Buttermilk Graffiti Read online

  Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

  3 tablespoons vegetable oil

  1 cup diced onion

  ½ cup sliced garlic

  1 celery stalk, diced

  3 tablespoons grated fresh ginger

  1 serrano pepper, thinly sliced

  2 tablespoons ground star anise

  1½ tablespoons cumin seeds

  1 tablespoon smoked hot paprika

  3 tablespoons tomato paste

  4 cups water

  4 cups chicken stock

  ¼ cup soy sauce

  1½ tablespoons fish sauce

  ½ pound long beans or green beans

  ¼ pound Chinese cabbage, coarsely chopped

  1 red bell pepper, cored, seeded, and finely diced

  3 tablespoons rice vinegar

  1 pound fresh thick-cut noodles, such as udon, cooked according to the package directions and drained (see Note)

  Chopped fresh dill, for garnish

  Season the lamb shanks with a little salt and black pepper. Heat a large pot over high heat. Add 2 tablespoons of the vegetable oil and heat until hot, then add the shanks and brown them on all sides. Remove and set aside.

  Add the remaining 1 tablespoon oil, the onion, garlic, celery, ginger, and serrano pepper to the pot and cook, stirring, for 4 minutes, until nicely browned on all sides. Lower the heat to medium and add the star anise, cumin seeds, paprika, and 1 teaspoon black pepper and cook, stirring, for 1 minute, or until fragrant. Add the tomato paste and cook for 1 minute, or until it darkens slightly. Return the lamb shanks to the pot. Pour in the water, chicken stock, soy sauce, and fish sauce and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to maintain a simmer, return the shanks to the pot, cover, and cook for 1 hour 45 minutes, until the meat is tender. Check occasionally, and if the liquid no longer covers the lamb shanks, add a little more water to keep them submerged. Remove the lamb shanks and set aside to cool. Set the soup aside.

  Once the shanks are cool, pull the meat from the bones and discard the bones. Add the meat to the soup, along with the green beans, cabbage, and bell pepper, bring to a simmer, and simmer for 10 minutes, until the vegetables have softened. Add the rice vinegar, taste, and add more salt and black pepper as necessary.

  Divide the warm noodles among four large bowls and ladle the soup over the top. Garnish with fresh dill.

  Note: If you’re not using the noodles right away, after cooking, toss them with a little neutral oil, such as canola or grapeseed oil, to prevent them from sticking together.

  Russian Pickled Watermelon

  To learn to make all things Russian, I implore you to get a copy of Darra Goldstein’s A Taste of Russia. This recipe is inspired by one of hers. You’ll be surprised at how delicious pickled watermelon is. You can serve it as an accompaniment to charcuterie or eat it with smoked fish. It is great as a side for any kind of barbecue. Cut it into small cubes and put it in a salad. Or add it to your yogurt in the morning.

  Use a watermelon that is not too ripe for this recipe.

  Makes about 2½ quarts

  1 baby watermelon (2 to 4 pounds), rinsed

  8 cups water

  1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar

  ¼ cup salt

  2 tablespoons sugar

  1 tablespoon allspice berries

  2 bay leaves

  6 garlic cloves

  4 celery stalks, thinly sliced

  1 bunch dill, coarsely chopped

  Cut the watermelon into 1-inch-thick rounds and then cut each round into triangles. Find a large glass jar that will hold the slices, or several smaller jars, and place the watermelon wedges snugly in the jar(s).

  In a medium pot, combine the water, vinegar, salt, sugar, allspice berries, bay leaves, garlic, and celery and bring to a low simmer, stirring to dissolve the salt and sugar. Remove from the heat and let the brine cool.

  Pour the brine into the jar(s) of watermelon, filling them all the way to the top. Cover the jar(s) with several layers of cheesecloth and secure with a rubber band. Let the pickles sit at room temperature for 24 to 36 hours, checking the jars every 12 hours. As soon as you smell fermentation happening (you will notice a sourness coming from the brine), put the jars in the fridge.

  The watermelon should be ready to eat in about 2 days, but you can leave it in the fridge to ferment for longer. I like my watermelon pickle still crispy and fresh, which means just a few days in the fridge, but you can keep it for up to a month; it gets sourer as time goes by.

  Coffee-Glazed Bacon with Pickled Watermelon and Fried Peanuts

  There are many ways to use pickled watermelon, but if you want to get a little fancy with it, try this composed salad with crispy and sweet bacon. It is small in size but layered with lots of flavor and textures.

  Serves 4 as a first course

  glazed bacon

  ¼ cup brewed espresso

  3 tablespoons maple syrup

  2 tablespoons dark brown sugar

  8 slices thick-cut bacon

  fried peanuts

  1 cup water

  ½ cup unsalted raw peanuts

  ½ cup granulated sugar

  1 tablespoon soy sauce

  ½ cup corn oil

  garnishes

  1 cup Russian Pickled Watermelon, cut into ½-inch cubes, with its pickling liquid

  Handful of small lettuces, such as mâche, baby romaine, or baby arugula

  ¼ cup torn fresh basil leaves

  Extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling

  ¼ teaspoon pink peppercorns, roughly chopped

  To make the bacon: Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

  In a small saucepan, combine the espresso, maple syrup, and brown sugar and bring to a simmer, stirring to dissolve the sugar.

  Lay out the bacon evenly on the prepared pan and brush half the espresso glaze over it. Bake for 10 minutes.

  Remove the pan from the oven and raise the oven temperature to 400°F. Drain any fat from the pan. Flip the bacon slices and brush the remaining glaze over the bacon. Return to the oven and bake until the bacon is crisp and candied, 3 to 4 minutes. When it is ready, it will have turned a mahogany brown color and started to bubble. Remove and let cool completely on the pan, then break the bacon into large pieces and set aside.

  To make the fried peanuts: In a small saucepan, combine the water, peanuts, granulated sugar, and soy sauce and bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes. Drain the peanuts and spread on a paper towel to dry.

  In a small saucepan, heat the corn oil until hot. Add the peanuts and fry until crispy, about 2 minutes. Drain on paper towels. (The peanuts can be fried a day in advance, but do not refrigerate them.)

  When ready to serve, gather four small salad plates. Arrange 3 or 4 cubes of pickled watermelon on each plate. Divide the lettuces and basil evenly among the plates. Add some shards of the candied bacon to each plate. Top with the fried peanuts. Spoon a little of the watermelon pickling liquid over each salad, drizzle with just a hint of good olive oil, and sprinkle the pink peppercorns over everything. Enjoy immediately.

  Chapter 4

  The Accidental Fast

  I’ve come to Dearborn, Michigan, to eat. I’ve traveled six hours by car before dawn on nothing more than coffee and Red Bull. It is the middle of summer and my car’s air conditioner has died on me, but it isn’t reason enough to delay my trip. There is construction along an extended stretch of I-65, and the easiest way to avoid the traffic is to drive during the wee hours of the night. It also gives me time to think about what I’m searching for here in the suburbs of Detroit.

  Dearborn is not your typical foodie destination; it is still very much a hidden and misunderstood place. If you search for “Dearborn” on the Inter
net, you’ll find numerous narratives on the rich history of Muslims in the area and their relationship to the Ford Motor plant. But it takes only a quick scroll down to uncover pages of rage and vitriol. “Dearbornistan” is a common nickname, meant to link the American city to its Middle Eastern identity along with a call to arms to “cleanse” the city or “return” it to its rightful owners.

  I did a lot of research to prepare for this trip. Many anti-immigrant hate websites mention Dearborn. It is unsettling to discover page after page of the same vitriol and hate. But when I switched my search to Dearborn’s restaurants, I was pleasantly surprised to find plenty of suggestions for where to dine. Dearborn has dozens of restaurants representing almost every culture in the Middle East. According to many, I’ll find the best food of the Levant right here, where the Ford plant still towers over this industrial city. To prep for the trip, I read a lot about Henry Ford, too. He was a flawed but brilliant figure, and his company was one of the main reasons that Dearborn is home to the largest Muslim community in America.

  No one knows why the first family from the Levant came to Dearborn. But it is a well-documented fact that many Muslims worked in the Ford factory As I near the Dearborn exit in my car, I imagine that first encounter.

  By 1917, Henry Ford knew that the innovations that had brought the world the Model T were already obsolete, and he was focused on a much bigger idea: assembling a flywheel magneto ignition system along the banks of the River Rouge in Dearborn. This was not merely a factory but a system for all mankind—eighty thousand men over a thousand acres of factories working for a common goal: to churn out the most advanced machines ever built by man. But this ambition came with obstacles. Turnover was hindering production, and murmurings of union organizing were starting to surface. Human nature, Ford believed, was defective, and the only salvation was work; the only sanity was a belief in the system.

  Along the banks of the River Rouge, iron ore and coal were shipped in daily on Great Lakes steamers. Mr. Ford could often be found marveling at the great machines that brought the world’s resources to him. It was on those very docks on a sun-dappled morning that he noticed a young sailor from Yemen. He struck up a conversation with the merchant marine from Aden. He was curious to know how far a young man would travel for the prospect of steady factory work.

  We will travel the world, the sailor replied, but repetition is the curse of the enslaved.

  Prosperity rewards the industrious, Mr. Ford replied. For five dollars a day, I will earn your loyalty.

  The sailor grew excited. For five dollars a day, we will build your automobiles, drive your ships, mine your raw materials. We will bring our families, we will cook our saltah, we will build our mosques.

  Mr. Ford could feel the itch of impatience. Then send word to your families, your friends and brethren, he said, until the rumor of prosperity spreads across the entire Levant. I will send ships for them if you promise me the hands of good workers. Send word across the desert until the name of Ford becomes a beacon for all who crave a better life through the sanctity of work.

  The Yemeni sailor was already gone, indistinguishable from the dozens of sailors lined up along the mooring. But in his head, the sailor was already composing the letter he would write to his family the first chance he got.

  There is no evidence that this exchange ever took place, but it is one of numerous origin stories about how Dearborn, Michigan, became the most heavily populated Muslim city in America. Still, it has a ring of truth to it, and it is convenient, like a dream that ends at the precise moment you wake up. It’s probably too good to be true. But there are some histories that can’t be explained by green cards or statistics. Sometimes, the closest thing you have to the truth is mythology. Sometimes, you can’t experience a city through the Internet. You have to go see it with your own eyes.

  Conventional wisdom says that food writing should steer clear of politics and religion, but how do I do this in a place that is defined by its religion and cultural isolation? Isn’t cuisine inseparable from the context of the world we live in? Two events happened in the week leading up to my trip. One was the death of Muhammad Ali, easily the most recognizable Muslim celebrity in American history. The city I live in, Louisville, was also his hometown, and the week he died, a week showered with flowers and tears, culminated in a memorial that featured the likes of Bryant Gumbel, Bill Clinton, and Billy Crystal. The first speaker of the evening was the Rev. Dr. Kevin Crosby. A line from his eulogy struck me: “Ali is the property of all people, but let us never forget that he is the product of black people in their struggle to be free.” Those words disturb me for their honesty and brutality. They haunt me for their call to unity in the face of the divide that still exists.

  Almost a week after Ali’s death, a deranged man walked into a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and committed one of the worst mass shootings in American history. He claimed to be Muslim. All week, the media focused on this, on Muslims, on hatred, on blame. The country was full of rage.

  Those two events, Ali’s death and the Orlando nightclub shooting, were monumentally different but both impactful: one a celebration, the other a desecration. It is with this frame of mind, in this highly charged national environment, that I am driving to Dearborn, Michigan. When I go to a place like Dearborn, a place I don’t know at all, I do it out of a need to understand and connect. Still, I must be willing to accept that the people I meet may not want to connect with me.

  Every fifty miles, I think, This is a bad idea. I should turn back. Trucks, lit up like Christmas trees, pass me on the left with a violent force that sucks me toward their rear axles. I steady my steering wheel and slug another mouthful of cold coffee. I drive on at a steady eighty miles per hour. I refuse to pull over for fast food. I don’t want to fill up on empty calories. I am going to Dearborn to eat. Little do I know that I will be going there to fast.

  The morning in Dearborn is met with distant prayers and empty streets. There is nothing about this place that screams “culinary paradise.” It is as somber and dry as a desert. Simple working-class homes unfold into a downtown of two-story buildings that are as dull as they are utilitarian. As I drive down the city’s main artery, Warren Avenue, it is evident that I am in a foreign place. The signs are as unforgiving and unreadable as graffiti. The Arabic letters look like art painted on walls, indecipherable to outsiders. There are several eateries on every block, most of them small, with drab awnings that do not seem welcoming. An elderly man smoking a cigarette on a folding chair looks as gray as the asphalt beneath him. The sun provides no color.

  I pull into the first restaurant I see that happens to be open at this early hour, Al-Ameer. It is spacious, built for crowds. The staff is hustling despite its being empty, which tells me that the place will soon fill up. My waiter is practiced and concise, perhaps distracted by the thought of the side work yet to be done. I order kibbeh, hummus, chicken kaftah, and lamb kebabs. Mint tea comes out fragrant yet dark and heavy, a contradiction I am enjoying. The food arrives in a rhythmic procession, unadorned, delicious, and fast. As more patrons file in, I watch the food come out even faster. There is no romance, no lingering over the last aromatic bites of saffron rice that have folded themselves into the labneh. My tea is still warm when the check arrives. I pay and walk over to the counter from where you can see the entire kitchen at work, including a vintage oven where an elderly man is baking round after round of imperfectly puffed flatbreads. I work up the nerve to start a conversation with the old man. I’m usually good at this—I know how to get invited into kitchens; I know how to talk to waiters—but it doesn’t work here. There is no tour of the ovens, no talk of family recipes. It is just business as usual. I slink out of the front door and grab a local newspaper. Muhammad Ali is on the cover. I can’t read the words, but I don’t have to. He was, after all, the Greatest.

  The rest of the day is pretty much the same. I walk into restaurants, eat good food, ask q
uestions, and get polite but short answers. Any outsider is first met with suspicion, apprehension. The fact that I’m writing a food story means nothing to the man operating a fifteen-seat eatery catering to clientele who do not need a food guide to tell them what to order. I am at best an oddity, but more than that, I get the feeling that I’m a nuisance. I represent everything this community mistrusts about the outside world. Before I embarked on this trip, I was told to bring along someone who could introduce me to the locals, someone who could speak Arabic—a “fixer,” they sometimes call it. I decided against this. I wanted this to be a personal journey, and I wanted to figure things out for myself. Despite the regret I’m starting to feel about this, I march on.

  It is Ramadan, the time for fasting, so most of the restaurants I visit are empty during the day. The owners smile and wave, then hide in the back, presumably to avoid any conversation with me. I don’t have any way to start up a conversation with them, either. Just before sundown, I drive to a nearby hotel to get some rest, only to be told there are no vacancies. There is a Beyoncé concert in Detroit. I end up at an extended-stay motel, one of those forlorn places with an economy kitchenette that looks more like a meth lab than a place you’d want to cook a meal in. That night, I walk the streets of Dearborn looking for someone to talk to. At sundown, I’m told, the restaurants fill up with people breaking their fast. Everywhere I go, the TVs are tuned to Al Jazeera and the events unfolding in Orlando. The people around me, heavily bearded men dressed as men who work blue-collar jobs do, sternly watch the televisions or are deep in conversation in a language I cannot comprehend. No one is interested in idle chatter, at least not with me. I know they’re surveying me, but so practiced are they at this that I never make eye contact with a single person, though I look up from my ghallaba every once in a while.

  I finish dinner and walk to the most opulent pastry shop in Dearborn, Shatila Bakery, which at first looks more like a casino than a café. The place is buzzing with women wearing the hijab, some with young children waiting in line for their sweets. There is a coffee counter, a glass display about a football field long of pastries, and an ice cream station where every flavor is spiked with neon dye. I patiently wait in line and order as much as I think my stomach will handle: kashtas, katayifs, and baklavas dripping with syrups redolent of rose water and honey. Aside from the shapes, I almost can’t tell them apart. An older man who notices my pen and notepad strikes up a conversation with me.