This is going to be a bit different than my other columns. I have lost someone dear to me and my heart has broken. When facing heartbreak in the past, I\u2019ve been comforted by words, song, and cooking. My words have been trapped by grief. So I went into the kitchen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am 2-years-old at my great- grandmother\u2019s apartment in Rochdale Village, Queens. There\u2019s a pigeon right outside the window walking back and forth on the windowsill. I am on a wooden step stool and my great- grandma is teaching me how to make oatmeal. I must keep stirring so the bottom doesn\u2019t burn. She tells me when to add the raisins so they plump a bit, but not so much that they burst. This is my first memory. My great-grandma is long gone. She was my first heartbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am 10 and my mother has put my brother and I into the car. It\u2019s still dark out, even though it\u2019s technically morning. The whole house smells like cookies and quick breads. We hurry because it\u2019s a long drive to the flea market, and we must get there early for a good spot to sell the baked goods my mother spent all night making. Food stamps don\u2019t keep us fed for the month, and even though she works two jobs, there\u2019s always too much month at the end of the money. My mother has set aside a few chocolate chip cookies for my brother and has made carob chip cookies for me so I don\u2019t break out in hives. We eat cookies for breakfast, and I help my mom sell while the sun beats down on us. My mother is gone. Another heartbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am in culinary school. I visit my Nana and she has me drive to OB\u2019s Bakery for takeout. When I ask her what she wants, she says curry tripe. I ask what her second choice is just in case they\u2019re sold out. It\u2019s beef stew. I get myself jerk chicken. When I go home, I tell her they were out of the tripe. This is a lie. I just hate the smell and don\u2019t want my car to smell like curry tripe on my drive from Queens to Vermont. I tell her they\u2019re sold out every time she asks me to get her tripe. She\u2019s suspicious. She wants me to admit to the lie. I stand fast. I will do anything else she asks of me. Anything except curry tripe. She\u2019s gone now. My heart is shattered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am driving from Montpelier to Norwich, Vermont. I am crying. I can\u2019t do this. I should quit school. One of my chef instructors called me worthless and I\u2019m afraid he may be right. The matriarch of my chosen family comes to the door and wraps me in her embrace. She feeds me and has me stay the night. She folds $20 for gas into my palm when I leave the next day. \u201cI\u2019m so proud of you,\u201d she says. She says this at my graduation two years later. She says this when she reads my first column, and when I\u2019m inducted into the Guilde Internationale des Fromagers, and now she\u2019s gone too. I am numb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am in the kitchen making bread, kneading the dough by hand, even though my elbow and shoulder complain about the labor. The dough is too sticky. I\u2019ve been cooking all day and there\u2019s moisture in the air that I didn\u2019t consider when I weighed the ingredients. It feels like the dough will never come together. So, I add a bit of flour, knead a bit more and I let it rest for an hour. I go back to it and start kneading again. It\u2019s a bit stronger now. There\u2019s more flexibility, but it still tears. I let it rest. Each time I go back to the dough, it\u2019s stronger than it was\u2014it just needs to rest. I am the dough. In time, I too will develop strength. I just need to rest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cheese educator Agela Abdullah reflects on using gluten to cook through grief.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":114,"featured_media":45932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[27966],"tags":[27967,14040,27957,33670],"coauthors":[27956],"class_list":["post-45931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cheese-for-the-culture","tag-agela-abdullah","tag-baking","tag-cheese-for-the-culture","tag-grief"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n