Comfort Food

Aleishall Girard Maxon

One of the most vivid memories I have of growing up in a Lebanese kitchen are the hands of the women in my family as they cooked. My grandmother’s hands were beautiful. She had long, slender fingers, with nails that were always painted fire engine red. The skin was olive colored except around the knuckles where they always had a slight purple hue and were soft like crinkled tissue paper. I can still see them clearly lightly dusted in flour as she methodically kneaded dough. It was not uncommon for me to sit and watch my mother, her sisters and my grandmother at work on a giant Middle Eastern feast. Keeping my eyes level with the countertop I could imagine their dancing digits as separate entities working in an assembly line to create culinary works of art.

Despite familial tension that tends to erupt among sisters, daughters and mothers, there was always a sense of ease and grace in the gastronomic movements of these four women. Days could have passed as I took in the smells of sauteeing garlic, fresh yogurt draining and the pita dough rising beneath a moist kitchen towel. I waited with a patience cultivated only with the reward of delicious flavors in mind for any extras that might get passed my way.

And if there was a piece flat bread, oh, I was in heaven. The dough was rolled out and sprinkled in one of two ways-with golden sesame seeds, sugar and olive oil, or olive oil and the Arabic spice zatar. Pulling apart the bread when it was still hot from the oven, and feeling the toasted sesame seeds crackle between my teeth is a sensation that has been burned into my memory. When dinner was finally served I usually had just enough room for a small portion of all the beautiful dishes. I spooned each one on with fastidious concern as to what went where. The little piles on my plate, were each gems in their own right, though were equally as splendid when mixed in the right way—a spinach pie dipped in baba, a bite of tabbuli with just a bit of hummus, a mihshi waraq ‘inab siyam (more commonly known as stuffed grape leaves or dolmas) drizzled with khyar bil-laban (a traditional yogurt cucumber sauce).

These coveted meals were my initial introduction to the concept of soul food as I later came to define it for myself. Though I was exposed from an early age to a number of excellent restaurants and dining experiences it was my mother’s phenomenal abilities in the kitchen that were the foundation for my love and appreciation of a well cooked meal.

I realized even as a child that there was so much more in a dish that had been prepared by someone I knew and loved than that which had been put together in a kitchen I could not see by hands that I did not recognize. Every interaction we have throughout the course of our lives is in fact an exchange of energy. The preparation of food is no exception. In fact it has one of the highest capacities for energy transfer because food interacts with all five of the senses on such an intense level for both the people who are preparing it and those who consume it.

For me, the best meals are those that have infused with the energy of someone with whom I have a personal connection. The actual food feeds the body but the energy being put into the preparation and assembly of a dish satisfies the soul.