For Everything There is a Seasoning
Paprikash (serves 4-6)
Ingredients:
One pound chopped beef, three tablespoons olive oil, two large onions, three potatoes (any variety), four large carrots, three bell peppers, half a head of garlic (minced or chopped), two cups of chicken or beef broth, spices (don’t forget vegeta)
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Now that the house was finally empty, it did not take long for silence to rush in and fill that rather large vacuum left by aunts, uncles, grandparents, children of all shapes and sizes, and all manner of distant relations. The silence was welcome for once. In light of the past few weeks I, to some degree, began to understand why Bilbo chose to slip away from his own birthday party in a cloak of invisibility rather than suffer the insufferable commotion that - good intentions aside - friends and family can stir up.
Indeed, now that the kitchen was my own again, what better way to blow off some steam than by, quite literally, creating some steam on a stove top. I perused the kitchen, pantry, and fridge in a slow and lackadaisical manner, taking time to make note of what we did and did not have so that when it came to eventually cooking I wouldn’t be caught short of ingredients. I, of course, had no clue what I wanted to cook, but that was quite alright - I would let our kitchen’s stockpile (or lack thereof) do the deciding for me.
It appeared that in the midst of all the grieving - and hosting that cut short much of the grieving - that took place over the last few weeks, we had amassed more guests than we did food, leaving our kitchen with little more than some beef and a small selection of vegetables. Ah, potatoes, peppers, carrots, and onions - the staple of every Serbian diet. My mind went back to an old manager of mine from the grocery store who also happened to be Serbian, and a saying of his regarding our culture’s cuisine - “You know why Serbians always have peppers and onions in their meals? Because they’re cheap, and they last forever in the fridge”. Indeed.
The good thing about only having a small assortment of hearty vegetables and some beef at your disposal is that, as a Serbian, there is no shortage of Serbian meals to cook. Potatoes and onions are as important to the culinary arts as primary colors are to the arts themselves insofar as Serbians are concerned. My eyes turned to the snow softly falling just beyond the window of the kitchen, clothing the pines in a thick blanket of white, rendering them shapeless. On a cold day like this, what better meal to sit down to than some paprikash? Paprikash, as it was called in Serbia, was little more than a dressed-down stew that could be made from virtually any source of protein and whatever happened to be alive in one’s garden. It was a favorite of Tata’s.
One). In a large pot, set to medium-high heat and drizzle three tablespoons of olive oil into the pot, then stir in the two onions after they have been chopped. Once the onions have grown soft, stir in the meat. Add salt, pepper, and the garlic.
Just as the meat began to brown, I went to the spice drawer for some more eventful selections beyond merely salt and pepper. Right there, standing like a sentinel over the other spices, never to be forgotten because of the sheer size of the bag, was the vegeta. This Serbian spice, vegeta, was a concoction of spices and dried vegetables that was used in nearly every Eastern European dish, paprikash chief among them. It was a convenient little piece of Serbian engineering, but it had the unfortunate tendency of making everything taste the same after a while. This, however, never bothered Tata, given he used it in nearly everything - perhaps even his morning coffee. He always used to say that “you don’t even need to use salt or pepper, just add in vegeta because it has both and everything else you could ever need.”
Two). Once the meat begins to brown, chop the peppers, carrots, and potatoes into cube-sized pieces and stir them into the stew. Add more salt and pepper, or just vegeta.
I tossed in a liberal amount of vegeta and let the stew simmer for a few moments while I wrestled with my memory for the rest of the recipe. The meal was simple enough, so simple that an ape could have made it. However, my recollection was being assailed by two things at this moment. The first being that my father never cooked with a recipe and so it became near mental gymnastics trying to recreate anything he made. He “cooked by ear”, as it were, just as he played the piano by ear. And the second obstacle assailing my memory being that given how similar all Serbian meals were, it became hard to differentiate between them after a time. You could well begin making one meal only to finish with another altogether and hardly notice along the way.
Am I supposed to add broth now? Do I add broth at all? Didn’t it turn out all soupy last time and not, you know, stew-y? That’s okay, I’ll just call Tata, he’ll remember.
I pulled out my phone and punched in my father’s number, and then set the phone on the counter beside the stove on speaker. My hands were a little grimy, so I didn’t want to handle my phone more than I had to. The line began to ring.
Ring… ring… ring… silence.
The silence, for the first time today, was not at all welcome.
Three). When all the vegetables and spices are added, turn the heat to low. Add in the broth, and then cover with a lid.
Tata, my father, had passed away three weeks ago; and yet, in another way, it seemed as though it had been a lifetime ago, for so much had changed since then. As a child, I had always thought that certain people were just “off-limits” when it came to death. Sure, I always knew this was unrealistic, but nonetheless, never did it occur to me that Tata, my dad, would pass before his time. However, I do not think he thought this way. No, he was much too wise to overlook his own passing in such childish ways. My Tata was a Godly man; a firm man with a firm faith, a faith seemingly cut from granite. I will always remember that passage of scripture that he claimed as dearest to his own heart, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die…”
He first began feeling sick on Thanksgiving Day of the year before. I remember the exact date clearly because I was the one who drove him to the hospital, and I distinctly remember him not being there for Thanksgiving dinner - his chair sat empty, as it would in the years to come, never to be filled again, but we never suspected that. He was Tata, he would be fine, just that ol’ gallbladder acting up again. He’d be home in no time.
He was constantly in and out of the hospital in the days and weeks that followed, so much so that it seemed he spent more time in the car going to and fro than at either home or the hospital itself. The doctors weren’t sure what was the matter before the matter became very matter of fact indeed: cancer. That was November. By Christmas he grew steadily weaker and worse, but it still seemed manageable. However, by the end of January, the doctors sat us all down and told us that he had only six months left to live. He died the next week.
“A time to be born, and a time to die…”
Four). Let the stew simmer on low heat for an hour, stirring occasionally throughout. Taste now and again, add more seasoning if needed.
Silence.
I looked down at my phone, greeted only by my own pale reflection in the sheer black screen.
He’s gone.
Gone in the old-fashioned sense of the word - never to return. He doesn’t live here anymore.
Five). After an hour, turn off heat and let the stew cool slightly before serving.
In the wake of my father’s passing, I’ve concluded that the term ‘amputation’ is perhaps the best way to describe grief. In fact, I’ve made this very comparison on this very blog. And so, rather than wrestle with my words for the second time in order to sort out this matter in different words, only to say the exact thing again, I will simply write here what I have written there.
“Grief is a funny thing. It stings, it bites, it numbs, and sometimes it itches. It itches a part of you that no longer exists. After the passing of his wife, the great British author C.S. Lewis reflected on grief as though he had undergone an amputation. There is the sickness that needs to be dealt with, swiftly followed by the amputation, or the separation, as it were. The amputation is a sharp pain, unlike anything you have experienced before, and then the healing begins - this is what we call grieving. Only, amputation doesn’t solely mean the loss of a limb, as though that were all, for you must now go on living without that limb. You must learn to walk, work, eat, and sleep without that part of you, because it isn’t coming back. And yet, sometimes in the dark of the night the missing limb will begin to ache and itch and as you stir from your sleep to attend to the itch you soon realize that there is nothing to scratch at all - it isn’t a part of you anymore. So it is with grief.”
On that cool winter afternoon six years ago, I experienced my first itch. My father was gone for only a few short weeks, and then for a moment he wasn’t gone: he’s just at work, I’ll call him - just as I had done a million times before. I have had many such itches since then; some are just momentary feelings and others are aches that seem to last for weeks, but they always get better in the end. There was an itch when I met the love of my life, and an ever bigger itch on the day that I married her; that phantom limb aches when I think about the bitter reality that my father will never meet my wife’s parents, who are ever so close to my heart; when I realize that he will never meet my wife, or our future children, or attend my sisters' weddings, or help me renovate our first home, and so on, ad infinitum. The parts of you that are dearest, once they are gone, always seem to itch the most. However, there is a certain, quiet beauty in that. As the weeks and months have ebbed and flowed since that dreary afternoon, years taking their place, I have had to remind myself that, while he is not here, my Tata is by no means gone - he is simply elsewhere.
Life is woven together with seasons, and with each season there comes a new seasoning, as it were. Some years are seasoned with joy, others with sorrow, but most, like vegeta, are a blend of both. Such is life, and such is grief. Indeed, to once again quote my dear friend Lewis, “Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape.” When the itch returns and becomes particularly painful, my mind often draws back to my father’s passage of scripture, the one dearest to his heart, right along the final lines, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end”. Indeed - there are far, far better things ahead than any we may leave behind.
Six). Serve with rice and enjoy with those who are dearest to your heart.
