in memory of a saffron cardamom pudding

true Though the saffron-cardamom pudding I made that afternoon was the pinnacle of my locavorian culinary efforts, I have doubts it's what the other urban homesteaders will remember from the event. Nor will they hearken back to my spicy-sweet, mellow tomato-jalapeno relish; not the cilantro-mint chutney with pillowy samosas; nor the really lovely carrot-orange-cardamom preserves. All I want to remember is my dessert. It started out as a simple rice pudding. The theme for the Portland Urban Homesteaders' potluck hoedown was East Indian, and we'd all been planning delicious offerings over our email list, dishes that reflected our desire for a local, sustainable food system. Rice pudding was the obvious choice for sweets, and in my over-stuffed refrigerator was a glass quart bottle of organic cream, nearly full, and 10 eggs freshly-gathered from my chickens. All I needed was a starting point, and Alice Medrich provided it. Her recipe for saffron cardamom panna cotta sprinkled with pistachios got it mostly right. But panna cotta is made with gelatin, not eggs. I hadn't been caring for Gilda, Genevieve, Guinevere, Marigold and Marguerite for the past six months so I could let their eggs lie fallow in their grey cardboard box. Not me. As I hemmed and hawed over the possibilities, I imagined the story I'd tell the hushed crowd upon tasting my rice pudding. "Fred isn't laying yet," I'd say. "I can't wait to see if her eggs will be blue or green! All these are brown eggs, but they're every shade of brown. Gilda's are the color of coffee with raw milk; Genevieve's are freckled with tiny white spots; Marigold's are the palest brown, like oatmeal with a little bit of maple syrup stirred in." I'd tell how I'd found the nests, how the young Buff Orpingtons laid in one spot, the Silver-Laced Wyandottes in another, separated by breed though they had seemed to all consider each other sisters until now. I might mention how the ladies' diet, rich in worms and dandelion greens and kitchen scraps (they love sourdough pancake scraps and over-ripe cherries, but they really go bonkers for corn-on-the-cob) makes the yolks deep orange, signifying vast nutritional riches. But this crowd already knows about backyard poultry. My beloved chickens had eaten much of my garden, decimating the pea shoots as soon as they began looking leggy, taking vigorous dust baths in the carrot seedlings, nibbling on the collard greens and red winter kale, chewing up the broccoli babies all at once after I'd thought they were safe. Other than the herbs and tomatoes, eggs were really all I had to show from a spring of strenuous garden investment. No matter. This pudding would leave everyone gasping, without room to wonder why I hadn't made a raita of my own cucumbers (chickeny nibbling on my cucumber starts), or a traditional paneer-and-spinach stew (sturdy spinach seedlings mysteriously disappeared in late June). By noon I had my tomato-jalapeno relish sending its spicy fragrance all through my kitchen and I had typed up my notes for the custard. Four -- maybe five -- cups of heavy cream. Six, or should it be 8 or 10? 10 cardamom pods. A generous pinch of saffron, rubbed between my fingers until the scent overwhelmed me and my fingertips were stained barely crimson. A cinnamon stick. A half-cup of light-flavored honey, poured recklessly from the jar my mother had brought proudly to me earlier that week. A neighbor had donated an enormous bucket of his own bees' honey to her friend's food distribution charity. Mom had strained and portioned it into dozens of quart jars, keeping a commission of honey for her children. This was my sweet share. I brought the cream and honey just to the simmering point and took it off the heat, dropping in the exotic spices and inhaling. Gorgeous. While it steeped I cleaned the kitchen and separated six egg yolks from my girls' carton, smugly happy to see the enormous egg Genevieve had laid was indeed a double-yolker. She's only six months old, it's a sure bet that an egg this big signifies twins. After 30 minutes, the cream was stained deep yellow and smelled of southern Spain, heady, transporting. The egg yolks were in a bowl, waiting, so I dribbled in that hot cream, whisking all the while. I returned the mixture to the pot, snapping on my new thermometer and sliding the guide to just the right height. I grabbed a wooden spoon and stood, gently stirring the mixture as the mercury rose. I couldn't help myself, it was so delicious, I was taking big slurps out of the spoon and rolling my eyes in amazement. 165 degrees Fahrenheit, already the mixture was thick and spoon-coating, I took another slurp and let the temperature continue rising to 170 before I removed it from the heat and start spooning into the waiting strainer, balanced over a funnel in the mouth of a quart jar. I filled it cautiously and then strained the remaining pudding into a smaller jar, it would be my sweet respite when I returned home. I hurriedly peeled and chopped a few pistachios, no time to toast them, as usual I was running late. I turned my attention to my three boys, who had been playing in the yard and underfoot as I prepared these dishes. There was Monroe's diaper... Truman needed to be taken to the potty... Everett, six years old and big enough, had his helmet and shoes on in no time. I checked his eyes for a minute. Was he calm? I wondered. Yesterday had been a Good Day until about this time, then he had flared out into one of his worst fits of anger, swearing at me all the way home from the park, running into my bike's wheel with his bike, reckless and wicked. I think he'd called one of my neighbor's children an awful word as we biked past. The boy was just an innocent bystander to Everett's emotional outburst, I'd pretended not to hear it out of embarrassment and powerlessness. The last few weeks of the summer had been so good, but the past few days had not. I hadn't had time to figure out why, with his dad away for Army Reserve duty for the whole week, and me, working and juggling the boys, school, the needy sourdough starter and the cupboard begging to be filled with more, more, more pint jars of tomato sauce for the winter and spring to come. I was doing too much. Everyone said so. But I couldn't stop, it was a compulsion, I had to control something in a life of bare, skittering chaos, and food was the thing. I would fill my pantry and my children's tummies with local, organic, sustainable cooking and it would be delicious, not just delicious but transcendant, searingly memorable. That's what I told myself. We all climbed aboard our bikes, me on the mama bike with Truman and Monroe, Everett on his solo bike, proud and fast. The six miles to Harriet's house were long. Truman had recently developed a more-stubborn-than-typical streak and insisted on getting off the bike at every stoplight to push the walk button; Everett begged to stop and look at the outrageously delicate antiques at a yard sale; each boy wanted to drink out of every spout of the drinking fountain we passed. When we arrived, Harriet's garden seemed an oasis of conviviality and propriety in contrast to my hot, wheedling journey. The tables were overflowing with colorful Indian delicacies and I set my relish and pudding down among it all, making myself a plate. Everett and Truman were already engaged in the other children's game, something that involved going up and down the ladder to the enormous treehouse, and light sabers, good guys, bad guys. Truman was, as usual, an exuberant bad guy, growling fiercely and saying, "Robot, robot!" A zombie robot, another parent noted. Yes. Some day I'll learn more of what goes on in his three-year-old head. I sat feeding Monroe a vibrant garbanzo bean/green bean salad, and he chewed it, considering each morsel in turn, while I evaluated the luck of the pot and listened for signs of trouble from the children's play. Curry too watery, greens too bitter, dahl too bland, I thought, telling Truman to be gentle. His robot was pushing, and even though he was one of the littlest kids there he was scary. Tree houses can be frightening, even a nicely-fenced one like this. I'd go back immediately for more of this carrot preserves, I decided, and the spicy, tangy cilantro chutney. The samosas and naan were beyond my skills, artful and toothsome. I offered both the boys naan and rice, filling their stomachs to guard against the loss of control. I refilled my plate and let Monroe wander in the garden, discovering with growing pleasure that most of the women there were readers of my all-too-honest writing. They know me, I thought, they understand. Kathleen had been to my house to interview me for a book project; Jocelyn and I had become friends through our food blogging. I'd met one mama through knitting, and another through a shared interest in pickles. A fifth woman approached me and shook my hand. "I'm Melissa," she said with a warm light in her eyes. "I read your blog." They were eating my pudding, now, pouring it over spoonfuls of basmati rice and declaring it outstanding! Delicious! I was basking in the light of approval, minor fame, and such a lovely, lush garden. Evening was approaching and the air was cooling with its leisurely September pace, dipping gently into fall. I savored the food, the people for a moment in silence and solitude, there in my armchair under the tree house. "Would you stop hitting me with your stupid ugly purse!" Everett. I announced we'd be leaving in five minutes. Started to gather my things and quietly panic. Here in the middle of this Edenic vegetable garden, under this ancient pear tree, no. Surely it would not bounce out of control. I prayed. Quickly. "Five minutes!" I said again. A little girl's voice. "Your MAMA told you it was almost time to LEAVE," she said. In a better place I would have smiled. I was once a bossy little girl, too. Instead I grit my teeth in desperate hope. Evidently Everett said some "daddy words" then, under his breath. It would be several minutes before the entire neighborhood would hear them, too. We were all jackasses, and fat. Also ugly. He was frighteningly angry, I left Monroe with the pickling mama and fell into the cushioned back room of the tree house, trying to calm him. He broke my glasses, snapped them in two, and laughed. Fifteen minutes later, as I pedaled home through the blurrily darkening streets, I thanked the dimly-seen stars that he had not hit another child when he pushed the heavy wooden ladder off the tree house, and mourned my pudding. Was it all eaten? In my hurry to get my swearing, flailing child onto his bike and away, I had left my jars and plates and huge bunch of mint amongst the potluck bounty. I was shaking, both from the intensity of his outburst and from my mortification. Nothing, no kind words or obviously loving support or acclaim for a dessert inspired, could cover this raw wound to my spirit tonight. At home, the boys fell into bed in a heap of tears and sweat, sorry, so sorry, and while I tried to heal Everett by sheer force of my embrace I listed the treatment options in my head, fast as a jazz riff, therapy-prayer-more medication-home school-spiritual warfare? I had no answers that made any sense. They fell asleep and I realized it was early, only 8:45, and I cooked myself a pot of toothy brown rice, I found the pint jar of left-behind pudding, I mixed it in a bowl and a tear slid down my cheek, I was crying for my own injured ego, crying for Everett, crying for honeyed saffron-cardamom pudding.

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2008-09-08T05:46:01-07:00

All I want to remember is that dessert. It started out as a simple rice pudding...

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in memory of a saffron cardamom pudding

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