Nostalgia kitchen

I inhale deeply. The smell of curcumin, curry, cumin, toasted caraway. These smells take me back to the small co-op in Media, PA that imprinted on my 5 year-old olfactory memory, three decades ago. The creaky wooden floor, the hemp-woven grocery bags, the tight aisles of teetering metal shelving, and the glass storefront...all this before it was hip. All gone with trickle-down economics... I can definitively say that if I never see carob chips again it will be too soon... but today, perusing an article posted by a friend from this same era of life, a friend whose family was delightfully large, and hippier than mine, and from which my longings of a farmhouse with scads of children scattered about me are most likely a product, I consider the health benefits of turmeric for cerebral antioxidation and I am struck that dinner can proceed.

Last week, driving home from California, world-weary, tense, a bit melancholic (the Eucalyptus in the fall always reeks of a broken heart, what can I say?), but also hopeful despite the throes of adolescent depression in my sweet girl child, we decided, the girl and I, that she needed to learn to cook. She has always left the kitchen to me, perhaps afraid of my imposing command of the small spaces that we've called home, perhaps just afraid of me, for my sharp tongue and biting exigencies, of her, of myself... But, after a particularly difficult bout of accusations, and my injured silence, somewhere between Chiriaco Summit and Blythe, with a blinking empty fuel tank light, we decided it was time for her to learn how to cook. We proceeded to enumerate dishes and types of food that I would teach her, me promising patience, and she promising follow-through. We have yet to cook together, but I am sure it will happen. In the mean time, I will write these thoughts for her, too. In case I'm not always around. In case this is all the family that I can ever muster around us for good. (That fear seeps out, the words push it back in).

In an homage to my mama and our typical Friday night fare, a few days of the week early, and eaten half-standing in the kitchen as is my custom (nasty habit? the child asks me to sit with her and I oblige), rather than with blessings and challah, and peanuts and shredded coconut and basmati rice.
 

Honey curry chicken with roast broccoli (my twist, of course)

A chicken breast (all I had) or two (if you actually plan meals, rather than rescue from your fridge), split.
A few pats of Irish butter... because grassfed milk is yellow and delightfully flavorful and worth it
A quarter cup of local honey (for immunity and to combat local allergens)
3 large tablespoons of madras curry powder (which was, admittedly a bit old and less potent than I would have liked).

Spread the thick honey curry paste over the chicken with pats of butter above and below. 350 degrees. 25 minutes, turned over, basted with sauce, and another 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, roasting broccoli that has been laid on a lightly oiled cookie sheet and sprinkled with lemon pepper and Himalayan pink salt.

She didn't want to eat, but after I enticed her with my own three strips, she was the one that beckoned me to the table of our little house. I don't know if I will feel like a grown up, you know, the way that you are supposed to be, like I imagine my parents were when I was small, together, a united front. I failed to make that a reality for my girl-child, but, I do what I can. Patching things together with friend-glue where a family ought to have been.