What lies beyond

Photo by K. Rajendran at Lake Michigan

My son Nooa turned two yesterday. This is not a remarkable thing. After all, time passes us by with such ease and fortitude, with nothing to hinder its intent. What is truly compelling is the way in which time changes shapes and becomes us. One day we look at someone we love and see that they are completely different than the day before. This is the magic of parenthood... seeing how time performs the greatest slight of hand in the words, gestures, and features of our children.

What lies beyond this day for Nooa is, I can only hope, a lifetime of discovery and grand experience. So far he has the appetite for it. I watch my children as they interact with the objects and people around them on our walks each day. They move through this urban landscape on foot, on scooter, by train, as though it is their own, and it is. I'm often reminded of a book I read a couple of years ago by Adam Gopnik, Through the Children's Gate: A Home in New York, about (as the book cover suggests) "...a family taking root in the unlikeliest patch of earth." He refers to the city as representing a kind of childlike hope... "waiting for something big to happen." I love this notion. Yesterday, we took a water taxi from Michigan Avenue to the river's edge at Chinatown. On this journey, I stared at the buildings and barriers and renewed architecture jutting up against the river and couldn't help but think of all the exciting possibilities this city had yet to realize. As we disembarked from the taxi in Chinatown, we entered into a beautiful park on the river. Here children were fishing, playing in the playground, running along its paths; a veritable oasis in the midst of old industry and the web of expressways.

In essence, time is certainly the greatest of gifts in the way that it keeps bringing us people, opportunities, and new ways of inventing ourselves and our surroundings. And in the most basic of ways, the words and phrases Nooa discovers and sings or exclaims with joy every day are a testament to what lies beyond. Uncovering and understanding. A whole world of syllables and sounds just waiting to be gobbled up and applied to that which he sees.

Happy birthday, Nooa.

Anatomy of a meal

Menu planning at its finest: an Indian meal for friends

The picture on the left is a little difficult to decipher, but let me explain. Over the years, Nalin and I have prepared many a meal for our friends and family. And it usually starts out with a little list making or menu planning on a torn-off sheet of paper. By the end of the process, that paper looks quite a bit like aged parchment, with smeared pen, some food splatters, and maybe even a few grubby fingerprints. For as long as I can remember, Nalin has been more than a bit fond of making lists, adding things to the list, making a note of that on the list, etc., etc. You get the drift. For procrastinating, impulsive, and fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants little ol' me, this has often been a little challenging to say the least, but his style has slowly grown on me. The lists Nalin makes on a daily basis are like maps, with the arteries of thought running this way and that in sequenced definition. For these meal plans, there is often a shopping list incorporated and sectioned by dish, the dishes themselves listed in order of preparation to time things right, some instructions perhaps, and then, usually at the end, notes on whether the dish worked well or not and what to do or not do the next time around. And it doesn't stop there. These lists and maps are a part of nearly everything we do in our household, much to my chagrin at times, I suppose.

Nalin has a great book on his bookshelf entitled Inspired: How creative people think, work and find inspiration. We got this a few years back, and it is one of those books you never quite tire of, and, in fact, it can be quite uplifting in those moments where inspiration seems about the last thing to be mustered. It is a collection of some of the greatest creative minds around. In the preface, the authors write, "This is a book about the creative process. The journey that starts with a blank sheet of paper and an open mind." Dick Bruna, the Dutch writer and illustrator of the lovely 'Miffy' titles writes,

"I'm inspired by very simple things. It can be a shape, a nice red door or a blue window. I collect objects that I like for their shape or colour. I also collect the presents that I get from children all over the world. I have a whole bookcase full of them."

And as I sit here paging through the book again as I write, I marvel at the sketches, notebook scribbles, photographs, and ordinary found objects that serve as the basis for so much wonder and creativity. It is at once both intimidating and utterly within reach. I think that Nalin would second this notion of Georgie Bean, an interior stylist, producer, and freelance magazine correspondent from Amsterdam: "Things I've collected over time always have relevance at some point later on." (Or perhaps he might just use that as justification for the piles of magazines, clippings, cards, etc. that permeate our existence.) But honestly, this is something that I more than admire, because it can be such a potent way of cataloging one's hopes and dreams for a future of realities.

So the next time I am asked to make a list for that next meal, or trip, or creative initiative, I would hope that I can respond with an air of grace and receptivity and respect the greater power of the process. And for those of you who wonder what we made that night, here is the list, a little more legibly rendered:

• black-eyed peas with bamboo shoots (a Nepali dish we love)
• okra in coconut sauce
• eggplant and potatoes
• green beans with mustard seeds and whole cumin
• rice with peas and onions
• raita with spinach
• homemade mint chutney
• mango pickle

A lesson in block printing

A couple of blocks Nalin brought back from New Delhi

A weekend's bounty

Today I'm on a time limit. I have an hour left. An hour left on my wireless connection at The Coffee Studio, an hour left on my laptop battery, an hour left before heading back to relieve the once-a-week babysitter I allow myself. An hour left to write. Most of the time, I'm found during those precious three-hour stretches running errands without a 23-month-old on my back and a 3-1/2 year old at my side. But today I've given myself an hour of that for precious ol' "me" time. So let's get on with it. (By the way, if you checked out the link to The Coffee Studio, you'll see a picture of me and a 3-month-old Ettu on their home page. You can see us only from the back, but the striped hat is Ettu. Needless to say, this has been our home town coffee shop for quite a while now, since it opened the same month that picture was taken.)

Last weekend we went to our first outdoor farmer's market of the season here in Chicago. We were gone for a good month in the early spring, but from what I hear, the weather was not too accommodating; now, it appears, spring has sprung. Shortly after coming home from our veggie venture, Nooa came down with high fevers and the next day, Sunday, was a dreadfully rainy day. A good weekend to stay put, to say the least. Luckily, we had just done our weekly grocery shopping and had all these great greens, radishes, rhubarb, and other fun finds at the market. I made a hearty potato, kale, and pinto bean soup, mildly based on this recipe (although I did forego the completely vegan plan and used whole milk instead of almond milk; I also used pinto beans instead of butter beans, opted out of the miso, since I didn't have it on hand, and I decided not to puree the veggies at the end, instead leaving the soup nicely chunky). Oh, and I did make homemade croutons out of some left-over onion buns we had with hamburgers the previous night. While the soup was simmering, I cut up the stalks of rhubarb for a pie. Normally, I am not a pie person, but I can't resist a good rhubarb pie. I had a pie crust in the freezer, which was rare and perfect for such an occasion. I used this recipe as a foundation (super simple!). I did use the crumble top recipe and added pure vanilla to the rhubarb mixture. I must confess, I forced Nalin out into the rain to buy some vanilla ice cream. I just couldn't resist.

There is something so primal about cooking around what we have gathered (ideally from our own gardens, in this case from someone else's!). Michael Pollan, in his book, In Defense of Food, makes a simple and provocative statement: "Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants." This is not always easy or possible, but it makes a lot of sense. Yesterday, I needed to make something for an event at Ettu's school. Normally tempted to go out and buy something or at least buy groceries to create something, I rather gave myself the challenge of finding everything in my pantry or fridge. What I came up with was a fairly simple pasta salad: penne with a few cherry tomatoes and olives remaining in my fridge, some shredded asiago and parmigiana cheese found in my meat and cheese drawer, a saute of mustard greens, red spinach, garlic and spring onions added to the mix (all from the farmer's market), a bit of chopped sage that came back in our deck pots from last year, some toasted almonds, a little balsamic vinegar, and a healthy douse of olive oil. Et voila. A perfect al fresco dish.

Nalin and I were talking this morning about "eating our seeds today." In other words, investing in tomorrow by not indulging in today. This is a spectacularly hard concept for me to put into action. It is, in my estimation, my worst flaw. But this resonates on so many levels. And it is something that I hope to achieve in little ways every day. And now I see my time is up. So okay, a little indulgence (in this case my time and some precious hours of babysitting), is not always so bad. Perhaps it is even an investment. Let's all hope.