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A Culture Shock Hangover in Tunisia’s Second City

Tafline Laylin
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A Culture Shock Hangover in Tunisia’s Second City

development, travel, urban planning, Tunisia, Sfax, tourism

After a rough time in Tunis, Tafline pushed past a culture shock hangover to appreciate Tunisia’s second largest city.

When the bus stopped at the station in Sfax, 170 miles from Tunisia’s capital city, I seriously considered getting back on and heading as far south – away from civilization – as I could get. But the adjacent municipal dump was a strong catalyst for quick decision-making, so when a little yellow taxi pulled up just then, I got in. “To the medina!” I said.

We arrived at the ancient walls via a circuitous route (the driver hadn’t understood my English), as the locals cleared up the market debris. The inside of the medina was dark and deserted. I’ve rarely felt more conspicuous during my travels through the MENA region, nor so depressed. By this stage, I was prepared to pay a cool $5,000 for a room, in which I planned to hide for several days.

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Sliced Sweet Potatoes Roasted in Date Honey

Miriam Kresh
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3
Sliced Sweet Potatoes Roasted in Date Honey

baked sweet potatoes on a plate

Looking for a quick, delicious and healthy side dish? Grab some sweet potatoes.

There’s lots of cooking going on at this time of year. Passover, Easter, vacation time – guests coming over, family at home, and festive meals to prepare. A busy cook needs easy, reliable recipes to fill out her or his menus. Sweet potatoes fill the description, and luckily they’re still in season. If date honey (a familiar ingredient in the Middle East) isn’t available where you live, replace it with maple syrup or plain honey thinned with a little water and blended with a very little lemon juice.

This recipe is popular with everyone, especially kids. The sweet potatoes and date honey combine to make a lightly sweet side dish that has no artificial flavors, coloring, or white sugar.

Sweet Potatoes Roasted in Date Honey Recipe

serves 4

Ingredients:

2 medium sweet potatoes, scrubbed but not peeled

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/2 teaspoon powdered cumin

1/2 teaspoon paprika

4 tablespoons date honey, maple syrup or diluted honey

Method for baking sweet potatoes:

1. Slice the sweet potatoes thickly and place the slices in a large bowl.

2. Drizzle the olive oil over the slices and roll them around in it.

3. Add the dry spices and roll the slices around again, making sure all surfaces are seasoned.

4. Let the sweet potatoes sit in the seasonings for 15 minutes.

Meantime, preheat the oven to 350° F – 180° C.

5. Place the sweet potatoes on a baking tray. Drizzle date honey over them.

6. Bake for 30 minutes or till tender.

There will be a small amount of cooking juices. Spoon them over the sweet potatoes and serve.

Enjoy!

More Green Prophet posts about spring holidays:

How to avoid food waste on Passover

Hannah Katsman
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4
How to avoid food waste on Passover

sustainable passover

Jews in Israel and around the world prepare at least a couple weeks in advance for the week-long Passover holiday More than any other Jewish holiday, Passover is all about the food.

We get rid of the chametz (leavened food), buy matzah (unleavened bread), and cook up the dishes that make the holiday special. But Passover doesn’t have to mean throwing out food. 

kids cooking, boy and kill, stirring bowls

Here are tips to make the most of your food this Passover, so you don’t waste, and therefore make the holiday more “green.”

  1. Use up your chametz (leavened food) before Passover instead of throwing it out. If you have extra, sell it or give it to a non-Jew. You can even sell chametz online. Many charitable organizations collect unopened packages for distribution to the poor after the holiday.
  2. Make a detailed menu and shopping list, then buy only what you need. Keep your list from year to year, noting how much you actually used. If your family eats matzah at every meal, a kilogram (two pounds) per person is a fair estimate.
  3. Avoid buying Kosher for Passover specialty items like cake mixes. They often aren’t as tasty as the year-round variety, and tend to get thrown out later. Making simple food from scratch is better for the environment and healthier too.
  4. Plan an easy menu. The more items you make, the more likely leftovers will get thrown out. You’ll save on cooking gas, water and electricity too.
  5. Don’t overeat. Food that ends up on your waist is also a “waste.”
  6. Turn your refrigerator to the coldest setting in advance of cooking. Put cooked foods away while they are still hot, to protect them from spoiling. Don’t forget to switch the refrigerator setting back once the food has chilled.
  7. Stagger cooking so that your refrigerator can cool food efficiently.
  8. Return leftovers to the refrigerator quickly. Save food containers with covers for storing leftovers.
  9. Share extra food with neighbors and friends.
  10. Donate the money you’ve saved for the mitzva (commandment) of kimcha de-Pischa (Passover flour), to help those in need enjoy their holiday.

For more green saving tips:
Five Edible Wild Plants You Can Pick Yourself
Save Water and Energy in Your Washing Machine with Top Tips
Ten Common Misconceptions about Breastfeeding Your Baby

Dubai Police Capture Saffron Bandit

Tafline Laylin
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Dubai Police Capture Saffron Bandit

Saffron, Bandit, Iran, Dubai, SanctionsA man identified as “A.M” made off with $1 million worth of saffron before Dubai authorities launched an undercover investigation to nab him!

Who would have thought that stealing saffron would be such a lucrative venture? An expert, apparently. Formerly a spice trader in Iran, a man living in Dubai stole more than $1 million worth of saffron from street merchants over the past year. Using the tricks of his former trade, the unnamed bandit disguised himself as a porter and then lifted the aromatic spice from 11 shops while their owners were away. Having received tip offs from locals, police eventually launched an undercover investigation to capture the elusive thief.

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Canadian Jailed in Lebanon for Selling Rotten Potatoes to Algeria

Tafline Laylin
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0
Canadian Jailed in Lebanon for Selling Rotten Potatoes to Algeria

agriculture, potato farmer, Interpol, Henk Tepper, Lebanon, Algeria, Canada, FarmingA Red Notice was sent through Interpol accusing this man of selling rotten potatoes to Algeria. image via Vancouver Sun

First of all, a Canadian man named Henk Tepper was accused by Algerian officials of selling rotten potatoes. Rather than take it up with him in a civil court, they issued a “Red Notice” through Interpol – treatment usually reserved for hardened criminals on the run, not gentle farmers from New Brunswick.

Then the Canadian government failed to catch whiff of the alert, so when Tepper traveled to Beirut last March to attend an agricultural trade mission to market seed potatoes from Canada, he was promptly nabbed by local authorities and shared a 10×10 m cell with 40 other prisoners for more than one year. 

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Solar Cucumbers and Airdrop Irrigation are Two Wet and Wild Ideas

Faisal O'Keefe
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0

airdrop irrigation
We showcase two wet clean tech ideas, have any more?

Fresh water constitutes less than 3 percent of the world’s water, yet supplies have been adequate to meet global needs – until now.  The United Nations estimates that 20% of the world’s population lives in regions of water scarcity, with another 20% facing chronic undersupply. Studies indicate that two-thirds of the world will be living in water-stressed conditions by 2025.  Anyone else feeling thirsty?

We can attack this many ways. As a start, control consumption; develop better water management; and prevent pollution. Intelligent design also has a role. I’m talking smart mechanical systems, not anti-Darwinism.

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Throwaway Passover Dishes to Fill Landfills

Maurice Picow
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Throwaway Passover Dishes to Fill Landfills

plastic dishes store IsraelThe One Time Use Store is great; but what happens to all the throwaway dishes after Passover?

The Jewish festival of Passover or Pesach is one in which most people in Israel and Jewish people around the world spend much time in preparation, especially house cleaning and disposing of unwanted items, and over eating highly caloric packed foods, much of which often  goes to waste afterwards. Observant Jews are also made aware of the many Biblical laws and commandments that God gave to the Children of Israel while they wandered in the wilderness of Sinai for 40 years. These laws and commandments are meant to make Jews more aware of the connection between this beautiful holiday to helping to preserve the environment.

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Pink Slime Beef Bankruptcy First Step to Improved Global Diet

Tinamarie Bernard
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3
Pink Slime Beef Bankruptcy First Step to Improved Global Diet

pink slime beef patty, APA bankruptMajor pink slime company files for bankruptcy protection in the US.

Dubbed ‘Pink Slime’ by activists and ‘finely textured beef’ by the manufacturers, beef filler made by ammonium has turned out to be a smoking gun in the food industry, demonstrating just how powerful activist intervention is in changing paradigms. One of the biggest ground beef processors in the United States, AFA Foods, is filing for bankruptcy, according to Reuters. It’s just one step in many necessary to clean up our global diets.

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Starbucks Chooses Bug Colorant Over Really Gross Alternative

Tinamarie Bernard
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3
Starbucks Chooses Bug Colorant Over Really Gross Alternative

woman drinking coffee
Starbuggs? Starbucks is now turning to natural food colorings, using bugs? The bad news for vegans and those who keep kosher.

It might not be able to turn a profit in Paris, but Starbucks coffee has a sizeable presence in the Middle East, operating in nine countries, employing thousands and serving up coffee and treats since 1999. Coffee drinkers take note: those frothy beverages (aka strawberry creme frappuccino) that glow a pretty shade of pink now get their delicious hue from a crushed cochineal beetles instead of coal tar. Technically – if you don’t keep kosher, that is  —  it’s a real food, as Jess Zimmerman from Grist reminds us.

“Lots of folks eat bugs — people in most developing countries…But almost nobody thinks coal tar or petroleum are foods, and it turns out that’s the other available option,” he writes.

What’s more, given the choice of a fru-fru beverage that is eons away from natural roasted beans, we can thank the coffee giant for choosing the natural colorant, providing a source of income for those who crush te critters and extract their bright bug juice, and making us want to gag at the thought of ingesting a petrol by-product.

If this makes you want to consider swearing off coffee and you’re not sure, remember the mind-blowing effects of coffee and sex.

For the rest of the coffee drinkers out there, just make sure the milk you use in the real deal, not something, like, human milk made from a cow.

Read More Coffee and Weird Drink News:
The Mind-Blowing Effects of Coffee and Sex
Udderly Creepy? Human Milk From a Cow?
Make Authentic Turkish Coffee Like a Native

Egypt Suffers When Israelis Spend Passover Elsewhere

Tafline Laylin
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Egypt Suffers When Israelis Spend Passover Elsewhere

Passover, Israel, Egypt, Sinai, eco-tourism, travel, nature, Bedouin, desertHundreds of Israelis used to spend Passover in Sinai but this year that’s very unlikely to happen and Egypt suffers as a result.

Every year the government warns Israelis to avoid Sinai during Passover. Friends and relatives worry that they will become the next Ghalid Shalit, which is silly given there are now zero Israeli captives, but the fear is real for a people who have always felt surrounded. Even so, many intrepid Israelis in the past made the journey south, where they stayed in small sustainable beach shacks from Dahab to Sharm el-Sheikh, eating local food, living in harmony with the Bedouins – if only for a week. This is as close as Egypt gets to eco-tourism, but this year, it is very unlikely that even the most courageous Israelis will cross the Taba border into Sinai.

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Wind Energy and Organic Farming Collide in Western Turkey

Julia Harte
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Wind Energy and Organic Farming Collide in Western Turkey

traditional turkish windmillVirgin wilderness on Turkey’s western coast is threatened by the construction of new wind infrastructure. Above, an image of a traditional Turkish windmill.

An organic farmer near İzmir in western Turkey awoke a few weeks ago to the sound of poles and transmission lines being installed on a hill near his farm. The lines will connect new wind energy projects in Çeşme to the city of İzmir, but pose a serious threat to future farming activity in the region, according to the farmer. The twist: this organic farmer is also the manager of one of Turkey’s first wind energy project developers.

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Thimar Farm in Palestinian Territory Grows Food and Dignity

Tafline Laylin
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0
Thimar Farm in Palestinian Territory Grows Food and Dignity

agriculture, Middle East, Palestinian Territory, food, health, An expanding farm in the Palestinian Territory provides jobs to more than 100 locals.

More than 600,000 Palestinians living in the West Bank are without jobs. That’s just over 16% of the population, and in the Gaza Strip the situation is worse with fully 40% of the population unemployed. In the past we’ve explored the value of green jobs, but frequently projects in the Palestinian territories only benefit a handful of people. Not so with THIMAR (Nature’s Produce for Agricultural Investment and Marketing.) Established in 2008 by the Nussiebeh family, the farm has grown more quickly than anyone could have imagined, not only fueling the local economy, but also restoring dignity to 140 workers and their families.

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What Recycled Paper Products from Poo Looks Like

Karin Kloosterman
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1

applied clean tech recycled toilet paper Poo paper produced by Applied Clean Tech.  

Tafline likes toilet talk, products and innovation that comes from human waste. See her round up on 5 innovations that turn the toilet into power. Following this article she picked up on the great new story of Applied Clean Tech, an Israeli company that is developing recycled paper from used toilet paper and other solid waste from the toilet. Sounds gross at first thought – imaging having your tofu burger wrapped in paper that previously came from someone’s toilet? But with sanitary issues aside, the idea is brilliant. It’s upcycling in the best way. 

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Green Designers’ Cloudy Thinking

Faisal O'Keefe
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3
Green Designers’ Cloudy Thinking

the cloud korea MVRVD

Rotterdam-based architects MVRDV were smacked with a powerful backlash after unveiling their design for The Cloud, a pair of posh residential skyscrapers located in Seoul, Korea. Hovering about 300 meters above the streetscape, the towers are linked at the 27th floor by a ten-story-high girdle of cubist forms, intended to represent a pixelated “cloud“. The building is sited at the entrance of a new business district, the Yongsan Dreamhub, designed by wunderkind Daniel Libeskind.

The concept’s not awful and something tower builders in the Middle East can learn from: raise up private green spaces typically placed at ground level to the sky. Create more surface for greenery, increase interior daylighting, and use street level set-backs for an open-to-public park. Occupants will hop express elevators that shoot them into this lofty “bridge” connecting both towers. The 14,000 m2 volume will house a sky lounge, restaurants, a conference center, and health club. Vegetated roofs, open decks and swimming pools will sit atop the stacked cubes, centrally located to all residents, offering astounding (and vertigo-inducing) city views.

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FRX Polymers Raises $26.7 Million in Multinational Funding for Green Plastic

Brian Nitz
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green plastic red jellybearAbu Dhabi and Israeli investors among new financiers of dioxin-free flame retardant plastic.

FRX Polymers manufactures and markets a range of environmental friendly and inherently flame retardant plastics. The company recently raised $26.6 million in series B venture capital financing from a diverse group of investors including Masdar Capital of Abu Dhabi, Israel Cleantech Ventures (ICV), Capricorn venture capital, SAM private equity and BASF Venture Capital of Europe.  This funding will allow FRX polymer to complete its first full scale production facility in Antwerp, Belgium.

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