The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Thursday, October 12, 2017 — 3B
Pass the Cake: A look at
food, family and being
together when you’re not
STOCK/ DAILY
Good eating
Arts writer Arya Naidu reflects on her cultural & familial
attachment to food and her family’s incomparable cooking
Sometime about 2006, my
family started doing these
semi-huge
reunions.
I
say
semi-huge because we’re kind
of an overwhelming bunch.
What we lack in number (and
there are quite a few of us), we
make up for in noise and pure
dimension. I always think I’m
tall until I get a crick in my
neck from hugging my cousins.
We’d pick the Fourth of July
or Memorial Day — some
extended weekend — and get
together almost every year.
As it’s the middle of Middle
America, a regional identity
I’ve come to take a lot of pride
in, my hometown of St. Louis
was always our hub. The kids
would stay in my parents’
house, and the wiser folks
would be 10 minutes away at
my grandparents’. As time
passed, the location sometimes
changed, but St. Louis has
always been our center. My
grandparents have been there
for
30-plus
years,
moving
there from Detroit shortly
after immigrating from India.
It was, and is, without fail,
my favorite weekend of the
year. All my cousins set up
camp in my room; the half-
dozen of us stumbling over one
another whenever someone
did so much as try to stand
up. Every inch of the floor
was covered in makeshift beds
and old blankets. Our guest
room was empty, but it didn’t
really matter. This one moved
across the world and that one
changed professions and the
other two found a place in
Texas — so, it didn’t matter.
Right now, we were all home,
here, and we wanted nothing
more than to kick one another
in our sleep and trip when we
walked to the bathroom. And,
of course, eat.
The only time we move as
a unit is when food beckons.
Loading into my mom’s car
(I’m in the trunk. Again.),
we make the trek to Nani’s
kitchen. I’ve been calling my
grandma “Nani” since I was a
tyke, and, eventually, everyone
else started calling her “Nani,”
too. There’s power in being
short, chubby and wild.
We smell the food before
we get out of the car. The
turmeric
and
homemade
ginger-garlic paste wafts out
to the driveway, and I see Nani
around the side of the garage,
picking
curry
leaves
from
her karivepaku plant in the
garden. It’s the same scene,
every year. Heck, she finds
something to do with that
plant every day.
Leaving our shoes outside
the back door, we follow her
into the house. My grandpa’s
in the sunroom, munching on
chakralu and reading the St.
Louis Post-Dispatch. Nani’s
already
adding
her
leaves
to the chicken. We disperse
around the various kitchen
cookie jars, most of them
holding boondi and decade-
old caramel calcium chews.
My uncle is peer-pressuring
us to eat the papaya he just
cut. Last year, it was jackfruit.
It’s
chaotic,
and
there’s
pomegranate in my hair and
it’s home.
My
family
is
tethered
together by this event, this
sensation, this food. There are
some cousins I’m not involved
with for months at a time, too
busy with our own schedules
to keep up regular contact.
But, always, in the weeks
leading up to these fleeting
holiday weekends, we’re all
talking endlessly. About the
chili chicken from last summer
and the lamb Nani kept telling
us was tofu and the mess we
consistently make trying to
help with the chapatis.
About the fifth year we
all got together, we were
celebrating Nani’s birthday,
and we got a full sheet of
ambrosia cake from Dierberg’s
(a St. Louis grocery store). It’s
a vanilla base, topped with
fresh pineapples and kiwis
and magic. My cousins and I
have tried to find an ambrosia
cake as good as the one at
Dierberg’s, but it just doesn’t
exist. This is a fact.
The evening of the big
birthday dinner, we walked
into the kitchen after dessert,
and we see this leftover cake
being
dumped
into
giant
Tupperware containers. My
aunt, my mom, Nani — they’re
taking spatulas to the slab,
shoveling it into random bins.
I repeat: spatulas.
That is, and always will be,
the most I have ever laughed.
Here we were: A bunch of
entitled, oblivious, blissfully
stuffed
cousins,
watching
the best thing that has ever
happened to us being dumped
into vats. Something about
the act was so bizarre yet felt
oddly normal.
As a first-generation child,
I’ve grown up with a little (a
lot of) spice in my life. Seeing
the
Dierberg’s
masterpiece
turned into mushy mountains
was the first time I think I
realized just how much I took
my culture for granted. This
brazenness and warmth are
pieces of my everyday life
because
they’re
entwined
with my vibrant, brash, South
Indian family. This was almost
four years ago, and we’re still
giggling about it.
My
family.
They’re
my
favorite people in the world,
and
I
say
that
without
hesitation. That night with
the cake, we stayed up until
2 or 3 a.m., just gossiping and
belly-laughing out of our food
comas. And when we woke
up, we went straight for our
tubs of ambrosia. We’ve made
the cake a staple at each get-
together since.
Almost every year turned
into almost every other year,
which
turned
into
family
weddings, or as often as we
could. But I know that if,
right now, at 11:29 p.m. on this
rainy weekend night, I needed
someone, anyone, from my
family, they would get here
as fast as they could. Even the
ones a plane ride away.
We’re not just a bunch of
hungry relatives. I mean, we
are, but food is a currency of
love for us. It’s what we’ve
used to bring us back to one
another. When words aren’t
enough or time gaps get too big
or some trivial kinfolk drama
clouds our judgment, the food
roots us. We share it with one
another and create it for one
another because it’s a way for
ARYA NAIDU
Daily Arts Writer
B-SIDE SECONDARY
us to be together, even when
we’re not.
My grandmother’s cooking
has become such a routine; it’s
always there for us, whether
that be in the form of dinner
every night or the tea she brews
at 3 p.m., every day. When
something is so familiar, so
normal, it’s easy to lose sight
of what a blessing it is. I’ve
lived 10 minutes away from
my grandparents since I was 8,
and now that I don’t anymore,
I miss it. I miss them. So, I put
on a pot of rice every now and
then. I drink a cup of tea each
afternoon.
Food
has
this
incredible
capacity to just let you be
there, wherever “there” is for
you. Eating is such a habitual
practice. Eventually, concrete
images and specific moments
start attaching themselves to
each meal. Every time I’m on
my bed, curled up with a cup
of Darjeeling, or I order a chai
from Espresso, I’m with Nani,
watching her do cryptograms
and
dip
biscotti
into
her
steaming mug. I’m helping my
mom grate fresh ginger into the
boiling milk on the stove. I’m
532 miles away, but I’m there.
No matter where I am or
what I’m eating, food always,
always, always makes me think
of my family. I think of what
Nani cultivated for us in all her
whizzing around the kitchen.
Without her cardamom or chili
peppers or whatever it is she
does that makes everything
taste so good, I don’t know what
our relationships would be like.
I don’t want to know.
I can’t tell Nani I’ve gone
to a South Indian restaurant
without her coyly asking, “You
know mine is better, isn’t it?”
I always say yes, and it’s
always true. I have a hunch
that everyone in the family
would agree because we’re
always getting more than just a
meal with Nani. We’re finding
vignettes of her life in India
and creating traditions and
plunging into this feeling of
home being able to exist inside
of everyone.
If there’s one snapshot I’ll
hold in my heart until the world
stops
spinning,
it’s
sitting
around the wobbly wooden
table in my mom’s sunroom,
the morning after one of Nani’s
feasts, and eating ambrosia
cake for breakfast. It’s a scene
we’ve set multiple times now,
and it never gets old. We pull up
extra chairs from the kitchen
and dining room. There’s a
pot of coffee brewing, which
has already been emptied and
restarted two or three times
that morning. A dozen donuts
from Dunkin’ are sitting on
the kitchen table, because we
obviously haven’t had enough
sugar. In all its hectic glory,
it’s warm and peaceful and
dependable. It’s home.
My family is
tethered together
by this event, this
sensation, this
food
That night with
the cake, we
stayed up until
2 or 3 a.m., just
gossiping and
belly-laughing out
of our food comas
FILM NOTEBOOK
Me, Myself & Mel Brooks
A personal reflection on the significance of not just Mel
but most Jewish cinema and actors in a Jewish girl’s life
I am like, really Jewish. At
least that is what my friends
tell me. I don’t know if it is
my sizably Semitic nose or
my affinity for bagels and lox
or maybe just the everything
about me. Setting stereotypical
truths
aside
for
now,
my
Jewishness has been endlessly
present in my life. I have
constantly been the resident
Jew
on
matters
regarding
everything from the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict to Woody
Allen’s credibility.
Every summer, for as long
as I can remember, I went to
my grandma’s little, ranch-
style house in Dayton, Ohio.
On those sweltering August
days, once we had gone to the
Air Force museum one too
many times or played all the
Nintendo 64 our little thumbs
could handle, we were left
with limited options in terms
of entertainment. Sitting on
that shag orange carpet stained
with memories and coffee, I was
transported to a world where
cowboys farted and Schwartz
was not my best friend’s last
name,
but
an
all-powerful
force. From “Spaceballs” to
“Blazing
Saddles”
summers
with Grandma proved to be
a
comedic
adventure
into
the hilarious, Jewish world
of Mel Brooks. Even before I
knew what “Star Wars” was,
I was watching my brothers
watch that guy from “Honey
I Shrunk the Kids” wearing a
humorously large helmet and
a small golden guru named
Yogurt caring a whole awful lot
about merchandising.
When
we
got
sick
of
rewinding “Robin Hood: Men
in Tights” and completed our
own renditions of the self-
aware
masterpiece,
we
set
our sights on the pantheon of
Jewish film, the holy grail of
Semitic Cinema, the one, the
only “The Frisco Kid.” If you
haven’t seen it, you’re tacky
and I hate you. For reference,
the film stars Han Solo as a
rough and tough cowboy and
Willy Wonka as a Yiddish-
speaking Rabbi on a Western
adventure of Clint Eastwood
proportions;
it
doesn’t
get
any better than that. The film
approached complex themes
of the fish out of water and
immigrant experience while
creating
dynamic
character
relationships with the perfect
dose of good, old Jewish humor.
When I think of “The Frisco
Kid,” I think of my childhood,
of those long, summer days at
Grandma’s house and watching
those classic movies on an
ancient television screen while
eating Spaghetti-O’s.
I am like, really Jewish. If
that means I get excited about
Yiddish-isms in “Seinfeld” or
references to Jewish law in
“Transparent” or the simple
utterance of an “oy” from
an exasperated goy, so be it.
Sometimes it was little things,
like when John Goodman’s
Walter Sobchak in “The Big
Lebowski” claims he doesn’t
role on Shabbos or anytime a
Yiddish phrase was uttered in
“A Serious Man” (pretty much
anything the Coen brothers
do thrills me). But it was more
than understanding what the
filmmakers were trying to
communicate about their own
stories, but seeing my personal
narrative within it.
I think I was six the first
time I saw Tommy Pickles
put on a yarmulke. Granted, it
was the “Rugrats” Hanukkah
special, but still, something
about it made me see myself
in that wise baby. I saw him
as an extension of my life, my
family, my experience. Perhaps
that is why I am so drawn to
Jewish film, it reminds me that
I am not alone. If there was
Jewish content projected onto
the movie screen, there was no
reason for me to be ashamed or
embarrassed. It was almost like
I was in on some inside joke
that no one else understood. As
if the filmmakers were telling a
joke just to me in a secret kind
of Jewish code.
Now I know why Jewish
film is so important to me.
That feeling of belonging I felt
watching Mel Brooks and Gene
Wilder and Barbara Streisand
is no longer a mystery. It
reminds me why I am proud of
my identity, my heritage, my
tradition, my Jewishness.
BECKY PORTMAN
Daily Arts Writer
WARNER BROS.
I have constantly
been the resident
Jew on matters
regarding
everything
from the Israeli-
Palestinian
conflict to Woody
Allen’s credibility