The New Yorker Radio Hour - Helen Rosner’s Summer Drinks, Plus an Anxious Future in Afghanistan

Episode Date: July 20, 2021

Shabana Basij-Rasikh is the co-founder of Afghanistan’s only all-girls boarding school, and she is anxiously waiting to see if the Taliban—which brutally opposes the education of girls and women��will make inroads in Kabul. “I was speaking with a young woman,” Basij-Rasikh told the staff writer Sue Halpern, “and she said, ‘Yes, sure, the Taliban will kill more of us. The Taliban will kill a lot more of us. But they will never, ever rule over us.’ ” Plus, the food-and-drink writer Helen Rosner prepares three summer cocktails to toast a reopening world: a Cynar spritz; a Michelada made with nonalcoholic Upside Dawn Golden Ale; and a classic piña colada, complete with umbrella. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. We did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build. And it's the right and the responsibility of Afghan people alone to decide their future and how they want to run their country. After nearly 20 years, American troops will be out of Afghanistan by September. That's according to President. Biden. Officials at the Pentagon say that day may come even sooner than that. But in any case, the end of the Forever War could well have terrible consequences, the return to power of the Taliban.

Since April when the pullout began, the Taliban has captured more than a quarter of Afghanistan's districts. And for anyone in the country who opposes their hardline, theocratic rule, this is a terrifying prospect. Among many things, the Taliban is ideologically and unrelentingly opposed to the education of girls. Our staff writer Sue Halpern spoke recently with an Afghani educator, Shabana Basij Rasuk. She's a founder of the only girls boarding school in the country, the school of leadership, Afghanistan, and it's home to around 100 girls from all over the country. Shabana herself grew up under Taliban rule, and she's watching their advance very, very carefully. What's it like in Kabul right now?

You know, it's, if you go around Kabul City, you could get a sense that things are in a way as usual. People are going to work. People are meeting in cafes. People are out and about. But then when you speak with people, there is definitely a great sense of concern for Afghanistan. Even though temporarily the heat is off of Kabul City, people are really worried about what's happening in the districts across Afghanistan. I just today, I had some remarkable conversations with different young women who told me that they are determined. to go to work every day, but will also keep a more traditional outfit in their office just to be safe. I spoke with another woman who said, I see this coming.

It's likely that Taliban could disrupt life temporarily here in Kabul, but we're not going to go back to that time. We're going to fight them. And these were just a few conversations I had today. Wow. Are you noticing any difference between the fact that, you know, for years we've had the United States there as a presence and now they're not there. I mean, is that a palpable change? Not so much physically. You don't see that, especially not in the city. You know, remember the major U.S. withdrawal happened back in 2014. But I think what is more obvious is, you know, believe it or not, people in Afghanistan are very, very glued into news from Washington, D.C. And that has a lot more impact on how people feel.

So, you know, the other day, Joe Biden gave a speech about Afghanistan, and he basically said, you know, it's not the responsibility of the United States to, you know, deal with. with the problems internally in Afghanistan, which includes, you know, not really caring or dealing with the fact that the Taliban will at least make a play to take over. So I'm imagining that people there were listening to that speech and wondering, you know, how do they interpret that?

For me personally, it is too soon to really thoughtfully reflect on any of this, but the immediate reactions that I hear, around me are one of a sense of abandonment, but also a sense of frustration. How could now President Biden formerly in Congress say when he voted to arm Majahedin to fight the Soviet Union? And then you also hear young Afghan. who are kind of reflecting on this more inwardly and saying,

look at our own politicians. Why should we be expecting anything from the U.S. when our own politicians are mostly self-serving? So those are also very much conversations that people have, looking inwards and expecting a greater sense of responsibility from Afghan leadership. Speaking of leadership, your school has the word leadership in it. Can you just describe this venture that you started when you were an undergraduate in the United States?

You started a school for girls in Afghanistan while you were a student. I had just finished my sophomore year. Seriously? Yeah. I was at the end of my freshman year when I co-founded Sola. And what motivated you to do this? to take this on? I think the most, I think the shortest answer is that I was then and now and ever will be convinced that Afghanistan will experience a sustainable peace and development when a critical

mass of women are educated. But we didn't start Sola that way. Actually, when I co-founded Sola back in 2008, the idea of the idea of the world. behind Sola was to help young Afghan students get scholarship opportunities to the U.S. and other countries to access quality education outside of Afghanistan. But later on, I was really a lot more concerned about brain drain. A lot of Afghan students rightly didn't want to return to a country where the Taliban insurgency had found a renewed sense of hope. especially with the 2014 U.S. troops withdrawal from Afghanistan.

So instead of sending young Afghans outside of Afghanistan to access quality education, I wanted to bring quality education to Afghanistan, to young people. And only then I realized that I was setting up my country's first, and unfortunately is still only all-girls boarding school. Why boarding school? Oh, that's an amazing question. And so important. If I can, if I may, do like a broad generalization for a moment about the experience of a young girl living in rural Afghanistan, wanting to go to school.

She's lucky if she has her family's permission. That means her fathers, her brothers, her brothers, her. grandfather, uncles, and often even male cousins if they live in an extended household. By the time she gets out of the house and before she gets to the closest school, it's very likely that she will experience some form of verbal harassment reminding her that she should be at home and not out trying to get an education. And in some severe cases, girls have had acid thrown on their faces for wanting to go to school. Let's say she gets to. to school, it's likely that her school has received a threat letter from the Taliban or another

insurgency threatening to burn down the school because it's educating girls. And as her school administration is dealing with that threat deciding what to do with it, she's lucky if one or two of her teachers show up to teach that day. It's also likely that she will get rushed to the nearest clinic if there is one and a bunch of her classmates because of some sort of poisoning. Another way girls' education is locally contested. And let's say she survives all of this and gets home safely. It's not like her family would want her to prioritize her studying or doing her homework, but rather she has to switch gears and start cooking and cleaning and taking care of younger

siblings to prove that she continues to be worthy of being allowed to go to school. Now, mind you, this is a collection of hurdles and obstacles that rural girls face. But now imagine putting this very same girl in a boarding school. You take care of so many of those obstacles. Talk about what it was like for you to get educated in Afghanistan. I mean, you grew up during the Taliban rule. So what was that like? Well, education was illegal for girls 20 years ago and a little earlier than that.

There were some very brave women and their families who decided to accept the risks. to secretly educate girls. And I was one of those incredibly lucky girls to get educated under the Taliban regime at that time. You know, you may have heard of teachers being beheaded when they were discovered by the Taliban to be educating girls. And they were all true.

And these brave women and their families knew that to be the risk Our parents knew that to be the risk, but yet there was that commitment. So a couple of years after the Taliban regime, one of my older sisters who was old enough that she was required to wear a burqa when she went outside, my father and my mother finally found a secret school that would educate her. And normally secret schools wouldn't take that risk because a woman wearing a burqa going in and out of the house every day, invited much, much more risk and attention in a way. She had to be accompanied by a male family member, so my parents dressed me up as a boy

so that I could be her male family escort going to and from the secret school. How dangerous was that for you? And did you? Extremely. I remember this one time when my sister kept changing the streets we were walking more frequently than usual. And then finally just walking into a house that happened to have their garage door open and just closing the door. And I remember her shaking and as I was asking him, why are we doing this? Why are we stopping here? She asked me to be quiet.

And we stood there for at least 15, 20. 20 minutes. And then we walked out. And then I remember her being at home and, you know, crying and telling my family, my parents, all of this. And I remember asking my parents not to send us anymore. It's okay. How old were you? I was young, probably eight, nine, and my father would, both of my parents, but I remember my father saying this to us quite repeatedly at that time, that everything we have could be taken away from us.

but he would say that if there is one thing that no one, and I mean no one can take away from us, that is our education, our ability to think for ourselves. 20 years ago, statistically I didn't exist. There were zero female students in Afghanistan 20 years ago. But look at me today. I am not only a highly educated Afghan woman. I run a school where girls from 28 of the 34 provinces come to Sola,

most often because they don't have the opportunity to continue with their education where they live. What happens if the Taliban actually does take over? What happens to Sola? I mean, I'm assuming that you are thinking about this and having to deal with this. Oh, I'm thinking about this every day. No doubt. Look, I'm very well aware that, especially at this time, anyone could be listening to this, including Taliban.

And, you know, here in Kabul people say, yes, Taliban have changed. They have changed and they have grown more violent. Taliban claim the opposite, right? They say they have changed and they respect the women's rights and girls' education. I hope they can prove it to us. And are you afraid that the Taliban will take over? I mean, you indicated that you thought that. people would resist. Is that really how you're feeling? Is that realistic?

You know, I wish, I wish I knew the answer. And there's a lot of uncertainty about the next few months, the next, yeah, I mean, in the next few weeks even. But there's one thing that is for sure. I don't, I can't, I cannot imagine Kabul being run by Taliban, a city that went from less than half a million people in 2000 to nearly six million plus people right now. And this comes from someone who lived under Taliban regime in the government. this very city. I was speaking with a young woman, and she said, yes, sure.

The Taliban will kill more of us. The Taliban will kill a lot more of us. But they will never, ever rule over us. Shabana Basij Rasuk is the co-founder of the School of Leadership Afghanistan, and she spoke with staff writer Sue Halpern. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. More to come. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.

I'm David Remnick, and I'm at home where I've been with far too few breaks for the past 16 months. I record the show from home, have my meetings at home, edit pieces at home, make calls, catch up on reading. Home, home. You know the drill. It's a lot of being at home is what I'm saying. Hello. Here we are. I've seen you in so long.

I know. I did expect our union to be at my apartment. Why not? Come here, you. It's good to see you. Sorry for the schlep on the stairs. So it was truly a joy the other day to go visit with a couple of writers from the magazine for that, you know, wonderful sacrament, the late afternoon cocktail.

And we gathered on the roof of Michael Schulman's apartment. We're going to go upstairs and drink. It's a good way to reconvene. Along with Helen Rossner. Oh, hi. The bar kit. How are you? It's good to see you.

It's been too, too long. Helen writes about food and drink for the New Yorkers, so she's professionally qualified to tell us exactly what we should be drinking to toast our reopening world. So I'm on Michael Schulman's rooftop, my good colleague, Michael Schulman, who writes about theater and the movies and so much else. And Helen Roster has brought so much drink and drink equipment. I'm trembling with excitement, and it is also about 175 degrees up here. I think if you took a brisket and put it on this table and came back in the morning, you'd have barbecue.

But we're not going to do that. We're going to make drinks, or at least Helen is, and all with the goal of getting us through the summer. Helen, what's the first drink you want to make for us? So somehow the drink of the summer has become, for like the last couple of years, the April sprits. And you see them everywhere. Like every cafe in the West Village, everywhere. The tables are full of these globe-like glasses full of this neon orange liquid, and people are drinking them.

And they think they're happy, but they're not, because apparel spritzes are actually terrible. I don't want to yuck anybody's yum. But I think you can do way better with the European bitter aperitif sprits, right, than you can with apparel. And you can use pretty much any of the sort of weird apatifi things you find at the liquor store. But one of my very favorites is this one. It's called chinar. C-Y-N-A-R, which is...

I gotta say it's the nastiest looking label I've ever seen. It's got a big old artichoke on. It can't be made of artichoke, can it? It is an artichoke liquid. It's what you want all of your alcohol to be made out of right. It's like fermented artichoke. If you say it should be, I'm all ears. It doesn't really, here, smell it.

It doesn't really taste like artichokes. It has a vibe. Ooh. Woo! I just took a big sniff and woo is what I have to say. It's herbaceous. It's just like Aparol. It's a little sweet.

It's a little bit. It's got a lot of sort of edge of medicinal herbs to it, but it doesn't have that cloying sticky cough syrup. It's a little doctor's office circa 135. Yeah, a little bit. So, I think we should make a spritz, a chenar sprits. So to do that, we're going to fill a glass with ice. All right. Give me a glass, Michael.

My hands are, I've just been on the subway briefly. So they're similar to clean. I like a hint of subway in my cocktail. That's fine. for you. Thank you. Then we put in a glug of Chinar. Just a glug. A glug, an ounce. It depends on the size of your glass. It depends how much

booze you want, how much flavor. The classic sprits, you then top it with some sparkling wine. So we're using a sparkling wine that I really like. It's a rosé. It's from a winery in California called Unfam, which is all female winemakers, and the wines are glorious and feminist and incredibly delicious, and this is one of their sort of single serving bottles

called the Cali, but you could use literally any sparkling wine, cava, Prosecco, whatever you want. Top the liqueur with that. This is an especially teeny-weeney bottle of... Isn't this cute? I love it. I love it. It looks like a tiny Pepsi bottle.

And then on top of that, to lighten it just a little bit, a splash of club soda or seltzer. And should we put in a garnish? I feel like we should garnish. Absolutely. I like a savory drink. So if you were going to do an apparel sprit, you'd probably garnish this with a lemon or an orange,

but I'm going to pop in to olives and just a little brine for the hell of it. Here we go. All right, here we go. Love it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Delish, Michael.

Mmm. Tastes like summer. There are no ads on public radio, Michael. I just thought I'd mention that. I'm in with big Chinar, so they pay me to say things like that. But that is very refreshing. Michael, hold it up right by Chinar. It's delicious.

Your summer starts now. There you go. You'll be on a first-class flight to Rome tomorrow. So I know nothing about this subject, but I drink Nogonis. I don't even know it's in it. What's that? And it's not crazily dissimilar. Yeah, no, actually, when I make Nogonis, I actually use Chino.

So Nogroni is like a classic one-one-one drink. It's equal parts of all the ingredients. So it's Kampari, which I sub-Chin-R for, gin, and, vermouth. So it's just even ratio of all those So Kampari, which I'm pretty convinced is cough syrup. Yeah, you don't have to use it. You can use the chenar. I don't want

you to get under the impression that I make a mackroni. You don't make your own nagroni? You have to understand. I grew up in a house where the quote-unquote liquor cabinet, when I was growing up, here's what was in the liquor cabinet. Six big bottles of Hoffman's ginger ale and a bottle of something

called cherry herring. That my mother once a year would say, you know what? I'd like a drink Do you know how to like pour liquid from a bottle into a cup? Yeah, I do. Okay, so do you think you could do that three times with three different liquids

and then pour it into a bigger vessel? I feel at some level you're not being kind to me, but yeah. I feel like I think you could do that. I think I believe, I believe in you, I believe in your spirit, I think you could make your own nebrony. Helen, what have you got for us next? Pretty much all I have been into drinking this summer

has been like, I just want like really crispy beer, like lagers. But I also have a lot of friends who are cutting back on their drinking or who don't drink and sometimes I don't want to get buzzed. So I've become something of a connoisseur of non-alcoholic beers. And I have become completely converted to the school of thought that the very best thing you can do with non-alcoholic beer, which is not always great, is use it for a beer cocktail. Where you're putting also non-alcoholic ingredients? Yeah, yeah.

So we're going to use non-alcoholic beer. We're going to make a mecalata. which is the classic, in my opinion, the classic beer cocktail. So miquilada belongs to the grand Mexican tradition of Cervasas, preparatas, beer with stuff in it. And your basic mecalada, like your basic components, I mean, there's a million variations, but you're going to want hot sauce.

I just want to say you did not spare the hot sauce, and God bless you. Some lime, you want me to get you a lime, all right? Lime is the green one, right? Could you, do you think you could handle cutting this lime across the equator. I think I can do that. I can do that.

So we're going to squeeze in the lime, in this juicer. And then what's the spice that you're going to put in? This is great. And I should have actually, normally if I had my shit together, I shouldn't say shit. Normally if I had my stuff together,

I would have rimmed the glass. So, you know, wet the edge of the glass and poured some of this out on a plate and then made like a nice spicy room. So this is called Stardust, and it's from Rancho Gordo, the Bean Guys. And it's their version of a, very, very popular blend called tahin, which you'll find everywhere.

It's smoky and deep, and it's got that kind of tanginess from the lime. So it's a chili lime salt blend, and I'm going to add a pinch of that. And then we'll pour in the secret ingredient, Clamato. Mmm. Cape Cod in a bottle. Yes. So tomato juice with a little clam juice to kind of take the red out of it. And it just adds like a backbone.

to this beer cocktail that we're making. And then I'll pop up in a can of this. It's from athletic brewing company. It's their upside dawn golden ale. I guess it's a good one. Is that a count as an ad? In my opinion, with no institutional affiliation, I think this is the best of the non-alcoholic beers that I've tried.

Taste that. Michael, I say this with love. You go first. Okay. Okay, here you go. Oh, my gosh. That's got a punch. Yeah?

Yeah. Okay, here we go. It's very cocktail sauce. It's beer meets cocktail sauce in kind of a good way. Wow. Wow. Yeah, there's definitely hot sauce in there. Helen, that was pretty delicious.

How are you going to top that with another one? I think we should make a pinocotta. I agree. I'm putty in your hands. It's really hot on this room. It's very hot on this room. It's very hot on this room. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to get out of this chair either.

So what better than a bunch of rum and fruit and God knows what else goes into a Pena Kalada? It's really simple. Actually, it's a three-ingredient drink. It has this foofy reputation. So your classic Pinia Colada is pineapple juice. That's the Kalata in Pinia Colada. Colada means strained.

So it's a pineapple juice. So we're going to deviate from that a little bit. This is going to be our one adaptation. We're going to use fresh pineapple. Yeah, you made a supermarket stop. We have beautiful fresh pineapple here. Yeah. I'm going to hand you the blender.

Okay. The blender vessel. Okay, fill in ice. All right. Give some ice. Got it. Okay, I'm going to throw in some pieces. And, like, you don't even have to cut up the pineapple because it's going to be blended.

Right. Okay, so we did our nod to, like, freshness and real fruit. Instead of using canned pineapple juice, we use real pineapple. But we're going to go absolutely the other direction with the coconut. And we are going to use... Cocoa cream of coconut. The real stuff, not so real, but with lots of extra... sugar out of it, I hope. So this is like, I mean, it's actual coconut milk, but it's like 50%

sugar, right? They add just so much sugar to this. The texture becomes almost like, like, like custard. It's like condensed milk, but coconut. Sounds delicious. And then, uh, the rum. Let's just dump in some rum. We got some Havana club. Yeah. So this is a, it's a Puerto Rican cocktail and we're using Cuban rum. Cuban rum. It's the real McGilla from Cuba. Yeah. And there was a time you'd get arrested for that, but not anymore. But I feel like, you know, One of the most important deals with cocktails is you've just got to use the bottle that you have. I'm going to throw in some more pineapple. You know, the crazy thing about pineapple is, like, it's so, like, enzymatic.

People, like, you can use it as a meat tender. Enzymatic. So lots of enzymes. If you can use it as a meat tenderizer, if you have, like, you can use pineapple juice. It digests you back. Like, if you eat pineapple, it's so acidic and so, it's just erased. Who can digest who first? That sounds really gross.

Can I unhear that somehow? It's disgusting. It's like it's brushing your teeth for you. That's the best spin I can put on that. Okay. Okay. All right. Let's go blend.

Let's go blend. I'll do the blending. Try it to do the blend. All right. Michael. Wait, hold on. Before you drink, I brought... So traditionally we would throw some maraschina cherries on this,

but in my philosophy of use what you've got, I don't have any marrishina cherries, but I do have these, which are... Little umbrellas! Yeah. It is now officially a party, and it's summer. Oh, that is so incredibly good. Michael, the look of happiness on your face is not to be described. Can you come back?

Well, Helen, I have to say it's the highlight of my year and I have to see you guys, and it's the highlight of my summer to have this drink out on this, these four drinks out on this rooftop that I don't know that I'm going to be leaving very soon. I think basically I'm staying here for hours. Yeah, no, stay. We've got enough booze to carry us for a while. Let's just have the magazine here. Let's toast to our bartender.

Thank you, Helen. Thank you, Helen. Thank you. Helen Rosner and Michael Schulman, both staff writers for the New Yorker. Now, speaking of toast, we're celebrating another milestone. You and I, right now, our 300th episode of the New Yorker Radio Hour. And whether you've been listening since October of 2015, or you've just tuned in for the first time, thank you.

You hope you've enjoyed listening to the program as much as we've enjoyed making it for you. Lechheim. I'm sorry. Lechayim. That sounded great, David. Give us just one second. Happy 300, David. Happy 300, David.

Happy 300. And to you. Zoom bomb. 300. 300. Wow. Happy 300th. Wow.

Since it's the 300th episode, there's something that we actually wanted to play for you. Oh, no. Not embarrassing. You're going to be fine, I think. Okay. Thanks for joining us for this, our very first episode of the New Yorker Radio Hour. Welcome to an experiment. Each week we're going to bring you stories, profiles, and humor, all of it inspired somehow by the New Yorker magazine.

And it will all come from the writers, artists, and editors who work here at our offices at One World Trade Center. This won't be a mere audio version of the magazine or the website. It will be its own thing alive to the possibilities of the medium. Starting the magazine in 1925 was an adventure of discovery. We hope this will be too. Who is that clunk? So if I were to ask you one thing that you've learned? Yes.

After 300 episodes? Speak more slowly. Act like you're not reading. And listen to what my colleagues tell me to do. Here's to another 300. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. All of us on the staff of the Radio Hour wanted to take this opportunity since it is our 300th episode to say a special thank you to some of the people. So many people.

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