East and West Afghan Food

East and West Gourmet Afghan Foods in Concord has parlayed its Afghan foods into a booming business.
Family brings Afghan tastes to the Bay Area
By Andrew Simmons
Contra Costa Times Correspondent
This article just came out today :)

Posted: 05/20/2009 12:00:00 AM PDT
Updated: 05/20/2009 10:06:14 AM PDT

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A sample of Bolani bread topped with a variety of spreads from East and West Gourmet Afghan at...

By now, many Americans have dipped dosas in Indian chutneys, savored Greek mezes and enjoyed Middle Eastern falafel. Authentic Afghan cuisine, on the other hand, is a mystery to most of us, even in the diverse and food-frenzied Bay Area.

Nazie Sidiq, owner of the Concord-based company East and West Gourmet Afghan Food, wants to change that. She wants people to fall in love with the flavors of her homeland.

With an arsenal of handmade breads and sauces and a network of aggressive yet charming, sample-happy salespeople, East and West Gourmet Afghan Food invades nearly 80 Northern California farmers markets each week — ambassadors of Afghan flavors aiming straight for the stomachs of the uninitiated.

A fragrant balance

Afghan food, Sidiq says, is nothing like Indian. "Our spices are really different. Curry, hard spices — we don't use them." While Afghan ingredients overlap with more familiar strains of Middle Eastern fare — yogurt, lamb and garlic — these dishes also build on leeks and green onions more often than ground spices and heat-delivering chiles.

Herbs such as cilantro and mint, particularly dried, add clean contrast to rich stews, colorful rice pilafs, legume purées and meat-sauced tortellini-like dumplings called ashak. Balance is a crucial tenet of Afghan cooking; it is fragrant and heady but not tongue-searing.

Sidiq suggests that in addition to ingredients, the techniques — many of them time-consuming and tactile — are key to understanding Afghan food. Hands propped up on her office desk, she mimes how to vigorously massage and squeeze lamb chunks in their marinade before tucking them away, covered in a bowl, to steep in the fridge overnight, for example.

Taste and memories

She says Afghan food resonates with people from all over the Middle East — not to mention others who have come to love its cuisines in recent years. "People come up in the markets and say, 'My grandmother, my grandfather had this,'" Sidiq says. "In Israel, for example, they also make yogurt cheese by squeezing yogurt in a cheesecloth to get the water out. Many countries do this." Her version may differ, but it reminds many regular customers of food their families ate, which is important to those living far away from their roots.

Partnered with her son Bilal, 24, and her husband Ratib, a charming, Rumi-quoting chemical engineer frequently found behind the wheel of a delivery van, Sidiq currently employs more than 50 cooks, managers and salespeople, many of them members of her ever-expanding extended family.

Family is a big deal to Sidiq. The word is emblazoned on a large wooden sign mounted on the wall of her office. When she speaks of family, Sidiq invariably means more than sons, daughters, nieces and nephews; she means their friends, her godchildren, their friends and, in some cases, their friends' friends — a community of enthusiastic, hardworking people she's compelled to nurture and bring into the fold.

In addition to farmers markets, her foods are sold in every Northern California Whole Foods store, where spinach bolani and garlic mint cheese rank among the grocery chain's top regional sellers.

However, the road to success has not been easy. Thirty years ago, Sidiq fled Afghanistan in the wake of the 1979 Soviet invasion, slipping out of her home in the middle of the night, just hours before the first wave of helicopters arrived. Along with her siblings, mother and father, then a general in Ahmad Shah Massoud's rebel army, she escaped to Pakistan on horseback, taking only money and jewelry, leaving behind beloved photographs and memorabilia that might betray their status. The family moved to Italy, Germany, and then the United States; first to Queens, N.Y., and finally to Contra Costa County.

Business of flavor

Five years ago, Sidiq worked in a nutritionist's office on weekdays; and on the weekends, she sold ravioli for a local pasta-maker at a few farmers markets. "My children grew up in the markets; we spent so much time there," Sidiq says. "After a while, I started thinking, 'There is Indian, there is Spanish, there is Italian here — there are many countries, but there is no Afghan (food).'"‰"

The first step to bringing Afghan food to the market was to come up with some products. Sidiq stockpiled Afghan ingredients in her garage and rented a commercial kitchen in San Rafael, where she honed recipes, stirred sauces and baked bolani — a unique vegetable-stuffed flatbread popular throughout Afghanistan. She began selling her products on Wednesdays at the Corte Madera Farmers Market in Marin. On her first visit, she sold out of bolani in two hours. "I went home, I said to my husband, 'This company is going to make it,'" recalls Sidiq.

For all Sidiq's personal warmth and business acumen, considerable gains would have been unlikely if her bolani weren't so good. Sidiq's pride is palpable as she demonstrates how to prepare it. "You roll the dough until it looks like the skinny wooden cylinder on the bottom of a coat hanger," she says, waving her hands above her desk, grinning as she manipulates an imaginary wand of dough. "Then roll it out until it's flat. Add flour and fold it over, turning and rolling, all by hand. Finally, you fill it, fold it, brush it with oil, and slide it in the oven."

Her spinach bolani looks like a three-way cross among a folded circle of naan, a cheeseless quesadilla and a pressed wedge of spanakopita. Warmed on a griddle, it tastes most like the latter. The dough is almost pastry-like in its delicacy: Two thin, flaky layers encasing a substantial swath of cooked spinach, spices and cilantro. In the identically shaped potato bolani, bits of chopped green onion mingle with earthy tubers, half-mashed, red skins clearly visible in the cross-section from the outside. The pumpkin variety is sweet, best tempered with a calming dollop of garlic mint yogurt cheese and a drizzle of her bright, slightly bitter cilantro pesto.

In southern Afghanistan, bolani is fried; in northern regions, it is baked in a clay oven. Her recipe comes from the North, specifically the city of Mazar-e-Sharif, from which her family hails. Sidiq's grandmother taught her how to cook, but as a child in Afghanistan, she never thought she'd have much use for the old recipes she learned, especially one for an informal snack food she was accustomed to buying from carts on the street. Now, bolani represents her livelihood, and a way to share her culture.

When Sidiq reflects on the success she's enjoyed and articulates her hopes for the future, she does not hold back. She has trademarked bolani in the United States and hopes to take it everywhere — starting with Southern California. "We're growing, from a little thing to maybe a big thing," she says.

She wouldn't mind Oprah taking notice, as some of her fans have suggested. "Some customers told me they wrote her because they thought she'd be interested." She might be: Sidiq's is a story of Americans learning something new about Afghanistan from a woman who spent years working 18 hours a day to establish it.

When I mention Sidiq's exhaustive ambition and energy to Sidiq's husband, Ratib, he smiles. "Man, yeah," he says, shaking his head, looking at the road ahead. "Nazie — she's a tough cookie."

Andrew Simmons is a freelance writer based in the Bay Area. He can be reached at adlsimmons@gmail.com
Extras
# East and West Gourmet Afghan Foods sells a range of dips that can be used not only as dips, but also as meal inspirations. Basil, sun-dried tomato and eggplant pestos can be tossed with pasta, spread across homemade pizza or used as a sandwich spread.
# Cilantro pesto can be stirred into roasted potatoes or stewed beans.
# Serve sweet jalape o jelly with grilled sausages, or as a dipping sauce for spring rolls.
# Substitute jalape o jelly for cranberry sauce on a turkey sandwich.
# Layer garlic mint yogurt cheese with smoked salmon and cucumber slices on bagels.
# Fold yogurt mint cheese into an omelet.
-- Andrew Simmons