Natalie Eve Garrett - Eat Joy: Stories & Comfort Food from 31 Celebrated Writers

Contents

Copyright 2019 by Natalie Eve Garrett

Illustrations copyright 2019 by Meryl Rowin

First published in the United States in 2019 by Black Balloon, an imprint of Catapult (catapult.co)

All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-1-936787-79-1

Cover design and book illustrations by Meryl Rowin

Book design by Wah-Ming Chang

Catapult titles are distributed to the trade by Publishers Group West

Phone: 866-400-5351

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018967674

Printed in China

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Tony, Serafina, Aurelio

&

for you.

CONTENTS

L ooking back on some of the more challenging times in my life, I remember not only the emotions involved, but also the taste. When I was sixteen, for instance, I was repeatedly bedridden with mysterious fevers that raged for months. My memories of that sweaty delirium are inextricably linked to the flavor of apple tarts: glazed apples and creamy custard set in a crisp buttery crust, then covered with toasted almond slices that crumbled onto the sheets with each bite. My mom bought them at a nearby bakery and delivered them to my bedside on particularly dark days. Another memory: a perfectly ripe, juicy cantaloupesliced in half, the hollow lusciously filled with blueberriesleft in a bowl on the counter on the summer morning that I broke up with my first real boyfriend. I ran down the stairs and escaped into a blast of July heat, teary yet exhilarated, with bits of blueberry still stuck to my teeth. Or the birth of my daughter, and then two years and three months later, my son: soft scrambled eggs, potatoes, and whole wheat toast with butter and raspberry jam; easy, simple foods, eaten for every single hospital meal, and for many meals during the subsequent weeks at home in beda dim haze of ice packs, exhaustion, blood, and adoration.

When I embarked on this collection, I hoped to create a feast of stories about making mistakes, summoning strength, getting lost and trying to find a way back. I hungered for compassionate stories that reveled in taste, whether savory, bitter, or sweetstories that used food as a conduit for unearthing memories. Reaching out to celebrated writers, I asked them to chronicle the hard timesimmigration challenges, chronic illness, loss, heartbreak, and moreand the foods that help them make it through. I gathered tips for scavenging, foraging, and scrimping; meditations on eating and friendship and finding comfort in eating alone; the secrets to favorite stress-relieving meals; nourishment in the face of addiction; unusual cravings; tales of troubled relationships with food; healing recipes.

The result: Eat Joy: Stories & Comfort Food from 31 Celebrated Writers, an unconventional collection of intimate, in-depth essays with recipes celebrating the foods we eat to get through the dark times in our lives. Each piece grapples with adversity and self-discovery; each acts as a reminder of our resilience. And taste ties the pieces together. Collectively, the book presents a hopeful vision, and it serves up delicious things to eat along the way.

In this book, Diana Abu-Jaber recalls the flight of her Palestinian ancestors from their villages in 1948. Edwidge Danticat finds magic in a simple dish that she eats with her dying father. Melissa Febos confronts Imposter Syndrome; Anthony Doerr feels homesick among humpback whales and bald eagles; Colum McCann shares a profound meditation on grief.

Offering solace, inspiration, and love, Eat Joy serves up mouth-watering dishes with a side of restorative joy. May the stories and recipes nourish you too.

NATALIE EVE GARRETT

DIANA ABU-JABER

Diana Abu-Jaber is the author of two memoirs: Life Without a Recipean Indie Next titleand The Language of Baklava, as well as four award-winning novels, including Birds of Paradise; Origin; Crescent; and Arabian Jazz. Her YA fantasy novel SilverWorld is forthcoming next year. Diana teaches at Portland State University and lives with her husband and daughter in Fort Lauderdale.

T hey were so hungry. So hungry. They ate the leaves off the trees. Thats what my auntie says, describing the flight of the Palestinians from their villages in 1948. They ate the herbs that grew in the fieldswild thyme and oregano. Zaatar. Just leaves. Aunt Nura is married to my fathers cousin Omar. My fathers family is Jordanian, from the city of Es-Salt, but Nura grew up across the border in Beit Nabala, in the district of Ramle. She was one of thousands who fled for their lives when the first waves of soldiers arrived. Most left with the clothes on their backsa few took the time to lock their doors and courtyards and buried or pocketed the iron keysnever to return.

As a child listening to my aunties stories, I imagined the fleeing villagers also as children, their bare feet and wind-tangled hair. I pictured them as enchanted creatures, like Thumbelina, living on dewdrops and petals, without pasts or futures, aware only of each moment of movement, crossing leafy hillsides to look forward into the wide Jordan Valley, never allowing themselves a backward glance. I imagined other stories for them: that green blossoms fell from the clouds and turned out to be full of honey; that they were saved by pirates on camelback towing ships across the sand. I imagined that they forgot, like the children in fairytales do, because forgetting is such a powerful yet close form of magiccooling and sweet.

My aunt called this flight the hejirawhich is part escape, part migration, part pilgrimage. Its an important word in Arabic, filled with resonance. The prophet Mohammeds great hejira, from Mecca to Medinaboth to evade assassins and to bring together his followersmarks the first year of the Islamic calendar. Nura was too young to remember much about the escape, yet she tells this story over and over, as if possessed. Whenever Uncle Omar hears his wife use the word hejira, however, he scoffs. A hejira, he says, has a beginning, middle, and most importantly an end. Your aunties has none of these. Shes still on the journey.

There have been many times in my life when Ive gone on the hejira, times that Ive traveled thousands of miles to a new school, or job, or for no reason at all, except hope. Ive traveled with a single suitcase to my name, lived in a basement apartment with only folding chairs and a cardboard box for furniture. On two occasions of leaving two previous husbands, I took nothing but a toothbrush and a change of clothes. And when I think of these times, perhaps its a sign of being a lucky and spoiled American, but I mainly recall a feeling of freedom, of bursting through obstacles.

At those times when Ive struggled to hang on, to be safe, to control this job or that relationship, to buy or keep more than I needed, Ive felt a heaviness that tells me Ive gone down the wrong path. I prefer the solace of cooking, which can offer both freedom and comfort. Like my exiled auntie who prepared the dishes of her lost childhood, whenever Ive gone on