Daily Morsel
Kashmir and Back
I could hear the rain outside my window as I lay in my bed somewhere between waking and sleeping - that place where dreams appear in full color. Our guide Karan (which means warrior) paddled my companion Francois and me down the Jhelum River. We were somehow separated from our group as we flowed downstream in a rosewood flatboat. Children ran along the bank waving, excited, as Westerners were rare sights in these villages. We passed a colorful landscape of trees filled with laundry hung to dry. This river was paramount to their existence: their only means of transport to Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir. The men fished in the river, the women washed their clothes, and others bathed in the same water. Rain began to pour from the sky, and we pulled our boat to the bank to take cover under an ancient Banyan tree with welcoming limbs.
And then it happened. The earth began to tremble. We instinctively fell to our hands and knees to gain stability. It was a quake, a commonplace for the villagers. The tremor was not so common to me. Here I was in this strange land so very far from home, not so far from Afghanistan and Pakistan. The earth shook, and the sky turned a golden orange. The shaking suddenly stopped and then started again. My grandmother financed my travel to this magical place of mysterious flavors, smells, and quakes. Monkeys ran freely. Hindus walked in one direction; Buddhists in another. Kashmir was an unparalleled experience that would alter my way of living and thinking should I make it home again.
Several children took our hands and guided us to their village. We were led into a home: one very small room with a dirt floor. As their guests, we were directed to sit on a beautifully woven tapestry. They ran their hands down my hair and touched my shoes and clothes. I instinctively knew they were gentle and just curious. They offered a cup of tea to comfort us. It was a chipped cup with a single leaf of tea, a dash of salt, soda, and a precious cardamom seed, a seed that calmed me inside and out. This tiny flavorful seed had surely cost hours of laundry labor. The poorly clad family stared at us and smiled as there was no common language, but none was needed. Things speak for themselves. I breathed in the aroma of the tea and their spirit of giving. We nodded and smiled back. We could have signed a treaty of understanding. The quake shook the earth outside, but a peace and tranquility settled inside. Their hospitality and simple seed gift were unrivaled by any welcome I had known.
I awoke to the whirr of sanding, my husband Gary in our workshop below. I slowly climbed out of bed, grateful to revisit (if only in my dreams) the priceless Kashmiri gift that calmed my soul while the earth shook beneath me. Was it a dream? It was a dream of my real adventure at an earlier age in Northern India, a dream of giving and genuine warmth. That Kashmiri gift so long ago came flooding back and renewed my spirit. It was raining now, but the power sander below masked the sound of the rain. Gary was working on a community tasting table for our soon-to-be restaurant in the new Mint Museum. We handpicked the birds-eye wood from curly maple trees that fell in Myers Park during a violent storm. Cross sections of silver maple and walnut trees will also fill our space with treasures from nature like the cardamom seeds. Our dream is to share these exotic flavors and simple tastes with our guests, calming the world that swirls and shakes at times. Please join us for a culinary adventure at Halcyon, Flavors from the Earth, our new restaurant at the new Mint Museum opening soon.
Jill Marcus
Founder, Green Goddess Alliance
President, Something Classic Catering & Cafés
Community Café at Discovery Place
Feel free to email me directly at jill@somethingclassic.com
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