a u g u s t

“How can you long for a home you’ve never been to? one might be compelled to ask, considering the metaphysical nature of this lived reality for so many people(s) across the globe.”

WHAT IS A HOME

Home, generally speaking, is a space often defined by borders, presuming an intrinsic being-ness that helps draw the blueprint for much of our identity. But this identity is not bordered by nothingness. Ideas of home and identity are generated, in a sense, from the outside-in, and then reinforced when turning those notions of home back out against the borders of otherness and alterity. 

Now that we’ve moved Supper Club outside of our home, we’ve been thinking a lot about what the idea of home actually means, and how it impacts our experience with food, and vice versa.

This kind of identity formation—one that begins at the periphery with a nuclear gravity—requires a system of exchange, a continual flow across these constantly re-negotiated borders. (Of course this exchange is extremely fraught with exploitation and appropriation, often to the detriment of those cultures which are heavily borrowed from.) In these attempts to maintain fixed borders in order to secure essential notions of a stable center of selfhood, or community-hood, nationhood, etc., we undermine our capabilities for growth and evolution; we obfuscate the possibility for interplay and the exchange of ideas, identifications, and ideologies; and this of course has many attendant political, social, and cultural ramifications.

And we must ask ourselves how food informs our cultural identities and sense of home. “It smells like home,” we’ve likely all said upon being greeted in someone’s home or kitchen. For me, it’s wafts of ham hock on the stove, or the musky air of hulled peas; the sweet smell of chicken collagen breaking down that permeates a feeling that goes well beyond a physical space. Home is about creating a sense of belonging that is sustained by memory. 

But we must also consider the fact that there are entire diasporic communities and cultures whose notion of home relies not on a stable, secured center, but instead by piecing together a sense of home and identity through fragments, fracturings, and fissures across space and time.

I’ve been reading Michael Twitty’s beautiful and poignant book, The Cooking Gene, in which he problematizes this idea of longing for a home one has never physically experienced. “There is no chef without a homeland,” he writes. “To be a chef today is to center yourself in the traditions of your roots and use them to define your art and speak to any human being about who you are; your plate is your flag.”

How can you long for a home you’ve never been to? one might be compelled to ask, considering the metaphysical nature of this lived reality for so many people(s) across the globe.

In considering the diasporic nature of home and identity through food, Twitty goes on to write that “Jewish food and black food crisscross each other throughout history. They are both cuisines where homeland and exile interplay….The food of both diasporas depends on memory. One memory is the sweep of the people’s journey, and the other is the little bits and pieces of individual lives shaped by ancient paths and patterns. The food is an archive, a keeper of secrets.” 

A piece this week in the NYT Food column explores what food identity is like for Korean chefs who were adopted. In the article, Chef Katianna Hong, a Korean woman raised by a German Jewish father and Irish Catholic mother, talks about the eclectic influences on her cuisine, cooking potatoes and hobak (a sweet Korean squash), for example, in chicken fat and pairing it with matzah balls. Considering the contexts of these influences forces one to redefine notions of roots and authenticity. Twitty writes similarly of this phenomenon: “African Americans must do what no other ethnic group writ large must do: take a completely shattered vessel and piece it together, knowing that some pieces will never be recovered…[likening] it to the Japanese art of kintsugi, repairing broken vessels using gold,” in which “the scars of the object are not concealed, but highlighted and embraced, thus giving them their own dignity and power.”

In The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard describes Home as inhabited space, both physical and imagined spaces, noting that these spaces can be temporary as well as permanent: a nest, a shell, a chrysalis; our own human bodies, even. But ultimately the purpose of home is to create a space for safety, for peace, for dreaming. 

And as both Hong and Twitty demonstrate, food is a way of preserving these ideas of home and cultural history. It provides a context for sharing our stories, both personal and political. It functions as a powerful tool and aid for accessing intimacy both within ourselves and with others. Food is life, quite literally. 

Earlier this month we had the honor of cooking for a group of community members of the organization 18 Coffees. Community members shared with us some incredible stories of their culinary and cultural heritage, and we, TXA TXA CLUB, had the opportunity to reinterpret these foods and dishes to celebrate the community they’ve built together. We received stories of one family’s three generations of women gathering together to make steamed dumplings; a background with a Serbian father and a Mexican mother, where spreads of sarma and kajmak, tamales and empanadas were equally paramount in cultural development; or memories of baking mandelbrot and rugelach with a grandmother for Jewish holiday gatherings. These stories were as much inspiring as elucidating in considering the extent to which the role food plays in our cultural histories and identities. 

We took these stories and folded in our own to create a menu for the occasion, coming up with dishes like summer dumplings—homemade cappelletti filled with spring pea and asparagus—with a cabbage consommé, chicharonnes, and garden nasturtium; empanadas with ras el hanout-spiced sweet potato and golden raisin, black beans and plums; gibanica ice cream with a smoky strawberry shrub, chrusciki cookie, and a swiss chard stem agrodolce. 

The night was spectacular and intimate, and we’re so grateful to have been included in the experience. 18 Coffees, we thank you. 

supper club at the joinery

For our first Supper Club away from home, we couldn’t have asked for anything more. The Joinery opened its doors to us, and we were thrilled to host two consecutive dinners. The welcome cocktail was a gin punch provided by The Joinery with a donation from Letherbee Distillers: earl grey-infused gin, guava, orgeat, and tonic that was right on brand. 

Guests were seated at one long table down the nave of the venue, leading to a remarkably gorgeous floral installation by Fleur. The idea for this dinner came from thinking about July backyard barbecues, spreads of grilled meats and chilled salads, melon and corn, so the menu was derived from these summer staples.

We began with a few platters of tuna aguachile (literally “chili water”), that consisted of tuna crudo with juiced watermelon, fresno chilis, ginger and lime, some crushed pink peppercorn, and our house togarashi. Fresh and cooling, with a fruity pink peppercorn punch that was playfully reminiscent of a box of Nerds candy. 

Next was our spin on prosciutto and cantaloupe. We had a chilled prosciutto dashi with fragrant galangal and lemongrass, served with compressed honeydew melon balls (yes, melon balls), with lime, ginger, and elderflower. 

Liz rightfully insisted we do a take on a Three Sisters Salad (a classic summer salad with squash, corn, and beans, following the old adage that if it grows together, it goes together). There was grilled pattypan and Korean squash, marinated squash ribbons, a sweet corn purée with oregano, tiny clusters of tart currants, and finished with a hint of truffle oil. It was simple, fresh, and a strong representation of the summer harvest. 

For the barbecue segment of the program, we decided on grilled BBQ octopus, pressure-cooked for tenderness, then slathered in a gochujang bbq sauce and grilled for some char and crispiness. The dish was a huge plate of octopus confetti: sweet and earthy slices of purple potato, fava beans (the third sister arriving one course in delay), fresh cherry, pickled wax peppers, a red olive-burnt onion-grapefruit salsa (recipe below), and torn sesame leaf. It was a kaleidoscopic surf-n-earthly display of pure TXA TXA energy. 

For dessert we served a scoop of fennel ice cream with a tahini-cornbread biscuit, some beautiful stone fruit macerated with ginger and white balsamic, and a sweetened ‘tzatziki’ foam.

It was wonderful to see so many faces both new and familiar, to welcome birthdays and charming out of towners, to chat about literal magic and old flour mills, and to feel the excitement for so many dinners to come. So thank you all who were able to join us this month, as well as a big thank you to the Joinery for hosting us in their magical space, and to Kelly from Fleur for the stunning floral display. We hope to return to the Joinery later this fall, so eep your eyes peeled!

comin’ up

TXA TXA outside the garden

a supper club w/ SEE YOU SOON

vol. 14

friday, august 26th

6-9pm

This month we are taking supper club to the Kimball Arts Center and bringing the secret garden with us. In collaboration with Clayton Hauck and the See You Soon space we are excited to explore a TXA TXA club meal in new spaces with new friends.

Join us for a virtually organic transformation of space and atmosphere. Watch as this late summer bounty of a menu unfolds with hearty summer salads, comforting Spanish tortillas, tin fishes, and baked breads. Think picnic by candlelight meets secret garden video installation.

Hurry up! Seats are almost gone and you don’t want to miss this one.

next month:

vol. 15 PB+J

friday, september 30th

6-9pm

People often remark that our flavor and ingredient combinations seem unorthodox, expressing surprise at seeing seemingly unusual ingredients together. But we spend a good bit of time thinking about how the context of a dish can shift simply by introducing an unlikely candidate to the mix, providing an entirely new lens for considering flavor through various likenesses or contrasts, seeking an ultimate balance of salt, fat, acid, and spice, along with varying textures to create a more dynamic experience that can be distilled down to a single bite or few. 

When it comes to flavor combinations, though, we can’t think of many that rival one of the most sublime pairings of all time: peanut butter and jelly. The idea isn’t new to our repertoire, as we’ve centered dishes around pairings like blistered grapes and brown butter (known as noisette in French kitchens for its particularly hazelnutty flavor); pistachio ice cream with vanilla poached sungold tomatoes; pumpkin panang curry with pepitas and gooseberry; the list goes on. 

So our September menu is inspired simply by a nostalgic love for the iconic childhood sandwich. But in lieu of peanut butter and jelly, you can expect to find things like liver and plums, short ribs and kiwi, or sunflower seed and radicchio, dishes that represent a contrapposto toward fall with the back-to-school feeling of equal parts nostalgia and anticipation for the new season ahead.

TXA TXA in HUDSON VALLEY

a supper club w/ FRANKIE’S

friday, oct 14th + saturday, oct 15th

6-9pm

October is going to be a big one for us. In addition to our regularly scheduled Supper Club dinners, we’ve got an extra special travel edition as we venture to the quaint hamlet of Spencertown in beautiful upstate New York. We’ll be hosting an intimate dining experience in collaboration with Frankie’s, the local Hudson Valley mobile bar, for a cocktail hour followed by a plated 5-course dinner. In honor of Frankie’s Lebanese heritage, we’ll be pairing our unique flavors and style with traditional Middle Eastern fare for a dinner like no other. 

Tix will go on sale soon. Keep your eye out for early bird pricing.

RECIPES

pink salsa

(RED CERIGNOLA-BURNT ONION)

This salsa came from one of those fridge-cleaning frenzies that coincided with dinner time. But serendipity was on our side, and now we have a versatile new salsa in our repertoire. Also, think of this salsa as a kind of Swiss Army salsa; its applications are myriad. It’s a bit like a tapenade, what with the crushed olives and all, but also extremely fragrant with the grapefruit and orange blossom water. Try it on roasted eggplant, or tacos, whatever. Grilled octopus. Just try it.

Makes about 3 cups. Trust me, you might want to double it.

You may have noticed we almost exclusively measure ingredients by weight, but not here. This recipe is very forgiving, so don’t spend too much time wondering whether your onions are small or medium. Whatever you have will be just fine. 

2 small yellow onions

1 cup red cerignola olives, pitted

1 grapefruit, zest and juice

1 lime, juice only

2 TBL seasoned red wine vinegar

1 TBL mirin

1 TBL orange blossom water

2 red bird’s eye chilis, seeded

1 tsp granulated sugar 

½ tsp salt

½ tsp coriander seed

¼ tsp fennel seed

¼ tsp cumin seed

¼ tsp white peppercorn

Turn broiler on to High. Peel and quarter 2 small onions and place on a small sheet pan lined with foil. Hit with a splash of olive oil and a light dusting of salt. Broil on high until charred (like, burnt) on one side and the onion petals slip apart when nudged with a wooden spoon, about 10-12 min. Spread the layers and flip to char some more. They should look like a cartoon onion stuck a fork in a light socket. Remove from oven and let cool. 

The olives will take a few minutes to pit. I usually use a knife. You don’t have to be too surgical or precise because it will all get blended together. Just try and remove as much of the olive flesh from the pit as possible. They’re not exactly cheap.

Toast coriander, fennel, cumin seeds, and white peppercorn in a dry pan until fragrant, 1-2 minutes, shaking frequently. Finely crush in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle. 

Combine everything in a blender and pulse until evenly salsa-fied. You’re going for a deep fuschia color with little black specks of char throughout. If the mix is too thick, add a little bit of water, a tablespoon or two at a time until the consistency is right for your intended purpose.

NOTES: 

1. Cerignola olives are large green olives from the spur of the boot, with firm flesh and a mild and buttery flavor. The red ones are usually labeled as “Red Bella di Cerignola” and are typically found in specialty food stores. Occasionally a fancy olive bar will have them, sometimes in a mixed bin of olives, so you can always pick them out from there, too. Do what you gotta do.

2. Orange blossom water can be found in Middle Eastern aisles or specialty shops, or sometimes at the liquor store near the mixers.