BAD NEWS and GOOD NEWS About the book launch!

JUNE IS HERE! and I have BAD NEWS and GOOD NEWS about my book launch.

The BAD NEWS (which I’ll deliver in three short installments) is that

1. The launch date for my debut memoir (The Road Between Hearts: A Memoir of a Black American Woman Discovering Iran) was scheduled for this month, on June 24 …
2. I excitedly announced that date to you all in my last newsletter, but ...
3. It turns out the launch date will not be June 24 after all ... but September 30--three months from now!

The GOOD NEWS is that personal disappointments like this one remind me of a lesson I learned from my Iranian sister-in-law on why sometimes it's best to wait!

Her name is Badri, she's Mahmoud's sister (the same age as me), and there's no denying she's a master of Persian cooking! Every nugget I taste of hers turns to metaphorical gold.

Take Badri's incomparable eggplant stew, for example …!

I remember the impact of that very first bite at Badri’s house: a symphony of flavors exploding in my mouth: the savory lamb, the delicate split peas, the crunchy french fries …the tomatoey sauce, just tangy enough. And the eggplant, of course, fried tender and mellow. It went perfectly with Badri's heavenly saffron-infused rice. And It was one of those meals when . . . how do they say it?  The total effect exceeded the sum of its glorious parts.

And once Mahmoud and I returned to the States,  I kept trying to replicate that stew (a classic dish known in Persian as khoreshte bademjan).

Mahmoud, who could make a decent stew himself, had been faithful to explain to me what was in it: lamb cooked with onions, split peas and eggplant—and simmered slowly in a sauce seasoned with salt, pepper, turmeric, tomato paste and lemon. It seemed simple enough--perhaps too simple, I thought to myself. For no matter how often I followed the steps, I could never get my stew as luscious as Badri's.

Surely he’s forgotten to mention something, I figured, and I went on a private quest for that missing ingredient--the key to that exquisite melding of flavors.  

So I turned to my arsenal of “secret ingredients.” I tried garlic. Then curry. Then cayenne pepper. Rosemary and oregano were a serious mistake. When I got desperate, I threw in some sugar—then doused it with teriyaki sauce. When I faced the fact that I couldn’t “improve” it, I finally gave up in exhaustion.

As much as I enjoyed Mahmoud’s eggplant stew, his sister Badri’s stew was even better. So, the next time Mahmoud and I visited Iran, I asked Badri if she would share her secret.

Speaking slow-paced and clearly as she always did for me, she listed her requisite set of seasonings: namack (salt), felfel (black pepper), zarchoobeh (turmeric), rohbe goje (tomato paste), limoo (lemon).

“And that’s it,” she said, smiling her sparkly smile.

​I was totally baffled. “Are you sure that's all?” I asked her. It was the exact same list that Mahmoud had given—the one that had sounded too simple to be complete.

We shared a moment of laughter over my skepticism. But then Badri spoke up again. That's when I discovered the secret of Badri's delicious eggplant stew--and at the same time learned a new phrase in Persian:

“Leslie Khanum, ghaza boyad yavash-yavash bepaze… ta ghashang ja biafte. "(Miss Leslie, the food must cook ever so slowly …till it finally comes nicely into its own.”)

“Till it finally comes nicely into its own”… I can still hear the warmth in her voice as she said it. And the more I thought about it, the more it hit me. So--the secret of the stew was in the slow cooking of it? The principle for me was hardly a new one … but was it one I’d learned to put into practice? I admit it: a side of me questioned whether simmering a stew slowly over a low flame could really make that much of a difference--particularly without the help of a flavor-enhancer that comes in a bottle. 

But what would I have to lose (other than the extra time I'd have to wait)? Not long after, I tried applying the principle for myself. And when I tasted that stew, I loved the outcome--and realized anew that some things take a little extra time to come into their own. And that makes them worth the wait!
 
If you’re interested, I encourage you to try Badri’s eggplant stew too. Just click on the link for eggplant stew*; it includes all the steps except for the french fry garnish. Be sure to scroll down to read all the comments from readers. And if you would, reply to this email and let me know how you like it! 

*When you reach the home page, let your cursor hover over the starred word “recipes,” then in the first column to the right click on the first entry [“Khoresht (stew)”] under the “Main Courses” column. Finally, click on the photo at the top left of the page (labelled “Khoresht-E Bademjan”) to access the recipe.

Since my conversation with Badri, I’ve gleaned so much from Badri’s secret—whose wisdom holds true far beyond the kitchen. Where else in life should we take something more slowly--being patient, careful, and steadfastly confident ’til finally "it nicely comes into its own”? When watching our diet? Raising our children? Waiting on God to answer our prayers? Or when waiting to publish that very first manuscript?

​Stay tuned! Again, the new launch date is September 30--and it’s all good! Thank you for watching and waiting along with me and Badri (who also appears in the story)!