Dear mom,
#blessed #food #childhoodobseity #notreally
#Bubbe. Bubbe interacted with us, her grandkids, almost solely via food. She fried blintzes for us, she peeled potatoes with us, she scooped us ice cream, she counted the chocolate chips that went into each cookie she force-fed us. We schlepped her to the grocery store, we brought her butter, we enlisted her in apple-chopping, we ate and ate and ate.
Bubbe showered us with indulgence. She conveyed gratitude, love, power, comfort, something, everything, through food. We — I — inherited this mechanism to cope with my own gratitude, power, drive, something. It feels good to make things.
But why so much?
Why do you make over 300 hamantachen at once? Why do I cook for 20 when I’m hosting a dinner for 5? Why are the only posts in our family whatsapp group pictures of food and injuries from pushing ourselves too hard? Is it genetic that we, the grandkids, can’t sit still… that we thrive off of extremes? That we wake up one day and decide that baking 99 recipes will be fun? Your inheritance was an appetite for survival… is it part of ours too?
Our #blessings are also our neuroses.
Yes, food is metaphor. Our approach to it reflects our anxieties, values, loyalties. It shows our evolution.
Xo,
Shaina
Around this time of year during my childhood, I’d be sick from Bubbe’s hamantaschen. As soon as the latke parties ended, she’d bust out the flour, jam and “hoil.” In her later years, she made Valentines Day cookies out of hamantachen material. She’d shape the dough into little hearts that she copied from playing cards, and topped them with strawberry jam and chocolate chips. I know she copied the heart shape from playing cards because one year she messed up and made cookies in the shape of spades. She still called them hearts. It was like how she used to make pizza with Velveta cheese.
I decided to pull a Bubbe and mix two cultures into one: I made traditional Persian cookies and added my own “filling” to retain the feel of hamantaschen.
These cookies, called Nan-e Nokhodchi, are delicate gluten-free Persian cookies, usually decorated with a single pistachio. They are a perfect accompaniment to normal hamantaschen or a holiday alternative for those who keep a gluten-free diet.
Cardamom Scented Persian Cookies with Date Filling
- 1 cup butter
- 1 cup confectioners sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- 5 tbs ground cardamom
- 2 Tbs. rose water (the kind for baking)
- 4 ½ cups fine chickpea flour
- ½ tsp fine sea salt
Garnish:
- 1 cup dates
- ½ cup raw almonds
- 1 tbs ground cardamom
- 1 tbs rose water
- pinch of sea salt
- ¼ cup raw pistachios
Cream butter with sugar, egg yolk, cardamom, and rose water in bowl. Add chickpea flour and mix well until lumps dissolve. Cover the bowl with foil or plastic wrap, and place in fridge to sit for at least one hour.
In the meantime, combine almonds, dates, cardamom, rose water and sea salt in a food processor until a paste forms.
When dough has sat for one hour, preheat oven to 300 degrees and line baking sheets with parchment paper. Using a teaspoon, scoop a spoonful of dough from the bowl and place into your hand. Roll the dough gently forming a ball in your hands. Press your thumb into the middle of the ball to form a dip in the cookie. This will flatten the cookie.
Fill each “thumbprint” with the date and almond paste and top with a single pistachio. Line the cookies onto baking sheets and bake for 30 minutes until edges are brown.
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