Life From Scratch (46 page)

Samoan Chocolate & Orange Coconut Rice Pudding

There’s nothing like chocolate for breakfast. This Samoan pudding uses koko Samoa (the tower of cocoa nibs and chocolate for which this dessert is named), a few orange leaves from the canopy, and fresh-squeezed coconut milk. For those of us on the mainland, dark chocolate chips and grated orange peel get
across the spirit of things. As rich as this is, I find a small bowl does the trick
.

1 cup white rice (preferably medium-grain)

4 cups water

15 ounces coconut milk, fresh or canned

Zest of 1 orange (or 2 to 3 orange leaves)

¾ cup (4 ounces) dark chocolate chips

½ cup sugar, or to taste

Finishing touches:

A small pitcher of coconut milk (optional)

Add the rice, water, coconut milk, and orange zest to a medium pot. Bring to a simmer over high heat. Reduce heat, and maintain a gentle bubble (uncovered) for 20 to 25 minutes, or until very thick. Stir occasionally. Remove from heat, and stir in the chocolate and as much sugar as you can stand. At first the chocolate will melt unevenly. Give it a few minutes—it’ll smooth out. Serve warm, with a drizzle of extra coconut milk if desired.

Enough for 8 to 10

P
ART
S
IX

Feast of Nati
o
ns

“A ripened fruit does not cling to the vine.”
—Zimbabwean proverb

CHAPTER 29

A True Global T
a
ble

S
ORRY
,
IT
’
S TOO COLD
to eat on the front lawn,” I tease.

Our neighbors shake their heads regretfully. We’ve invited the Beards and their girlfriends over for a San Marino potluck. There was much laughter when we realized we’d unwittingly made the same recipe for this tiny country nestled inside the mountains of Italy: swallows’ nests, called
nidi di rondine
.

Given the choice, I’d do it again. Swallows’ nests are like a cross between white lasagna and cinnamon buns. A drop cloth of pasta dough is smeared with béchamel sauce, layered with ham and Emmentaler cheese, rolled into a log, and sliced. A second dose of béchamel is spooned into a casserole. The coils nestle in this white bed, insulated from the dry oven heat.

A second quick-fix version uses puff pastry and tomato sauce. This is what the Beards made. There’s no sweating over béchamel, there’s no rolling of homemade pasta dough. But the buttery rosettes are equally decadent.

The Beards have inhaled both casseroles; there’s not a drop of tomato or béchamel sauce on the pans.

“That was incredible,” van Gogh says.

“The best moment of my life,” adds George Michael.

“It seems a shame,” I muse, “that not everyone can experience what we experienced over these last years—to taste the world’s beauty. All of it.”

I’m not certain if I’m feeling nostalgic because it’s the week after Toni left, or if it’s because there’s only one year left to the adventure. The list of remaining countries, less than 50, feels truncated. Though I know it is the last country we’ll cook, I find myself looking past Zimbabwe into the gutters of the page, as though I might find a forgotten country there.

“Your mom must be proud,” Bob Ross says.

I nod, smiling. “Yeah, I guess she is.” I tell them about the Bulgarian man who came by two years earlier, and how Mom and I talked about inviting the whole world to come together around a single table.

“I just can’t seem to get the idea out of my head. I’d love to do something like that.” I look at Ava. She’s trying to use her small knife to cut her pasta in pieces. She’s three, speaking in full sentences. I feel both insanely proud, and also at a loss, somehow.

“Kids grow up knowing there’s a big world out there. If they could just see all that food, from every country in the world in one place, they’d realize that we’re all connected. Since the beginning of this project, and since I arrived here, I’ve felt that Tulsa has offered up the best of its markets and produce. Now I guess I want to pay it forward.”

The Beards nod in pendulous enthusiasm.

“That’s a great idea,” one of them says. “A spectacle like that could really change people’s perspectives. But how are you going to cook all that food in one day?”

Keith suggests a citywide potluck, but the question of food safety makes us all squirm.

I think about the movie
Babette’s Feast
, my inspiration for going to culinary school years earlier. The heroine created a French feast, food from just one country, fed to a small group. But the effort took her days. I imagine multiplying her feast by 195. It would be a tremendous amount of food—too much for one person.

That night I ask Mom what she thinks.

“When I don’t know what to do about something,” she tells me, “I just leave the idea alone for a while. A good idea will feed itself and grow. A bad one will disappear—as it should.”

She laughs. “What’s that expression? Set it free. If it’s meant to be, it’ll come to you. Things will start happening. Two years later you’re still thinking about it. That’s a good sign.”

So I keep talking about the idea to anyone who will listen. Where I expect to be met with cynicism, again and again I find excitement and affirmation.

When I bump into Griffin, a social media visionary at the local art museum, things really start moving. “You must do it at Philbrook,” he says of the Tulsan landmark. The diverse art collection is curated within a 72-room mansion built in the 1920s. It costs thousands of dollars to rent even a corner of their immaculate grounds for a brief wedding reception. I study his unblinking face. He’s serious.

Three months later, he sends me an email. “We’re a go. Pick your date.”

The museum will donate the space on one condition: I keep the entire event free and open to the public. I couldn’t have asked for a better condition, and add that if people want to “pay,” they can provide a donation to the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma.

Now that I have a location, there are no excuses. I write out a list of things that need to be done. Beyond the food, I need a volunteer sign-up form for each of the 195 recipes so I can track who’s making what. I need a website to promote it; a brochure; recipe identification cards, so people know what they are eating; decor; people to set up, serve, and clean up.

Keith tells me I simply have to ask. I don’t know how, so I just keep talking about the idea wherever I go until the right people hear me.

Over the next month, the Tulsa community throws itself into the idea so forcefully that I nearly get whiplash. One company wants to donate rentals; another wants to donate flowers. One woman offers event-planning services, while another offers to help with PR. My friend Josie helps me find chefs, and after two hours of emails and cold calls, we have about 50 countries claimed.

“Not bad,” Josie says.

“I’ll be happy if we can get 90,” I say.

“That’s not even half,” she says. “We can do better than that. We’re going to get them all.”

Josie won’t let the idea rest until we fill all the slots. We keep calling, asking. Chefs sign up, taking ten or more countries. The Culinary Institute of Platt College takes 20. Chefs for local nonprofits get involved. We get up to 120, then 140, then 160 countries claimed—85 percent of the world.

A women’s recovery group joins the list, making it 175 countries claimed, about 90 percent of the world. We only need to find two more chefs to cook 21 more recipes, and we’ll have everything covered.

There’s just one problem: Turns out that food from every country in the world requires a tremendous amount of space—200 feet of table to be precise. If we can hold the event outside, Philbrook’s immaculate gardens will provide the perfect backdrop, with ample room. But if it rains, we’ll have to fit the entire world in one tight hall, precariously poised between a Rodin statue and the temporary exhibit space.

Months of planning go by in a blur of phone calls and meetings. All the while I continue cooking the world. But now it’s different. I cook fewer recipes and ratchet back the pace so I can enjoy the process more. In this marathon of food, I find the right stride, savoring the process, not the destination.

We partake in South Sudan, the newest country in the world, with our most devoted reader, Brian. After spending six years traveling across Asia and Africa, he now resides a mile from my house. We tuck into a feast of peanut-laced tomato salad, sorghum crepes called
kisra
, and a spinach peanut butter stew called
combo
. This deep-voiced, bespectacled man has contributed so many comments to the blog, as lengthy as they are historical. I am honored to have him share our table.

Through the summer we mop up Syrian lentils—a bossy blast of garlic and pomegranate syrup—with pita bread. Then there’s Swedish princess cake, and meatballs. Each jockeys for attention, the meatballs winning ultimate favor for their simplicity and ability to dance between caramelized crust and lingonberry cream.

When I cook Togo, my old friend Annie from Luxembourg visits with her two children, ages six and eight. Her husband is on tour in Afghanistan. I haven’t seen Annie in at least a decade.

“Can you believe we’re all grown up with our own families?” I ask her. She nods, and then shakes her head.

“Can I tell you something?” I lean forward.

“Sure!”

“Sometimes I feel like a fraud as a mother—like I’m playing dress up. Do you ever feel that way?”

“All the time.”

We laugh, and I relax. Maybe some of this motherly anxiety has nothing to do with my past. Maybe it’s simply … normal.