Feeding the Hungry Ghost (20 page)

I can’t quite give you the whole Saharan experience, but this rice might get you close. I have added some lentils for protein and interest. They’re appropriately shelf stable, too. I would also like to throw in some green vegetables but, in order to be true to the original, have held off. Though it pairs very nicely with the broccoli recipe later in this chapter (see
page 145
), Broccoli with Lemon and Mint (Broccoli for Beginners). I’m just saying.

Rice in the Sahara

Serves 4 to 6

½ cup slivered almonds

3 cups Stone Soup (see
page 84
) or other vegetable broth or water

1 cup brown rice

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, sliced

Pinch of saffron

½ cup red lentils

1 cinnamon stick

1 teaspoon ground allspice

3 dried Medjool dates, chopped

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Pour the almonds in a shallow ovenproof pan and toast until they just turn golden and are fragrant, 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer the almonds to a small bowl to cool.

In a medium saucepan, bring 2 cups of the vegetable broth to a boil over high heat. Add the rice, cover, and reduce the heat to low. Simmer just until the rice absorbs the liquid and leans toward tenderness, about 30 minutes. (It will continue cooking later.) Remove from the heat and let cool. (The rice can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for a day or two; bring to room temperature before proceeding with the recipe.)

In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and stir until evenly coated. Cover, reduce the heat to low, and cook about 20 minutes. The onion will still be pale and will have thrown off quite a lot of liquid. This is good. Add the saffron and raise the heat to medium.

Add the red lentils to the onions and stir to combine. Add the remaining 1 cup broth, cover again, and continue cooking. Red lentils cook speedily — 10 to 15 minutes. Check them after 12 minutes. They should be pale rosy and tender, not mushy.

Add the cinnamon stick to the onion-lentil mixture, and stir in the allspice, cooked rice, and dates. Season with plenty of salt and pepper.

Heat over medium heat for a few minutes, stirring to combine, until heated through. Just before serving, stir in the toasted almonds for a nice crunch.

Afterward, we slept. When the hostess knocked to wake us, it was still dark, just after three in the morning. I dressed, splashed water on my face, brushed my hair, and put on a swipe of lipstick. I wanted to look nice.

We opened the door into… an abyss. The desert at night is not merely dark; it is cold and so black it seems to create a vacuum. The stars blaze above, stolen diamonds, but they do not light your way. You cannot see out, you cannot see down. To walk, I would have to go on faith.

A beam of light also helps. A man stood, holding a flashlight — our Berber guide, swathed in blue robes.

“Come,” he said. “Your camels are ready.”

I’d put on lipstick — a shade called desert rose — for the camels. I wanted them to like me, as I knew I would love them. They knelt in the sand, saddled with blankets. I fell to my knees to greet them.

Perhaps it was the wrong shade of lipstick. Like our spare, elegant guide, they seemed impervious to the wind, the sand, us. But they tolerated us when we got on. When the guide gave the command, they rose onto their front legs, pitching us backward. Then they rose onto their hind legs; we all wobbled, got our bearings, and proceeded out of the stone desert and into the dunes.

We trekked for hours. Our guide did not say much. He did not have to. The only sound was the muffled thudding of our camels’ hooves on the sand. The blackness of the night gave way to pearly first light, and the dunes surrounding us revealed themselves — rose and honey and salmon colored, an ocean of sand, vast and alive, blown high by the wind into sensuous peaks and sweeps.

This sand was not the sand that had pelted us outside the
ksar
the night before. It was entirely other, so fine as to be almost
liquid, like satin on my skin. The dunes’ surface was already growing warm from the sun, but I plunged my hands down into the sand below, where it felt cool to the touch.

We sat, watching the sun rise above the dunes, first a piercing red light above the sand, then a band of it, and then the entire sun rising as though in a hurry. Why hurry? There were only the wide stretches and scoops of sand; what novelist Paul Bowles called the sheltering sky above; and us. I felt
Bowles’s definition of magic,
“a secret connection between the world of nature and the consciousness of man, a hidden but direct passage that bypassed the mind.”

The desert rang with primeval magic. We breathed its air, full of secrets that would reveal themselves, if only you would wait.

I waited. The desert told me one.

You need nothing, it said. You are fine.

“We go,” our guide said.

Go? Why would we go? I wanted to stay. Forever. Fez, Marrakech, Miami, what did I need with any of it? I wanted to disappear into the dunes like Kit Morseby in Bowles’s
The Sheltering Sky.
Having a surreal and sexual nervous breakdown like hers was negotiable.

“It is hot,” our guide said.

So it was. In the midst of my ecstatic experience, I had somehow failed to notice. Likewise I had not noticed Benjamin and I were covered with desert dust. Our guide, however, was immaculate. Berber robes and headgear aren’t a fashion statement. They make sense. So did water. I drank. And drank.

We mounted our camels; they lurched to their feet and led us out of the dunes and back to where the desert wore down to stone. It was still morning, but the sun’s heat was a power, as absolute as the night, or an ocean, or an ocean of sand. And out in the desert,
there is no escaping it, no cover, no shade. I felt stunned by the sun and as dry and gray as the endless stone desert. I felt humbled by the Sahara, beholden to it, at its mercy.

We plodded on. Then I saw something odd. Something green and scrubby in the rocks, as though the Sahara had grown an unfortunate soul patch. Then there were lots of green things pushing through, then whole ribbons of green erupting from the rocks and sand. I wondered if I was hallucinating and then, ever given to extremes, if I was somehow dying of typhus like
The Sheltering Sky’s
Port Moresby.

I cleared my parched throat. “Is this…are these…
shrubs?”

The Sahara’s surface is dry, our guide explained, but water flows beneath, close to the surface. When it comes close enough, things grow.

Then he smiled. For the first time. It transformed him, turning him from stony to vital and alive.

“Where there is water,” he said, “there is life.” He called it an oasis.

I call it a miracle. And you know, I’m not one to bandy the word around.

a
BOWL
of
WELL-BEING

It is not always possible to run away to the desert. Who has the time? And there’s always the risk you’ll have too much of a
Sheltering Sky
experience. But a little heat, a little magic — these are worthwhile things, and a pot of harira supplies both.

Like dates and olives, harira is a Ramadan tradition, deeply restorative at the end of a day of fasting and repentance, making use of a riot of fresh summer vegetables, like tomatoes and zucchini. The result is something greater than the sum of its parts.

Every family makes its own version of harira. It is entirely forgiving, allowing you to add more of this or that. You can make it elegant with a pinch of saffron or
ras el hanout,
a mystical blend of spices and peppers and flowers, or you can make it simple and straightforward and still come away with a fair amount of enchantment. The only must-have is yeast. This is traditional for harira, giving it some oomph and thickness and a mild fermenty kick. After that first taste — where you go, hmm, odd — it becomes addictive. I’ve since seen harira recipes with lamb, with chicken, with eggs. I haven’t seen many plant-based versions like mine, though.

Harira somehow satisfies but does not stuff you. Maybe it’s the yeast. Certainly it’s the yeast that lifts this soup of summer vegetables from everyday to exotic. It lifts my spirits, too. When I make harira, I like to think of the women in my Marrakech
riad
making it for their own families, and somehow, someone in the desert enjoying it, too. What’s the point in having magic if you can’t whisk a pot of soup to someone when you like?

Excellent during Ramadan, when it’s served at dusk, along with olives and dates, to break the daylong fast, it is quite the thing any time of year. Enjoy it nontraditionally when the weather is bitter and cold or you are bitter and have a cold. It’s energizing, restorative, warming. It is well-being in a bowl.

Harira

Serves 8

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

1
teaspoon turmeric

3 zucchini or yellow squash or a mix of the two, chopped

2 red bell peppers, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

Pinch of saffron or
ras el hanout
(optional but very nice)

One 28-ounce can diced tomatoes or 4 gorgeous ripe tomatoes, chopped

One 15-ounce can chickpeas, rinsed and drained

6 cups Stone Soup (see
page 84
) or other vegetable broth

1 small handful whole wheat vermicelli or angel hair pasta, broken into bite-size pieces

1 tablespoon active dry yeast dissolved in ¼ cup warm vegetable broth or water

Juice of 1 or 2 lemons

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

1 handful fresh cilantro, chopped

Lemon wedges for serving (optional)

In a large stockpot, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and turmeric. Cook, stirring, until the onion softens and turns golden, a few minutes. Add the zucchini, red bell peppers, celery, and, if you’ve got it, the saffron or
ras el hanout.
Cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables become tender, 5 to 8 minutes more.

Stir in the tomatoes, chickpeas, and broth. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Add the broken pasta, yeast mixture, and lemon juice and stir to combine. Continue cooking 3 to 5 minutes more, until the angel hair softens, stirring occasionally. Season with sea salt and pepper. Just before serving, stir in the cilantro.

Serve with extra lemon wedges, if desired.

GENTLE NUDGE
the
EIGHTH: STOCKED
and
STOKED

Every so often, Benjamin likes to open the doors to our kitchen cupboard. It puts him into a rapturous trance. It is, he says, a thing of wonder that’d do an alchemist proud, with bags of spices, grains, and seeds, mysterious bottles and jars filled with bright-colored oils and amber syrups, all spilling forth — and sometimes spilling out. I may not be tidy, but I am prepared. Having a well-stocked larder is useful, whether you’re in the Sahara or San Francisco. It means you’ll always have what it takes to put together a magical meal. Magic, after all, needs a little help. Your starter supply might set you back twenty-five dollars. Aside from the olive oil, these ingredients add no fat to your food, but all add plenty of energy and nutrition, plus the makings for a year’s worth of diverse and vibrant meals. A whole year’s worth. Come on, you can blow that much at Starbucks without even working up an espresso-induced sweat.

The Basics

LEGUMES.
Protein-rich, fiberrific beans, like lentils, garbanzos, black beans, and cute little white cannellini. Having a few cans of beans means you can have a meal in minutes. Dried beans are cheaper and have an indefinite shelf life. Why choose? Keep a few of each on hand.