There’s a scene in Dostoevsky’s The Idiot in which the titular idiot, Prince Myshkin (who, of course, is not an idiot at all but the wisest man in any room) tells the story of a condemned man. He describes, in great detail, the thoughts going through the condemned man’s mind, minute by minute. “He said that nothing was more oppressive for him at that moment than the constant thought: ‘What if I were not to die! What if life were given back to me–what infinity! And it would all be mine! Then I’d turn each minute into a whole age, I’d lose nothing, I’d reckon up every  minute separately, I’d let nothing be wasted!'” And someone asks Myshkin what happened to the condemned man after his punishment was changed at the last minute, and he was granted “infinite life.” Did he live reckoning up every  minute? “Oh, no, he told me himself–I asked him about it–he didn’t live that way at all and lost  many, many minutes.” The condemned man is Dostoesvsky himself! This exact thing happened to him when he was 29 years old–he was before the firing squad when a reprieve was delivered. So the account of the rest of his life must be about him, as well, he lost many, many minutes, as we all do.

I love the fact that Myshkin knows Dostoevsky, not by name, but as a man he’s spoken to, at one time or another. And one of the things I love most about The Idiot is just how much Dostoevsky seems not to know Myshkin, from time-to-time. He loves him, clearly, as does everybody who meets him, even the angry anarchists who don’t want to love him at all. And at moments he has beautiful flashes of insight into Myshkin’s thoughts and feelings–just before his epileptic fit, for example. Because, of course, Myshikin is Dostoevsky, in part, his creation, born of his imagination. But there are times when Dostoevsky says, regarding the Prince’s actions and emotions, “…we can supply very little information.” He doesn’t know where the Prince disappeared to, or why he left! He doesn’t know, and he gives us only the hints and rumors that any of the other characters would be privy to. And at the end, when we wonder why the Prince acted the way he did in a certain crisis, he says, “And yet we feel that we must limit ourselves to the simple statement of facts…because we ourselves, in many cases, have difficulty explaining what happened.” Of course this has the effect of allowing us to see Prince Myshkin as a strange and inexplicable creature in a society in which people have certain expectations for the way people will act and speak. But it’s also a beautiful description of the creation of a character who becomes alive for the writer and the reader, a character you think long about after you’ve finished the book.

When Dostoevsky wrote he didn’t know what would happen next in his story, so that he was just as surprised by it as the reader. And the first parts of the book were published in journals before he’d written the next, so he couldn’t go back and change his mind. The story becomes as inevitable as our lives. The Idiot is meandering and strange and strangely written in a way that I find thrilling. In a clumsy, beautiful, heartfelt “explanation,” Ippolit, the angry anarchist, who considers himself condemned to death by the last stages of consumption, tells us about the joy of traveling when you don’t know where you’re going, and of trying to understand things and express things  you will never be able to understand or express, “Ask them, only ask them one and all, what they understand by happiness? Oh, you may be sure that Columbus was happy not when he had discovered America, but when he was discovering it; you  may be sure that the highest moment of his happiness was, perhaps exactly three days before the discovery of the New World, when the mutinous crew in their despair almost turned the ship back to Europe, right around! The New World is not the point here, it can just as well perish. Columbus died having seen very little of it and in fact not knowing what he had discovered. The point is in life, in life alone–discovering it, constantly and eternally, and not at all in the discovery itself. But what is the point of talking? I suspect that everything I am saying  now sounds so much like the most common phrases that I will probably be taken for a student in the lowest grade presenting his easy on ‘the sunrise….’ But, nevertheless, I will add that in any ingenious or new human thought, or even simply in any ernest human thought born in someone’s head, there always remains something which it is quite impossible to convey to other people, though you may fill whole volumes with writing and spend thirty-five years trying to explain your thought; there always remains something that absolutely refuses to leave your skull and will stay with you forever; you will die with it, not having conveyed to anyone what is perhaps most important in your idea.”

I love the flavor or black rice, so nutty! And I especilaly love it mixed with a bit of smoked basmati, which makes it ridiculously tasty. And of course I love French Lentils! I made both of these separately, then stir fried them with some garlic, added spinach and cannelloni beans, and seasoned with smoked paprika and garam masala. We ate them with warm tortillas, grated mozzarella cheese and an herbaceous pistachio sauce. Really nice! It was also very easy to make, and tonight the leftovers will turn into croquettes.

Here’s Idiot Wind by Bob Dylan

THE RICE

THE RICE

1 T olive oil

small handful chopped herbs: Rosemary, sage, lemon thyme

1/2 cup smoked basmati rice (or plain basmati if you can’t find smoked)

1/2 cup black rice

2 bay leaves

1/2 t salt

dash balsamic
1 T butter

Warm the oil in a medium-sized saucepan over high heat. Add the herbs, then the rices. Stir for a few minutes till the rice starts to smell toasty. Add 1 1/2 cups water and the salt. Bring to a boil. Cover, lower heat, and simmer for 20 – 25 minutes. Check every now and again to make sure nothing’s burning. Taste to make sure the rice is soft, but still a little nutty and chewy. Take it off the heat and let it sit uncovered for a few minutes. Stir in the butter and balsamic and season with salt and pepper.

FRENCH LENTILS

1 cup french lentils (also called puy lentils or green lentils)
1 T olive oil
1 medium-sized shallot – diced very fine
1 clove of garlic – diced very fine
2 bay leaves
pinch of rosemary, thyme, sage
bit of butter, bit of balsamic
salt & Black pepper to taste

In a medium-sized sauce pan over medium heat, warm the olive oil. When warm but not sizzling, add the shallot (it has to be very finely diced, or you’ll get big lumps of boiled shallot!). When the shallot starts to brown add the garlic and herbs. When the garlic starts to brown add the…
Lentils. They should be rinsed a few times, and any little non-lentil detritus removed. Let them sizzle in the olive oil for a minute or two, stirring them to coat completely, and then add…
3. About 5 cups of cold water. Bring to a boil. Then reduce the heat to low, and simmer until done. Test after 15 minutes, but it might take closer to 20. You want them to be soft, but not mushy, they should still have their own shape, and almost a little crunch.
Add salt and pepper to taste. Stir it right into the broth. Strain the lentils, but keep the liquid, because it makes a delicious broth to add to soups or stews.
Add a dollop of butter and a dash of balsamic to the lentils, to really bring out their flavor.

TO MAKE THE TACOS

1 T olive oil

1 large clove garlic, minced

1 cup cannelloni beans, or any kind of white beans you like

1 1/2 cups cooked lentils (save the rest for salads or pizza toppings)

2 cups baby spinach, chopped

1 t smoked paprika

1/2 t garam masala

dash balsamic

salt and plenty of freshly ground pepper

Warm the olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Add the garlic, stir and cook till it just starts to color. Add the beans, stir to warm through. Add the lentils, stir to combine and warm through. Add the spinach and spices and a bit of water, and stir and cook until the spinach is wilted and everything is hot and combined. You can add a bit of water if it dries out more than you like.

Serve over the red rice.

PISTACHIO HERB SAUCE

THE PISTACHIO TARATOR

1/2 cup roasted pistachio kernels
1/2 cup sliced roasted almonds
1 clove roasted garlic (You can roast it with the potatoes. You can leave the skin on the clove, but make a cut in it.)
2 sage leaves
1 t fresh rosemary, chopped

1 t lemon thyme
1/3 cup olive oil
1 t balsamic
salt and plenty of freshly ground pepper

In a food processor process the pistachios, almonds, garlic and herbs till finely chopped. Add the olive oil and balsamic and process till smooth. Add enough water to make the mixture about as thick as heavy cream, and process until velvety smooth.