Our Classic Narrative Provisions Boxes have Returned! As in the past our boxes are inspired by the theme of the week — with ingredients, creative suggestions, and 2-4 recipes based on the featured cookbook, culinary creative, or holiday.

Our upcoming boxes and kits share recipes from Nanor Abkarian’s kitchen and stories from across the Armenian diaspora.

Featured Recipes:

Gaghampi Patuyt (Cabbage Rolls with Ground Beef)

Keshkeg Ghabakh (Winter Squash Stew from Marash) with Pearl Barley

Landing on doorsteps November 6th & 7th

Order deadline 5p, Monday November 8th

“When I think of Armenian food, I think of apricots, pomegranates, seeds handpicked from giant sunflowers, golden honeycombs, and hearty stews…Armenian food is Lebanese food, Syrian food, Iranian, Turkish, Ethiopian, French, Argentinian, et al. When I think of Armenian food, I think of my grandmother’s hands kneading dough, my uncles barbecuing kebab and offering steaming bites folded into pita; I think of my aunts—their individual specialties and their collective magic: the ability to transform any space into a world of abundance. Armenian food is family. It is music and laughter and dancing in celebration of the simple fact that we are here, and we are together.” – Nanor

Scroll down for recipes, details and Nanor’s piece “There was and there wasn’t”!

Narrative Provisions Box (Omnivore)


Narrative Provisions Box (Vegetarian)

Featured Recipes:

Gaghampi Patuyt (Cabbage Rolls with Ground Beef)*

and

Keshkeg Ghabakh (Winter Squash Stew from Marash) with Pearl Barley

Featured Ingredients:

Pasture Raised Meat  (Omnivore Only):

• Pasturebird boneless, skinless chicken breast
• Electric City Butcher beef kebab
• Electric City Butcher ground beef

Dairy, Pantry & More!

• Alexandre Family Farm eggs
• orange juice
• labneh
• Seed & Mill tahini
• HLTH punk tomato paste
• Voila! spice blend
• Sierra Nevada butter
• Eden Foods chickpeas
• basmati rice
• pearl barley
• pita bread

Locally sourced & fair-trade produce:

Kale, scallions, avocado, potatoes, lettuce, tangerines, apples, pomegranate, parsley, garlic, lemon, yellow onion, green cabbage, tomato, eggplant, and butternut squash!

*Not included in Vegetarian. 

Check your pantry for dried mint, salt & pepper, and extra-virgin olive oil.

(Recipes below.) 

Sunday Supper Kit

Gaghampi Patuyt (Cabbage Rolls with Ground Beef), featuring:

• Electric City Butcher ground beef
• Voila! spice blend
• Bub & Grandma’s sesame loaf
• HLTH punk tomato paste
• labneh
• rice
• Sierra Nevada butter
• and locally sourced produce (green cabbage, tomato, yellow onion, parsley, garlic, and lemon)

Check your pantry for sea salt, pepper, dried mint, and extra virgin olive oil. (Recipe below.) 

Vegetarian Supper

Keshkeg Ghabakh (Winter Squash Stew from Marash) with Pearl Barley & Mutabal (Eggplant Dip) featuring:

• Seed & Mill tahini
• Sierra Nevada butter
• HLTH punk tomato paste
• Eden Foods chickpeas
• pearl barley
• pita bread
• and locally sourced produce (butternut squash, garlic, lemon, pomegranate, eggplant, and parsley)

Check your pantry for salt, dried mint, pepper paste pepper and extra virgin olive oil. (Recipe below.) 

For nights tight on time…

Weeknight Supper Kit

Pasta Night, featuring:

• Mission Rose pappardelle 
• Mission Rose red pepper cream sauce
• parmesean
• lettuce
• parsley
• lemon

Check your pantry for oil, salt, and pepper. 

Keshkeg Ghabakh: Winter Squash Stew from Marash

Ingredients

1 medium butternut squash, cubed 

1/2 cup dried chickpeas or 1 cup cooked chickpeas

6 garlic cloves, crushed 

3 tbsp fresh lemon juice

2 tbsp tomato paste

1 tbsp pepper paste*  (if not available in your pantry, add more tomato paste)

1 tsp dried mint

1 tbsp olive oil

½ tsp salt water

Instructions

1-Place ½ cup of dry chickpeas in a bowl with 2 cups of water and soak overnight. Rinse the chickpeas and pour them into a medium pot with 1 ½ cups of fresh water. Bring to a boil then let simmer for at least 1 hour or until the chickpeas are soft. 

2-Boil 5 cups of water. In a separate pot, sauté the garlic and mint with olive oil. Add the boiled water, tomato paste, pepper paste, salt and mix. Add the butternut squash and chickpeas. Bring to boil then reduce to medium heat for about 45 minutes. 

3-Mash some of the butternut squash with a fork or handheld mixer. Remove from heat and add lemon juice.

4- Serve with Pearl Barley

GAGHAMPI PATUYT: CABBAGE ROLLS WITH GROUND BEEF

Ingredients

1 head of green cabbage, washed

1 cup medium-grain rice, rinsed*

½ lb ground beef  

1 large tomato, finely chopped

1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped

½ bunch parsley, finely chopped

11 garlic cloves, crushed

½ cup fresh lemon juice

1 ½ tbsp tomato paste

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp Allspice

1 tsp black pepper

¼ tsp Aleppo pepper

1 tbsp dried mint

yogurt (optional)

salt

water

Instructions

Fill a large pot with salted water and bring to a boil. Cut the stem of the cabbage and peel the leaves. Add the leaves in boiling water and steam for 1-2 minutes, then place on a tray to drain excess water. 

To prepare the filling, mix the ground beef with tomato, onion, parsley, 6 crushed garlic cloves, ¼ cup lemon juice, tomato paste, olive oil, Allspice, black pepper, Aleppo pepper, and ½ tsp salt. 

To wrap the cabbage leaves, first trim the tough stem of the larger leaves. Place leaf on a plate with the stem side down and fill with 2 tbsp of filling on each leaf. Fold the cabbage leaf up over the meat, fold the sides to the center, and roll forward. Place the stuffed cabbage in a large pot. 

Pour 2 cups of water mixed with ¼ cup lemon juice, 5 crushed garlic cloves, 1 tbsp dried mint, ½ tsp salt. Bring to a boil then simmer for about 45 minutes or until the filling is cooked. Move the stuffed cabbage onto a serving platter. Serve with yogurt topped with crushed garlic.

There was and there wasn’t… by Nanor Abkarian

There was and there wasn’t a song about the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia. It is only one of many songs that capture our sense of longing, and I recall finding my great-grandmother, an orphan of the Armenian genocide, singing for Cilicia while recording her voice on a cassette tape.

There was and there wasn’t is the way that all Armenian folk tales begin. I have a hunch this speaks to our history: the kingdoms that were and weren’t, the drawing and redrawing of borders, and a severance from magnificent mountain ranges through which our understanding of the cosmos has been shaped. (1)

Each time I try to share my family’s story, I’m forced to begin with “genocide.” Perhaps one day we can discuss it over coffee. I won’t be relaying historical facts either—though I’ll note that the genocide of 1915 was not the only attempt to erase the Armenian people and culture, just the largest massacre of the 20th century; but this has already been documented.

I am more interested in being myself in the world that you and I share: an impulse that has led to my obsession with the painter Arshile Gorky. He’s described as being an island of his own because he was the last of the great Surrealists and one of the first Abstract Expressionists.(2) Gorky is Vostanik Manuk Adoian, a boy who fled to the United States from his natal village of Khorkom in 1919 shortly after his mother died of starvation in his arms.

Upon his arrival in New York, he first considered the name Archie Gunn or Archie Colt, “like the hero of a cowboy movie,” then tried “Arshel” which may be derived from “Aysaharel,” meaning “possessed by an evil spirit” or “blown by an evil wind,” until finally, he decided on “Arshile”: the Russian variant of Achilles.(3)

Gorky’s need to pass is haunting and propelled by an even more intense call to create. He spoke incessantly of the Armenian landscape and broke into Armenian song or dance on impulse. He wanted “to create so far from our homeland the shapes of nature we loved in the gardens, wheatfields and orchards […] which [he] will repossess in [his] art.”(2)

The language used to describe my fatherland is often mystical, but I have also lived with the assurance of a free and independent Armenia. During the last twenty-eight days, Armenians around the world have unified to wave a red flag to the international community. This isn’t a thing that diasporan Armenians had to discuss but rather an instinct we bear as descendants of survivors. If we can sleep, we wake up thinking of our brothers and sisters in Artsakh and Armenia with whom we are linked because of our immortal Armenian world, which we share through art, music, food and fragrance.

There was and there wasn’t sounds like both a beginning and an end, but our Happily ever after is meant to preserve the tradition of storytelling, to encourage a retelling, and to inspire a closer reading

Three apples fell from heaven:

one for the teller of this tale,

one for the listener,

and one for him who heeds the teller’s words.

1 – NL Interviews Laleh Khadivi.Youtube, uploaded by Newslaundry, Mar 2, 2013.

2 – Armenian Palette: Cultural Book Serial Vol. 16 Arshile Gorky: Vostanik Adoian Yerevan, Armenia: Armenian Society for Cultural Links, 2015.

3 – Spender, Matthew. From a High Place: A Life of Arshile Gorky. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1999.