Mamu and Daddy’s Departure…

P’s family is getting ready to leave. They originally planned to depart on September 26^th, but Mamu really wanted to get home to start organizing the house for Dashain, and they moved their tickets up to Sunday night (Sept 18^th).

They have been with us for twelve weeks.

Wow, I had to recount because I couldn’t believe it when I first counted. That time went super fast.

I was nervous before they came. I hadn’t had bad experiences with them before, but the idea of having my new in-laws live with me full time for such a long time felt daunting, or at least a bit overwhelming. But all went really well. I actually feel a lot closer to them than I did before, particularly Mamu, whom I get a big kick out of and really enjoy.

The last time P’s family visited us it was for five weeks back in 2008. P, myself, P’s brother, P’s cousin MK and P’s cousin’s boyfriend MS dropped them (Mamu, Daddy and MK’s mother J Phupu) off at the airport. We sat together for a while, and eventually it was time for them to go through the security gates. Mamu and J Phupu were crying, but Mamu was an absolute wreck. She was sobbing and was almost too upset to coherently find her way through the security line, and Daddy had to lead her along. When they reached KTM P’s dad called to inform us of their safe arrival, and said Mamu and J Phupu cried most of the plane ride home.

After such a dramatic departure last time, you might wonder if Mamu will equal, if not surpass, her level of anguish after staying with us for twelve weeks.

But I don’t think so. Perhaps Mamu will shed a tear or two, but I don’t think there will be too many frowns or too much sadness this time around.

Because…

We will be following them to Kathmandu next Friday.

Surprise!

Microwavable Popcorn and Tofu Edamame Nuggets

Sometimes P’s mom completely cracks me up. She comes up with things I just don’t expect.

Like when I asked her, “Is there anything else you need from the store before you go back to Nepal?” she went to the cupboard and pulled out a box of microwavable popcorn, “This, good gift, I think.” She said. I had made a few bowls of microwavable popcorn when we were watching a movie one night, and I think she really liked the taste. She said her sister has a microwave in Kathmandu, so this would be a unique gift for her.

“You show me how to make?” she asked, and we ran through the process of opening the plastic wrap, looking for the words “This side UP!” on the package so she knew how to place it in the microwave, and talked about microwave timings (and the possible need to experiment with microwave timings due to different microwaves and altitude).

“Yes, good gift for sister.” She said after the demonstration, then added with another smile, “and I could visit to eat also.”

When I asked her if there were any foods she tried in the US that she wanted to try again before she left she answered, “Joe’s Trader bhatmas [soybeans]… one we try.”

As you remember from Sneaky Mamu, P’s parents really like taste testing things at the Trader Joe’s grocery store. However the first time they went to one in Philadelphia they were scolded for taste testing too many times. So when they came to our Trader Joe’s in Massachusetts they were nervous to take more than one sample. Mamu came up with a loop hole to the “only one sample” rule when the food that was on offer that day wasn’t vegetarian. She surmised we, as vegetarians, could “sneak” extra portions for P and Daddy since the server wouldn’t know that we wouldn’t eat our share.

A week or two later we went to Trader Joe’s again, and Mamu was already excited in the car about what she might taste test, and was hoping it wouldn’t be a meat sample. When we got to the store she was pretty quick to start checking out the taste test stall. She asked me, “Vegetarian?” and I asked the server, and was giving the 100% vegetarian go ahead—it was a new product, tofu edamame nuggets dipped in sweet chili sauce. Mamu loved them immediately. I commented that they were good and asked if I could take a second and the server said yes. This delighted Mamu, but by the time she went for a second helping the nuggets were finished and the new round was still cooking. I chatted with the server for a bit while we waited for the next round, Mamu winking at me conspiratorially, hoping for her illicit second taste. We took a package home for dinner.

These were a good find. A healthy and tasty alternative for little kids who might want a chicken nugget— mental note for a few years down the line.

Mamu checks out the server station for potential vegetarian fare...

Tofu edamame nuggets... she shoots, she scores!

Anyway, last night we did our final Indian grocery store/TJ shopping excursion before P’s parents depart this Sunday evening. As we turned into the parking lot, Mamu was already abuzz in the back seat, explaining to our Nepali neighbor who came along for the shopping trip that he could taste test in the store… “Only once, unless you try [to sneak more, wink wink]” (sorry had to add that in, even though she didn’t articulate it, I had a feeling she was thinking it.)

I asked her, “Mamu, are you going to try for 2 taste tests today?”

“Maybe!”

We headed into the store looking for the tofu edamame nuggets that Mamu wanted to try again before she left for home, Mamu was quick to bee-line for the taste tester station. Yesterday they had crackers with jam and cheese.

“Vegetarian?” she asked me. “Yep,” I answered, and handed her a paper plate with the cheese/cracker. Then I went in search of the nuggets which took me a while to track down since only a few packets were left.

A few minutes later I bumped into Mamu, and she seemed really excited. “I eat twice!” she declared, “once you give, and another man give chocolate. He say, ‘you want’ and I say ‘yes’ and he give. What kind chocolate, I don’t know, but he give extra!”

“Mamu, you had two taste tests!” I said, and her face lit up,

“I did!” and she gave me a big thumbs up, which struck me as such an American thing to do. It cracked me up, I was standing in the aisle of the grocery store giggling. Then Mamu started giggling, and we were both giggling like kids.

Mamu was very proud of her double taste test.

We had her tofu edamame nuggets with sweet chili sauce as a side dish for dinner.

And tonight I’ll take her to the regular grocery store to find a nice big packet of microwavable popcorn.

Ten “Mamu-isms”

P and I were talking the other night and I said that Mamu had told me that P had “been ‘crying’ a lot lately.”

“That’s Mamu-speak for ‘complain’” I added.

“Are you some sort of ‘Mamu expert’ now?” he asked.

“Yeah, I think I speak enough ‘Mamu’ to get by.”

When one first meets Mamu she comes across as very shy and quiet. She will sit in a chair and smile (she smiles more with her eyes than her lips) and nod, but won’t say much. Either that or she will busy herself in the kitchen, out of sight, preparing snacks and drinks for guests.

But once she feels comfortable with you, she can really open up. She is one of those people who are pretty funny and memorable, not intentionally, but just by the noises she makes and the things that she says.

Mamu and I have been speaking largely in English during her visit. Short sentences with simple words, often repeated, slowly spoken, with an occasional Nepali word mixed in. If only more people would speak Nepali to me in a similar way (instead of rambling or fast sentences), I might be more successful.

It’s not just the words she uses, Mamu often accompanies her expressions, stories and questions with sound effects. Even when speaking Nepali. This adds to her funniness.

For example, there are several trains that go by our apartment in the evening and the first week or two she stayed with us the sound of the passing train would often wake her up and disturb her in the night. In the morning after I’d asked, “Mamu, how did you sleep?” she would answer,

“Ehhh, tam tam tam, grrng, what to do?” (‘what to do?’ is often accompanied by a hand gesture where she straightens her thumb and index finger and curls her other fingers and rolls her hand palm down to palm up)

Or, mistrustful of dogs, at the beginning of her stay she would warn us about our dog Sampson, “wild animals, arrr arrr grrr, poison teeth, never trust” (also accompanied by hand gestures of claws scratching or fangs biting).

With P’s parents’ departure date nearing, I thought it would be fun to list some of her most often used sayings:

Numbers 1 and 2 almost go without mention—

“What to do?” and “Not our habit”

“What to do” is pretty self-explanatory. “Not our habit” means “I’m not used to this” and is used as an explanation or excuse as to why she doesn’t like something (usually food). It’s become useful because now I can also pull out the, “not our habit” in defense of my rice intake.

3) “I eat everything” (sometimes, “My Mudder [mother] say, ‘I eat everything’”), her way of saying “I’m flexible, I won’t be picky” even though it’s not true in the slightest. It can be quite tough to feed Mamu at a restaurant on the road. On her “not our habit list” I have–all salads, most uncooked or not fully cooked vegetables, marinara sauce, cheese sauces, cinnamon, celery (even if fully cooked), food made with eggs (like cakes, breads), pizza, coffee, things with “a Chinese smell,” most cold foods and ice cubes.

We took her to a Vietnamese restaurant over the weekend and she was shocked that the waitress served us cold food, never mind that summer rolls are always cold. She touched each roll with a shocked expression, “chiso, chiso, all are chiso?”

“I told you they wouldn’t like them” P said.

“But Mamu… they are so good! :(” –C

4) “What you eat?” As soon as I walk in the door from work everyday I encounter Mamu in the kitchen, ready to feed me a snack. When I wake up in the morning Mamu asks, “What you eat?” (on a weekend morning she will add, “Maple?” which is what she and Daddy have started calling waffles because of the maple syrup I like to put on them), she asks me, “what you eat?” when inquiring about my lunch at work, and will ask “what you eat?” to see what my thoughts are for the dinner menu. Last night I heard she and Daddy on the phone with P’s brother, and the first question they each asked when they put the phone to their ear was, “Ke khane?” which is the same question in Nepali. Not eating in Nepali culture is akin to blasphemy. I worry someday my kids will be as large as an apartment block.

5) “Sufficient?” I try to use small simple words when talking with Mamu, but sometimes she busts out with more complicated words (like last night she asked, “Duplicate?” and I thought, “woah, where did that come from?”) But “sufficient” is one that she uses a lot and she usually uses it to mean “enough?” as in “did I give you enough rice?” or “do we have enough potatoes?” (as she puts two heaping spoons of rice on my plate and asks, “sufficient?” or picks up a five pound bag of potatoes at the grocery store and asks, “sufficient?”)

6) “Ehhhh,” Mamu uses this enough as well that I had to make it an expression. It’s a way she shows disappointment, like when I respond, “oh Mamu, too much rice for me” and scrape some of the two heaping spoons of rice back into the rice cooker, she will in turn respond by scrunch her face and saying, “ehhhhh.” She says “ehhh” to loud trains, “ehhhh” to people coming over without being invited, and “ehhhh” to other general frustrations– like Daddy wanting to stay in the US until the last minute before Dashain, and she wanting to go home early to clean the house and prepare food for the festival—“ehhh, Daddy does not know. He play cards for Dashain, I cook. A lot of work.”

7) “Crying” as I said earlier, this generally means “complain” or “asks for a lot” usually accompanied by an “ehhh.” Often she says, “Ehhhh, Kaka Bua [P’s grandfather] is crying crying, ‘Where is buhari [daughter-in-law]? Where is son?’” (Mamu is P’s grandfather’s main caregiver in Nepal, and he is missing them a lot while they are here with us in the US, it’s another one of the main reasons Mamu is ready to go home, and has been pushing to leave for some time now). She also says it when talking about Daddy, “In Nepal, no roti… Daddy is crying every day for rice” (Mamu likes making the two of us frozen roti from the Indian grocery store, because she also likes roti and they are cheap and quick to make here, but often in KTM in a house of rice eaters– Daddy and Kakabua– she doesn’t get the chance.)

Recently she mentioned that relatives back in Nepal have been “crying” since our wedding was in the US, they want to know when the wedding party will be for those back in Nepal.

8) “Yesterday” and “Tomorrow” in Mamu-speak these words mean the opposite. Daddy used to correct her, but she consistently makes the mistake so often, that now when she says “yesterday” we know she means tomorrow and vice-versa. She often also confuses “he” and “she” and will sometimes refer to P as “she.”

9) “Your favorite?” is Mamu’s way of asking if you like something. To me it means something you like the most—as in, “my favorite color is green” but to Mamu it means something you enjoy such as, “I like this salwaar kameez”

10) “Oh-kay” Is something Mamu says that doesn’t really mean anything. Often I’ll ask her to do something and she will say “Oh-kay” and keep doing something else. For instance, every night we sit down to eat dinner, and Mamu and Daddy eat so quickly, I’ve hardly started by the time they are done, and Mamu is quick to jump up and take the dishes to the sink and start cleaning. Every night (literally) I have to tell her, “Mamu no, please leave the dishes. I will do. You cooked, let me clean up.” She will call out from the kitchen “Oh-kay, oh-kay, oh-kay” but will continue cleaning. So I have to call again, “Mamu, come please, come sit with us, we miss you.” And she calls back “Oh-kay. Oh-kay com-ing” and still doesn’t come. I’ll get up and go to the kitchen and say, “Mamu leave that, please, come.”  “Oh-kay, oh-kay” but still nothing. So I try to pick up the extra dishes and gently nudge her aside and start cleaning myself, and she says, “Oh-kay, you eat, I finish.” So I sit back down, there is only so much one can do.

There are plenty of other interesting things Mamu says, but these are the only ones that stick out in my mind at the moment. They give you a nice flavor of what taking to Mamu is like.

Daddy’s New Collection

At the end of July P and I headed south with Mamu and Daddy so that we could attend our friends’ wedding. Along the way, as we usually do when traveling south, we stopped in Connecticut at our friends R and S’s abode, had some dinner and spent the night.

During that brief stopover S acted as a bit of inspiration to Daddy.

Over the years S has been collecting coffee mugs, generally from places that he has visited, but sometimes he will try to bring back a mug from a place that has some special significance. For instance, he sweet talked the owner of the venue where P and I got married so that he could bring home a mug with the venue name on it.

Anyway, he has quite a number of them now, and has them lined up on a shelf in his apartment. Daddy must have spotted these, and thought it was a great idea, because shortly thereafter he was on a mission–

Collect every mug he can find.

It has been little over a month now, and he has about 14. He even bought one from the apple picking orchard we went to over the weekend (how “New England” of us), although rather than “____ Apple Orchard”  he chose a mug from a hodgepodge heap in the back of the orchard shop that said “Excalibur Hotel, Las Vegas Nevada.”

I think Daddy is a little unclear whether he wants to collect mugs from every place he has been/has a connection to, or if he interested in having mugs from interesting places regardless of whether he has been there or not.

Every time he gets a new mug he cleans it out very meticulously, then polishes it, and wraps it in tissue paper. His goal is to find a small box for each, but not every place gives him a box. He discovered recently that the canned rosgolla sweets from the Indian grocery store come in a box that is the perfect size for mugs, and joked that we should eat a lot of rosgolla between now and when they depart, however I am not volunteering to eat 14 boxes worth of Bengali sweets before the end of the month.

When I tease Mamu about what they are going to do with all these new souvenirs– American coffee mugs are much too big for tea drinking back in Nepal, so I know that these new pieces are just for show– she shakes her head, “Ehhh, I don’t know. Daddy wants, what to do?”

I’m glad he found a new hobby while traveling in the US. The next time P and I travel somewhere interesting, we can bring him back a mug.

* I also have a collection, that I’ve been adding to since I was a little kid. My collection is on display on a shelf in the room where P’s parents are staying in our apartment (I’ll write about it at another time). So perhaps the “collecting something” trend was also partially inspired by me?

Let’s Teej Again, Like We Did Last Summer…

Other Teej Posts: Teej (2009), It’s Time Again for Teej (2010), Panchami and the Bhutanese Refugees (2010)

Today is my first married Teej and my first Teej with my mother-in-law.

I first learned about the holiday when P and I moved from New York to Massachusetts in 2007. I’ve taken part in the festival every year since, generally by wearing red and fasting for 24 hours, and usually by dressing up in a sari and going to the local temple with several female friends (AS, S-di) at some point during the day.

This year Mamu is with us, so I am letting her dictate how we should celebrate the occasion. Last night she explained that I should wake up early, take a shower so that I am “pure,” then I should dress in red clothing and wear my bangles and green and gold wedding tilhari, then we would worship Shiva and Parvati.

“And fast all day?” I asked.

“Eh, fasting too difficult.” Mamu said. “You have to work, not so strict. Eat pure foods. Milk, potato, sweets, fruits. No salt, no rice.”

“But Mamu that seems like too easy of a fast.” I told her. “No salt and no rice is easy if I get to eat sweets and fruits all day.”

“In Nepal it used to be harder.” Daddy explained, “No food, no water. But now the rules are not so strict. No need to fast all day. Sweets and fruits are fine.”

“But potatoes? Eating boiled potatoes hardly feels like a fast.” I insisted.

“It’s okay.” They said, “Eat, eat.”

If one thing is true above all else, I’ll never starve as a member of the P family.

So this morning I set my alarm for 6am… and snoozed it until about 6:40. By the time I was conscious enough to roll out of bed and stumble into the shower Mamu had already beaten me there. So I laid down for a few more minutes and listened to the water, waiting for her to finish.

Then I showered, and dressed up in a red kurta top that Mamu and Daddy picked out yesterday. I selected ten of my red and gold glass wedding bangles, putting five on each arm, and slipped my green wedding pote with golden tilhari over my head. When I went out to the living room Mamu and Daddy were already sitting on the couch waiting.

“Come, come,” Mamu said, “Wash hands to purify, then we go to worship Shiva.” At the sink she asked me, “Where’s your tikka? No tikka?”

“Should I put?” I asked.

“Tikka put on. Small tikka. Very pretty.” She insisted. So I went to my bedroom and fished out a packet of small sparkly tikkas from my jewelry box and stuck it between my eyebrows. While I was at it I asked P to put a small dot of orange sindoor at the part in my hair.

“Good,” Mamu said, and we walked to her bedroom where she had a small altar set up on the dresser. She had folded the Nepali calendar she brought with her from Kathmandu so that a picture of Shiva and Parvati was facing upward. In front of the picture she had a cucumber, a banana and an apple on a plate. She lit two incense and said, “Today we pray for the long lives of our husbands,” and motioned for me to pick up the plate of fruit/veg. I circled it in front of the gods’ picture and then she gave me the incense she had been holding. She folded her hands in Namaste and whispered a quick prayer. After I circled the incense she took them back and stuck them in the cucumber in front of Shiva to finish burning. She then motioned for me to touch both the heads of Shiva and Parvati, and then touch my own forehead with my right hand, then motioned for me to touch the two images of Ganesh and again touch my forehead.

“Okay, finished.” She said, “You want boiled potato?”

She took me to the kitchen where she had two small boiled potatoes on a plate ready for me. I felt like I was cheating. I kind of like fasting. I don’t have many opportunities to do it and I like having a reason to abstain from food—it’s like a personal challenge, and it makes you think about what it is like for the people in the world who have to go without. It teaches you discipline, and gives you some clarity. I have great respect for people who fast for Ramadan. One day of fasting hardly seems like a sacrifice.

I guiltily took one of the small potatoes and took a small bite.

“How many?” Mamu asked, “Two? Three?”

“One is okay.” I told her. “Potatoes are heavy.”

“But I have many!” She said, lifting the lid off the pressure cooker to reveal another four or five floating in the water.

I compromised, “I’ll eat one now, and take two small potatoes for lunch.”

“And sweets?” she asked. At the Indian grocery store last night she had picked up two boxes of sweets—barfi and jelabi, and a canister of rosgolla. She thrusted three barfi into my hands.

“I’ll eat one now and take one for dessert.” I said.

“No… two. You want another? Three?”

“Okay, I’ll take two.” I packed a small lunch box with two small boiled potatoes, two milk barfi, and an apple. So much for “fasting.”

“No salt today.” Mamu instructed. “Only pure foods—ghee, milk, fruit, sweets, and potato.”

So now I am sitting in my office with tikka, sindoor, tilhari, red kurta, and glass bangles. In my own office it doesn’t matter so much… I’ve dressed “international” before, and it is more accepted by our student population (being that they too are international), but I have to meet with a domestic student today that the university administration asked me to take off campus for a serious issue tomorrow morning, so I am a little shy about meeting her all “Nepali-fied” and having her think I’m “weird.” I also have to host the campus religious diversity center open house—which I guess dressed in Hindu festival attire I won’t be too out of place, but I prefer my bubble of cultural diversity when dressed in this way.

The plan for the rest of the day is that once I get home from work I’ll dress up in a new maroon silk sari that Mamu brought me from Nepal specifically for Teej and go to the temple where P and I got married with Mamu and S-di.

So happy long life to my family, and happy Teej to anyone else celebrating today. Hopefully your MILs and/or significant others are helping you cheat with sweets as well today ;)

Sneaky Mamu

I should preface this story with the fact that my mother-in-law is a small woman in her early sixties. I’m about five foot seven, and she only stands about as tall as my neck. She has a round, tan face with spectacles, pulls her medium length hair back in a jewel clipped ponytail, and always always wears salwar kameez, tikka, pote, and two glass bangles–one on each arm.

While we were held up in the house during Hurricane Irene, Mamu told P and I a story from when she and Daddy were in Philadelphia visiting P’s brother.

Apparently there is a Trader Joe’s (or “Joe’s Trader” as Mamu kept calling it) grocery store somewhere near P’s brother’s apartment, and Mamu and Daddy would occasionally walk over during the day while U was at work and look for vegetables.

Trader Joe’s generally has a sample station where customers can go up and try a new product or taste test something in the store. I guess one day Mamu and Daddy went up one too many times, and were scolded by the person manning the station. As Mamu put it:

“Daddy ask the man, ‘Can I take one more?’ and the man say… ‘No!’… but I don’t ask, I take one extra…” then she giggled.

We also thought the story was funny… Mamu sneaking extra portions when the sample man was telling Daddy no.

Then today we stopped at our local Trader Joe’s on the way back from the Indian grocery store so I could pick up some olive oil. We walked around the store and Mamu spotted the sample station. She walked up to check out what was being offered, and was sad to see they were giving samples of chicken burgers with an Italian/balsamic dressing. “We are banned today,” she said, meaning we vegetarians couldn’t take the sample. So Daddy and P each took a sample and we started walking down another aisle.

Daddy must have said something to her, or else Mamu has a rebellious streak, but a little while later she quietly took my arm an whispered. “Come, Come…You, me… we take sample and give to P and Daddy. We are banned but the man does not know we give away.”

So Mamu and I casually walked up to the sample station. I asked, “So what do we have? Chicken burgers? Nice…” and we each took a sample, then we walked down the aisle and around the corner to P and Daddy. Mamu had a conspiratorial grin on her face.

“Mamu! You are a sneaky rebel!” I said.

“Me? No.” She answered, dare I say, with a twinkle in her eye.

“Hot, Fresh, Sweet”

This post is dedicated to our DEAR FRIEND D who said last night, “I know what C’s blog post will be about tomorrow…  I even know the title” and who was sad that a few posts ago I referred to him as “our neighbor D” and thus felt demoted in relationship status.

As many of you probably know, Hurricane Irene blew through New England on Sunday. It also happened to be my birthday. We spent much of the weekend sitting around the apartment with Mamu and Daddy talking about what a hurricane is, and how they are different/similar from/to other weather events. I think they were both a little nervous and a little excited—they were curious to see what a “hurricane” was like, but worried that something would maybe happen to them. Mamu would stand near the window watching the trees bend and say, “Hurricane is coming…”

We had some gusty winds, but never lost power (although it seems a lot of other people around us did), and didn’t have the same flooding problems as other places an hour or two drive north or west of us. By evening the weather calmed enough for us to even go out for a little birthday dinner and cake.

After Irene blew through the weather cooled off, so I thought I would experiment with some “American autumn” inspired food. Always on the lookout for foods that I love, that I could try and introduce to Mamu and Daddy, during our pre-Irene grocery shopping I snuck a bag of brussels sprouts and a butternut squash into our cart.

Attempt #1: On Saturday I decided to pair the sautéed (in olive oil, garlic, salt and fresh ground pepper) Brussels sprouts—or “baby banda” (cabbage) as I called them—with the vegetable curry that Mamu made. P and I were practically fighting over the sprouts… but I saw Daddy push a few around his plate, and eventually toss the two or three half pieces that he couldn’t manage to eat into the garbage before washing his plate. I guess the “baby bandas” were a “fail”–my guess is that they were still too “raw” (crunchy) for their taste, but overcooked brussel sprouts are really bad and bitter, so “what to do?“

Attempt #2: Again Mamu had some taarkari left over from lunch, and made a pot of rice, but I decided to whip up a quick butternut squash bisque. I sliced up the butternut—

“Is it a pharsi? [pumpkin]” Daddy asked.

“It’s in the pharsi family, it’s a butternut squash” I explained.

When I sliced open the round bottom part of the butternut and scooped out the seeds with a spoon Daddy said, “It is a pharsi! Look at the seeds!”

“Yes,” I responded, “pharsi family different type.”

—then sautéed some sliced onions, garlic, salt and pepper, added the butternut, and then a few cups of water and some veggie bullion. I let it boil, covered, for about ten minutes until the butternut was soft, and then poured the whole soup into the blender and pureed. Lastly I heated the pureed soup with a bit of whole milk mixed in for creaminess, and then brought it to the dinner table in a serving bowl.

I turned back to the kitchen to grab bowls for everyone but before I returned to the table Mamu and Daddy had already ladled my “pharsi soup” on to their heaping piles of rice—“like daal!” Mamu exclaimed.

“Whatever gets you excited about it” I thought.

I returned the bowls to the kitchen, keeping one for D and myself, since we both elected to eat my soup like soup.

While we ate I asked Mamu if she liked the dish. She smacked her lips and declared, “I like… hot, fresh, sweet!”

D started giggling… “I know what C’s blog post will be about tomorrow” he said, “I even know what the title will be!”

Mamu, Daddy and P had a few more spoons of “pharsi soup—like daal” on their rice while I finished up my large bowl.

Finally an American culinary win!

I’ll take it, “like daal” or not!

“Not Our Habit” Pasta Dinner

Maybe I’m a little sensitive after coming off of four days of international student orientation where “American food” was a major criticism—in discussions with the students on what they thought the biggest challenges would be in transitioning to life in Massachusetts “American food” was targeted again and again… “American food is so tasteless.”… “It has no flavor”… “American food is basically pizza and hamburgers”—

But do any of you sometimes feel like standing up and yelling, “Hey! There’s nothing wrong with my food!”

I get it—there is a big difference between different types of cuisine, and when you are used to one type of cuisine over another it can be hard to transition, but I feel like I try a lot when it comes to food (minus meat), and it is disappointing to me when others don’t seem to make the same effort.

I’ve heard the arguments before—parents are older and set in their ways, you can’t expect them to change, you probably wouldn’t do/try new things when you are their age. I guess I’d answer that I hope I’d still be ready to try new things even if I am my parents’ age. I get where people are coming from with the argument, but I can’t help but feel a bit defensive.

And the worst answer to the argument of American food versus South Asian is “Well, you have to admit South Asian food does taste better. It’s easy to transition to a different type of food when the taste is simply better than what you grew up with.” That argument is just unfair.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t something I’m going to sit and cry about, but after a while it can get frustrating. Sure, I’m not a gourmet cook making fancy dishes, but there are certain “feel good” foods that, when criticized, leave me licking my wounds. Like fresh cut veggies, or a flavorful cheese, or a crisp garden salad on a hot summer day. Or apple pie, or a fresh veggie pasta dish, or homemade pizza, or waffles and maple syrup—how can you dislike fluffy homemade straight-out-of-the-iron waffles and Vermont maple syrup??

“Not our habit” Mamu solemnly answers.

“The maple is too sweet.” Daddy adds.

I hear that a lot. American food is too sweet. Cereal, maple syrup, apple pie. But somehow American chocolates and Indian/Nepali mithai/laddu are not too sweet. I don’t get it.

Or I hear–American food doesn’t have enough flavor/isn’t spicy enough. I remember once I found my uncle’s recipe for guacamole and said to my Dad, “He barely puts anything in it. Where’s all the garlic, and chili, and lemon?”

“When you put all that extra junk in you lose the original flavor of the food.” My dad responded.

I never thought about it from that perspective before. I sometimes think about what he said when I bite into a fresh sweet corn on the cob, unadulterated by butter or salt, so I can taste the original flavor of the kernels. Do I use garlic when cooking like it’s my job? Sure, but there are certain things that are nice to leave simple and natural.

So anyway…

Yesterday after work, P and I took his parents (they’re back from P’s brother’s place! Did you miss Mamu and Daddy stories?) to the Indian grocery store to replenish the kitchen. Our neighbor D had made meat momos over the weekend and there was spiced meat leftover, so P/Daddy/D decided to have momo for dinner, which left the two veggies—Mamu and I—on our own. We grabbed pani puri fixings, but when we were in the car Mamu said she wanted to have pasta. “You will make, okay?”

I felt that the pressure was on, and the deck was already stacked against me since I know they don’t like “American pasta” that much (or really at all).  The only pasta they like is waiwai or elbow macaroni fried with veggies and curry type spice. Once in Nepal P’s mom asked me to make her “American pasta” but that particular night P’s dad had taken us on a side trip and we got home really late. Mamu was upset that we all missed the proper dinner time, but rather than put the pasta dinner off for another time, she still insisted I make it. So already late, and pressured to cook fast, and using the single kerosene burner in P’s kitchen reminiscent of a camp stove in the US, I tried my best to whip up a descent pasta dish. It was “okay,” not great, but at least I tried. No one really ate it but me, and to be polite, P’s dad, and Mamu still insisted that P’s dad also have rice since “only rice make you full.”

When we got home I broke out the cutting board and veggies and started slicing. Mamu came in to help, and I ushered her out of the kitchen (“Mamu, tonight is your turn to rest.”) least she decide ahead of time that she didn’t like my cooking technique (she doesn’t like raw mushrooms. Even if mushrooms are going to be fried, she insists they are still “raw” if they haven’t been boiled first), or if she discovered the “Italian seasoning” I used… and ultimately decide not to try the pasta.

I’ve already heard a lot about how much my Nepali family dislikes marinara sauce. They tell me it has a “smell” they don’t like, and even P doesn’t like to eat it. Again, I don’t get it—they eat tomatoes all the time, and that is the basic marinara ingredient. P thinks it is the oregano, but I don’t think it has that strong of a taste (or smell). But anyway… I knew ahead of time that a “traditional” marinara sauce was out of the question, and an Alfredo sauce would be too “cheesy.” So I decided to make a sauce that was kind of “achar” like in its original preparation.

I sliced up and roasted several tomatoes, then fried some red onion and garlic. I blended the onion, garlic and tomatoes with some salt, black pepper, chili pepper, and a bit of water into a paste and set it aside. Then I sautéed green peppers and mushrooms in olive oil until they were super well cooked (as per Mamu’s preferences although without a “pre-boil”), and added green onions, green peas and dried oregano and “Italian seasoning” (“Uh oh” P said, “You probably just screwed everything up with that oregano. They probably won’t like it now.”)

When the veggies, pasta, and “achar/sauce” were ready I quickly fried it all together before serving.

As I was dishing up the food Mamu said, “It has nice smell.” Which I took as a good sign, although she also said, “I take little” at first.

She put a few spoons of pasta into her bowl and took a small bite. “Good” she said… but then, she reached for the momo achar—which had a similar base as the pasta sauce, but had ground sesame seeds, chili, and cilantro also blended in. It was a subtle way of saying, “It was good, but still not flavorful.”

I must have looked disappointed, because then Daddy, who was eating the momo, reached over and took a few spoonfuls of pasta onto his plate and ate it without the momo achar. He also commented, “It’s good. See, I’ll take more.”

When Mamu reached to get more achar to put on her pasta P and his dad said, “It’s good without achar, have more with the original sauce.” So Mamu tried again without the achar, looking up apologetically adding, “Achar has… more spice.”

I appreciate them trying, I know the food is different, but it would be nice to make a dish without feeling like I have to defend and take a stand on all of American food. And my pasta was pretty damn good if I do say so myself… I’m about to eat the left overs for lunch.

Mamu Will Never Be “as American as Apple Pie”

My Dad’s family is big into pie. His mother used to make all sorts of pies in the summer/fall, freeze them, and bring them out for the holidays—I remember Thanksgivings where there were three or four pie flavor choices like rhubarb (the family favorite–not strawberry rhubarb, she never “adulterated” her rhubarb pies with strawberries), apple, blueberry, pumpkin, etc. I think I remember my mother telling me a story once about how my dad wasn’t used to having cake on his birthday until they were together, because his family always had pie. “Who eats birthday pie?” she would say, as if it were sacrilegious.

But you know, I’d probably pick pie over cake most days.

About two years before my grandmother passed away I started bugging her for pie recipes. I really wanted the family rhubarb recipe, but I’d settle for any of her delicious pie recipes. When we moved to Massachusetts and I met AS, S-di and a few other Nepali women, they started to ask me, “C, you are American, can you teach us how to bake American desserts?” My dessert skills were somewhat limited to an array of Christmas cookies, but I tried out brownies and apple crisp, and eventually my grandmother sent me a note with two index cards that had her handwritten recipes for apple and pumpkin pies. I made several. A few months later she passed away.

Every fall I make at least two apple pies and two apple crisps. It just wouldn’t be autumn without the leaves changing color, and a warm piece of cinnamon-y apple dessert.

So over the weekend when we went to visit my dad, one of the stops on our “tour of town” was an orchard market we frequented, particularly in the summer, throughout my childhood. As kids we saved our quarters to buy “half-moon” cookies baked fresh at the orchard. I always ate the vanilla side first, and froze the chocolate half to eat later. It was also a popular place to buy other pastries, local maple syrup, fresh veggies, seedlings for vegetable or flower gardens, and funky cacti/succulents (this is also where my weird house plant obsession began). My dad and I decided to buy an apple pie to top off our Saturday night barbeque because what’s more “American” than “apple pie” and barbeque?

I worry a bit about P’s mother when we travel, because although she keeps insisting, “I eat everything,” I know she doesn’t. Being a vegetarian on the road is already tough, but she doesn’t like most raw vegetables (aside from cucumbers) including almost all salads (“Not our habit.” She tells me—which I can kind of understand, if I grew up in a place where most vegetables had to be thoroughly cooked or peeled to prevent the possibility of sickness, I probably wouldn’t be a big fan of uncooked veggies too. Although I grew up in the US, and I love raw veggies), and she doesn’t like vegetables that are cooked but still crunchy, like veggie skewers on a barbeque or quick veggie stir fries (she prefers veggies that are melt-in-your-mouth soft), not to mention sandwiches with lettuce. On our drive to New York we stopped quickly at a rest stop and I insisted everyone have a quick lunch, and bought Mamu and myself slices of veggie pizza.

When we got in the car Mamu said, “Oh oh, Pizza pugyo,” and a few other things in Nepali. P translated, “She says she is pugyo—finished—with pizza for the rest of her trip.” She had only eaten one slice since her arrival, and I thought it was pretty good, but I guess she didn’t find it pleasant.

Knowing that the veggie skewers were out for Saturday’s BBQ, I decide to try veggie burgers. Ironically, my dad hates the smell of curry, so I didn’t think he would appreciate us cooking up some taarkari in the house (although I’m sure he wouldn’t have said anything, I’m also sure he wouldn’t have liked it), but I didn’t want Mamu to starve either (she doesn’t complain but she also just picks at meals she doesn’t like, and goes without). She doesn’t want to be perceived as a bother (hence the “Don’t worry. I eat everything” comments), but I also want to be prepared. Luckily the veggie burgers were a success. Phew.

After a little bit of digestion, and the question/answer between P’s dad and mine about whether there were lions, tigers and elephants in the US (P’s dad said to me again last night, “I can’t believe there are no tigers or elephants in the US. There are so many trees and so much space. Why are they not here?”) we broke out the apple pie. P’s parents insisted on “small small” pieces, so I cut them tiny slivers. My dad, who was happy to take a piece that was at least an eighth of the pie large, insisted they take larger pieces but P’s parents said they were full and just wanted a taste. Sitting on the porch outside it had already started getting dark, so no one really noticed Mamu just pushing the pieces of her pie around the plate.

As I was slicing up the pie I explained, “Apple pies are very popular in the US. There is even an expression ‘As American as Apple Pie’ which means ‘typically American.’” (see Wikipedia).

After dinner there was still nearly three quarters of the pie left, so my dad said we could bring it home.

When we got back to Massachusetts the following evening I unpacked the pie. Mamu started saying that there was something about the pie that wasn’t good. “It has smell,” she kept saying.

“Smell?” I asked.

“Yes, yes, strong bad smell.”

P and I looked at each other perplexed. Apple pies smell so good, what was she smelling?

“Very strong. I don’t know what is.” She said.

“I have an idea.” So I went to the cupboard to look for my large stash of cinnamon that I use for pies and Christmas cookies. “Mamu smell this, is this it?”

She took one whiff and threw her head back with a scrunched up face, “Oh oh oh. Oh this smell. Not our habit.”

“Not our habit” is another Mamu-ism which means, “I’m not used to this.”

“Oh Mamu, you don’t like cinnamon? That’s so sad, it is so good. We use it a lot in dessert for American festivals.” I said.

“Not our habit.” She repeated.

“The apple dish is also so sweet.” P’s dad explained. “Like the maple syrup, it is too sweet and strong for us.” Later I heard that the small jar of maple syrup I brought to Kathmandu in 2005 as a “gift from America” was eventually thrown away because no one in the house could eat it.

Oh well. At least we are having them try new things. Last night after dinner P and I each had a large slice of pie. If someone has to eat it, I don’t mind volunteering.

A Weekend With My Dad

This weekend we took P’s parents to my home town, about a five hour drive from our New England abode. My dad, who spends most of his time in Vermont these days, was back at the old house for the week, and was able to host us on Saturday night.

There were a few reasons I wanted to take them to my home town. First I wanted to show P’s parents where I grew up. We currently live in a city, and P grew up in a city, but I’m a country girl at heart. I grew up in a wooded area, climbing trees and going on adventures in the woods with my dog. We spent a lot of time outside, riding our bikes, swimming, picking wild blackberries and raspberries and eating them off the bush, planting vegetable gardens (and eating cherry tomatoes and small cucumbers off the vine as well!) If was a pretty fun childhood.

I also wanted to bring them to visit my dad because I wanted my dad to have the opportunity to bond with P’s parents a little.

My parents are divorced, something that P told his parents early on (and for a little while reinforced P’s mom’s view that—“See Americans will divorce you!”). They have met my mom a few times (in 2005 my mom came to P’s graduation and met his dad, in 2008 they stayed at her house in Virginia for a weekend, and my mom stayed with us a few days before the wedding) and they like her a lot. She is very entertaining (bordering on showy sometimes), but she is a great person to have when there is awkward silence, because she fills the silence with idle chatter (or embarrassing stories, which was the case during the wedding weekend). She is very extroverted, and animated, and easy to get to know because she lays it all out there for everyone right away.

One reason that my parents are divorced is because they are very different people. My dad is opposite to her in nearly every way—where she is loud and boisterous; he is quiet and reserved; where she likes to hustle and bustle, be close to the action and the city; my dad is happy to sit on his own, do things at his own pace, and live in the wilderness apart from others; where she is carefree, extroverted, and easy to know; my dad is difficult to know, introverted, and relatively serious (unless you get to know him well, then his dry sense of humor comes out).

P’s parents know very few divorced people (practically none). My theory is that they probably assume that in a divorce situation one partner was essentially “good” and one was essentially “bad.” Now my parents’ divorce is very complicated (much too complicated to begin sorting out in a blog post) and there are good and bad things on both sides, but the basic assumption that one person was totally wrong and “bad” and the other was totally right and “good” doesn’t fit this situation in the slightest. However that was the schema that made the most sense to P’s parents. Although they never outright said anything, since they met my mother first, and she is so bubbly and entertaining, right away they assumed my mother was the “good one” (I could tell by the way they would ask about her, but never my dad). I tried to explain to them in 2008 that the divorce was complicated, and they were only seeing one side (my mom’s side), but I think it was difficult for them to understand.

P’s parents first met my dad in 2008 when they stayed with my mother in Virginia. He drove down from New York to attend a program for my younger sister, and my mother insisted that he attend the “P and C family meeting” at her house, on her territory. Although everyone essentially behaved themselves (no arguments, etc), it was a bit of an unfair advantage for my mom, and I’m sure my dad was uncomfortable and more awkward and happy to escape to his hotel room once the meeting concluded.

I remember we were all sitting on my mom’s back porch. My mom was filing in the silence with stories (I remember one such story where she was telling about meeting P’s cousin MK for the first time, and how MK kept having to take smoke breaks—now the family kind of knows that MK smokes, but it’s one of those “she does it in secret” and they “pretend not to know” type of deals. I was standing inside the kitchen looking through the sliding screen door motioning with my hands for her to stop the story, and she said, “Oh look, C is trying to get me to stop, ha ha, anyway—so then…”)

My dad sat there mostly in silence. I remember P’s dad looking at him, hopeful for some “father to father” chit chat, but P’s dad didn’t know what to say (I think P’s family was relying on my parents to guide conversation since P’s parents were shy of their English), and I don’t think my dad felt that comfortable speaking. Eventually I said, “Hey dad, why don’t you talk with P’s dad.” And my dad turned and said, “So, how about the weather?” and that was pretty much it for conversation.

This awkward situation probably didn’t help their vision about my dad. He looked serious, quiet, and tough looking. Prior to their 2008 visit, when they would call and talk to me, P’s dad always asked about my mother and sisters and told me to say hello to them, but never mentioned my dad. After the 2008 visit he rarely, if ever asked about my dad (but at least slightly more than before).

Likewise, at the rehearsal dinner, between my parents, my mother dominated conversation again. She is just better at it, more comfortable, she doesn’t mind if P’s parents don’t really understand what she is saying, it’s easier for her to chat then sit through silence.

At the wedding my mother was dancing up a storm—dancing with everyone, including P’s dad. My dad mostly stood with his relatives on the porch, drinking beers and catching up on stuff. It’s the age old introvert/extrovert dichotomy.

I felt my dad needed his time and space to adequately share his personality with the P family. A short weekend trip to his home seemed like a good idea.

I’m glad we did it, because I think being in my dad’s space and on my dad’s time helped a lot. My dad had the opportunity to share his hunting stories without being talked over (my mom would surely find an extended conversation about hunting boring and dull). I think P’s dad really liked the one about my dad being on a bear hunt, and having a giant grizzly bear itching it’s butt on a tree no more than eight feet away from my dad’s hunting perch. My dad decided not to shoot it (P’s dad: “You had a gun ready, pointing at the bear?”) because his friend had killed a bear the night before and they were going to split the meat, so my dad just watched this giant animal walk around, so close he could practically touch it. Or the story about crawling two miles through the grassy plains of Montana stalking elk. Or about hiking out of the northern Canadian woods in waist high snow dragging a sled with 100 pounds of freshly killed caribou meat (my dad had pictures of the caribou hunt to help visualize his story).

My dad made a “Central New York” dinner—grilled deer meat (and veggie burgers for me and Mamu), fresh local corn on the cob, salt potatoes and melted butter, and apple pie made with local apples. We sat on the screened in back porch listening to the crickets, while my dad talked about things he was familiar with or that he enjoys—like how to make maple syrup (while we ate homemade blueberry pancakes in the morning) and which trees in our backyard were maples, what New York is famous for, what vegetables are locally grown, how he built our house himself, etc (again, conversations my mother would have found totally dull, but P’s dad seemed interested to hear).

My favorite questions that P’s dad asked that night were, “Do you have lions and tigers in America?”

Dad: “No. But we have mountain lions, which are big cats out in the Western US [He went inside and came back with a hunting advertisement with a mountain lion on it to show P’s dad what it looks like and how big they can be.] We don’t have them around here.”

P’s Dad: “Do you have elephants?”

Dad: “Nope.”

P’s Dad: “Monkeys?”

Dad: “No monkeys either.”

(I liked these questions because these animals are “normal” for P’s family, but exotic for mine. For P’s family it’s kind of strange that we don’t have monkeys running around, where as my dad probably thought the question was from left field.)

They talked about the animals we do have—skunks, beaver, opossum, fox, porcupine, etc—and which were also found in Nepal.

I think P’s dad liked being in the countryside. He desperately wanted to see animals (my dad told him there were generally some turkeys and sometimes deer around. We showed him a salt lick that my dad uses to attract deer to his backyard). On the screened in back porch P’s dad said it was like being on a jungle safari in Chitwan National Park—looking down into the woods to find the rhinos from a high perch. He told me in the morning that he got up in the night to watch the “jungle” from the porch to see if he could spot any animals but sadly didn’t see anything.

I think it was a successful trip. I think they realize that I don’t have one “good parent” and one “bad parent” but two very different parents, with different interests, energy levels, and personalities.

I feel confident that once they go back to Nepal and we chat on the phone again, they will now ask about and say hello to my mom and my dad.

My dad and I taking P's family around the sights in town-- including the city harbor on the shores of Lake Ontario

P's mom and dad pose outside my childhood home