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Aymann Ismail Is Nostalgic for Brazilian Burgers
Illustration: Adam Mazur
Growing up within Jersey City’s Muslim community, Slate writer Aymann Ismail often felt that there was an “intentional veil between our world and everybody else’s.” Instead of regular Boy Scouts, his mosque offered Muslim Boy Scouts. Instead of regular karate, there was Muslim karate run by “some guy called ‘Sensei Muhammed.’” “Jersey is incredibly diverse,” he says, “and everyone had their tribe.” Ismail now lives in nearby Newark, and he was grateful to return this week after protesters disrupted a Boston reading of his upcoming memoir, Becoming Baba. “It’s about parenthood in America, so that was a little confusing,” he says. Back home, Ismail stopped by the Brazilian burger joint he frequented as a teenager, his favorite family-run Portuguese bakery, and his designated spot for greasy Peruvian takeout. “From Jamaica or Haiti or Portugal or Brazil, everybody here is from somewhere,” he says. “There’s this nostalgic vibe to it.”
Thursday, July 10
Around 11 a.m. I landed in Newark. Mira was at the hospital where she works as a chaplain, and the kids were in school. The house was mine. I took my time brewing real coffee with the specialty beans that my friend at Seekers Coffee had gifted me. I used my OXO conical‑burr grinder and drowned the steaming mug in almond creamer until it tasted like dessert. I squeezed in a little writing before realizing it was kids‑pickup time.
On the drive home, the kids, ages 4 and 2‑and‑a‑half, heard an ice‑cream‑truck jingle and started moshing in their car seats. Feeling generous, I drove straight to the park and bought them cones. My daughter, the younger of the two, wanted strawberry until her big brother ordered vanilla with sprinkles, at which point she switched. Both politely offered me a bite, and who am I to turn them down. Two licks later she dropped her cone. One pout was all it took for the ice‑cream man to hand her a fresh one on the house. I rolled them back home, silently congratulating myself on my stellar parenting.
The kids said they wanted rice for dinner, which didn’t matter because I ordered what I wanted, which was takeout from Picnic, a neighborhood staple known for having the best fries. It’s next door to the elementary school I went to, and back then, they used to sell a brown paper bag of fries drowned in buffalo sauce for a dollar. Nowadays the folks at the counter deny that was ever an option, which is annoying, but Picnic is still a consistently solid Portuguese BBQ spot.
That night, I ordered pollo a la brasa, a takeout box with half a chicken, crispy fries, and steamed veggies, which technically makes the meal healthy for growing children. We ate together, hunched over the Styrofoam container like raccoons.
Friday, July 11
Mira got up with the kids and let me sleep in. By 8:30 a.m. I was refreshed, grinding another pot of Seekers coffee, and drifting over the kitchen table like a Roomba, inhaling the scraps the kids left behind — carrot and cucumber sticks and the crusty edges of leftover oatmeal. Then it was time for the morning heist: grabbing each kid by the waist and tossing them into their car seats like sacks of laundry. I dropped the kids off at school, delivered Mira to the train station, and returned to my desk to start the workday.
Most Fridays, my Baba and I pray together, though today I wanted the nicer mosque, the one with big windows, expensive décor, higher ceilings, just better vibes overall. So, around noon, I picked him up from the airport lot where he parks his tow truck and drove us there. True to form, Baba sat a few rows away. He loves going with me, just not sitting with me.
After prayer, I dropped him back at the lot and got home at about 2:30 p.m. I treated myself to a tuna sandwich from the neighborhood’s prized old-school bakery, Teixeira’s. These sandwiches are really all about the Portuguese roll — slathered in butter on both sides, toasted, a bit sweet. As a kid, I used to only get the roll, which at the time was 40 cents. (It’s now a whopping 60 cents.) They always insist on pressing the sandwich in the panini-maker. Every single time I say, “No panini, please,” and every single time they look shocked. Still: 10/10.
I hit a pharmacy on the way home for a family‑size pack of Twizzlers — the perfect desk snack: No crumbs, no stickiness, just a tidy dopamine drip to keep me from hours of doomscrolling.
By dinner, I’d lost the will to cook. I phoned Peru Taypa next door and ordered chaufa de carne: wok‑fried rice piled high with tender skirt‑steak strips. The place is technically sit‑down, but proximity has turned it into my family’s personal takeout kitchen. Greasy, comforting, and always ready before I finish saying, “Fuck it. Let’s order.” One meal feeds me and both kids with leftovers to pick at later.
Bedtime wrangling finished at 8:00 p.m. The stress reflex hit and I raided the fridge, which is always empty. Nothing in the pantry either. Then, salvation: A Costco‑scale bag of shelled pistachios in the cabinet. I cracked them open, queued up the TV, and waited for my wife Mira’s shift to end. She came home and conjured a kale‑and‑chickpea salad from nowhere, ate half, and went to bed. I ate the rest and followed her soon after.
Saturday, July 12
I let Mira sleep in and asked the kids what they wanted for breakfast. They both requested boiled eggs. Odd, but I wasn’t about to talk them out of easy.
My son inhaled most of the eggs, so I handed our 2‑and‑a‑half‑year‑old daughter the last of the cucumbers and let her dunk them in the tub of hummus lurking in the back of the fridge. (Egyptians, you already know.) While she went HAM, I ate the mangled remains of the egg my 4‑year‑old tried to peel — mostly whites stuck to shards of shell. This counts as breakfast. I spent the rest of the morning on the kids’ bedroom floor, sipping lukewarm coffee and wondering how to entertain them for the next 12 hours.
By lunchtime, we were at our third park of the day. On the way, we hit Hamburgao, the burger joint I worshipped as a teenager. The part of town I live in is known as the Ironbound — as far as cuisines go, we have only two: Portuguese and Brazilian. The Brazilian burgers from Hamburgao are no joke. I remember them thick and juicy, on a light bun, topped with chips, corn, peas, and a fried egg. They’ve downgraded a little bit since then, but the nostalgia is enough for me.
I ordered a cheeseburger, coxinhas — Brazilian chicken croquettes, teardrop-shaped and filled with spicy shredded chicken — small fries, and because the kids wouldn’t quit begging, a deluxe chicken sandwich. Before the food arrived, they got antsy, so I asked for it all to go. Apparently, sitting down for lunch on a gorgeous Saturday is not yet doable for our growing family. Back home, I put them down for a TV break and savored my burger at the kitchen table in silence.
Around 4 p.m. we trekked to Military Park for Newark’s Afrobeats Fest, a 20‑minute walk with two toddlers in a stroller. I shelled out $25 for jollof rice and managed three bites before Mira and the kids demolished the rest. The sun was brutal, so I bribed the kids with strawberry ice-cream cones, which they finished in minutes, though I managed two bites from each. They’re wonderful children.
Sunday, July 13
We’d planned a beach day DTS (down the shore), but everyone woke up lazy, so Mira inflated the kiddie pool on our concrete patio and let the kids go feral as kid-favorite tracks from Kali Uchis and Lella Fadda blared from our Bluetooth speaker. They devoured chopped kiwi and loose grapes. I ate the extras. When my 4‑year‑old asked where the rest of his kiwi went, I blasted him with the garden hose.
While I “supervised” the kids, Mira whipped up lunch: lentils and rice, seared Beyond Steak tips sizzling in the cast‑iron, and a seasoned garden salad. We ate family style in the sun until it was gone.
Around 6 p.m. I felt accomplished for defrosting a premade dinner, a Cookt microwave Jamaican Rasta Pasta, mildly spicy like a Saad El Soghayar track. I fed it to the kids standing up while Paw Patrol kept them entranced and tame.
After bedtime and once Mira was home from work, I made a late run to the only spot open that doesn’t wreck me, Juicy!, a greasy gem staffed by bored teenagers. I ordered the mixed shawarma over salad. It’s just the basics. Fuel. Shawarma should, ideally, be both soft and crispy, cut straight from a gigantic meat spinning contraption. I always douse mine in a ton of white and a ton of red. This one is stale and a bit chewy; it’s been sitting out for a while under a heat lamp, but it’s what we’ve got. Maybe I’ll get to do sit-down dinners with the kids when they’re older. Inshallah.
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