Stir It Up (3 page)

“Yes, child,” says Deema, smiling. “What you think they make tapioca from — cassava. And tapioca not only a pudding but a thickener for pies and such.”

“Deema, no one knows more about cooking than you.”

“Well, me ain’ know ’bout
that,”
Deema says, laughing. Whenever my grandmother gets excited she slips into a deeper Trinidadian accent, as sweet and as thick as the bean steam that’s filled our kitchen.

I peel half a cassava and cut it into chunks, then rinse it in cold water before dumping it with the beans into the boiling pot. The beans do somersaults in the simmering water, bumping lightly against the cassava pieces. Once they’re soft, I drain them in a colander and put them in the food processor.

Deema sets out some light brown sugar, which I add along with mixed essence, a flavoring that goes into most Caribbean baked things. I uncap the mixed essence and take a deep whiff before adding it in. Mixed essence smells like a mix of pears, almonds, and vanilla. It’s one of my favorite smells in the world.

I cover the food processor, pulsing the beans until they start to get mashed under the blades.

“Add a little of the cooking water if you have to,” Deema says to me, and hands over a small measuring cup with water she kept aside from the beans. I add
it, bit by bit, through the funnel of the processor until, finally, the beans whir into a smooth pink paste.

Deema’s hand is on her hip as she stares at the cupboard. “Now, let’s see what else …”

“I was thinking coconut milk, maybe, to make it light and creamy,” I say.

“You thinkin’ right, Anjali,” Deema says, smiling at me.

We spend the next hour making the pudding. When it’s done I arrange some in a white bowl and garnish it with cinnamon. I put the bowl on a colorful place mat, then I run back to my room to get my camera to take a photo for my portfolio. Afterward, Deema and I bring some in to my mom, who is sitting at the dining room table just outside the kitchen, studying for her nursing exam.

Mom was a nurse back in Trinidad. When she came here, she had to take a bunch of new classes and retake all the tests. When she had me and Anand, she stopped studying for a while, then when we got big enough, she had to work to help my dad get the roti shop started. Now she goes to school at night, and she’ll probably graduate next year.

On the other side of our L-shaped living room, my brother is doing his homework. I put some of the pudding on the coffee table in front of him and set some down for Mom, too. Back in the kitchen, I put more pudding in a bowl covered in plastic for my dad to eat when he comes in from the restaurant.

“Delicious!”
Mom murmurs without looking up. “You are a culinary genius, Rosie,” she says to Deema.

“Actually, Lottie, this delicious pudding was Anjali’s idea,” Deema says, putting her arm around my shoulders.

Mom doesn’t answer. She’s deep in her nursing books. Deema hugs me. She must have felt something tighten. I’m often invisible to Mom. Even my pudding can’t soften her when she’s studying.

Mom almost never has time to pay attention to me or Anand. She’s always tired when she gets home from her nanny job taking care of the Sovald kids in Manhattan. At night she has to study. When I was a little kid, I used to think she liked those little white Sovald kids better than me and Anand, and that by the end of the day she had used up all the affection she had on them.

“Mommy don’t mean nothin’ by it, child,” Deema starts to say as I begin pouring the rest of the pudding into a Tupperware container to take to school, where I’ll share some with Linc.

“It’s okay, Deema, I know,” I say quickly, and put the container in the fridge before cleaning up.

1 three-inch piece of cassava (yucca), peeled

1 fifteen-ounce can dark red kidney beans

1 cup water

1 cup light brown sugar

1 cup coconut milk

1 teaspoon mixed essence or vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

whipped cream for garnish (optional)

1. Place the cassava in a saucepan, cover with water, and bring to a boil. Cook until fork tender, about 20 minutes.

2. When the cassava is fork tender, drain it and set aside to cool. Rinse the kidney beans in a colander and place in a large saucepan with 1 cup water and the sugar and bring to a simmer.

3. Once the cassava is cool, cut it in half
and remove the woody center. Chop into small pieces and add to the bean mixture.

4. Allow the beans to simmer until the liquid is reduced by three-quarters. Pour the mixture into a food processor and puree until smooth.

5. Return the bean mixture to the pan and add the coconut milk, mixed essence or vanilla, and nutmeg. Stir well and continue to cook over low heat until thickened further, about 5 to 10 minutes.

6. Remove and place in a heatproof bowl to cool. Chill in the refrigerator. Serve in pudding bowls or champagne flutes with whipped cream for garnish.

Makes 6 servings

Island Spice is already hopping when I come in the front door. The place is always frantic on Friday nights. To get to the kitchen, I have to squeeze by customers filling up the tables in the front of the shop. In addition to the usual strong smell of curry, I can make out the smoky smell of boiling banana leaves. That means Deema is making either
pastelles
or
paymee,
a cake made out of grated cassava, coconut, and sugar, wrapped in a banana leaf.

“Dad!” I call out to my father, who is working the register. I head toward the kitchen in the back, where Deema is frying up
aloo
pies, hot potato turnovers, a favorite weekend snack around here.

I grab one of the pies, quickly moving it from hand to hand so I won’t get burned, then lean over and peck Deema on the cheek.

“God bless you,
bayti
,” Deema says, calling me the Hindi word for daughter. “How school was today?”

“Linc loved the red bean pudding,” I say, reaching into my bag and taking out the empty Tupperware container.

Deema continues to steadily drop the prepared
aloo
pies in the deep fryer. I quickly finish my own
aloo
pie, which is spicy with hot pepper and sweet with fried onions, wipe my hands on a paper towel, tie on an apron, and head over to the sink to wash the utensils there. I’m back in the beehive. Busy. Buzzing. Cooking. Rushing. “Move it!” Dad calls.

My insides churn as I wash the various pots and pans and large spoons that Deema uses to mix the curry. Dad’s voice is a drill. “Come, make it happen!” Deema steps away from the fryer to put the meals together for the waiting customers.

“One curry chicken!” Dad shouts the order. “And one
dalpuri
and curry shrimp,” he calls out. Deema fills a foil takeaway container with the chicken on one side and a pile of the softly shredded rotis on the other. She covers it and puts it on the table behind her for Dad to pick up. Next she places the
dalpuri,
a roti stuffed with powdery ground
yellow split peas in its folds, on a large square of parchment paper, then spoons the curry shrimp inside. She folds the whole thing into a fat square, twisting the ends of the parchment tightly so it can be eaten like a burrito.

I wash dishes faster so I can hurry to help Deema. My grandmother is fast and looks much younger than her age, but she’s still an old lady and it isn’t really right for her to have to run around so much, especially when Anand can help. Part of the problem is that my parents won’t make Anand work in the restaurant. “He a young boy,” my dad likes to say. “He need to run around and have some fun.”

Whenever I bring up the subject with Mom, she sighs and says she can’t think about it now or that she has to study.

Doesn’t it matter that
I
don’t have any fun? I’m only a year older than Anand, so
I’m
young, too. Once when I told my dad how unfair it all is, he said, “Anjali, what’s fair is that you get to cook with Deema. Ain’t that yuh hobby?” Dad’s right — food is my thing. Plus, if I didn’t help, it would be really hard on Deema, so I try not to complain.

I finish scrubbing the last colander and rinse it off. I dry my hands, then go to the front of the kitchen and begin helping Deema fill orders. It’s dark outside now, and my father turns on the restaurant’s CD player. Steel drum music fills the place. Customers tap their feet, drum on the tables, singing about
soca
and island life, wrapping themselves in the rhythms of David Rudder’s famous voice. My mom says that when she was pregnant with me and she played a David Rudder CD, I would start moving in her belly. Now the music makes my belly leap with its beat. I dance a little while we fill rotis and put
aloo
pies in the foil containers next to small plastic cups of pepper sauce.

It’s hard not to be in a good mood, especially since tomorrow is Saturday, when Deema and I are taking the kids’ cooking class at the Institute of Culinary Education in Manhattan. The classes are a gift from Deema. David Rudder’s got me moving fast and light on my feet, carrying rotis,
aloo
pies, pepper sauce, and my own rocking
soca
beat to our customers. Deema smiles at me. She’s humming softly to the music as she works.

2 cups all-purpose flour
pinch of salt
1/2 cup water

2 teaspoons baking powder
1 pound Yukon gold or other boiling potatoes, boiled and peeled
1/2 teaspoon salt
hot pepper sauce, to taste
1/2 cup canola oil
1 small onion, chopped
5 large cloves garlic, minced
1/2 Roma tomato, seeded and chopped

1. Mix together the flour, pinch of salt, and baking powder. Add just enough water — about half a cup — to bring the dough together, and knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. Form into balls about
2 inches in diameter, and set aside to rest for 15 minutes.

2. Mash the potatoes, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and hot pepper sauce together and set aside.

3. Heat a large frying pan with 1 tablespoon of the canola oil and fry the onion until it is softened and clear. Add the garlic and fry 30 seconds more. Add the tomato and cook 1 minute longer.

4. Add the mashed potato mixture to the frying pan and mix well so all the ingredients are thoroughly combined. Cook for 1 minute more, and remove from heat. Allow to cool.

5. Flatten a dough ball to about 4 inches in diameter. Place 1 to 2 tablespoons of the potato filling atop a flattened ball and fold it over in a half moon. Using a fork, crimp the edges. Holding the pie in one hand, gently press and flatten it into an oblong shape, roughly 5 inches long, taking care
not to squeeze out the potato filling. Repeat with each dough ball.

6. Heat the remaining oil in a heavy-bottomed frying pan and add the
aloo
pies. Do not crowd the pan. Fry on both sides until golden brown, remove, and drain.

Makes about 15 pies

The Institute of Culinary Education takes up five floors in a big office building on Twenty-third Street in Manhattan. From some of the classroom kitchens you can see the Empire State Building ten blocks north. This morning, sunlight flashes off the windows of the high-rise.

The best part of these classes is that I get to touch and smell and cook with ingredients we never use at home or in the roti shop. It’s like Christmas and my birthday all rolled into one. If I had one wish — besides being a Food Network star — it would be to win a shopping spree in an expensive grocery store where I could buy anything I wanted.

When I turn away from the window behind the big sinks like the ones we have in the roti shop, I see that today’s Kids Cook Tapas class with Chef Nyla is filling up. Deema is already chatting with the father and daughter who are seated at two of the six stations set up at one of the three long stainless steel tables
that make a neat row down the center of the room. At the end of the class, the tables will be pushed together and draped with white tablecloths so we can eat everything we prepare.

At the other tables, adults and kids take their places. Some, like Deema, are grandparents, others are parents, and one girl is here with a young woman she calls Auntie. I sit next to Deema and wait.

Chef Nyla Jones comes into the room. Petite, with light brown skin and a mass of blond ringlet curls piled on top of her head, Chef Nyla looks trim and confident in her white chef’s jacket with the school’s colors, red and gray, piped on the collar. She has two markers and a meat thermometer clipped onto the jacket’s lapel. Her sleeves are neatly rolled up. When I’m a real professional, I hope to look just like her.

I’ve taken a lot of classes with Chef Nyla, and the thing I like best about her is that she always has time for any question, no matter how simple or complicated. She’s always willing to teach a special cooking trick or knife skill. During the last class I took with her — one on cake decorating — she asked me what part of India my parents were from, and she seemed
genuinely excited to learn that they were actually born in Trinidad.

“That’s some of my favorite food in the world,” Chef Nyla told me.

Chef Nyla closes the wide glass door to the classroom and stands in front of the class. After waiting a minute for everyone to settle down, she says, “Good morning, class. I’m Chef Nyla Jones. I hope you’re all in the mood for a feast of tapas!”

I listen carefully as Chef Nyla describes tapas as many small dishes that are served with wine in Spain.

I take careful notes in the large hardback sketchbook I use for my culinary projects and questions. It’s filled with clippings from food magazines and the
New York Times
food section. On the back page I keep all of my usernames and passwords for the food blogs I follow, and on the inside cover I have a running list of cookbooks I want to buy.

I turn to the front of my notebook, where I’ve stapled a piece of card stock on the bottom half of the cover to form a pocket. I pull out the neatly folded piece of paper I put there this morning. It’s Deema’s Easy Curry Chicken recipe that I’ve typed on my
computer to give Chef Nyla when she makes her way to our table in the back.