#15 A Simple Iftar
Meghan Markle is late to the hosting game, third culture kids already know all the secrets.
The first episode (which is as far as I’ve gotten) of With Love, Meghan starts with her making bath salts for her friend Daniel’s visit (to her set, not to be confused with her own home). She looks beautiful as she says things like, “just a little something for him to be cosy”, “doing something with love, for someone you love”, it’s very Nancy Myers coded- from the herbs and flowers inside her fridge, to the warm whites, worn denims, tousled hair, a casual scene of blistering tomatoes, and beeswax candles. I’m left like… yeah and? Girl, try doing this without the 7-figure salaries you need today to just freaking LIVE. Add the fact that we are not enjoying the American Riviera, and that rotting on the couch is maybe the only self care that’s affordable right now.
Look, I am no Meghan hater, I promise. I think she’s a remarkable woman who went through a very public brutal shaming for just the fact of marrying who she wants to marry and not compromising herself. She has this direct relatability, with Lady Di, with people, with a fierceness to protect her children, and with women who are striving to maintain their sanctity. Everyone has a right to this self determination. I actually don’t care how many ventures she needs to start to cement her place in the economics of it all. I just can not, in this moment, give her my adoring time, and as much as I want to give homemade scented candles to my besties for self care, and make honey cake with them, I can’t.
It’s not that I don’t know how to do this. In my culture guests are larger than life, and I’m not a unique third culture kid to know this reality. My hot take in life is that this fact is what scares the powerful so much. We are more alike and aligned with the majority of the world than the corrupt rich can fathom. The amount of videos and reels and tiktoks that I get from SpanishTok, KoreanTok, ArabTok, IndianTok, AfricanAmericanTok, IndonesianTok, BangladeshiTok, NativeAmericanTok, RamadanCatTok, sharing anecdotes about all the stops their parents pull for guests, relatives, celebrating special occasions, tables full of food, cringey uncles, gossiping aunts, cousin cliques, and holiday traditions is so relatable. We are already under one banner and the second this quilt patches itself into the most comforting blanket, it’s over. Revolution, baby. Can’t wait, save the date.
My point being, we know how to be gracious, how to be generous, how to do little acts of love everyday to ease the burden around you. We know how to be in community. The fact of the matter is that there is no relief for us to be rewarded for being in community right now. It is so much effort, it’s draining, and we have no energy.
I miss Islamabad so much sometimes. When you leave the city you call home to make a life bigger than yourself, you know what your baseline is, even if your new city doesn’t. I know my baseline, I know the way I was raised. My baseline is my home in Islamabad that my family lovingly poured themselves into with every corner that is warm (and we were by no means millionaires, ever). It was the same blue car that we didn’t change for about 14 years, it was the muscle memory in driving to my best friends house at any time in the day and hanging out with her family, laughing while running errands. My baseline is my several friends groups for every part of my personality- poker nights (no money involved because astaghfirullah), Chinese food nights, hanging out with my moms college bestie nights, girlfriends banding together spilling tea life.
It sounds so rich. You may say that a lot of it is to do with having just enough money in Pakistan to even to have a life, and I agree- but so much of it is just the community of it all. If it was so perfect, why did I leave? It wasn’t perfect. I just don’t miss the terrible things. I don’t miss the crawling career prospects, the suffocating censorship, the blatant patriarchy. I don’t miss that shit (but I didn’t escape all that in the United States of America). I miss being in community with relief from community.
There was a TikTok? or instagram post? that said part of being in community is being annoyed. SO true. I’m annoyed with myself sometimes, how can I not be annoyed with community. I have come to accept that you’re just going to be annoyed and maybe it should be seen as an act of radical love.
This may be at the core of EatsByIsra as well. There is no way I’m ecstatic every single day, waking up with the birds, and singing my way into the kitchen. If you thought that… I’m so sorry to burst your bubble. I am most likely in the 30% of my closet which is ‘loungewear’ barely, my hair is tied up, no makeup, I’m constantly fighting a battle of eat something first before having a cup of chai (it’s a 50/50 win rate), talking to someone in the family while multi tasking with the orders of the day. There are days when I’m crying because why did I opt for this? Then there are days when I’m so excited for someone to get their delivery of home cooked meals and eat my food, finding healthy comfort in this world, maybe some relief, a balm to the world we’re competing in.
It is one of the ultimate acts of service, making food. The women in my family have done it for generations- they have nourished a whole lineage forward into the world one meal at a time. In the Baha’ai faith, there is a concept of your family tree, there are certain skills you readily tap into because of the fruit of your specific family tree. I was so touched to learn this. My paternal grandfather was a journalist and I have always been drawn to writing, since I was a kid but I never met him, he passed before my parents got married. My maternal grandfather (and his brother, and their father) were academics, and I have always imagined myself to be studying or teaching ultimately, not to mention my own mother is an educator. Both sides of my families though, the women were at the core- the nurturers, the caretakers, creating nourishing food everyday, and I want to say gave love unconditionally but there is a part of me that knows how hard it was for them too, to be these ever graceful loving women in the face of anything. I know this because this also is something I can tap into. All the women in my family have this ancient history traveling through the palm of their hands, through food and how can I not tap into those histories. I am not unique, but I can be a time traveling bridge.
I am the eldest of my family, and maybe it is all the love and yearning that goes into the first child, the deliverer of the titles of parent, aunt, grandparent. It is so weighted. I think you already know it when you come into this world- what it means to be the first of your parents, first of your siblings to give the coming companions of your life the best the world has to offer and shield them from the worst- to some degree even protecting those who brought you into the world. Amongst the longest relationships you’ll hold in the world are your siblings. Sometimes I think this is what automatically defines the personality of the eldest and the rest of your body and mind fight for space for your unique identifiers. Maybe this is why community is so important, to happily give in to the different parts of you, to unlock the best of you, for the world to see all of you.
It’s so rich, all of it, you can get heady with the power of it. When you immigrate to another country, your rich self remains inside of you for a long time while you find your footing. It doesn’t mean that it doesn't deeply wound that part of you, inside where your rich lives. It doesn’t mean you don’t know what a rich life is, you just have it on pause, you tuck it safe so that when you’re ready, you can safely release her, and show it to the new community you’re created around you. Sometimes it takes a beating, and you put her back inside, waiting for when it’s safe again. You, yourself, can tap into it (aka self care), but it’s too precious and you have an innate need to preserve yourself. It’s the whole immigrant experience.
Money helps. In todays definition of the world, it helps give you safety. You can protect yourself and your rich self, and since money is some equalizer in this era, you are automatically catapulted to the American Riviera, making lavender salt baths, and honey cake, and beeswax candles harvested from the bees in your backyard. Correction- in the backyard of your television set, because you are actually still protecting your innie.
I love the month of Ramzan. It can be magical if you want it to be. My ideal Iftar table is filled with serving plates, platters. One has egg sandwiches, maybe chicken mayo ones too. There’s one serving dish in the middle with a mound of aloo pakoras, and maybe it’s surrounded by some special palak (spinach) ones, or paneer ones, or some crispy onion pakoras, sometimes a whole mirchi (chili) is dunked into the besan (chickpea) mixture and fried to crisp spicy perfection.
There’s a bowl of fruit chaat with a little orange juice or tang in it, and maybe the fruit chaat is divided into two bowls, one with some chaat masala in it and one without for some fruit purists. Then there are some chicken patties, flaky puff pastry with simple shredded chicken with black pepper and salt meshed comfortably inside buttery pastry. I sprinkle some onion seeds on top of mine giving the classic chicken pattie a subtle nutty addition.
There’s also maybe a dahi barray serving dish, my nani makes a curry patta tadka to go on top of hers, served with crispy papri or namak paray. You can take an aloo samosa, put that in a bowl and spoon over dahi barray and then smash the samosa, sprinkling some chaat masala, squiggle on imli chutney, maybe some chopped red onions and make your own Samosa chaat. There’s also maybe an out of place kinda indo-western noodles maybe keema pasta, maybe chow mein to seal the whole deal together.
Dinner, could potentially be skipped but there’s always a hearty soup or rice, if you’re feeling a second dinner wind after you pray and get a walk in, but the most important part of Iftar is after Iftar. It’s the chai.
Ah the chai trolley, the diabolical but also comforting multi purpose staple in a Pakistani house. The after Iftar chai trolley is perfect. We are a dumm chai family, and not a mixed chai family (sorry, not sorry). So the thermos of chai has 4 teabags, 2 cardamom pods, and it is sealed tight to brew for anywhere between 12-15 minutes. You twist the top and release the suction steam and pour this beautiful cherry brown liquid and measure in your preference of milk (we are an everyday powder milk house, again sorry not sorry, but sometimes a evaporated milk family too!), and spoon in sugar or sweeteners, swirling to dissolve and pass cups and saucers to every person in the living room. Everyone takes their chai differently, but it hits the same when you have it together. There are little dessert plates or bowls, balancing precariously with tiny dessert spoons that sit right next to dessert of the evening. Favorites include, a cake from Layers bakery, or home made banana banoffee, or a trifle, or leftover fruit chaat with some ice cream or clotted cream. Maybe it’s a banana bread, or a pound cake, it can be anything honestly. You just need to be together.
My rich self’s dream coming out in the Substack today. See? Meghan Markle (nay Sussex) has nothing on us, we already have this in our DNA, we’re just keeping it safe.
I actually have to go now because I can not think more after documenting a nostalgic perfect Iftar. I also need to go make Iftar, my NYC besties are coming over and I’m scrounging through leftovers to fill my coffee table aka dining table with yummies. My store-bought candle is already lit, the girls are bringing flowers and chocolate chip cookies. You already know chai is brewing.
with love,
Isra
