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In The Faithful Scribe, Shahan Mufti examines the history of Pakistan and its relationship to the United States. He also explores how his own family story is part of the tumultuous story of the world's first Islamic democracy.

"A huge impetus for me in writing this book was actually being on both sides of this present conflict, where America is involved in this war in Afghanistan," Mufti tells NPR's Arun Rath. "As we know, the place of Pakistan in this conflict is very dubious and questionable."

Mufti talks about balancing his Pakistani and American identities and the challenges of U.S.-Pakistan relations.

The seventh Broadway production of Tennessee Williams' great American play The Glass Menagerie has just opened at the Booth Theatre in New York City for a 17-week run.

John Tiffany, who previously staged the Tony-winning smash Once and the stirringly kinetic Iraq War drama Black Watch, directed the new production, whose cast includes the formidable actress Cherry Jones as the suffocating matriarch Amanda, plus film, TV and stage star Zachary Quinto as her son Tom and Celia Keenan-Bolger, a Tony nominee for Peter and the Starcatcher, as her physically disabled and emotionally damaged daughter, Laura.

The same cast had a tryout run last spring at the American Repertory Theatre in Boston, where they earned rave reviews. Barbara Chai of The Wall Street Journal has already seen the show — and toured the set, a minimalist rendering of a St. Louis apartment living room, circa 1937. Chai tells NPR's Scott Simon that it's pretty squarely in the spirit of what Williams would've wanted to see.

Born in 1963, a year which saw nationwide crop failures and hunger, in a country that spanned "one sixth of the measured world, eleven time zones, fifteen ethnic republics" and "a population of nearly 300 million by the empire's end," Bremzen imbibes the "complicated, even tortured, relationship with food" that marks the "national character." As she describes her childhood wanderings around Moscow in the early 1970s, an image emerges of a curious, adventurous girl, a youthful wanderer longing for new tastes and experiences.

The city comes alive as the young Bremzen walks the streets in search of the family's Sunday treat, buys birch-tree juice, establishes strategic friendships with vendors who dabble in the black market, learns to press on bread to establish its freshness and mimics the necessary ritual toasts to accompany vodka drinking with her grandmother (who, it must be said, serves her granddaughter limonad during these lessons).

Years later, now established as citizens of Queens, the author and her mother, the indomitable Larissa, embark on a mission to cook banquets commemorating decades of Soviet life from the last Czar to the Putin era. These are feasts of celebration and lament — inspired equally by the longing they feel for their home and their relief to be away from it.

They re-create iconic dishes for family and friends, dishes they remember and those they remember reading or being told of. Among these memorable meals, one in particular stands out, the re-creation of a kulebiaka as described in a book the author is given for her 10th birthday: "his kulebiaka was a twelve-tiered skyscraper, starting with the ground floor of burbot liver and topped with layers of fish, meat, game, mushrooms, and rice, all wrapped in dough, up, up, up to a penthouse of calf's brains in brown butter."

Along with such pre-revolutionary decadence the text is interspersed with re-creations of meals recalling the austerity of the 1920s and the crowded kitchens of the Soviet republic through to the expensive haute cuisine of the bling-obsessed Putin era. There is the myth of abundance of the Stalin years and folk memories of sausages and ice lollies: "a pink slice of kolbasa on a slab of dark bread, Eskimo on a stick at a fair — in the era of terror these small tokens had an existential savor."

It's a clever, elegant structure that allows the author to write a history of the country of her birth, with stories of her family — her grandfather the spy; her blousy, much-adored vodka-swilling grandmother; her handsome but irresponsible father; and, most of all, her constant sidekick and food enthusiast mother, a lifelong refusnik. Seen through the lenses of family and food, intimate details of seismic historical events are offered up — a banquet of anecdote that brings an entire history to life with intimacy, candor and glorious color.

The Salt

Kitchen Time Machine: A Culinary Romp Through Soviet History

Two former U.S. Army sergeants are among those facing charges in connection with an alleged internationals squad after their extradition from Thailand in a case the prosecuting U.S. Attorney says reads like a Tom Clancy novel.

Joseph Manuel Hunter, 48, nicknamed "Rambo," was arrested by Thai authorities after a sting operation led by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, along with Timothy Vamvakias and at least three others on the resort island of Phuket on Thursday.

Vamvakias, and alleged accomplices Dennis Gogel and Michael Filter are from Germany, according to The Associated Press. Another alleged accomplice, Slawomir Soborski, is from Poland. All are former soldiers, according to the charges filed in New York.

Hunter, who was a sergeant first class when he left the Army, had served as an air-assault and airborne-infantry squad leader, as a sniper instructor and drill sergeant, the charges say. Vamvakias, attained the rank of sergeant after having served in South Korea and Puerto Rico. Both left the Army in 2004.

Since then, the charging documents say, "Hunter has acted as a 'contract killer'; for pay, he has succeeded in arranging for the murder of a number of people."

The charges say the defendants "joined a conspiracy to import large volumes of cocaine into the United States. As part of this conspiracy, the defendants put their military skills to use."

In a statement, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara called the alleged plot "bone chilling" and said the "indictment read like they were ripped from the pages of a Tom Clancy novel."

"The charges tell a tale of an international band of mercenary marksmen who enlisted their elite military training to serve as hired guns for evil ends," Bharara said.

Informants working for the DEA posed as Colombian cartel members purporting to hire Hunter and two others for $700,000 for two killings. Hunter was to get an additional $100,000 "for his leadership role," according to the indictment.

The AP says:

"In late 2012, according to the indictment, Hunter 'collected resumes via email for prospective members of the security team.'"

"Hunter told the informants that 'he himself had previously done "bonus jobs" ' — code for contract killings, and that his team 'wanted to do as much "bonus work" as possible,' according to the indictment."

"Hunter and his accomplices were "willing and eager to take cold hard cash to commit the cold-blooded murders of a DEA agent and an informant," Bharara said. 'Thanks to the determined, skillful and intrepid efforts of the DEA's Special Operations Division, an international hit team has been neutralized by agents working on four continents.'"