Strings Attached

Grape Leaves

83 Grape Leaves My grandmother, Sittu, took me for walks down the alley behind our home in Detroit. There flanking the gravel paths were old fences that became trellises to grape vines. She taught me to look for young, tender leaves, pick them with a delicate touch. Here we’d cross the divide between us, the clash of cultures and what it means to be a woman. Her girlhood plucked early, marriage arranged, femininity was a hard green grape yanked from the vine. I’d pinch the leaves using the tips of my fingernails, careful not to yank or tear as we stacked them midrib to midrib. For her, so much depended on the meal, the carnal affection of the dinner table, an intimacy she could enjoy without shame. Translated from Lebanese, waraq areesh means paper of the vines—unschooled, this was a paper she could read, the way she read the dandelions she’d pick for salad mixed with kishk,* or tall grasses she’d dye with red onion peel, weave into baskets. I helped her blanch the grape leaves to make them pliable, smoothing the shiny side down, spooning ground lamb, rice, and spices into the center. She taught me to fold the sides over, tucking them in as she rolled them into wine cork shapes, * A mixture of cracked wheat soaked in yogurt and dried in the sun. 84 watched me do the same. We nestled them in the pot on a rack of lamb riblets, let everything simmer together, the warmth of those moments, food, our common language as we reached across fences where the most tender leaves seemed to say, pick me, pick me. ...