Five Dollars

Tonight's post violates the spirit of yesterday's, but there you have it. A different day, a different objective.

It was time for my driving student to take to the freeways of the Bay Area and learn how to enter, merge, change lanes, avoid trucks, and exit -- all of which present challenges to a relatively inexperienced driver.

Seemed like every challenge she could have faced did in fact occur. I tried to convince her to head south on 280 but she freaked out, understandably, when upon her first attempt to merge, she found herself in one of those "how the hell do I do this?" situations.

She chose, wisely, to exit, and retreat to a more familiar route we've often taken south, El Camino Real.

We had determined, beforehand, that we were going to eat lunch at an Afghan restaurant. So, upon considering the options, we decided to go across the Bay to Fremont to the fantastic Salang Pass Restaurant.

This is the appetizer we ate: aushuk. Ever since I read Marco Polo's account of his trek to China, the better part of a thousand years ago, which passed through the village where I lived in Afghanistan in the Peace Corps, I have been fascinated by how what the Italians call ravioli and the Chinese call dumplings represent foods along a continuum that runs west to east, with local variations all along the way, including this dish, pictured above.

Aushak.

The good news is that on our way back, my student drove all the way. She successfully merged onto 880, crossed the Bay on the San Mateo Bridge, and drove north on the dreaded 101 all the way to my neighborhood -- merging, changing lanes, exiting -- and finally landing us back exactly where we had begun.

It seemed like years had passed, not hours, and I don't know why. But I do know this much: If you are interested in the history of food, you need to taste aushak.

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