Home Fire & Zucchini Cornbread w/ Tomato Butter
A book about family and extremism, and veggie-filled cornbread
Part 1: Good Book
Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie (2017)
In a nutshell
Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie is a 2017 reimagining of Atigone that was longlisted for the Booker Prize. The novel begins with Isma, the eldest child in the Pasha family, British Muslims living in London. Isma sacrificed many years of her life to raise her younger twin siblings, Aneeka and Parvaiz, after their mother passed away. Their jihadi father is also dead, and before that had been absent from their lives since they were very young. Isma is now finally free to focus on herself, moving to the US to pursue graduate studies. Back home in London, on the brink of adulthood, Aneeka is high achieving and ambitious, while her twin Parvaiz struggles to find direction or a firm identity. This makes him vulnerable to a lurking ISIS recruiter in the neighborhood who positions himself as a father figure. Home Fire explores how Isma and Aneeka grapple in different ways with their brother’s terrible decisions.
Home Fire in three words
Frightening, suspenseful, tense
Three things I liked about Home Fire
1. A look at the slow process of how people become extremists
It was really interesting to see in Home Fire the slow progression of Parvaiz from a lonely and directionless teenage boy to an ISIS recruit. Kamila Shamsie writes in a way that shows Parvaiz’s descent into extermism doesn’t happen overnight. We see a young man who fundamentally feels he doesn’t fit in and lacks a strong sense of self, presenting a perfect opportunity for an ISIS recruiter in his neighbourhood to engage him. Initially, this recruiter just acts like he’s interested in guiding Parvaiz, but over months begins to indoctrinate him into his extreme and dangerous views that will forever affect his family.
2. Five different viewpoints
The novel is divided into five different sections, each narrated by a different key character. I really enjoyed this way of structuring Home Fire, and found it kept the plot dynamic. For example, I was really curious before Parvaiz’s section to hear more from him, because for much of the story he is an enigma we just hear about through his sisters. It adds a lot to the story by having each fresh perspective move it along.
3. Tension created by the first section
When we meet Isma, she is finally getting to do something for herself by going to school in the US. This is the first time since she was a teenager that she isn’t responsible for her siblings, and she is liberated from familial duty. By setting this first section up as Isma’s first opportunity to do something different, it makes it all the more heartbreaking when she gets pulled back in, having to try to protect her brother and sister.
Notable passage
“Grief manifested itself in ways that felt like anything but grief; grief obliterated all feelings but grief; grief made a twin wear the same shirt for days on end to preserve the morning on which the dead were still living; grief made a twin peel stars off the ceiling and lie in bed with glowing points adhered to fingertips; grief was bad-tempered, grief was kind; grief saw nothing but itself, grief saw every speck of pain in the world; grief spread its wings large like an eagle, grief huddled small like a porcupine; grief needed company, grief craved solitude; grief wanted to remember, wanted to forget; grief raged, grief whimpered; grief made time compress and contract; grief tasted like hunger, felt like numbness, sounded like silence; grief tasted like bile, felt like blades, sounded like all the noise of the world. Grief was a shape-shifter, and invisible too; grief could be captured as reflection in a twin’s eye. Grief heard its death sentence the morning you both woke up and one was singing and the other caught the song.”
Part 2: Good Bread—Zucchini cornbread with roasted tomato butter
Why this choice for this book?
In wondering what bread to pair for this book, I thought about Aneeka and Parvaiz, twins raised in the same household, who end up taking such different life paths. I wanted to choose a bread that highlighted an ingredient in two ways. This zucchini cornbread fit the bill, using both whole corn kernels and cornmeal. Plus, it’s summer and zucchini is everywhere, so something that included my favourite vegetable was a no-brainer.
Recipe
I found this recipe in Smitten Kitchen Keepers, one of my all time favourite cookbooks. I have two Smitten Kitchen cookbooks, and I find everything I cook from there just works, the recipes are accessible and unpretentious, and always delicious. I’ve never made compound butter before, and this version with tomatoes was so good and easy. You roast cherry tomatoes for 40 minutes and then add them to a food processor with salt and very cold butter chunks. I think next time I will add some fresh basil and thyme as well. This exact recipe doesn’t exist online, and I feel weird including photos of recipes from cookbooks if the author hasn’t already put them online. But, there is a very similar recipe on Smitten Kitchen’s website you can find here (it just omits the scallions and zucchini).
Looking forward
Book I’m looking forward to reading: Tell Me Everything by Minka Kelly
Music I’m looking forward to listening to: The Greater Wings by Julie Byrne
Bread I’m looking forward to baking: Sourdough with lemon zest