butter, softened
235 g muscovado or dark brown sugar
3-4 very ripe bananas (400 g peeled weight)
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
100 g dark chocolate

Line a standard-size loaf tin (24cm*12cm*7cm) with baking paper, leaving a little overhang throughout. Heat the oven to 180 C (350 F). Sift the flour and baking powder together.

In a bowl, mash the bananas with a fork. The mixture should be lumpy. Stir in the vanilla extract. Chop the chocolate into small pieces the size of fine gravel.

Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar together till light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs until incorporated. Stir in the bananas and chocolate. Gently fold the flour and baking powder into the banana batter. Pour the mixture into the lined baking tin and bake, rotating the tin halfway through, for about fifty minutes. Check for doneness by inserting a metal skewer into the centre. If the skewer comes out moist but clean the bread (cake) is ready. If not, put the bread (cake) back in the oven for a few more minutes and cover the surface with foil.

  
Leave the bread (cake) in the tin to settle and cool for 15 minutes, then remove from the tin by lifting the baking paper up and out. Cool some more before carefully peeling off the paper. Serve cool, in thick (!) slices. Wrapped in foil, keeps for up to a week.

From Russia with food

It's been very warm here lately, so warm. You would instantly pick up on my surprise if you had any idea about the average Dutch summer, about what it's like. If you don't know, let me tell you what the average Dutch summer is like. A rainless week is rare here, successive rainless weeks and the ones that requite no coat or jacket are unimaginable. That's all you need to know, really, to ascertain how unusual it is that the sun's been out for two weeks and counting now.

The sun's been out, and how! Despite an occasional breeze and a number of benign thunderstorm clouds today, there hasn't been much disagreement between the day and night temperatures, and although it did get ugly and sticky and nervous and sweaty earlier this week when the temperatures soared up and pulled oxigen out of the air (so it seemed), these days are my favourite. Have you seen the light lately? Operatic! Under its intese glaze tree leaves and roof tops and canals and cars and bicycles turn into well-polished crystals whose sparkle is so untamed it hurts the eyes, no pair of sun glasses being able to aid. I can't get enought of it. And the sky! Have you noticed how it shucked off an early summer whitewashed tog and now takes on an urgent deep blue, more and more so as time marshals the days forth? It's hard to believe it in the midst of a heat wave and with the ever-cheerful summer fruit amongst us, but the earth is slowly, unnoticably still, peeling away from the sun towards...the next season. I don't want to think about it.

Look at that, two paragraphs on weather, la di da di da. I could have just said that due to the reigning meteorological conditions there hasn't been much cooking, I'm afraid, but all the better because I've been meaning to tell you, finally, about a few edibles I crammed into my suitcase on my recent trip to the motherland.

I grew up on buckwheat, a Russian grain staple that looses in importance only to bread.  A latchkey child, I couldn't wait to rush home after classes, my stomach rambling like an engine, swing the refrigerator door open and pile kasha on a rimmed plate, douse it in an inordinate amount of ketchup (I had a protracted infatuation with the stuff) and wolf it down in a jiffy. Not for once I didn't head back to the kitchen for seconds. I never grew bored of it. I took buckwheat for granted, if you will. It never occurred to me that when I go abroad buckwheat could be hard to find -- my encounter with buckwheat in Amsterdam happened in an establishment named Ecotic Foods -- and that it would taste awful, too. For a while I thought the fault lay with my method, which is this: cook 1 part rinsed buckwheat groats in 2 parts water until the liquid is absorbed. Was it what made my buckwheat groats turn to mush when hot and form a brick once cool? I tweaked the proportions, tried different brands, but to no avail. It tasted chalky, off. Last Thanksgiving I used it as stuffing for a turkey, as my late grandmother would stuff with it a Christmas goose, hoping that it each kernel would stand on its own and not cling to the rest, or at least that it would swell up under the cooking juices and get, perhaps, tastier. No such thing happened. I stopped to bother.

Then came a realization. One night during our trip my mother served (with a view to impress Anthony, no doubt) a traditional buckwheat porridge (kasha), steamy and aromatic, with aptly sauteed mushrooms (in sour cream), and it dawned on me that, as far as I'm concerned, Russian buckwheat is the best. It's not chalky. It's nutty, and with an aftertaste that comfortably lingers on the palate between mouthfuls. Even more important: cooked, the groats still stay shapely. I brought two packages with me, and when my parents come for a visit soon I'll have them bring more.

I have an image in my mind of eating caviar -- salty, briny, elegant, bursting on the tongue under the slightest pressure from the teeth -- by the spoonful from a canning jar. Unfortunately I can't say with certainty now if it's a product of my imagination or a fact, but I'm fairly confident that if it did happen it must have before or at the dawn of the 90s.

For us, as for everybody else I suppose, it had always been a celebratory treat, served on somebody's anniversary or at an expansive family gathering at my grandmother's between New Year's and Orthodox Christmas. A triangular of soft white bread coated thinly with butter and crowned with a teaspoon of black caviar, one a pop and no seconds. There would be none anaway. A number of caviar finger sandwiches stricly matched a number of mouths at the table. If my memory is no illusion, I must, then, have sneaked in the kitchen to appropriate a few spoonfuls.

My grandmother always bought caviar, ossetra or beluga, by weight from "her" fish guy, a friend of a friend of a friend, at a local market. The caviar was non-pasturized, so you had to go with a trusted source. When perestroika stroke and then the shock of the 1991 rippled through the newly born Russian economy there was little affordable luxury left. Prices grew by the day. My family struggled through the whole decade and then some. We never starved, but there was no more caviar, or rather, no more legal caviar.

Searing prices for the delicacy drove to overfishing which drove the wild sturgeon population in the Black and Caspian seas to endangerment. Subsequently, a ban was laid to protect the fish, but it  didn't -- what does? - stop smugglers. You could go to a market and discreetly ask around, and in a while a man -- usually shady-looking, always in tracky bottoms -- would come up and offer the product at a "good" price, almost for "nothing". It was a dangerous bargain. For obvious reasons, the quality of caviar was very poor and food poisoning was not uncommon.

I got this 58-gram can in Moscow for the equivalent of around 60 euros in roubles. My cousin pointed us to a certified store that sells ossetra caviar -- extracted from the farmed sturgeon -- directly from and at the prices determined by a manufacturer. I got the smallest can. I haven't opened it yet, but when I do it will be for the first time in twenty years. What!

I don't like vodka. Please believe me I never had it straight. I'm thankful that vodka exists, if only because it's key to Moscow Mule, my favorite cocktail, crisp and refreshing. I'm also happy to use vodka as a natural disinfectant, but that's all. As I said, I never had it straight. Largely, because I think I won't like it, that it will probably go down my gullet the way a handful of pebbles would, painfully. Plus, those stereoptypes -- Russian babies are fed vodka; and on and on and on -- they take my goat, and I rebel.

Belaya Berezka ("White Birch") is Russia's best-kept secret. My family swears by it, and now Anthony does too. It contains birch sap, and I'm told it's the softest, smoothest vodka with a unique (birch?) aftertaste. I can't vouch for its taste for lack of knowledge of it (read above), but I witnessed firsthand that, downed in volumes, this vodka specimen does, indeed, spare the head from pains and aches the next day. And as such, a few bottles were wrapped in tube socks and squeezed in the suitcase.

During our every march through a local Shakhty supermarket, Anthony scoured the shelves for unusual packaging design. The looks of this yeast pass the muster and do what yeast should do: leaven the mood. As do these chocolate-hazelnut candies.

From Russia with food.

Needed to find out

I came to spices by way of a fairy tale.

Before I learnt to read I liked to while away my pre-school time listening to children's vinyl records that my mother regularly bought for me. There was a good deal to be all ears for, from Grimm's Fairy Tales to Kipling to Andersen to Soviet creations (some meager, some good), and I dutifully listened to them all. I had my favorites, but none was more loved than Hauff's Little Longnose. I couldn't -- I wouldn't -- stop listening to it over and over, often dragging the turntable needle across the scratched vinyl disk back to the start as soon as it reached the end.  

In a few brushstrokes, Little Longnose is a tale about a young boy, Jacob, who unwittingly insults a disagreeable woman at his mother's vegetable stall at the market. The woman asks him to help her carry her purchases, and when they reach her home she offers Jacob a plate of soup with knödel. The soup is so delicious it's unheard of, but the old woman being a wicked witch, it's imbued with magical herbs and spices that cast a spell on Jacob and turn him into a long-nosed hunchback. Unable to leave, he stays at the woman's house for the next seven years, during which he learns the magic of cookery. The story ends happily, but for our purposes today I just meant to say that it cast a spell on me. I listened lying on a couch in the living room, my eyes repeatedly examining a few cracks on the white ceiling, whily my mind, merging with the sounds flowing out of the spinning vinyl, was long gone to the old woman's garden, where I was beside Jacob, collecting musky herbs and blending mysterious spices. I could almost taste them.

Little Longnose got me intrigued, but for the time being that was that. I was too small to take any action of my own to hunt down the mysterious spices, my parents didn't seem that interested to do that for me, and in all honesty, in the Soviet eighties (not to mention earlier) there wasn't much on offer anyway. Intrigued I remained.

Then my mother started to (rarely) bake. She took to apple pirozhki with cinnamon, and often cinnamon wound up to be the key ingredient. I loved it. For educational purposes I liked to discover that a lot of cinnamon could cause my throat tingle, but what I really, really loved about cinnamon, even if it was past its prime and of dubious origin, is how different it suddenly made my everyday food. One moment it was the beloved baked apple with vanilla sugar, but add cinnamon and the deeply familiar fruit shifted ever so slightly toward the worlds far-off, an equally comforting and mystifying feeling. O the child's joys of discovery! Then my mother went on to use those spice mixes for fish or chicken or meat in her cooking, and faceless as they were they still took our meals off the beaten track. An interesting world was lurking somewhere in those spice mixes.

Then, at the age of twenty two, I had my first Indian curry. My friend Luke and I met up in snow-coated Saint Petersburg for New Year's then, and it was Luke's choice to have a hot Indian meal in the northern Russia. Did I want to? Hell yes, Indian sounds good. Equipped with the restaurant pages from a city guide I believe we went here. As a bold first-timer I ordered chicken karahi, the hottest on the menu. Our waiter giggled upon hearing my choice and pointed out that it was very spicy, pausing on 'very' for effect. Yes, I'm sure I'd like chicken karahi, please.

I cried and blew my nose through the whole meal. But, those piquant spices submerged in the incendiary sauce were such a revelation! My curry, it seemed, was otherwordly and I felt blue when the meal was over. My napkin was stained, heavily, with fragrant sauce; I took it with me. The aroma lasted for another day, and then, whoosh, the spices were gone. I didn't know what they were and I needed to find out.

Soon after I moved to Moscow for a year where I found an Indian grocer, and with him the vermillions, the scarlets, the ambers and the ochres of spices. For me, it was like upgrading from the children's watercolors to a professional art supplies store. I fell for Indian cuisine hard and fast. That comforting and mystifying feeling, a promise of discovery comes in tenfold each time I open a jug of garam masala or curry madras or toast cumin, fenugreek or mustard seeds in hot oil to make a tadka. Born and raised Russian to parents who till now never even ventured beyond the Soviet Union borders and so far with no experieces of my own of travels through India, I'm most certainly in no position to install myself as an authority in Indian cuisine. My only credential is that I'm mesmerized by it. I open a recipe, jack up the fire and let my mouth and my nose take me where I need to be. As my Indian friend Vijay once said, to cook Indian well all you need to do is listen to the pot and taste. I do! And so, me and my spices live happily ever after.

Chana Masala
Adapted from A Homemade Life, by Molly Wizenberg
Yield: 4 servings

A good chana masala (hello chickpeas!) is a balance between spicy and tangy, and this one delievers with a bang. The sour note traditionally is supposed to come from unripe mango powder (amchoor), but -- the purists, look away! -- you can strike the target by making use of lime or lemon juice instead, as done here. Taste and adjust the seasoning to how you like it. Does it need more citrus note and salt? It very well might. May I only insist that you use canned tomatoes that are more acidic than sweet? Somehow sweet tomatoes numb the dish. You don't want a numb chana masala.

I like to accompany this chana masala with basmati rice. Molly suggests to serve it with some full-fat yogurt (1/3 to 1/2 cup) to soften the flavors, or plain with a squeeze of lemon (I prefer lime). Whatever you choose, don't forget to sprinkle it with a pinch of garam masala and some chopped cilantro (or parsley). And be prepared, this dish gets only better the second day.

1/4 cup olive oil
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
2 medium cloves garlic, pressed
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp garam masala, plus more for serving
3 green cardamom pods, lightly crushed
1 tsp salt, or to taste
Water
Two 400 g (14 oz) cans peeled tomatoes (see headnote)
a handful of coarsely chopped cilantro or flat-leaf parsley leaves, plus more for serving
A good pinch of cayenne, or to taste
Two 400 g (14 oz) cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 tsp lime (or lemon) juice, or to taste

Heat the olive oil in a thick-bottomed, preferably cast iron, pot. Add the onion, and cook, stirring occasionally, until it's thoroughly caramelized. The more color in the onion, the more flavor in the final dish. Adjust the heat if the browning happens too quickly.

Scale the heat down to low and add the garlic, cumin seeds, coriander, ginger, garam masala, cardamom pods, and salt, and cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add 1/4 cup water and stir to scrape up the brown bits, if any, from the bottom of the pot. Cook until the liquid had eveporated. Pour in the juice from the cans of tomatoes, and add the tomatoes themselves, carefully breaking them apart with your hands as you add them to the pot. (You can also use a potato masher to crash the tomatoes directly in the pot.)

Bring the pot to an idle simmer. Add the cilantro (or parsley) and cayenne, and cook gently until the sauce starts to thicken, about 5 minutes. Add the chickpeas and lime (or lemon) juice, stir well, and cook for another 5 minutes. Add 2 teaspoons water, and cook for another 5 minutes. Add another 2 teaspoons water and cook until it's absorbed, for about 5 minutes more. This process of adding and cooking off water helps to concentrate the sauce's flavor. Taste, and adjust the seasoning.

Serve with basmati rice, yogurt, or plain (see headnote).

And how

Not boasting of a hundred and one sauces and more garnishes, Russian food can nonetheless be puzzling. I'm trying to coach Anthony on the matter before our trip to Russia (his first) in a while, and it seems like no easy task. And why should it be when there is no dearth of confusing material? Just look at what's what. Vinegret, for instance. You'd think it's a Russian deviation from vinaigrette, except that it's surely not. Vinegret happens to be a beet, potato and sauerkraut salad. Or kasha: while in English it denotes buckwheat groats, in Russian it's porridge in general, and not exclusively the one made of oatmeal as an English-spoken mind would expect. If you want pierogi, you are in with a good chance to get some if you say varenyky to a Russian cook, because similar-sounding pirog in Russian means a pie, not a dumpling. No easy feast, I'll tell you that.

The same, of course, goes for a Russian abroad, except that it can get an ounce more embarrassing, especially if one claims to have affection for cooking. It's one thing to be able to tell vinegret from vinaigrette, and quite another to have no idea how to make Beef Stroganoff, admittedly the most familiar of all Russian dishes to the Western eater. I can't even tell you how many a soul I disappointed with my incompetence in the matters of sautéed slices of beef in the sour cream sauce the way Count Stroganoff liked it and plunking gleefully in front of them a bowl of borscht followed by a plate of delicious buckwheat porridge (kasha) instead. The truth of the matter is, Beef Stroganoff is not traditional per se. You see, there is Russian food, simple and genial as most Russians know it in their homes, and there is European-influenced Russian fare, for the most part with a French accent.

Following Catherine's the Great lead, the nineteenth-century Russian aristocracy was besotted with the French culture. I don't think it would be a complete exaggeration to say that St-Petersburg was the French-spoken Russian capital at the time. Naturally, anybody who was anybody and who could afford one had a French chef over. The likes of Beef Stroganoff, Veal Orloff, Strawberries Romanoff, Charlotte Russe were the French creations through and through. Sadly, when communism plagued the country in the early twentieth century, the food the French turned in shared the misfortunes of the Russian aristocracy: a wipe-out by way of execution or immigration. Hence not so much competence in the matters of Beef Stroganoff and such on the part of an ordinary Ruskie. But interestingly, some things the Europeans brought to the table over time stayed, and how. Sharlotka is a Russian variation of Apple Charlotte, and it happens to be the most popular teatime sweet in Russia. Ironically, it's relatively unknown outside of the Russian borders.

A Russian child's baking life begins with mastering sharlotka, although mastering is a strong word here. There is nothing simpler than beating a few eggs with sugar, adding flour to the lot with a pinch of baking soda, and mixing in a heap of apples. You can even bake it in a frying pan, it's that undemanding and unpretentious. What a child (or me at the age of 27) wouldn't know, though, is that baking soda needs to be "put out" with vinegar or lemon juice first -- otherwise the crumb will be tight as a leather boot, a downfall of all my sharlotkas of yesteryear. Thanks to grandmothers for their wisdom.

There is no dairy, oil or butter to legitimately call sharlotka a cake. With the massive amount of mellow and soft apples in its pockets, I'd say it gravitates more toward the fruit pudding, but with the scarce crumb still characteristic of a moist sponge cake it's really unclassifiable. For convenience's sake, let's call sharlotka Russian apple cake, although a description in Russian would read yablochny pirog ("apple pie"). Of course, seeing there are no crusts of any kind in sharlotka, yablochny pirog will only confuse an English-spoken mind. And here we go again.

P.S. Happy Easter, dear Reader! (And since we are at it, this year Easter in Russia is in May. Differences, differences!)

Sharlotka (Russian Apple Cake)

Another description of sharlotka would be: an unprecedented amount of tart apples resting in and moisturizing the vanilla-scented billowy crumb. A scattering of (lightly toasted) walnuts to finish, and you are set. You can go on and add a touch of spices as well -- classic cinnamon or tickling ginger -- but I made it a point for myself not to this time. I'm always in the pursuit of something else, amending simple things right, left, and center, wishing for them to be more complex and mysterious. This recipe is simple as simple can be, and delicious just as is. Although, one time I didn't have enough white sugar for the bake, so I used light brown. It brought in distant caramel notes and I am a sucker for caramel notes. I've stuck to light brown sugar since.

I use a 20×20-cm (8×8-inch) square baking pan, because I like how neat and composed a square piece of sharlotka looks. It is, of course, allowable to call for service a 24-cm (9-inch) springform pan. For fear that the apples might stick to the pan (with so much fruit chances are high) I line the bottom and sides of it with parchment paper and leave an overhang on two opposite sides. When sharlotka is baked I easily remove it from the confinements of the pan by lifting up the ends of the parchment paper. Nothing stuck, nothing burnt.

It's a real wonder how with no fat at all sharlotka stays hydrated for as long as a week. No oil or butter, and moist for a week, at the very least! A week! Those apples, man. I see this sweet with plums or apricots (maybe somewhat less sugar then) in the summertime, but traditionally it's always Malus domestica.

Sharlotka only gets better with time. It is therefore not a bad idea to let the apples and the crumb sit together undisturbed for an hour or two before cutting into. But this is not to say there is no pleasure in devouring it fresh and warm. 

Source: Grandmother

Yield: 10-12 servings

1 kg (2 pounds) of tart apples, such as Granny Smith, peeled

juice of ½ lemon plus 2 tsp, divided use

200 g (6.5 oz) light brown sugar

seeds from 1 vanilla bean or 1 tsp vanilla extract

3 large eggs

130 g (10 oz) flour, sifted

1 level tsp baking soda

60 g (2 oz) walnuts, coarsely chopped, to finish

Warm the oven up to 175 C (350 F). Line a 20×20-cm (8×8-inch) square baking pan with parchment paper (see headnote).

Cut the apples in quarters and remove the core. Cut each quarter into three wedges, and then halve the wedges and place them in a medium bowl with the juice of half a lemon. (If your apples are large, do the same, only cut up the quarters in four, and the resulting wedges in three.) Toss well and set aside.

In another bowl, beat the sugar, vanilla seeds (or extract) and eggs by hand or with a mixer until well-combined and bubbly, for about 1 minute. Mix in the flour (sift it directly into the bowl). In a small cup, combine the baking soda with 2 tsp of lemon juice (the baking soda will bubble up), and immediately stir into the eggs and flour mixture. The batter will be very thick. Fold in the apples.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly with a spoon or a spatula. The apple slices shouldn’t stick out; if necessary, slightly press the fruit down. Bake for 45-55 mins or until a tester or the tip of a knife comes out clean. Check after a 20-minute mark. If the top browns too quickly (mine did every time), cover loosely with a tent of foil and continue baking until done. Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan for about 10 minutes, then lift up the ends of the parchment and transfer to a rack. When cool enough to handle, flip sharlotka out on a big plate and peel off the parchment, then flip back onto the rack. Evenly scatter over the walnuts.

Eat plain. Eat with a drizzle of caramel sauce on top (Anthony’s idea). Eat with unsweetened whipped cream. Make it an accompaniment to a cup of tea (coffee), a snack or an after-dinner sweet.

Keeps well wrapped up in foil or in an airtight container for up to a week.

A peculiar month

Advisory note: this post contains verbal images of a spitfire cat lady and a butt-naked roller-skater (of an unidentifiable age). If you have an impressionable and sensitive mind, read on anyway -- there will be dark chocolate almond butter cups as well.

February has been a peculiar month. First, I angered a cat lady. I'll call her Olivia here, since I don't want to anger her some more by disclosing her real name without a permission, not that I think she reads my blog or something. Technically Olivia is a bag lady, with a noticeable preference for pink garments, winter headwear year round, and sweat pants tucked into the knee-length socks that from a distance look like a pair of galife breeches. I know her from my work where she is a fixture, in that she comes in every morning at a quarter past eight, puts down her two neatly-packed standard-size suparmarket bags next to the cupboard, and depending on the day, goes back out or sits down for a cup of coffee and a knitting session. She's been doing so for more than four years, although earlier she used to say she would go to the countryside after the baby's been born. She never explained whose baby it was or when it was due, and she doesn't mention her plans to move anymore. French, English, and Dutch are in her full command (really), and if you ask her she will tell you a lot about cats. It is is why we call her Olivia the Cat Lady. That and because of a lasting bond she formed with our bakery cat, Marie, who is sadly no longer there on the grounds of being outlawed, which hasn't detered Olivia from bringing her gifts of wrapped Kleenex and canned cat food up to this day. Miaow.

For the most part, I think Olivia is angelic. Except a rare moment earlier this month when she asked me if I knew the meaning of my name. I should have lied and said yes, because I never want to see, never again, Olivia angry. Not bacause I think anger is a cell-killer, but because she looks evil when angry. And evil Olivia the Cat Lady looks like this: she turns around to face the subject, porches her arms on her sides, tilts her face downwards, and looking up from under the gray eyebrows, pierces you with the eyes that a minute ago were blue and now steely. As her eyebrows raise into two carets, her chin moves forward to expose a couple stray teeth, and her tongue, finding no dental objection, slithers out mid-word while she says, in high tones: "You should know what your name means. It's not making me happy now." For a second her face looked like it was pulling itself apart, upwards and down-, and I got worried that a hand might thrust out of her throat to strangle me. I like Olivia non-angry better. (She later told me it's a flower, but I'm not sure about that.  Anyway, we are good now.)

Next, I got smacked in my face. By a drunkard. With a rose.  Things like this ordinarily happen on a Saturday morning, around 5 a.m. That's when the party goers take to the streets and fill up the roads, sidewalks and bike lanes in their search of the right way, mingling thereby with those driven outwards at such an hour by the call of their professional duties. I myself stopped on a few occassions to tell the appreciative lost how to get to the Central Station, for example. Turns out I was testing my luck all those times by breaking the unspoken rule of the sober: ignore the heavily drunk. But, one lives to learn -- or in my case, one gets smacked to learn. When this scrawny teenager, balancing precariously on the sidewalk ledge, waved at me to inquire if he could ask me something  I had no misgivings to stop and hear him out. He had a rose-holding friend with him, equally drunk, but the opposite of scrawny. It transpired that they simply needed a cigarette. I simply had none. Which simply explains the smack. But still...

One more: a butt-naked roller-skater. I was on my bike carving my way to work (again!) through a dark, early weekday morning when my path converged with his. Oy! Because I wasn't expecting to see anybody's rear end exposed in the middle of a road in the city centre, despite it being Amsterdam, and because he was still a block away from me, I gave the roller-skater the benefit of the doubt and attributed his well-outlined tooshes to, you know, a pair of Spandex. Closer, and the truth was revealing. Besides the roller skates, his whole getup was compounded of a swimming cap, a pair of goggles (in the dark!), and a pair of sunburnt-red thongs. When I caught up with him, he slowed down to give me the right of way, and not looking back off I went. I later heard the man is sort of a local celebrity, roller-skating the streets butt-naked for years. From what I saw he is probably in his upper fifties or lower sixties, but what do I know? The fact that I saw him only now makes me think that Amsterdam is finally opening up its true gems for me. And if so, who knows what I can see next...

And one more: dark chocolate almond butter cups. This is from the department of good finds. Taking no longer than ten minutes to make and a bit more to set, they help February to go off with a bang. Themselves they are here to stay. The confection is purely what it is: dark chocolate that crisps up to enwrap in a frilly cup a blob of good almond butter. The latter is only slightly reinforced by honey and powdered sugar to hold its shape, but I also crushed up an amaretti cookie (a surplus from last Christmas) and grated half a tonka bean (I got a few from a friend, years ago now) to go in the lot, for good measure. A minute pinch of sea salt on top, and one tiny cup cinches you good and thorough. The best part for me? The way the thin layer of chilled chocolate cracks under my teeth and gives way to the filling inside, which in itself is a mini playground for the tongue, what with the cookie nibs and pieces and an occasional shard of almond, all in one knob. Try to resist. I should constantly have one handy to appease Olivia the Cat Lady if she loses her cool on me again, but these cups are best eaten cold, so I probably won't.

Dark Chocolate Almond Butter Cups

Adapted from The Sprouted Kitchen
Yield: 12 mini-cups

First few times I made these, I invariably had a good bit of chocolate left over (a perfect thing to spread a hunk of fresh baguette with, by the way). Could be the paper forms I use are smaller, but forcing more chocolate into the cups to use it all up only made the top thicker than the bottom, which I didn't like. I reduced the amount of chocolate altogether.

An amaretti cookie (store-bought) is not a must here, but I highly recommend it for the crunch. Give it a couple good bashings, but be careful to not pulverize it. Tonka bean is completely optional, although it imparts such an interesting flavor, a cross between vanilla and almonds and cinnamon...

If you have a mini-muffin tin, use it to help the cups hold their shape. But without the tin everything works out just as well. I use baking cups 35-mm (1.4-inch) in diameter.

And, these little things are really at their best cold. Their chocolate encasing cracks just so when chilled, such a joy!

150 g (5 oz) dark chocolate (70 % cocoa solids)
150 g (5 oz) organic almond butter
2 Tbsp honey
1 Tbsp powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp table salt
1 amaretti cookie, crushed (optional)
Tonka bean, a few generous gratings (optional)
Fleur de sel, for topping

Break the chocolate into small pieces and let melt in a small bowl set over a pot of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl shouldn't touch the water). Stir to make sure it's completely melted and smooth.

In a small bowl, mix the almond butter together with the honey, powdered sugar, vanilla extract, salt, and amaretti cookie and tonka bean (if using). The filling should be firm enough to roll into a ball. Depending how smooth or runny your almond butter is, you might want to add a bit more honey and powdered sugar to seize the filling up.

Place the liners on a large and flat (!) plate or in a mini-muffin tin. Working with one liner at a time, poor in a teaspoon of chocolate on the bottom. Tilt and twist around so that the chocolate coats at least one-third of the sides of the liner. Repeat with the remaining cups. Scoop out a teaspoon of the filling, roll it gently between your palms into a ball, give it a slight press-down and put in the middle of the cup. Repeat. Poor another teaspoon of the chocolate over the almond butter ball, and tilt and twist around so the chocolate covers the filling completely. Repeat with the remaining cups. Sprinkle a tiny pinch of fleur de sel on top of each one and send off in the fridge to set.

Keep in a container, covered and chilled. The cups will stay good for up to a week.

Hundreds of them

I'm twenty-eight and so far I've given a ton of thought to the matter of what foodstuff I just wouldn't feel comfortable without. I wouldn't align such meditation with the ubiquitous desert island or doomsday scenarios, no. It's more of a benign pondering about a bite of what I, a serious and devoted eater, would be happy to have on any given day, come what may. In general terms, I can't do without fruit. But: there is fruit and then there is fruit, by which I mean there is fruit and there are...apples. One, two, three apples a day -- that's for me. Of course, of course I wouldn't collapse on the floor in tears if there is none, oh no, I wouldn't, especially if there are slurpy, oil-coated fried noodles around, or spicy chana punjabi, or cake, yes.  Yet, should one thing be stripped off my plate for good, please, for fruit's sake, may it not be apples.

But look, don't think I'm so noble. My views don't stand unwavered. Every summer I run away with the circus of fresh berries and stone fruits thoroughly trimming my old allegiances to the bone. It surely is joy to frolic in the sun with the summer's ruby-cheeked and gentle offsprings, and it would make me such a big liar to say I would never not do it -- I'm not so prudent (who is?). But even then, ask me what my all-time favorite is, and apples I'll say. But wait, it's not because I'm so healthy either. I don't find it outrageous at all to start my day with a slab of one cake and to finish with another. Not to take away from the nutritional value of cake, but you know what I mean.

My fondness for apples -- beyond their crunch, and the way their skin splits open under my teeth, and their sweet and tart flesh, and how they quench my thirst  -- may have something to do with longing. Ivan Bunin wrote about such kind of longing in his Antonov Apples. I was fifteen to read the story for the first time. I didn't pick up much on Bunin's nostalgia for the times of land-owners and their peasants, but I did smell from the pages that honey and befallen leaves and ripe apples in the thinning autumnal Russian countryside, and that longing of his, not the ideological kind but the physical pulling in the gut, was somehow -- through the obsolete words, and the barking of a stray dog below my windows, and the air around me heavy with the smoke and the scent of decaying leaves -- also mine. Mine, because I, too, longed.

There had been a year earlier when my grandparents' apple trees bore the unexpected bounty of late harvest fruit, and so a lot of it was stored in wooden crates for winter. My cousins and I got a couple of crates each. Every day while my fruit stash lasted I popped out onto my parents' balcony where the crates sat to pick up a few apples, each not larger than a tennis ball, in the morning and a few at night. Those that hadn't yet become wizened and started to smell of a cheap cider were as crisp as air on clear and frosty days and had a vague scent of tea roses. I devoured hundreds of them, already reaching for the next while only a few bites into the first. As if I knew that I should -- what if next year the apple trees wouldn't bear fruit at all, or the year after my grandparents would sell their dacha. As if devouring those apples meant to devour the barking of a dog at dawn, the cotton fog lifting slowly off the ground, the image of my grandfather trying to knock the fruit off the brunches with his cane, the soft and quiet sun...

I don't mean to say that every apple I hold now sends me down memory lane and into that place where a continuous anticipation for, and apprehension of, the moments to come competes with a constant longing for the moments that passed. That would be overwhelming. But eating an untoward amount of apples appeared to be somewhat habit-forming for me -- I'm glad things didn't go down the aversion road -- which is fine with me seeing my predilection for cake three times, or more, a day (see above).

Apple and Spelt Muffins

Yield: 12 muffins

These are my favorite muffins. To communicate how much I like them, let me tell you this: if nobody ever invented cake (again, see above), I would never complain to spend the rest of my life with only these muffins around. That's how much.

A few years ago I teamed up with a food photographer to do a project together. We brainstormed and agreed to play around spelt, now that it's reliving its former glory here in Holland. My task was to develop a number of recipes utilizing the grain in its various forms, and I wouldn't be myself, you understand, if I didn't do something with apples. The project didn't sell, but it was a good experience for me anyway. Last week I unearthed this one recipe and tinkered with it some more, and whoa, fully loaded with spelt flour, apples (!), spices, citrus, and oats, these muffins, nutty, and wholesome, and fragrant, and moreish, knocked me off my feet.

Often baked goods with spelt flour have a dry reputation, and I had a fear that completely foregoing conventional wheat flour this time around could put my muffins at great risk, but I shouldn't have worried so much. A few tweaks here and there -- largely, pairing baking powder with baking soda and using vegetable oil in place of butter -- and these little darlings revealed the interior that's tender and moist, and most importantly, it stays so. If you let it to, that is. 

I noticed at my health food store that spelt flour comes in two forms: refined and whole-grain. So you know, for this recipe I used the refined type.

Ok, let's do it.

260 g (9 oz) spelt flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
60 g (2 oz) rolled oats
1/4 teaspoon table salt
130 g (4.5 oz) sugar
zest of 1 medium lemon
zest of 1 lime
2 large eggs
80 ml (1/3 cup) buttermilk
80 ml  (1/3 cup) non-fragrant vegetable oil
300 g (10 oz) peeled and coarsely grated apples (from about 2 1/2 medium apples, such as Elstar)

Warm the oven to 180 C (350 F) and oil a 12-pocket muffin tin.

Sieve together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and spices. In a blender or a clean coffee grinder, coarsely grate the oats. Add to the flour, along with the salt, and mix well.

In a separate mixing bowl, rub the citrus zest into the sugar. Break in the eggs and beat on high speed for two minutes. Mix in the buttermilk and oil.

Incorporate the flour mixture into the egg and sugar mixture. The lot will appear to be somewhat dry, but fear not. Fold in the apples; their juices will bring in more moisture.

Scoop the batter into the muffin tin, a good 1/4 cup per pocket. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the muffins look nice and dark-golden brown. Let cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then twist each one out and remove on a wire rack to cool completely. Stored in an airtight container, these muffins keep well for up to two days, but they are at their best a couple hours after baking. (Storage tip: to prevent the muffin tops from getting 'sweaty' from the emanating moisture, place a piece of paper towel together with the muffins in the container.)