Modern agriculture started in the Middle East. Can people here switch to the Paleo Lifestyle and eat like Cave Men? What should humans eat for optimal health? The key word here is optimal. Our bodies are remarkable machines, and we can manage, more or less, on a wide variety of foods. But what foods work […]
Find a good spot and plop down in your picnic dress for an impromptu meal on the grass. Picnics are great because they allow us to appreciate the great outdoors (sometimes motivating us to take more efforts to protect it). But sometimes picnics are not so great because they result in picnic littering, or the […]
Karin goes on a 2-night stay at Kasbah du Toubkal, an eco-lodge in the foothills of North Africa’s highest peak. Soul-shifting is how I’d describe my two night stay at the Kasbah du Toubkal in the high Atlas mountains. From the gut-wrenching heat of Marrakesh, within an hour and a half we were transported to […]
A recipe for making your own whole wheat pita bread. If you don’t live in the Middle East, where the pita is the staple bread, and can be used instead of napkins for wiping humus off your face, chances are the pita breads you will find are old and stale. Or packed with chemicals, or […]
In early summer, mornings are still cool and soft sunlight comes streaming into my room. I wake up feeling energized and optimistic, and ready to start the day really well. If I feel like spoiling my family or just treating myself to an excellent breakfast, I fetch a pre-cooked mushroom sauce from the fridge – […]
People around the world eat the penises of bulls, sheep, and goats, without a quiver.
Fresh, green fava beans appear in the Middle East for just a few weeks. Eat them as they are or accent another vegetable with them. Those fat, ungainly-looking pods conceal a fleeting vegetable delicacy: fresh fava beans. Maybe it’s a good thing that the season for them is so short – it makes the work […]
Make your own chocolate treats with this easy sweet recipe. Valentine’s Day is behind us, but love of chocolate lingers (see our post on why Fair-Trade or organic chocolate is the ethical way to indulge). These rich mouthfuls have no added sugar and are packed with chocolatey goodness – a real slow-food dessert (like our […]
Put up a tomato confit on your next day at home. Yes, fresh tomatoes are but a dream in frozen Northern countries right now. But here in the Middle East, hot house tomatoes are abundant and surprisingly inexpensive. I had six fat ones on my kitchen counter, just at the cusp between very ripe and […]
Enjoy this fruity bulgur salad at your Tu B’Shvat seder. Rabbi Judah, a sage who lived in the 2nd century, said that wheat – not an apple – was the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. The stalks of wheat in the Garden of Eden were thought to have been “as tall as the cedars […]
Wander off the beaten trail in the West Bank, and find a treasure of a guesthouse in Sebastia, near Nablus The little town of Sebastia, near Nablus in the northern West Bank, was one a major city. Home to successive civilisations from its Canaanite founders to its modern-day Palestinian inhabitants (via Israelites, Crusaders and Alexander […]
The tastiest olives are the ones you pickle yourself. Read on for ways of upgrading store bought olives too.
Cook up a potful of fresh spinach soup for healthy winter comfort food. Or add tofu and it works as a whole meal in the summer. Cool, moist weather makes winter prime season for leafy greens in the Middle East, and spinach is one of Green Prophet’s favorites. As with our creamy eggplant soup, it’s […]
Maca, goji berries… what gives? Miriam shows how to buy local superfoods without the cost and fancy wasteful packaging. Colorful, flavorful, wonderful, natural products crammed with every natural antioxidant, mineral, micro-nutrient, essential fatty acid and protein you can think of. And I can get them for you, too – wholesale. What? These aren’t superfoods? You’re […]