When Do We Eat?
An International Cooking Contest for a Far-Flung Family, Undaunted (so far) by the Quarantine
When Do We Eat?
It’s Tuesday afternoon and I am biting my cuticles, waiting for my little cousin Josh in Hawaii to pick the ingredient for the Cousins What’s App Cooking Challenge of the week. It is week six. My daughter Evi, a social being if ever there was one, invented the right recipe for her far-flung family to survive Social Distancing. She laid out the rules for a weekly contest, stretching from Israel to Hungary, New York, Boston, D.C., Los Angeles to Hawaii. One ingredient per week, dish due Sunday night California time, voting closes Monday, winner(s) and next challenge ingredient announced on Tuesday. And so, there is a rhythm to our Quarantine Week. The first week was Chickpeas, then Leeks, pasta, followed by Lemons, and then Honey. Three of us tied for first during Honey Week — mine was a Honey Siracha chicken — and we jumped on a video call to select the next ingredient.
Can I be honest? I went all out during Honey Week. I actually made and submitted three dishes. In addition to the chicken, I made a Spanish recipe of fried swordfish in an egg and honey batter and a gluten free olive oil and honey cake with lemon and fresh rosemary. My competitive juices had started to flow. I’m in the food world and here I was outflanked every week by all these rank amateurs. Who turned out to be not amateurs at all but sleeper cells of semi-pro kitchen warriors? Ok, I didn’t win. I tied. But still, on the podium.
Last week the challenge we chose was: Rice. In any form. That was a good one. Josh won for his homemade rice flour waffles and fried chicken. He couldn’t find Rice Flour in Honolulu, so he made his own grinding tktk rice in a superfine powder. We just got the tally from the on-line vote this morning, and now we need to wait for Josh to make up his mind. As this weeks’ winner the next challenge is his call. But his mother who is in the Berkshires reminded us that it’s only 5:45 AM for Josh in Honolulu. The wait is nerve wracking. Next week’s entries are due by Sunday night and I need a least a few days to brainstorm a showstopper.
Rice Week was a daunting week. Both the stakes and the number of contenders are climbing. Cousins who were on the sidelines, just reading the chat, are saddling up. Just to give you an idea of the competition: This week I made Paella with authentic Paella rice, saffron threads, chorizo, shrimp, chicken, mussels and clams. And that was just average. I also submitted a Beet Risotto on Friday to get the ball rolling. (Color great. Taste, meh.) My cousin Mikey in Budapest made a knockout basmati rice pudding with Rose Water, Madagascar vanilla, and sweet cherries from the Hungarian countryside. His daughter Na’amah in Brooklyn made a four course Indian feast including Lamb Biryani and homemade garlic naan even though she has a two-year old; and my daughter Katie and her family of four in Cambridge made Fried Rice. Both dishes got kid-friendly thumbs ups. Caroline and David in D.C. made Paella and Suppli, (they say it is a Roman form of Arancini); Henry N. made Kimchi Rice for brunch in the Berkshires, and Henry K. and his wife Melanie made a Filipino Sinangag in their kitchen in Weston. Ariel in Beersheva made rice and Chicken Potjiekos, a South African chicken dish cooked over a campfire in a three-legged pot. Devra and Amir made sushi and rice flour tempura in Haifa. In Tel Aviv, Daniel made Almond and Tofu Cheese Borekas in homemade rice paper, and his sister Tamar made Stuffed Grape Leaves with grape leaves she picked. My daughter Evi and cousin Lindsey in Los Angeles made Tteok — Spicy Korean Rice Cakes with Beef and Cabbage in gochujang sauce — and a Chocolate Chip Mochi Cake just for fun. And Shirah, in Jerusalem, who almost always wins or comes in second, made a crazy Persian Rice Pilaf with saffron, pistachios and cranberry. Modest as ever, she said it was disappointing and did not pass her husband Richy’s “If you got this in a restaurant test.” But she is a very hard self-grader. She’s also an artist and floral designer so her presentation often tips the scales in her favor. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, she made Vietnamese rice rolls too with a peanut satay dipping sauce.
Just as a clarification, not one member of my family is a professional chef. And frankly, I did not know that so many of them had such enthusiasm and high-grade cooking chops. It’s possible that this was lurking all along, and we just haven’t spent enough time together in our far-flung kitchens to appreciate each other’s talents. But now we do. Beyond the awesome range of flavors and technique there are fabulous glimpses of the lives we lead in our respective homes, sprinkled across the world. There are artful warp-speed videos (a special applause for Tamar’s dumplings), and adorable naked toddlers helping with prep at the sink. There are video reviews from each quarantined household, thumbs up, thumbs down. Scores ranging from 8.5 to 1000 — out of ten. We have our statistician, Lindsey, whose day job in the “real world” is to teach nursery school. Our archivist is Na’amah, whose day job is as a non-profit executive and never imagined herself a full-time, homebound mom. Our EIC, Editor-In-Chief, is Evi who is an art director when the movie world in Los Angeles is open. Everyone will have their role in the ultimate product.
But the best part of this is the intimacy. Cousins who know each other, but see each other sporadically, now are in touch with each other multiple times a week. Zoom cousin calls. Private What’s App messages. Photos of everyone and everything. This is the Silver Lining in these terrible times. Our family feels once again like a tribe.
We are the children, grandchildren and now great-grandchildren of two sisters, Muriel and Margie. As the oldest member of our generation, who well recalls the intimacy of Sunday Dinners each (and every!) week with my cousins at our grandfather’s house, I took that cousin closeness for granted. Honestly, I thought everyone had it. Only as an adult did I understand what a gift we were given. Now, as a grandparent, gifted by these formative memories, do I understand how lucky we were. This Cooking Challenge, in its weird, digital way is allowing the descendants of our maternal grandparents, Harry and Nana Bess — always Harry, never Grandpa — to build some of the shared experiences we assumed were universal.
To be clear, we recognize as a family that we are privileged. Well-fed in this time where many are going without. Even as we know that our biggest problems in this Quarantine Cooking Challenge have been whether we could find the ingredients we want at the market, we are aware that worldwide hunger is a distinct threat. We see the signs in our own communities as Food Bank lines grow and the jobless numbers climb. But right now, like everyone else, we are just trying to cope and come together as a family.
Wait! I hear the chime of a new What’s App message! It’s from Josh and Tae in Honolulu! They’ve decided! And the next challenge is PIE! Any sort of pie. Sweet. Savory. Anything with a crust. Let the games begin.