In case you can’t read the fine print, voila the gist of it:

“Contrary to popular misconception, the phenomenal popularity of the Internet has not come at the expense of magazines. Readership is actually increasing, and adults between 18 and 34 are among the most dedicated readers. They equal or surpass their over-34 counterparts in issues read per month and time spent per issue. What’s changed isn’t people’s affinity for magazines but the means by which they acquire them. Last year, nearly 22 percent of all new paid subscriptions were ordered online. … Some might call it ironic. The medium that some predicted would vanquish magazines is actually helping fuel their growth. And vice versa.”

In case you’re wondering, Magazines: The Power of Print campaign is part of a series of ads paid for by the leaders of five major magazine publishing companies, namely—Charles H. Townsend, Condé Nast; Cathie Black, Hearst Magazines; Jack Griffin, Meredith Corporation; Ann Moore, Time Inc.; and Jann Wenner, Wenner Media.

The goal?

To promote the vitality of magazines as a medium.

Each ad appears on a color spread, accompanied by an iconic image from a well-known magazine. In this instance, we have David LaChapelle’s naked bubbles lady (I don’t really know the title of this photograph) from Rolling Stone, which is quite an unfortunate choice given that the subject of the ad is the reading habits of young people. If I were a teacher and brought this spread in to class as a teaching tool, my head would probably be cut off by many parents. I’m just saying.

(An aside: Funny that the first thing I read this morning in the NY Times looked at how Petit Quotidien, a daily paper for children in France is defying the digital craze.” )

My mother became certified as a Billings Ovulation teacher. And her job was to go and teach this to women. … Part of the problem was that her Igbo wasn’t good enough to discuss people’s uterus. She needed an interpreter and mother decided to ask me to interpret for her. I was eight years old. So we would set off, the two of us, and I would have a backpack. … We would go door to door. Everything starts with a greeting … It would be followed by an apology from me because I was about to discuss something sacred, taboo.

These women would never discuss [their period] with their husbands and here’s this eight-year-old boy … [See full transcript.]

The image of a young boy accompanying his mother to strangers’ homes and acting as a middleman stayed with me for several days, and when I recently heard Marina Budhos reading from her new, terrific young adult novel Tell Us We’re Home, I was reminded of it again.

In Budhos’s novel, we meet three young girls, Jaya, Lola, and Maria, all immigrants, who find themselves in a different kind of countryside than Abani — American suburbia — where they act as their mothers’ interpreters and translators.

Their mothers are nannies and housekeepers in Meadowbrook, a picturesque New Jersey town off the commuter rail, and these girls are the invisible teens who help their parents navigate a new culture while struggling to find their own place within it. They go to school with the same kids whose families their mothers work for.

Maria is Mexican. She accompanies her mother on job interviews and acts as a conduit for her employment searches. Jaya is West Indian, from Guyana. She assumes the responsibility to help absolve her mother of the accusation of a theft that in her employer’s home. And Lola is a Slovakian self-appointed revolutionary whose mother is a housekeeper at her classmate’s home and whose father is a depressed former engineer. Each girl’s story–and the story of their friendship–allows us to peer into the hidden world of working class young adult immigrants. Until they meet, each girl believes lives in a lonely bubble of invisibility, but chance brings them together and their friendship saves each of them in some way. Though they are outsiders, they are outsiders together.

I was a fan of Budhos’s first YA novel, Ask Me No Questions, and am glad that this book more than lived up to my expectations. Even if you’re not one of those keen readers drawn to nanny novels, there are a few good reasons to pick up this one.

Reason 1: It’s a vivid and layered portrayal of contemporary suburban life.  Budhos brings alive the town and many characters of Meadowbrook without making her narrative mucky or over-complicated.

Meadowbrook, New Jersey, looks like it’s right out of an old-time postcard. It has a big town hall, with huge columns and a neat border of red tulips. There’s a quaint little Main Street, its wrought-iron lampposts twined with evergreen sprigs at Christmas; a big green park, where the kids trace ice-skating loops on the frozen pond.

The town is nestled in a valley, and on one side is a steep incline that thrusts up into the ravine, where some of the expensive modern houses are perched like wood and glass boxes. On the other side the larger homes slowly give way to two-family houses and apartments on gritty Haley Avenue and to the big box stores of Route 12. More and more, shiny new condos have sprung up in the open gaps of land, a grove of pale brick McMansions standing where an old horse stable used to be.

Halfway up the hill, in the old section of town, is Mrs. Abigail Harmon’s house. It isn’t much of a house, as far as Meadowbrook houses go. More it’s a cottage, with a steep gabled roof and low exposed beams. The garden is a froth of eccentric tastes: pinwheels and tangled raspberry bushes, a crumbling slate wall and herb garden with chipped zigzagging paths. Mrs. Harmon inherited the place from her mother, who’d been born in the pink-wallpaper nursery, and whose grandfather once owned the hundred acres of farmland that makes up what is Meadowbrook today.

Around the time Mrs. Harmon was born, her family’s apple orchard was sold off to build the train station. Nowadays, when the early train draws up, a stream of women, mostly from the Caribbean or Latin America, step down in their rubber-soled shoes, cradling their Dunkin’ Donuts coffees, and make their way to the pretty clapboard houses. A few minutes later, up and down the streets, comes a chiming of voices, good-byes, slammed doors, cars backing down driveways, mothers and fathers rushing across town with their briefcases and still-wet hair to catch the next train to the city.

Reason 2: It’s timely. Budhos digs into class and ethnic dynamics that are quietly bubbling and brewing trouble in communities all over the country and informing the current immigration debate. One of the subplots is about the tensions between immigrants, including day laborers, and rooted, homogeneous communities who find themselves threatened.

” I’m Genine. …” Without asking, she slid into the chair opposite Maria. The girl was a study in black: worn messenger bag stretched across a faded black T-shirt with a silk screen image of Che Guevera … “So I heard about some stuff going down at the park. What’s up with your cousin and the other guys?”

“It’s … it’s not good,” Maria paused. “My cousin’s got a court date in a few weeks. And … he lost his job. He says it’s harassment.” …

“There’s a lot of talk in town. People are saying they should ban those guys who stand on the corner. Even crazy stuff. Ticket the soccer players if they don’t live here. Put a cap on how many renters there can be in town. Get rid of the ELL classes in the schools.”

A nauseous surge rolled through Maria. She hated this. More trouble.

Reason 3: It’s my one of my favorite kinds of love story –it depicts the complicated and beautiful bond of friendship that can form between adolescent girls who struggle to fit in. Any young adult reader, immigrant or not, child of a working class laborer or not, can identify with this experience.

Being the daughter of a maid or nanny, it wasn’t like everyone was so bad or mean or stupid. It was just weird. You knew your mother put extra bleach in the underwear of some girl who was walking up the aisle at assembly in her best corduroy jumper dress. Or those shoes you wore were hand-me-downs from the kid in the grade above you, and you just prayed she didn’t notice. Or how you hated Monday mornings, when half the class came in sporting sweatshirts with big letters that said I ROCKED AT JONAH’S BAR MITZVAH! Which of course you were never invited to.

That’s why it was so amazing that the three girls found each other. It was a kind of miracle. … In the beginning they laughed hard, swapping stories and hurts, amazed there could be anyone else who understood. … The best part, though, was the bits of advice the three of them would share. Lying about what you were doing for spring break, or making up a story about scoliosis, which is why you couldn’t go on the school ski trip, which cost too much.

Before I give too much of the plot away, let me leave you with this video of Marina Budhos reflecting on her inspiration for this book.

On a personal note: As a part-time stay at home mom, I’ve been hanging out with a lot of nannies lately, whether it’s my own, or it’s those who take care of the children of friends of mine and their nanny friends. It makes me happy to see a book out there that is written with their experiences and point of view in mind.

On a recent visit to the East West Books near Union Square, the universe sent me a not-so-subtle reminder to make time again for my morning pages. Upstairs in the café, hanging on the wall right next to the table where I sat down with my iced red bush tea, was a framed dress entirely made up of morning pages!

Created by artist Caterina Bertolotto, the dress “Morning Pages” is part of a series Dresses of Transformation. Of the dress, Bertolotto says:

I have been practicing “The Artist Way” for over two years, and it has helped me incredibly to get to know myself, what’s important for me, and to be more creative. I love the morning pages. Since I have been writing them, I can collect all the ideas that come to me and no longer forget them. When I want to make art, I have plenty of ideas.

I’m reminded of Cameron’s second reason for suggesting morning pages as a practice for all types of artists. They act as a repository for our creative ideas, perhaps even those that we would otherwise discount if we were to write them down in the light of day (versus in the moments just after we awake) when our inner critiques are most alive and kicking.

Speaking of the creative unconscious, I’m reminded of Carl Jung’s Red Book, which I’ve been meaning to get a copy of.

Today, I was watching her roll around on her play blanket (which is decorated with stars), and was amazed at how everything around her went into her mouth. I had filled a brass bowl with bracelets for her to play with – silver, metallic, gold, plastic — and all she wanted to do was eat them.

Eating Bangles

She has a sophisticated appetite this little child
Stars, shiny and bright, at breakfast time
Golden bracelets, sparkling in a bunch, just in time for lunch
Pearls, smooth and inlaid in silver, for dinner
Will diamonds be next, I wonder?

It sounds a bit silly, I know, but these are the types of things that I find myself reciting out loud when I speak to her. I seldom write them down but today I just keep thinking about her licking the stars on the blanket, then one by one, picking up each of the bracelets in the bowl and sucking on them as though they were the most delicious thing in the world!

But I’m still thinking about Nina Berman’s series of photographs “Marine Wedding.” On exhibit as part of the Whitney’s Biennial 2010, they are a poignant reminder of the impact and ripple human effects of the war.

The 2006 photographs on view document the marriage of former Marine sergeant Ty Ziegel, then twenty-four, to his high school sweetheart, Renee Kline, twenty-one. After being severely disfigured in a suicide bomber’s attack while stationed in Iraq, Ty underwent fifty reconstructive operations. … Without any staging or direction, Berman took spontaneous photographs of Ty and Renee in the weeks leading up to their wedding day and accompanied them when they had their wedding portrait taken. Her picture of them at the portrait studio conveys an air of alienation between the couple, who separated a few months after their wedding. …

Read and listen to a PBS interview with Berman here.

Then, during one of my daughter’s first long afternoon naps at 14 weeks, the planets conspired to make reading possible again. I surprised myself by curling up on the couch with a cup of ginger-peach tea and Sheba Karim’s first young adult novel Skunk Girl, which I’ve been wanting to read ever since I first heard about it as a work in progress.

A few months ago, I reviewed Rakesh Satyal’s Blue Boy, a sensitive coming of age novel about a 12 year-old Indian-American boy struggling with his sexuality. One of the qualities I most appreciated about the book was its impeccable portrait of the suburban Indian-American family and the ways in which adolescent growing pains tie into it and its complex social webs.

Sheba Karim’s Skunk Girl is another novel that does a fine job of painting such a portrait and of capturing the intricacies of growing up South Asian in this country, this time from the point of view of girl. [Read an excerpt.]

Nina Khan is a  Pakistani-American junior in high school with an impossibly intelligent older sister Sonia and strict immigrant parents. About to turn 16, she is painfully aware of the “no dating, no pork, no co-ed parties” rules in her life which make her feel like “a wounded bird who longs to fly with the others but can’t.” Matters take a turn for the worse when Nina falls hard for Asher, a new boy in school. The two share math class together and, could it be?, Asher actually seems interested in her? Will she or won’t she break the rules and date him?

As Nina gets to know Asher better, she becomes even more aware of how different she is from her classmates. As if matters weren’t bad enough and she’s not allowed to date, Nina also becomes even more self-conscious about her body hair, which has always been an issue of embarrassment (as it is for many young South Asian women). On a class trip to Albany, she finds herself sitting next to Asher on the bus. When she leans over to look out the window, he gets a view down her back.

When I sit up, he turns to me one eyebrow raised in curious amusement. “You have a stripe of hair going down your back,” he says. …

As soon as I make it home I run upstairs to my room and tear my clothes off. I stand naked in front of my full-length mirror and twist my head to get a good view of my back. And that’s when I see it. A wide line of soft, dark hair running from the nape of my neck down to the base of my spine–the stripe Asher was talking about. A stripe right down the center of my back, like a skunk. This brings me to a whole other level. I’m not just a hair Pakistani Muslim girl anymore.

I am a skunk girl.

Lest you think that Nina sinks into the depths of despair after this revelation, let me assure you that she does not. Of course, she indulges in an afternoon of crying, of cursing, and of making wishes for all sorts of ways to never to set foot in school again. But then she steps right back up to the plate and returns to school and realizes that “nothing happens. No one pauses their conversations. No one even notices me.”

Though Nina the character is often frustrated by her circumstances, Nina, the narrator, has a wry sense of humor and a graceful ability to poke fun at herself. As this entertaining novel progresses, we watch as her streak of rebellion surfaces and watch as she struggles with her conscience as she experiments with aspects of “American culture” (yes, alcohol, and yes, dating) that are off-limits to her and that define her very Pakistani Muslim-ness. What you’ll see her conclude will be surprising and yet, so very Nina-esque; a teenage girl who is simultaneously self-confident and unsure of herself.

While exploring the challenges of high school life, author Sheba Karim also sheds light on the extended social life of Nina Khan’s family – the Pakistani family dinners,  the community weddings, the visits from family friends who measure her adherence to cultural norms, etc. Karim’s eye for these little details and her ability to convey universal aspects of South Asian immigrant immigrant life give this novel an added measure of value.

In an interview at Cayenne Lit, Karim says:

I was raised in a small town with very few other desis, a setting similar to the one in Skunk Girl. Being Pakistani made me separate, different, and often annoyed, because of the restrictions placed on me as a teenager. I think your culture is often something you grow into. I also think as wonderful as being a “hyphen” is, it can also be very difficult, particularly for women from Muslim backgrounds. … Skunk Girl was inspired by a monologue I wrote for Yoni ki Baat, a South Asian version of The Vagina Monologues. I realized there were very few books out there about what it’s like to grow up Pakistani in this country, and that I really wanted to write one.

Her writing certainly took me into the inner world of a teenage misfit with grace and reminded me of the parallels of my own once-upon-a-time adolescent angst. Thank goodness it’s past me!

For those interested in using this in the classroom or a book circle, a helpful discussion guide is available here.

Tea with Chachaji is based on the picture book story about Neel, a 10 year old, who learns about his family’s place in the partition of India through a story about his great uncle’s favorite teacup. In the stage production, Neel’s mother, Anya (Soneela Nankani) is a hardworking nurse who paints in her free time. His father died when he was a young boy and his primary male role model is his great uncle Chachaji (Tony Mirrcandani) who is a wizard with words. Neel (Raja Burrows) can’t get enough of his stories – family stories, stories about Hindu mythology, and super hero characters like Hanuman, the monkey god. On the cusp of adolescence, Neel finds himself torn between his new friend Daniel (Jose Sepulveda) and the basketball court and his family, dance lessons, and attachment to Chachaji’s stories. When an accident causes the loss of Chachaji’s favorite tea cup, Neel learns the importance of his family history and grows to appreciate it in his new environment. At the same time, Chachaji comes to view his roots and ties to the past from a fresh perspective.

Before the performance, the opening question to the audience was “Raise your hand if you, your parents, or your grandparents were not born in America.” The majority of the audience raised their hands, as might be expected. But there were a few people around me who sat still with their hands in their laps and their heads bowed down, seemingly embarrassed. At that moment, I wished I had a copy of Davy Brown Discovers His Roots, an independently published illustrated children’s book by Keely Alexander and Velani Mynhardt Witthoft, to share. It would have made a fine bookend to any discussion or workshop following the play.

The main character in this book is an all-American boy Davy Brown who goes into a panic attack when his teacher assigns his class to investigate their family’s immigration roots. His classmates all have fascinating backgrounds, Davy believes. They come from Mexico, China, India, and Sudan, and all of them have unique immigration stories. In contrast, his parents don’t know much about his past. It takes a series of events for him to finally dig deep to find his family’s roots.

Davy Brown is a likable character, who pulls some clever antics and tells some tall tales to his classmates in his attempt to get out of the immigration research assignment. (Pirate ancestors, anyone?!) But with the help of his family and the mighty Internet, he finally gets some of the answers he is looking for.

“Tea with Chachaji” and “Davy Brown Discovers His Roots”  have this in common – it is one’s family that helps both Neel and Davy connect meaningfully to their pasts. In an educational setting, stories like these can serve as valuable tools to get kids interested in researching their family histories. Once they are ready to do that, the resources to do so are endless — and in that respect, the appendix of Davy Brown provides a comprehensive list of websites and methods to go deeper, as well as helpful information about immigration laws. (At the book’s website, there is also a sample lesson plan.)

A couple of weeks ago, I tuned in to the Food Network’s The Next Iron Chef to find a sophisticated, soft spoken, skinny desi chef cooking up a storm. His name is Jehangir Mehta and his delicate dishes in every episode and challenge have been distinguished by their creative use of fresh herbs, fruit, and spices and their aesthetic presentation.

Mehta is the owner and executive chef of Graffiti, a Lower East Side NYC restaurant that serves “international small plates that feature his trademark affinity for bold flavors and spices such as chillies, sambhar, turmeric, and star anise.” In cook off after cook off, Mehta—who trained as a pastry chef at the Culinary Institute of America, but who hails from a Parsi family in Bombay — has been impressing the judges with unusual and original dishes such as pickled ginger scallops, bitter melon fritters, and apple and soy caramel skewers. His preparations are like miniature paintings; each one a carefully choreographed mouthful of flavor.

Tonight at 9 PM EST is the season finale where Mehta will battle against the Philadelphia-based Chef Jose Garces. Two very qualified chefs from two ethnic backgrounds with rich culinary traditions; it’s bound to be a close match.

Below the fold is a brief Q&A with Chef Mehta, including his thoughts about reality TV, his take on a South Asian Thanksgiving, and his recipe for his favorite comfort food.

Will Mehta be the next Iron Chef? We’ll soon find out.

Q. You’re from a family of accountants in Bombay, came to the US to attend CIA and have since made your mark as a pastry chef in various highly rated establishments, then opened your own restaurant Graffiti. What is it about cooking that appealed to you in the first place? Who was your first inspiration?
A. The health and medical properties of food always fascinated me as I had grown up that way. When I was young and had a cold, my grandfather made a concoction of one tablespoon of honey, lemon juice and brandy. This was the only medicine I was given. For a sore throat there was tea with ginger and lemongrass. Even when I fell and hurt myself, fresh turmeric was ground and applied as it is an antiseptic and has anti inflammatory properties. It was this that sparked my interest in the culinary field.

Q. Are you surprised you’ve made it this far on The Next Iron Chef?
A. No. I had gone with a positive attitude, but from what I have been told, some of my fellow contestants sure were.

*Q. How does your Indian background influence your approach to cooking? I’d love to hear your thoughts and comparisons about the culinary world in Bombay, your hometown, and New York. *
A. Growing up food at home on a daily basis was simple. A lot of it being Parsi Zorastrian style cooked. Yet my parents would go out of their way to expose my sister and me to different proteins. So I had partridges (now banned), rabbit legs, veal and various offals amongst other food. Also once a week they would take us out to dinner at a fine dining establishment. In college I discovered street food. However after coming to New York I was exposed to even more global cuisines. In New York one can eat out all the time and yet not cover all that the city has to offer.

Q. Your restaurant Graffiti serves an eclectic menu that has hints of Indian and Asian influences. How did you come up with the menu? Have you experienced resistance to your use of spices, herbs, flowers in your food? Or, is America ready for a new kind of food?
A. My style of cooking is personal and ingredient based. At Graffiti we explain each dish while serving mentioning the different tastes it will invoke. I guess the clients who visit Graffiti have done their research and are ones who are interested in experimenting with new flavors. They are very appreciative of the food and the dining experience and for me that is very satisfying.

Q. You have a reputation as a tough cookie, sometimes heartless on the current season of the Next Iron Chef. And yet, in the last episode, you prepared a five course meal which described your personality as “happy.” Does reality TV magnify one’s flaws in surprising ways?
A. That is one big downside of reality TV. Things are edited for drama. Comments are taken out of contest and time lines are exaggerated. However I have no control over this and therefore I just take it in my stride. I am a happy person and everyone who knows me including my guests know that too. That is all that matters.

Q. The dishes you have prepared on Iron Chef have been viewed as risky, excessive, and in the last episode, where you paired fish with flowers, one of your fellow contestants described your display as reminiscent of a funeral procession. Throughout it all, you’ve come across as poised and extremely self-confident, not seeming to care what other people think and doing what you like to do and feel you do best. What is that?
A. That is my philosophy. I want to win on my own strength. I am not affected by what others say or do. Nor will I ever run others down for I see no need to do that. When I am criticized I listen to what is being said and learn to better myself the next time. Yes I do take a lot of risks. Most are calculated risks but I am also ready to face the consequences of my actions. Sometimes when I take a risk I could fall but I also have the strength to get back on my feet.

Q. I enjoyed watching the Indian food cook off on The Next Iron Chef. What was that challenge like for you, given your familiarity with Indian food? More challenging? Frustrating? It seemed as though the judges held you up to a higher standard than the others.
A. Well I cannot speak for the judges. I am definitely familiar with Indian food and love it although I do not cook traditional Indian food. In terms of pressure, it was far less stressful than other challenges but it was also a double elimination and that was a constant threat. Thankfully it all went off well.

Q. You love sweets and desserts. That is obvious from the sweet items you’ve placed on your menus, your repeated use of the ice-cream machine on the show, your culinary experience with Candy Camp and your training as a pastry chef. What is it about desserts and you?
A. I worked as a pastry chef for over ten years. The ice-cream machine in the kitchen stadium was jinxed for me I guess. Unfortunately when sugar is not frozen it tastes even sweeter. Now when guests come into the restaurant they joke about it constantly when I serve ice-cream with the desserts.

* Q. What cooking ingredient have you recently discovered that most excites you?*
A. With nine and a half month old twins in the house, it’s just baby formula!

Q. What is your comfort food?
A. An easy to prepare dish called Thyme Roasted Potatoes. The recipe is here.

Q. The holidays are coming up, and with them, people start thinking about family and food. What are your personal favorite holiday foods? Why?
A. A traditional Zoroastrian dish called Than Dar Patio. Which is yellow lentil, white rice and a thick spicy tomato, onion gravy with shrimp. Its eaten on all auspicious days akin to holiday food here in the US. Other than that I like a traditional Christmas Pudding.

*Q. If you were making a meal for a South Asian Thanksgiving dinner, what would you include? *
A. I would use idli instead of corn bread. Dosas stuffed with potato and turkey.

Q. Pastry chef. Party planner. Cookbook author. Teacher. Reality show contestant. What’s next on your plate?
A. LOL waiting for a call for dancing with the stars!

What’s the strangest, craziest thing that you’ve ever seen or experienced in the city?

If you have a gem, it will be featured with a byline in a forthcoming guide book that my friends are writing. The book captures and introduces you to some of the city’s most unusual, outrageous, and subversive places and attractions.

Send your submissions to gonzotourismnyc [at] gmail.com.

But I thought I’d post a brief little update on a few things I’ve been up to over the past couple of months.

This past summer, I acted as lead content developer and managed the relaunch and redesign of the website of the Student Press Initiative. That site is up and running here.

My article “Rising Tide: The Boom in Historical Fiction About India and the Indian Diaspora” was published in the Summer issue of the journal Multicultural Review. Read it here.

The readers guide I wrote for Ann M. Martin’s Everything for a Dog was published as a super cute bookmark.  Read it here.

The blog Cayenne Lit featured an interview with me last month. Read it here.