Salinger and spinach

Oh, it’s hard to get old! My daugh­ter has reached an age I can remem­ber BEING. I watch her strug­gling with home­work, get­ting excit­ed about dra­ma audi­tions, run­ning home with a friend to decide what to wear to a par­ty, get­ting her first hairdry­er and curl­ing iron! And I remem­ber. I don’t think I was any­where near as accom­plished, self-con­fi­dent or world­ly as she is. But I was there. It’s not that I miss it, but I am a bit envi­ous of all that she has before her. As much as I’d like to relive her baby- and child­hood, I’d like to relive my own life, only do it MUCH smarter. And maybe that’s what I dream of, for her.

But we all have to be teenagers, with all the glo­ry and pain that that entails. And to under­score my minor melan­choly, today the world lost J.D. Salinger. I’ll admit it: I thought he had been dead already. But even so, it is sad to think of a world deprived of his genius. It’s been years since I even thought of him, but my teenage years, the years Avery has just on the hori­zon, were enor­mous­ly bright­ened by his words. Not “The Catch­er in the Rye,” that clas­sic that we were all meant to read,
but “Fran­ny and Zooey,” and “For Esme, With Love and Squalor.” These rich, upper-crusty, intro­spec­tive, dys­func­tion­al, won­der­ful Glass­es, these New York­ers with their smart, snap­py dia­logue and a sort of Amer­i­can Nan­cy Mit­ford fam­i­ly life…

Esme. I can’t find my copy tonight, which sad­dens me. When I was in high school, not an era of mag­i­cal suc­cess for me, I nev­er­the­less had one par­tic­u­lar­ly intel­li­gent friend who hand­ed me a copy of “Esme,” in “The Nine Sto­ries,” and he said, “This girl is you.” How flat­ter­ing and won­der­ful was that, to be com­pared to a fic­tion­al hero­ine of epic inspi­ra­tional pro­por­tions. This friend and I have cor­re­spond­ed tonight, rem­i­nisc­ing about those young, sweet selves we were. How com­plete­ly odd to think we’re old­er than our par­ents were, then, when we were teenagers.

And Avery told me tonight that one of her favorite series of books, “A Series of Unfor­tu­nate Events” by Lemo­ny Snick­et, con­tains many hid­den ref­er­ences to J.D. Salinger! The orphans are adopt­ed by Jerome (the “J” in JD is for “Jerome”!) Squalor and his wife Esme! The mag­ic continues.

I was, of course, painful­ly influ­enced in my ado­les­cent writ­ing by Salinger’s inno­v­a­tive way of ital­i­ciz­ing only part of a word, accord­ing to how important that part was! My sto­ries became ever more infused with tire­some Salinger-esque char­ac­ters, smok­ing cig­a­rettes down to where they burned the smok­er’s fin­gers, whin­ing about alien­ation! But even to this day I remem­ber being com­pared to Esme, and my teenage self wakes up for a moment.

I love watch­ing Avery fever­ish­ly writ­ing her sto­ries, and object­ing to bed­time because “I get my best ideas for writ­ing when it’s night­time, and then I have to go to sleep!” It’s as if I’m look­ing in a fuzzy mir­ror, see­ing my child­hood self in my green-flow­ered bed­room, upstairs in the house where my par­ents still live, hear­ing the tele­vi­sion with “The Six-Mil­lion-Dol­lar Man” in the liv­ing room below, as I tire­less­ly wrote at my desk. Those sto­ries are still some­where in my child­hood clos­et, I’m sure. My moth­er nev­er throws away any­thing that any­one might ever want, bless her heart.

Well, I grew up. But I still love my words, so I sup­pose my youth­ful, heart-pound­ing inspi­ra­tion by the reclu­sive Salinger still holds sway.

Grown up. Yes. And as such, these days, most of my cre­ativ­i­ty goes into what we eat! Today John and I hopped the Tube to take a trip to Pic­cadil­ly to run some errands, and while there popped in to Kulu-kulu for a sushi lunch. Fish, yes, plen­ty of omega‑3, but almost my favorite dish is the chilled steamed spinach with a sesame dress­ing. And you know what? You can make it at home.

Chilled Steamed Spinach with Sesame
(serves 2)

1/2 lb baby spinach, washed

dress­ing:
3 tbsps soy sauce
1 1/2 tbsps sesame oil
2 tbsps peanut oil
6 tbsps tahini
3/4 tsp sugar
1 tsp honey
1 clove fine­ly minced garlic

sesame seeds to sprin­kle (1/2 tsp?)

Boil water in a large saucepan and plunge spinach in it. Boil, stir­ring, for 1 minute, then pour into a colan­der and rinse with COLD water. Now, squeeze the spinach for an impos­si­ble-seem­ing time, as more and more water is released from it. Expect just one hand­ful of spinach left after squeez­ing. Seriously.

Chill spinach for at least an hour. Mean­while, mix all dress­ing ingre­di­ents togeth­er very thoroughly.

When ready to serve, bring spinach out of the fridge and form into a log, then cut in half to form two serv­ings, and driz­zle with dress­ing (just a lit­tle, save the rest). Sprin­kle with sesame seeds.

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There will be lots of extra dress­ing. You can use it for two dish­es I can think of right off the top of my head, either of which would be love­ly right along­side the spinach, if you don’t mind sim­i­lar fla­vors in two dish­es. With some steamed rice, you’re good to go for dinner.

Sesame Salmon
(serves 2)

2 salmon fillets
dress­ing as above

Place the salmon fil­lets in an oven­proof dish and pour dress­ing over. Flip the fil­lets so both sides are coat­ed. Bake at 200C, 425F for 25 min­utes. Done.

Sesame Aubergine (Egg­plant)
(serves 2)

1 medi­um eggplant
dress­ing as above

Dice the aubergine in 1‑inch pieces (skin on). Scat­ter in an oven-proof dish, then pour dress­ing over and toss. Bake at 200C, 425F for 15 min­utes, then turn oven down to 120C, 240F for a fur­ther 20 min­utes. Toss again and serve.

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These are con­tra­dic­to­ry dish­es: veg­etable and yet rich, spare and yet com­plex, cheap and yet luxurious.

It’s that sort of yes/no, joyous/suffering, full/empty sort of con­tra­dic­tion that makes the best dish, whether it’s on a plate, served up at din­ner, or between the cov­ers of a nov­el on a shelf, or in the life of an almost-grownup, tee­ter­ing between goofy and ele­gant. I’m cel­e­brat­ing them all tonight.