Ambabur Bed (Somalia)

Big day in our house! Today was Ian's first day in his Hi-5 preschool program. After eagerly packing the backpack and picking out a new school outfit, Ian was off and running as an official student, one who rides the bus and everything. Something we love about Ian's school is the diversity of the student body. Almost 40% of the school is black and 35% Latino, so many of the students are brown like Ian. Many of his classmates are Somali, so tonight in honor of Ian's first day of school and of Eid al-Fitr, which falls today to celebrate the end of Ramadan, I made Ambabur Bed, Somali Egg Crepes, which is a recipe made specifically for this holy day.

For a long time, Ian believed that any brown person he saw was from Ethiopia. Technically that's true for all people, since the origins of humanity have been linked to ET, but that isn't exactly what he understood;) We've slowly been introducing him to concept of race by explaining the different places where brown people can be born and what that means. This is a big idea for a four year old, only complicated by his understanding of adoption! Just recently he asked what country his new cousin, my brother's baby, will be from when it is born in October. I explained the baby will be American and why, yet he still asked what language it would speak and how we all might be able to communicate. He knows so much of the world and what makes a family, but then is limited by the uniqueness that experience.

And the fact remains that many of his classmates are indeed Somalian, from a country right next to Ethiopia. Their journeys to America are much different than his, though they share a complicated history of culture and conflict as neighbors from this corner of the world. Some of that history is quite recent or even ongoing for many members of the Somali community, and I want my son to understand the complexity of the Ethiopian-Somali ties. That will take some time and effort. Today we started with food, soft, warm crepes, rolled tightly and flavored with a healthy amount of clove.

 As I poured the thin batter into my skillet, the rest of the family sat coloring at the kitchen counter, and Ian told us about his day and his classmates. He got to drink juice at school and color a school bus yellow. He made one new friend. One of the boys in his class cried when he had to get on the bus home, and one of the girls  rolled her wheelchair onto a special platform to help her ride on Ian's bus. During his telling, little Suki just demanded his crepes:) There are many different experiences and people that Ian and Suki will encounter in their school days. I hope that we can teach them to be open to how that might enrich their lives and the connectedness that may exist. Ian is certainly ready to get back to school tomorrow, which was made even sweeter by the promise of left over crepes from breakfast in the morning.

Murgir Korma (Bangladesh) vs. The State Fair (MN)

This weekend, my last before the start of the school year, started with a culinary adventure from Bangladesh and ended with the Minnesota cultural phenomenon that is the State Fair. Friday night I cooked up murgir korma, sweet chicken curry with yogurt, for dinner. This recipe from Extending the Table was a fun experiment in flavors. The curry was one built within the recipe. The book did give me the option of substituting 2.5 tsp of curry powder, but where is the fun in that? So I patiently fried ginger, clove, cardamom, cinnamon, coriander, cumin, red pepper, turmeric and salt in with the onion, garlic and oil. It was heavenly, and literally brought John to an abrupt halt when he caught the scent. This recipe actually gave me a lot of 'optionals' which I chose to use. I'd come this far with the list above, why not add a bit more? My only concern was whether the boys would eat it or not.

To our delight, the dish was delicious for all. The curry was sweet and delicate, perfect for the young palates of the boys, who are just starting to enjoy flavors beyond cheese and peanut butter. The boys gobbled up their chicken with little interest in my attempts to talk with them about the origins of the recipe in Bangladesh. Instead we talked about the day's swimming adventure, giggled about this and that, and had seconds. It was the most relaxed I had been all week.

Today we went to the State Fair for a different sort of cultural experience. It is such an event that I can't help but use capitals when I type it out! The Great Minnesota Get Together. It was Suki's introduction to an annual event that he will share with us for years to come and an event that Ian now can't wait to get to. John and I have an eating strategy from way back that allows for making our way around the fair. We share everything we buy so that we get to try more things, even though we eat less of them. There are a few exceptions, like the Pronto Pup and the frozen cider sticks, but for the most part it works well. All four of us shared, in the order we ate them, Pronto Pups, mini donuts, frozen cider, turkey sandwich, sweet corn ice cream, cheese curds, strawberry milkshake, french fries, and honey sticks. It was quite the afternoon of feasting, yet the acts of sitting on the edge of a bench and in the strollers, sharing our food, usually with just one or two spoons, was intimate, even surrounded by a couple hundred thousand people.

These two experiences were such opposite experiences for our family's palate, from a dish made from fresh ingredients and joy to mass produced and fried.  But they ended up really being about the same connection of being a family, sharing, giggling, eating, talking. As time goes by and our family gets busier with sports and activities, when our boys grow to need several Pronto Pups of their own to make it through the day, we may need to be more intentional about creating these moments, but I have no doubt we will. We are building the foundation now, one meal at a time.

Lekatane Jam (Botswana)

This week the boys started to daycare for the school year, and I imagined myself anxiously puttering through the house for endless hours wondering how the boys were faring. Of course, I have been ridiculously busy, the week full of errands and projects, and the boys are having a blast playing with the other kids. So today I finally got around to one of the recipes that I wanted to try, which is Lekatane, or watermelon, jam.


Let me just say that this jam was fabulous! I made my first batch in my pajamas before I even finished my first cup of coffee. See, that's the kind of schedule I put myself on this week. Make jam, go to Costco, make pickles, go to the store, make another batch of delicious jam, stew tomatoes, Hi 5 open house, make bread, and on and on. These are in fact all the things I did today. I was so busy I hardly had a chance to enjoy this sinfully sweet jam with a touch of ginger and a tart finish. I kept sneaking into the fridge for a quick bite between dusting the house and checking my email. All I really wanted to do today was make jam!

I don't know that I am going to learn anything or impart anything to my family if I don't slow down and take the time to enjoy cooking like I absolutely love cooking. Even after I made the jam, I thought, damn, now I have to find time to write about it. And I was really looking forward to writing about it when I started this blog last week! I'm not going to connect to a global community if I'm disconnected from my process at the most basic level. So tomorrow I'm going for a do-over. I'm going to make another recipe. I'm not sure which one. Whatever inspires me. And I'm going to take my time and enjoy the work and enjoy the eating. And that is all that I have planned. For now.

Banana Bread (Jamaica)

I’ve been so excited about starting this blog and imagining all the new and exotic recipes that I might try, that it almost took me by surprise when I actually used the cookbook this morning for a quick batch of banana bread. The two ripe bananas on my counter had been taunting me for three days, and it kills me to have to throw them away, so I opened to the recipe that I have made on an almost weekly basis all summer from Extending the Table. This version of banana bread is easy, not too sweet with just a hint of nutmeg, and the boys love it for their morning snack. It was almost a let down to start with this recipe. Almost…

For the last four months I have followed the same daily routine, almost to the minute at times, to provide our new son Suki with the comfort and safety of the ‘expected’ in his crazy new family and world. Now, God knows I love a good routine, but we have outdone ourselves with the rigidity of our daily schedule. But Suki thrives on this routine. He sleeps. He eats. He plays. He tantrums few and far between. He learns. He loves. In such a short time he has progressed in ways we never expected at this point, all because he knows exactly what is going to happen and when.

So many of us take comfort in the foods we love and the traditions surrounding these meals. These last fours months have been INTENSE, and my sons are old enough that they will remember how we stretched and struggled as a family these last months. It hasn’t all been pretty. But as the years pass, maybe the scent of this fresh baked bread will bring to mind the giggly mornings sitting at the counter, sneaking tastes of batter and watching mom mash banana in her purple bathrobe. Maybe they will feel the comfort of those mornings, knowing that is just an hour a perfect loaf of banana bread filled us up in more ways than one.

It is no coincidence that I am starting this new blog as I head back to work and Suki starts daycare. Things are going to be shaken up yet again in our household. We may backslide some. So I’m planning on feeding my anxiety and angst into these recipes. Which will most likely be served every night at exactly 6:00.

Inspired Beginnings: Ambesha (Ethiopia)

Last week my son Ian requested I make "Ethiopia bread," formally Ambesha, which is a spicy tea bread about two inches thick and topped with butter and berbere. On the surface, a simple, tasty request, easily done over the course of a morning. But really, this bread was about much more. This summer my son has developed an intense interest in Ethiopia, his country of birth. He talks of Ethiopia daily, asks questions about his Ethiopian family, imagines life there, and asks for the flavors that connect him to his history. The bread is about a place that exists in his very soul, that he remembers on an instinctual level.

Last week also marked the first time we took our younger son, Sukris, to a Thai restaurant since he joined our family four months ago. Suki dived into his satay chicken and peanut sauce with such enthusiasm, that I just had to ask if he had eaten this same meal in Thailand. His answer was a resounding yes, with the surprising addition that the elephants there also eat this, too! Even though he is not yet grasping the English to request his favorite meals, Suki shares the same need as his brother to connect with his history, which is much more recent and present in his little mind and heart. He may not have the words yet, but we can provide him with the experiences to meet his needs.

For our family, food is about much more than eating. We share meals daily as a means to connect and maintain open lines of communication. Food is also a connection to culture, history, tradition and more. My husband and I have a shared history of family dinners and seek to continue the tradition with our boys, honoring their pasts and expanding their worlds as we do.

Since that morning I baked the Ambesha, the cookbook with the recipe has been sitting on my counter, beckoning me to flip through the pages and imagine the flavors. It is one of my favorites, given to me by my stepmother several years ago. Extending the Table is a cookbook commissioned by the Menonite Central Community to "promote global understanding and celebrate the variety of world cultures." With over 100 countries and regions represented in its recipes, the book urges the cook to "sit at the table with people you have never met, taste the flavors of their food, feel the warmth of their friendship and learn from their experiences." I am taking their challenge to heart and will be doing my best to cook one recipe a week from the book for the forseeable future. That challenge will be recorded here.

This blog is about our family's edible journey to not only connect with the cultures within our transracial exisitence, but to be global citizens. I am inviting you as readers to sit at our table as well.  My inspiration is Extending the Table, but will not be limited to just the food that comes from this book. I will not be reprinting recipes in the book in this blog. For recipes, go ahead and buy the book! Start your own journey, and check in with me about how it goes. Bon Appetit!