Happy marriage equals a happy kitchen
Gholam Rahman
Writing for a newspaper has its perks, especially when your visage appears on the page along with your moniker. And when you often write about yourself and your family, fans of your column sometimes greet you like longlost friends. It happened fortuitously at Palm Beach International Airport the other day.
My wife, Kaisari, and I were flflying to Nashville, Tennessee, on Thanksgiving Day, for the wedding of our son Asad to Tanya Farooque. As usual with us older folks, we arrived at the airport quite early, despite the fact that my older son, Saif, an engineer for Comcast in Philadelphia, had come to West Palm Beach earlier to guide us on our fourday trip.
My wife and I were standing near the Delta counter, when the agent — a very personable young lady — welcomed us and greeted us by our names. As usual with online bookings and seat assignments, our seats were all scrambled. But the agent — whose name I am sorry to say I don’t remember — fifixed it in no time, with a gracious smile to boot.
Our flflights, via Atlanta, were on time, and our luggage arrived with us, crucial when you are going to a wedding with all the clothes and gifts involved. The ceremony went smoothly thanks to Tanya’s parents. And thank God, the weather in Nashville was mild and gorgeous throughout our stay. The city itself is a bit larger than West Palm and culturally vibrant.
Asad and Tanya are back to their jobs in and around Washington, D.C. — Tanya, who has a doctorate in bio- medical engineering, to her FDA job, and Asad to his computer job. Asad chose to give up his bachelor’s digs in Alexandria, from where I have written occasional columns over the past few years.
He will have to make another adjustment as well, since Tanya is a vegetarian who accepts fifish, eggs and dairy, while Asad is an omnivore, except for pork, as a Muslim. Here is a variation on eggs Benedict I suggested to him, since he is a creative cook and makes some topnotch halvas and other dishes. This version uses crumbed and fried eggplant slices instead of the usual English muffifin halves as the base. You can use sliced portobello mushrooms also.
FEEDBACK
Regarding the Festive Pretzel Salad in the Nov. 16, column, Dolores Jones wanted to now how many servings it would make, which wasn’t on the recipe. I suspect it would make at least 6 to 8 servings, since it was made in a 13-inch pan.
In the intro to the same recipe, I recounted an incident at the Reagan National Airport in D.C. on Nov. 8, as we were returning home. Donna Luxemburg writes: “I enjoyed reading your recipes and recent article until you talked about the ‘Christian charity’ of the man who came forward and complimented you and your wife at the airport. I would hope that anyone, of any religion, could give compliments with a full heart of goodness. The pilgrims (sic) came here for religious freedom for everyone, not just Christian charity.”
I am sorry to have offffffffffffended your sensibilities. But I, a devout Mus- lim, was using the term in the sense “(of a person) kind, fair, decent,” according to my Oxford dictionary. And I purposely used a lower case “C,” a use I have seen in some good English writing, but which Spellcheck would surely change to the upper case.
Anyway Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, is our prophet, too, and I try to inculcate his qualities in my own life, along with those of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. They both belong to Islam’s large pantheon of God’s message-bearers.