Recipe Tales
A recipe can tell a story far beyond its list of ingredients.
I weave memory, a sense of place, and practical instruction into my work so that readers come away with something worth cooking and a tale worth remembering.
Inside the Feathered Pipe’s Kitchen:
Stories, Spices, and Masala Chai
Everyone who visits the Feathered Pipe Ranch returns home with stories.
For those who have not crossed the threshold of the Feathered Pipe’s kitchen, let me paint you a picture. It is a room of wooden beams and metal spoons. Mason jars line open shelves: a kaleidoscope of spices, legumes, grains. Knives on wooden cutting boards provide gentle percussion with the occasional clang of a metal pot and faucet surge.
As cilantro was chopped for the weekly Indian dinner, someone might retell a story from the ranch’s founding or share a tale of yogic flying above the streets of Kathmandu in the ‘60s. You never knew which version you were going to get. That was part of the magic.
If you were a lucky guest, Asia would come to you in the form of VJ’s traveling bazaar. Woven carpets rolled out as she set up shop on the lawn, offering an array of shawls, bangles, and buddhas. As dust and nag champa mingled, VJ held court, chronicling her world wanderings and buying trips in India, Tibet, and the other ‘stans beyond.
It was while seated on one of VJ’s carpets, listening to her recount the fascinating history of dzi beads, that I took my first sip of masala chai. This spiced and milky Indian tea is another flavor memory that forever connects me — and many others — to the Feathered Pipe and its kitchen.
It is a recipe that I have continued to brew, in so many kitchens since, to create a sense of peace, warmth, and breathing room.
My Babcia’s Mizeria
Polish Cucumber Salad
My Polish grandmother’s 1970s American kitchen was a place of transformation.
The Formica countertops (whose pastel boomerang pattern always made me think of scattered rubber bands) were surfaces where wooden spoons and stoneware crocks reigned. This was a zone where things picked fresh from the backyard were crafted into dishes of incredible simplicity and deliciousness.
Standing at her kitchen sink in Cedar Grove, New Jersey, my Babcia, Genevieve Baranowski, could survey her domain. Her backyard was a rolling expanse of grass and trees, complete with a stream (great for crayfish hunting), a goldfish pond, and a substantial vegetable garden, which was where the magic began.
Babcia’s first miraculous act was to transform red clay into black gold.
Nothing in her kitchen was ever wasted. She knew how to incorporate peeled vegetable skins, coffee grounds, and eggshells into the soil, a spell which resulted in zucchinis as large as baseball bats and heirloom tomatoes you could barely palm with your hand. Every skunk, opossum, and raccoon within a ten-mile radius was drawn to her vegetal treasures, against which she continuously waged war.
Mizeria, a cold Polish salad of wilted cucumbers, sour cream, salt, and fresh dill, was a popular dish in my Babcia’s summertime kitchen. In recent days, with East Coast temperatures reaching oppressive levels, I have turned to it for its refreshing properties, as well as for the family memories that accompany it. It is perfect to bring along to a barbecue, guaranteed to cool off the heat of a summer afternoon.