We had a dinner party the other night. When I invited our friends over, they suggested that we go out instead.
“Why–“I asked. “I cook–”
“We’re vegans,” Monica said apologetically, almost quietly, like she was saying she was a hatchet murderer.
“It’s totally fine,” I said. “We love Indian food. So if that works for you, we’ll see you at seven. No dairy. I promise.” They loved Indian food, they said, so we were good to go.
I dug up Mark Bittman’s tofu pudding recipe from a few months back, and watched the video. He said something about it being vegan, so off I went to the supermarket to buy silken tofu and chocolate. It was only after I came home with four bars of mostly decent quality Ghirardelli that I realized that milk fat in the ingredients list made the chocolate entirely not vegan. And it’s true: not all chocolate is vegan–only the super fabulous high quality stuff, like the forgotten bar of Dagoba that had been sitting in the pantry for a few months, waiting for a time like this.
At four o’clock, Susan went to put something in the fridge and asked me if I’d turned it off by mistake.
“Why would I do that?” I asked.
“Maybe you just hit that little dial by accident, and turned it off.”
“I did not,” I said, opening the door to show her.
“DON’T open the door!” she shouted.
She never shouts.
The rest of the afternoon pretty much went downhill from there: Non-vegan chocolate for vegans. Mysteriously dead fridge. Lots of hysterical running up and down the basement stairs to the other fridge, while the one in the kitchen dripped and melted old fridge stuff all over the floor. And a last minute discovery that the stereo was making Emmylou Harris sound like Leonard Cohen crossed with Jerry Lewis.
All of this just three hours before our vegan guests arrived.
We were both seriously on edge, and I couldn’t figure out why. We love to entertain. We love people. We love people who love animals, and who love food and wine, like these people.
So what was the problem? Was it the broken fridge? Or the chocolate? Or the stereo?
“What are you doing tonight honey? I’m going out–” my mother announced, calling in the middle of everything.
“We’re having vegans for dinner,” I responded, melting the chocolate.
“How do you make them?” she asked, chewing on something.
“They’re people. Like vegetarians without the dairy,” I said.
“Moonies?”
“For god’s sake mom—“I answered, eyeing my new copy of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals on the sideboard.
“They must be Moonies,” she said, sighing. “Oh well. It’s your life.”
And then she hung up.
In my home, cooking for people–any people–who have dietary restrictions of any kind is nothing new: my cousin Michelle is allergic to fish, beef, and a variety of other things. My cousin Zach is allergic to nuts. Zach’s brother-in-law has celiac, so he can’t have any gluten. One of my best friends can’t eat eggs. Most of my family members don’t eat pork but many will eat bacon and ham and the occasional cheeseburger. My mother claims to be allergic to wheat but thinks that Wonder Bread is the second coming. My grandparents were kosher but loved lobster, especially in Chinese food on Sunday afternoons. I could work around anything.
So there was no reason at all for me to be crazed at the prospect of vegans coming for dinner. Everything was planned: tofu would be used in the curry instead of shrimp. Coconut milk would go into the spiced peas instead of whole milk. There would be no ghee used anywhere, and no butter on the paratha. The chocolate pudding would be made with silken tofu, and the wedge of Maytag Blue that was sitting in the (now downstairs) fridge would remain there.
But the sound of my mother’s voice hit the nail on the head for me. My mother hates vegetarians, even ones who eat that way for health reasons. And now that she knows that vegans aren’t some sort of generic wheat thin, she hates them too. Why? My mother has spent most of her adult life traveling the employment continuum from cabaret singer and television performer to model. Fur model. So anything that might even remotely be aligned with animal rights she approaches with fists flying and claims of raging unAmericanism. She feels this way, even though she adores my dog and likes my cats and will lay down in the middle of the street to play with puppies while dressed in Armani.
Years ago, when I was at college in Boston, I came to the realization that it was probably safer to eat in a smaller cafeteria than a larger one, so I transferred my dining hall rights to the Vegetarian Eating Plan, where we ate things like East West Lasagna, and “Chicken” McTofu, and Bean Bonanza. When she found this out, my mother called my father and asked if he knew that his daughter had become a communist. Later that year, when I came home from school and bought a box of herbal tea to keep in my mother’s cupboard while I was staying with her for the summer, she secretly called him again and asked if he knew that his daughter had become a member of the Celestial Seasonings Cult because there were tea boxes in the kitchen that had philosophical sayings written all over them. For years, I wanted to transfer to school in Boulder, where the tea manufacturer happened to be located. She put two and two together:
Celestial Seasonings + Vegetarian = Moonies
No wonder I was on edge. I was having a flashback.
The dinner went as planned. The curry was delicious, the peas were succulent and tender; no one missed the milk, or the cheese, or the butter. There was great wine: our friends brought a remarkable 2008 Seghesio Zin, and we opened a 2008 Navarro Pinot Noir. The tofu chocolate pudding disappeared. Success.
When my mother called to check in the next day, she asked how dinner went, and I told her.
“What kind of tea did you serve?”
Goan Tofu Curry
This recipe, which is an adaptation of Suvir Saran’s remarkable Goan Shrimp Curry found in American Masala, is infinitely flexible; add another red chile to make it hotter, or cut way back on the heat. Bake the tofu ahead of time and cube it, or just add it in uncooked. A lovely dish.
Serves 8
¼ cup vegetable or canola oil
12 fresh curry leaves, torn into small pieces
4 dried red chiles
2 tablespoons fresh, minced ginger
1 medium red onion, peeled and minced
3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
2 teaspoons ground coriander
½ teaspoon turmeric
1 28-ounce can of crushed tomatoes
1 teaspoon prepared curry powder
1 15-ounce can coconut milk
¼ cup water
1 pound tofu, cubed
chopped fresh cilantro, to taste
1. In a straight-sided, large skillet, heat the oil over a medium high flame until it begins to shimmer. Add the curry leaves (carefully; they will pop and crackle) and the chiles. Stir well.
2. Lower the flame to medium, add the ginger, onions, and garlic, and cook until soft, about 8 minutes. Add the coriander and turmeric, and stir to combine well. Add the tomatoes, currypowder, coconut milk, and water, and bring back up to a burbling simmer. Stir well, lower the heat, and cover for 8-10 minutes until the flavors begin to meld.
3. Add the tofu and the accumulated juices from the marinade, stirring well, for another 5 minutes.Stir in the cilantro.
Serve over rice or quinoa.
