Middle East meets Far East in this innovative tofu dish.
Arabic/Japanese fusion cooking? As for marinating tofu in za’atar, we’ve got an unusual za’atar pesto recipe that fuses the Middle Easts’ favorite herb with Italian cuisine, so why not? The recipe was adapted from the Tofu for Two blog, using a modified version of our muhamarrah sauce recipe.
New rush hour anti-pollution measures may reduce this kind of “morning haze” in major Israeli cities
Following plans to ban transport trucks in major cites like Tel Aviv during early morning rush hours, and after the opening of the special toll-run “fast lane” into the country’s largest and most populated city, Israel’s Transport Ministry is now considering an outright ban on polluting cars and trucks from major city centers. This idea is part of measures to implement the previously passed Clean Air Act which although legislated back in 2008, was only finally passed at the beginning of this year.
Outside temperatures often reach into the mid-fifties (celsius!) during Middle East summers. Construction workers feel the heat.
Behind every glamorous building in Dubai are hundreds of mostly South Asian workers. Yesterday, during a ten kilometer city hike from the Burj Khalifa to Bur Dubai, the quality of life for nearly half of the Emirate’s population came into view. Beyond glitzy Dubai are shadow neighborhoods where round satellite dishes, rooftop clothing lines, and crumbling walls painted in bright colors stand in stark contrast to shimmering skyscrapers and meandering villas.
Whereas malls and leisure areas set their thermostats at a bone-chilling 21 degrees celsius average, these semi-homes are mostly likely cooled with fans or not at all. Contemplating this, and encountering many workers on my walking tour, I wondered how it feels to work on a Middle Eastern construction zone in the dead of summer?
Every month, 150,000 families stand to gain from the Egyptian Food Bank’s distribution program.
Egypt is getting serious about food waste. Last year we reported on the extraordinary amount of food wasted during Ramadan. Ironically, at the same time that ritual scraps filled up formal and informal landfills, the Middle East experienced record-high food prices that some analysts saw as the catalyst of citizen fury that has torn through the region. But throwing away perfectly good food is neither limited to holidays nor to the Middle East.
An Egyptian real estate developer is planning to build on 650 acres of protected land near Lake Qarun
Despite the huge potential for Eco-tourism in the Middle East, the reality is that most tourism development in the region are about one thing: making lots of money. Protecting the environment and preserving important natural habitats are so far down the list of concerns for developers, that having to destroy protected reserves in the name of luxury resorts doesn’t seem like a problem at all.
One example of this disregard for nature is the recent revelation that an Egyptian real estate developer, the Amer Group, has been granted permission to build on the northern part of Lake Qarun. According to Birdlife International, this is the first development of such huge proportions that has been allowed in an Egyptian protected area.
A sedated leopard cub less than two months old was among a variety of animals stashed in a suitcase bound for Dubai.
Along with a monkey, gibbon, and bear, two sedated leopard cubs were found in an Emirati man’s suitcase at the Suvarnabhumi Airport in Thailand. All of the animals were younger than two months old. Referred to as NM, the man was preparing to board a flight to Dubai when authorities searched his luggage and discovered the live animals. He was arrested and then released on bail the same day.
When two embankments collapsed at the dam of a silver refinery in the Turkish province of Kütahya, workers began scrambling to keep the cyanide-contaminated water from leaking out of the dam. If it does, environmentalists warn, the accident could become “the most dangerous environmental crisis Turkey has faced thus far.”
A silver mining and refining facility in western Turkey is frantically trying to contain its cyanide-contaminated wastewater after the dam into which it discharges failed last weekend. Two embankments in the three-stage dam of Eti Silver Corporation have collapsed, raising the possibility that its waters will leak beyond the dam and into the water supplies of nearby settlements.
The village of Köprüören, just three kilometers away from the plant, is preparing to evacuate. On Wednesday, some residents of the town staged a protest outside the facility, calling for the closure of “Eti Silver’s poison facilities”.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan happened to be in the area this week, speaking at a series of election rallies in advance of the federal elections this June.
“Necessary precautions have been taken. There is no reason to worry at the current moment,” the prime minister said. “May our fellow Kütahyans, our villagers, worry not. We are monitoring the issue, and everything is under control. Do not worry at all.”
Even as Erdoğan urged locals not to worry, however, environmental scientists have been issuing ever more dire warnings about the possible effects of the dam failure.
Pollution levels in the area could increase 100-fold if any water leaked out, Güven Eken, the chairman of the environmental Doğa (Nature) Association, told the Hürriyet Daily News. She said that Eti Silver’s effort to contain the water by building another dam would not be a permanent solution to the problem.
Cemalettin Küçük, the executive board chairman of Turkey’s official Chamber of Metallurgical Engineers, told villagers at an informational meeting that “this place is at risk every day, hour and second.” And the Council of Turkish Medicine Association issued a written statement saying that the total collapse of the dam’s embankments would pose a fatal threat to the region.
The blase response of the federal government is, sadly, typical of its attitude toward environmental safety. Erdoğan seems intent on pursuing a new canal project in Istanbul, despite the loud criticism it has faced from environmentalists and architects. The government also hasn’t backed down from plans to develop nuclear power in the country, even as the nuclear disaster in Japan grows worse.
Residents of Kütahya will be on edge for the next few weeks, waiting to see if their region of Turkey remains inhabitable or not.
Read more about environmental issues in Turkey:
Turkish Environmentalists, Architects Critical of Proposed Canal
Major Turkish Cities Fail Sustainability Survey
Despite Japan, Turkey Goes Ahead With Nuclear Reactors
Image via Today’s Zaman
Smen, made from goat butter, is becoming rare in Moroccan kitchens. (And so is eating locusts!) Vegetable oils, so conveniently poured out of a bottle, are the preferred cooking fat of modern cooks.
But as it is with our sourdough, so it is with fermented butter. The essences of all good things develop at their own pace.
Middle-Eastern fermented butter is sometimes packed away and buried in the ground for years, the flavor becoming stronger with the passage of time. In traditional households, the older the smen is, the more highly prized.Old recipes call for kneading fresh butter with oregano – a highly anti-microbial herb that you can read about in our ABCs of medicinal culinary herbs, and salt.
RECIPE for Ma’amoul Cookies, a Tender Arabian Pastry Delight
(We’ve written about the surprising properties of salt in this post.) Once treated that way and then buried in a nice cool cache, far from heat and light, no wonder the butter stays edible. The color, though, changes from that appetizing light yellow to quite a dark brown. The odor and taste are that of aged cheese.
There are different recipes for smen. Some like to cook it gently like ghee, then salt it and put it away for a month in a cool, dark place. In Yemen, the butter is gently cooked that way, spiced with fenugreek while still liquid, and called samanah.
Not being fond of fenugreek, I prefer the Moroccan version where the butter isn’t cooked but kneaded together with cooled oregano tea and then set aside to mature.
I admit I’ve never eaten smen taken out of a buried crock, but do enjoy it fresh, in cooking and just lightly spread on warm bread.
More tasty ideas for your table on Green Prophet:
UNICEF in this news piece has announced that although a number of countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region have made considerable progress towards improving the health of mothers and children, disparities within these countries persist, making this progress inequitable.
“The health and well-being of mothers and children is often determined not by what country they live in, but by their income and where they live within a country,” said Shahida Azfar, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at the launch of a study on inequities in maternal and child health in the region. “If these countries are to meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, they need to ensure that access to health is equal to all.”
The study looks at access to maternal and child health among two groups – the poorest and richest 20 per cent of the population, and urban and rural dwellers – in 10 countries and territories: Algeria, Djibouti, Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, the occupied Palestinian territory, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen.
Data for five indicators were analyzed: under-five mortality, measles vaccination among one-year olds, the proportion of births attended by a skilled health professional, antenatal care coverage, and contraceptive use.
Apart from the frigid air-conditioned buildings, there is another reason to ditch the little black dress when in Dubai.
No one loves the ugly American who criticizes smaller French portions, the evangelist who pushes their unchecked religious euphoria down everyone’s throat, or the girls who walk around half naked in Dubai. Although there exists enormous tolerance for western mores, and foreigners are not asked to observe the more conservative Islamic dress code, a little respect goes a long way.
The three winners from the Middle East/MENA region are Tunisia, Bahrain and Qatar in new survey on tourism trends.
The recently released 2011 “Travel and Tourism Competitiveness”report by the World Economic Forum, in co-operation with Booz & Company, reveals some interesting dynamics in the global tourism industry, including a shift to the East, with Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and Asia rising in rank, while sustainability continues to establish itself as a key tourism trend. Political reality may be overshadowing any wide discourse on tourism in the Middle East. But the potential role of this industry is more relevant than ever for a region struggling with issues of heritage, identity, and community development. Here’s a brief overview of the report:
Want to attract Muslim readers and help them switch to a green way of life? Well, here’s how.
A couple more weeks of blogging will make it a full year since I joined the Green Prophet team writing on Eco-Islam. I’ve enjoyed every moment of it and learnt a lot about writing green blogs for Muslims, which is why I have put together a short guide to green blogging for Muslims!
Answering questions such as why the Muslim audience is important and how to keep the diverse Muslim readership happy, this guide is a little ‘how-to’ for the aspiring writer in you. Also, keep an eye out for part two of this guide which includes tips on how to avoid offending your readers, preaching at them and how to fun while you are at it.
A multi-level tomb in Tiberias, Israel, shows how one space may house the remains of several family members.
In Judaism, respectful care of human remains entails burial of the whole body – discussed in our previous post. Islam’s funeral requirements are almost identical. (See Zaufishan’s post on Moslem conventional and sea burial.) Use of land resources for cemeteries is indeed diminishing everywhere, and in Israel, a tiny country that could comfortably fit into the dimensions of New Jersey, the problem is becoming acute. Maurice discussed the advantages of burial at sea, but we agree it’s unlikely to become fashionable in Israel. And without efficient burial methods, cemeteries will soon crowd living people out, especially in big cities like Tel Aviv.
Commenter Esther Hecht pointed us in the direction of innovative Israeli solutions in the quest for sustainable burials. The concept is called dense burials, and is the project of architects Uri Ponger and Tuvia Sagiv.
Tanning beds are NOT the way to get your Vitamin D fix.
Last year, the Israeli Ministry of Health issued a statement that tanning beds are as hazardous to your health as sunbathing. “In light of the accumulating knowledge on the rise of skin cancer – including malignant melanoma – the ministry is warning the public about the use of tanning beds, which are just as dangerous as exposure to sunlight.” For those in high-risk groups for skin cancer – people with fair skin, moles or a family history, for example – they strongly urged consumers to avoid using tanning beds, and recommended legislation banning the use of tanning beds by people under 18.
That cappucino may not put a smile on your face if you are at risk for a stroke.
A new study from The Netherlands suggests that having sex and drinking coffee can temporarily raise your risks of strokes or brain aneurysms. Several triggers were identified in the study published by the American Heart Association including coffee consumption, vigorous exercise, nose blowing, sexual intercourse, straining to defecate and cola consumption. Being startled or suddenly angry was also implicated in increasing the risk of rupturing a weakened vessel in the brain.
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