Shayna's To Be Featured In Saveur & Forthcoming Book By Suketu Mehta

If you found yourself craving roti yesterday and wondered why Shayna’s was closed, here’s why: owner Joyce Bittan and family are being featured in Maximum City author Suketu Mehta‘s upcoming book about the immigrant experience–part of which will be printed in Saveur Magazine in 2014.

Not all of Mehta’s forthcoming publication circulates around food, he said, but it’s always a good jumping off point that brings people together–and the mix of attendees last night were certainly evidence of that.

In addition to Joyce’s family and Mehta himself, Church Avenue BID Executive Director Lauren Collins, Top Chef winner Floyd Cardoz, food writer and former Marlow & Sons cook Scarlett Lindeman, and TIME International Editor Bobby Ghosh were among the crowd packed into the back of the tiny corner restaurant.

“I don’t really have recipes,” Joyce says to the motley crew, preparing to cook curried crab, doubles, dumplings, oxtail, and more. “I add, and I taste, and I smell.”

Joyce goes about her cooking intuitively, the way she does every day for customers, multitasking so as not to get behind on any one thing.

The only difference now is, she explains the process to the group as she goes–a method that seems to be making her daughter a bit crazy. “Ma,” she says, “one thing at a time!”

The crowd encourages Joyce to cook in whatever way comes most naturally to her, which she continues to do with intermittent protests from her daughter. Someone asks if Joyce is nervous.

“Do I look like I’m nervous?” she says.

Like Joyce’s regulars, Mehta sees the merits of Shayna’s go beyond food that tastes good. He says how difficult it would be for him to talk and cook several dishes at once, the way Joyce is doing so easily.

“It’s like eating in someone’s home,” he says, explaining how important a welcoming atmosphere is to the overall experience of eating.

In fact, the only person who misses out on the family treatment is Joyce’s son, who lets himself in around 8 but doesn’t even bother trying to push past the group.

“Your son is here,” someone says.

“Tell him he’s locked out,” Joyce continues stirring.

Of course she’s only kidding, but the kitchen is already overflowing with people. “Alright,” he calls. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Ma.”

He leaves, and Lauren heads home soon after to relieve her babysitter.

Joyce begins with heating whole crabs. When water begins popping out of the pot, she tells everyone to be careful–because, really, it’s not like anyone can move back. “See?” she says. “I’m dangerous.”

Her daughter is only half amused. “That’s why she has so many burns!”

Joyce walks everyone through the ingredients and steps she uses in her dishes, including peppers from her home and other produce from markets down Church Avenue. An audience member suggests she should play a bit closer to her vest.

“I don’t mind telling customers what I put in my food,” Joyce says to the room of, may we remind you, Cardoz, who opened Flatiron’s beloved Tabla and is now the Executive Chef at Danny Meyer’s North End Grill, and Lindeman, who it turns out can make a mean roti.

Joyce gives an impish smile. “They wouldn’t make it like me.”

More excited to chat about how she’s happy to be a place where regulars bring their problems than she seems to be about the concept of being in such a widely-read magazine and Pulitzer Prize finalist’s book, Joyce spends much of the night scolding attendees for not eating enough or for taking small plates.

Unsurprisingly, she insists everyone take home containers full of food–and after about 12 hours on her feet, lifting enormous pots and collecting more burns in a crowded kitchen, she stops on the way home to deliver roti for Lauren.

Suketu Mehta’s upcoming article featuring Shayna’s and other restaurants and cooks around New York City will be published in Saveur next year. Maybe, in an area so spoiled by diverse cultural cuisine, we’ll be seeing more of him around.