By Khalida Sarwari
Lauren Bush Lauren has a recipe for butternut squash soup that evokes memories of cozy autumn days, Nelson Mandela can’t get enough of “caranguejo recheado,” and Jamie Oliver adds berries to his apple pie, putting a sweet spin on the quintessential American dessert.
If there’s one thing world-class chefs, humanitarians and influential figures have in common it’s that they all know how to eat, and that’s evident in “Share,” a cookbook that curates these recipes, in addition to those from women facing violence and poverty as a result of war and conflict in such places as Afghanistan and South Sudan.
“Share” is the brainchild of Lauri Pastrone, a market researcher who lives in Los Gatos. Pastrone teamed up with four friends six years ago to make what essentially began as a 50th birthday wish to give back come true in the form of a cookbook.
A longtime volunteer for Women for Women, a nonprofit that helps marginalized women become self-sufficient so that they in turn can help their families and communities, Pastrone wanted to tell the stories of women who had impacted her own life. At the time she was living in London because of her husband’s job and working part time while raising two children.
“My life had really been significantly changed by my involvement from Women for Women,” said Pastrone. “I had sponsored 10 women. My life had been dramatically changed by that connection, and I wanted to do something that would tell their story–to give them a voice, and essentially give that opportunity to other people to give them the connection with these people that I had made.”
Pastrone suspects the seeds for her cookbook have roots in memories of her mother collecting recipes for a cookbook that would eventually become a family favorite, as well as her own collection of more than 100 cookbooks.
Thus began a four-year journey to produce a cookbook with the primary objective of using 100 percent of the proceeds to support Women for Women, which focuses most of its charitable efforts on women in Rwanda, Congo, Nigeria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Kosovo, Bosnia and Iraq, and recently expanded into Syrian refugee camps.
“We knew we wanted to create something really special and not just a charity cookbook,” said Pastrone. “We wanted something that really stood out, so we collectively learned that we needed some professional help.”
Professional help came in the form of many hands that worked tirelessly to bring to life the vision of Pastrone and her friends Tracy Craighead and Bette Anne Berg. Rounding out the core team was Ruth Tyson, a designer, and Alison Oakervee, a food editor.
The five women drew up a list of influential figures they wanted recipes from, collectively deciding that they wanted to focus on three different groups of people: humanitarians and philanthropists, chefs that actively support sustainability and healthy eating, and most importantly, women in the countries that the organization sponsors.
“It wasn’t as easy as we thought it was going to be; in fact it was really, really difficult,” said Pastrone. “With every recipe in the book there’s a story of how we got it.”
Their efforts eventually resulted in a collection of 120 recipes. Two of her personal favorites from the book are a recipe for orange-scented olive oil almond cake by Nell Newman, the daughter of screen legend Paul Newman, and a recipe for wheatberry salad by Meryl Streep, the Academy Award-winning actress who supports Women for Women and generously wrote the foreword for the cookbook.
“I will never forget the day that I got an email saying she had said yes,” Pastrone said. “It was a real pivotal turning point for us. That’s the day I thought, yes we’re going to get there.”
Since its release in May 2013, the book has been translated into German and British English. To date, it has sold about 50,000 copies in more than 20 countries, according to Pastrone.
“We are hoping we might have a donation of a Spanish translation, because we think that would reach a lot of different markets,” Pastrone said. There are also plans underway to include a section on Syria next year.
“We all feel strongly that we need to give Syrian women in refugee camps a voice,” she said. “Theirs is the greatest plight of probably any women of war.”
Since the nonprofit’s inception in 1993, nearly 420,000 have been put through the one-year program, according to Pastrone. Women for Women has estimated that in turn, each of those women change the lives of at least two other people, be it their children or spouse or others in their circle.
It reminds Pastrone of an African proverb: “If you educate a man you educate an individual, but if you educate a woman you educate a family.”
Per the Women for Women model, a one-year sponsorship of $360 provides one woman with life skills and human rights training, and helps her learn a skill that will enable her to become self-reliant, while a third of the money goes directly into the woman’s pocket each month to do with whatever she wants, whether it’s to pay for school fees for her children or buy seeds or plastic for a greenhouse, explained Pastrone. “Nobody tells her how she spends that money.”
Pastrone said she first learned about the organization from the Oprah Winfrey show 15 years ago. Winfrey had Women for Women’s founder, Zainab Salbi, an Iraqi-American humanitarian, entrepreneur and author on her show.
“I was incredibly moved by what she was doing and just the whole idea of essentially giving [women] the tools they need to survive and to thrive,” said Pastrone. “That’s when I signed up to become a sponsor.”
Surprisingly–or maybe not, considering how bombarded for requests the popular TV host must be on a regular basis–Winfrey is one of the people they were unsuccessful at reaching, Pastrone said.
“My guess is they take no chances with Oprah’s name,” she said. “We always thought we’d get her and we didn’t.”
This year, Pastrone is on her 16th sponsorship, passing on the Good Samaritan genes to her daughter, who recently took up her mother’s cause. Receiving correspondence from the women she sponsors who tell her how much she’s impacted their lives has changed her own life, Pastrone said.
“Things that make you realize how little it takes to essentially give someone an opportunity and give someone hope,” she said. “It makes me feel like I matter, that I can do something with little effort.”
Though Pastrone laments she’s never had the chance to meet any of her “sisters,” she does take pride in knowing that the book has helped raise awareness for Women for Women locally and increased sponsorship in the cities of Saratoga and Los Gatos especially. The book is sold at the Butter Paddle, at Wimsy in Saratoga, at most Borders and online on Amazon.
Moreover, her collaboration with her friends on the cookbook is a symbol for what Women for Women stands for, Pastrone said.
“As five women together with collective talents and voices we were able to create something much, much bigger than ourselves or our individual parts,” she said.
Meryl Streep’s recipe for wheatberry salad
Prepare: 10 minutesCook: 45 minutes
Serves: 4-6 as a side dish
Ingredients:
2/3 cup wheat berries
4-6 pepperoncini, or pickled green peppers
4-5 scallions (green parts only, sliced)
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons mint leaves, chopped
2/3 cup pomegranate seeds
2/3 cup feta cheese, cubed
Cook the wheat berries according to the package instructions. Set aside to cool completely, then transfer into a bowl.
Add the pepperoncini or pickled green peppers, scallions and olive oil and toss to combine.
Stir in the mint and pomegranate seeds and toss in the cheese. Season to taste. This salad is great served at room temperature or chilled.
Doughnut recipe from the Democratic Republic of Congo
Prepare: 30 minutes plus 2 hours rising Cook: 35 minutes
Makes: 16
Ingredients:
1 cup milk
4 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
4 cups vegetable oil
2 large eggs, beaten
1 cup sugar
Gently warm the milk in a heavy saucepan, remove from the heat and set aside.
Put 3 cups of the flour in the bowl of an electric mixer with a dough hook, and mix in the yeast, sugar and salt. Then pour the warm milk into the flour with 2 tablespoons of the oil and the eggs. Gradually mix in the remaining flour until you have a soft dough, then knead for 3-4 minutes (or 6-8 minutes if mixing by hand), until smooth and elastic. Transfer to a clean bowl, then cover and let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled in size–about 1.5 hours.
Divide into 16 equal-sized portions and roll into balls. Transfer to a floured towel, cover with a piece of oiled plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm place for 30 minutes.
Heat the remaining oil in a large, heavy saucepan to 375 degrees fahrenheit. Fry the doughnuts one by one for about 2 minutes each, until golden. Drain onto a plate lined with paper towels. Pour the sugar onto a plate and roll the warm cooked doughnuts in the sugar before serving.
