It’s like finding a map back to your grandmother’s pantry, but with the tools of a climate-conscious chef.

Written with a deep reverence for local ingredients and a mindful kitchen, the book Think Eat Cook Sustainably teaches readers how to cook from intuition, not instruction. The philosophy behind the book is the method that surely grandmother’s knew once: and can now be passed in eco-conscious circles and permaculture kitchens. And it may be influenced from the authors experiences growing up in France. Everyone there knows that a soup stock needs celery, carrot and an onion.

The book by Rachel Khanna offers formulas—not rigid recipes—so that you can cook anything, from anywhere, with whatever the Earth gives you.

Are you drowning in recipes, influencer chefs videos, and master chefs showing you hot to cook with ingredients that are hard to find, or too expensive –– or simply not local to you? Do you find you get confused and can’t keep up with the latest Ottolenghis recipe?

Rachel Khanna offers something far more liberating: a formula for freedom in your kitchen. Her book Think Eat Cook Sustainably is not about following recipes to the letter. It’s about understanding the language of cooking—so you can improvise with what you have, honor what’s local, and reduce waste, all while creating deeply nourishing meals. She is a mother of four girls so no doubt earned her chops as a cook and it follows from her second book, Live Eat Cook Healthy. She understood the message of eating more vegetables and buying organic food was not enough to help people feed themselves more sustainably. She went for a “macro philosophy” in this book.

We were sent this book in 2020 and lost in the COVID madness, we just opened it recently and to our surprise, it’s a book that gives cooking tips along with a tour around the world to some of the most loved foods, which include meat, yes meat, and poke bowls and falafel and fish. It shows you in a handy guide on how you can choose a protein or a base for a recipe you want to cook and additional food items and seasonings to make a first class dish. It’s a guide on how to cook everywhere and anywhere, no matter what the pantry offers.

We have so many friends who have become global nomads and are now with kids living in rental homes in Thailand, in cheaper European countries like Portugal. This kind of book can also help you adapt to the palettes of children, working with local ingredients that may be unfamiliar at first.

Khanna, a former corporate strategist turned public servant and wellness advocate, writes with the clarity of someone who has lived many lives—and decided to root herself in the soil of sustainability.

With degrees from Columbia and a background in public policy and nutrition, she’s as comfortable discussing the US Farm Bill as she is fermenting vegetables in a glass jar. She served as a Connecticut state representative, advocating for food system reform, and brings this practical, community-grounded insight to her food philosophy.

Khanna worked for Morgan Stanley and Euromonitor International before entering politics. In 2007, Khanna started an organic meal delivery service Tiffin based in Banksville and serving Greenwich and Stamford and has now published two cookbooks.

Whether Rachel Khanna originated this movement of common-sense food philosophy or simply tapped into its rising current, I’m not expert enough in the culinary world to say. What I do know is this: in a time when food media often glorifies complexity, I found something refreshing in her approach.

I was especially taken by a recent and charming episode of With Love, Meaghan on Netflix, where a member of the royal family Meaghan Markle Sussex takes us into her life in California where she chooses to live with intention and simplicity—teaching others to do the same through the lens of food. The idea of returning to basic, adaptable formulas in the kitchen isn’t just empowering; it’s practical.

It nurtures community, teaches resilience to kids, and gently reminds us that sustainable living often starts right where we are—with what we already have. She also shows us, at least on camera, that preparing food and experiences for your children can be deeply satisfying as a parent and as a woman. The world needs more of that.

Some mouth-watering recipes on Green Prophet:

• Traditional Emirati Khameer Bread
• Turkish Winter Soup With Bulgur Gnocchi
• Rice With Noodles
• Baked Eggplant Slices In Tomato Sauce

The post Think Eat Cook Sustainably is a philosophy book in sustainable food, in edible form appeared first on Green Prophet.

After the dreadful attacks of October 7, 2023, Israel and the Jewish people went to war on three fronts. While the army fights the war of bodies, and government officials and journalists wage the war of minds, every Jew on earth is a soldier in our war for wellness.

We’re all combating fear, distraction, and stress. We’re all looking for meaning inside the madness. More than ever before, Israel needs healthy Jewish people who value and love their land.

Land of Health teaches how to win the war for wellness:

• Part One shows how the Land of Israel is the healthy body of the Nation of Israel, and appreciating that holds the solution to our current crisis.
• Part Two shares practical strategies for healthy living in challenging times. It covers all areas of life: eating, exercise, emotional health, and, of course, spirituality and faith.

Even after the guns go quiet — hopefully soon — the war for wellness will continue as our emotional and spiritual wounds slowly heal. Although our bodies will again be safe and secure, our disturbed souls will yearn for peace and balance. Land of Health will help us heal, as individuals and as a nation.

“Rabbi Naiman masterfully shows how every aspect of the physical Land of Israel expresses profound spiritual concepts — and teaches how to live within it. This book is filled with intriguing insights as well as practical suggestions for healthy living even under the most challenging conditions.” —Miriam Kosman, senior lecturer at Olami and author of Circle, Arrow and Spiral: Exploring Gender in Judaism

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rabbi Shmuel Chaim Naiman is a Torah student, certified health counselor, and foraging guide. He lives in Ramat Bet Shemesh, Israel, where he teaches at Yeshivas Lev HaTorah. Check out healthyjew.org to subscribe to his weekly email newsletter, The Healthy Jew, and to book your foraging walk in Israel. Land of Health is available on Amazon.com, on Menuchapublishers.com, and in your local Jewish bookstore.

Click here to order on Amazon

Imprint: Menucha Publishers
On sale: August 28, 2024
Price: $14.95
Pages: 188
ISBN: 979-8-88839-464-9

Click here to order on Amazon

The post New Book – Land of Health: Israel’s War for Wellness appeared first on Green Prophet.

The book Care for Creation: An Islamic Perspective, has recently been authored by the prominent Turkish environmentalist Professor İbrahim Özdemir. The topic couldn’t be more crucial nowadays; Europe has planned to slash carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 and the need of a global effort to tackle, in several manners, climate change is increasingly discussed on mass media an social media, day by day.

In his book Professor Özdemir proves that Islam is a “genetically environmentalist religion”.

Indeed we have not to forget — as Abdul Matin highlights in his book Green Deen: What Islam Teaches About Protecting The Planet and Professor Özdemir in Care for Creation; An Islamic Perspective — that one of the fundamental principles of Islam is Mizan: balance; a general concept including, of course, the duty to find a virtuous relation with the environment surrounding and supporting us.

That is to say: with God’s creation as it is clearly affirmed in the following verses in the Holy Quran:

In the name of God, the Gracious, the Merciful.

The Compassionate. Has taught the Quran. He created man. And taught him clear expression. The sun and the moon move according to plan. And the stars and the trees prostrate themselves. And the sky, He raised, and He set up the balance. So do not transgress in the balance. But maintain the weights with justice, and do not violate the balance.

(The Holy Quran, 55:1-9)

When we reflect on the moral implications of these verses, highlights Professor Özdemir, we will see that they would be enough for developing an environmental ethic and sustainability from the Holy Quran itself. First, justice and balance are universal; second, this universal balance is created and sustained by God, and third, humans must both attempt to comprehend and to protect this universal balance.

Indeed, how we can read again in the Holy Quran, as human beings we have been entrusted with conserving and developing (in a balanced way) our planet:

He who has made you successors (Khalifa) upon the earth. 

(The Holy Quran, 6:165).

In his book Care for Creation; An Islamic Perspective, Professor Özdemir explains in detail how a good Muslim should behave to respect the environment in tune with the prescriptions of the Holy Quran and of the Sunna, mentioning the preservation of the cleanliness in public spaces, the preservation of trees, woodland and green areas, the protection of the animals (the famous French writer Montaigne touched on this subject when he said: “The Muslim Turks found hospitals and pious foundations for animals even”, to report only one example) and the need to be strongly mindful managing consumption and waste.

As history as well as Western travellers of Muslim lands observe, writes Professor Ozdemir, “Islam attaches the greatest importance to the conservation of the environment as a whole. For the environment and all the living beings within it are created by God.

“The conservation of the environment is therefore not only a human obligation but also a religious obligation.”

How profound are Yunus Emre’s, the Turkish poet of 13th century, words: “We love creatures for the sake of their Creator!”

No concerned and believing Muslim individual will forget that he is answerable for how he treats not only men but also all creatures, or that one day he will be called to account for how he acted. With the following verse, the Holy Quran warns all Muslims: “Whoever does an atom’s weight of good shall see it, And whoever does an atom’s weight of evil, shall see it” (The Holy Quran, 99: 7-8).

At the end of Care for Creation; An Islamic Perspective is reported the integral text of The Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change, drafted in 2015. Among the members of the Islamic Declaration Team there was Professor Özdemir himself.

Nowadays Care for Creation; An Islamic Perspective can be an important source of inspiration for the growing number of Muslims engaged in environmental activities. Since it has been published (at the end of 2022) it has attracted growing interest internationally. 

Five copies of Care for Creation; An Islamic Perspective have been requested by the Agency for the Legal Deposit Libraries in the UK for the catalogue of National Library of Scotland, the Bodleian Library of Oxford University, the National Library of Wales, Cambridge University Library and the library of Trinity College in Dublin.

The book will soon be available in the catalogue of the British Library as well, the most important in the world.

Care for Creation; An Islamic Perspective has been published both in paper and digital formats and it is easily available on line. We are doing our best to spread its contents and to give our small contribution to support the “brown to green” revolution. Of course there is still much theoretical and practical work to be done but we hope the publication of this book has been one of the first, crucial steps.

Manuel Olivares is an Italian author and publisher living between Italy and the UK. He is mainly interested in ecology and comparative religion. He spent several years in Asia, mostly in India, devoting a remarkable amount of time studying Eastern religions.

More recently he has strongly supported the campaign for an eco-friendly Ramadan which had an excellent, international response. For more information visit his web site www.viverealtrimenti.com.

The post An Islamic Perspective to support the “brown to green” revolution appeared first on Green Prophet.

I was having breakfast with an American friend who’d come to visit me in Bahrain. Together we sat in a hotel restaurant, windows on all sides looking down on the city hurtling past below. We’d come there to meet with a woman from an Arabian Gulf state I was interviewing for my book, Hear Us Speak: Letters From Arab Women, which paints a portrait, through a series of interviews, of what life is like for Arab women today.  This includes the difficult consequences they face due to a lack of legislation protecting some of their most basic human rights. 

When we saw the woman walking toward us, my friend turned to me and said quietly, “She’s completely covered. I didn’t expect a woman wearing a hijab would be able to speak openly about these subjects for your book.”

This notion—that being modest and conservative means you must be silent and submissive—is by far the most incorrect perception the West has of women who cover their faces and heads.  On top of that, as my friend affirmed, Westerners often assume that a woman in a hijab or abaya is not only submissive, but that she is also being controlled or abused.

As a Bharanian woman and the mother of a beautiful young adult daughter, I know that this is simply not true. I know that women who choose to wear hijabs or abayas have opinions and character, just the same as any woman in the West. Their choice to cover their hair and dress in a more conservative fashion is just that: a choice, rooted in their beliefs.  

I meet women every day who are living proof that a scarf covering the hair does not signify helplessness. Often, it is quite the opposite. One such woman is a Saudi media icon I interview in Hear Us Speak. She began her career teaching at the university in Riyadh.  At the time she was  considered something of a rebel—she was a muthajba, meaning she wore the conservative head scarf and modest clothing.  Yet she didn’t believe in the existing structures and was always challenging her students. 

One day she was invited to be a panelist on a talk show—the Arabic equivalent of “The View.” She saw it as a chance to be a pioneer.  The university’s administrator told her, “If you take this job, I will fire you.” But she fought back, saying, “You have male lecturers who are not fired for being on television. I should be awarded the same rights.”

Some conservative women in Saudi Arabia did not accept her. They called her kafara, which means infidel, a woman of no religion. And yet many Saudi women thought it was wonderful to have a Saudi woman representing them on this pan-Arab talk show panel.  

The TV show experienced huge success. It was the number-one talk show for seventeen years, and received numerous accolades and awards. She had taken a chance, and decided to be a pioneer facing all the consequences, head on. Today, she says she’s very glad she did.

She’s also very proud to wear a headscarf. She told me: “I wear this by choice, and I believe in it. It might not be for everyone, but it is for me. I never doubted the concept of wearing a hijab.”  And she is not alone.  Countless Muslim women, including in the Arab world, feel proud and even empowered wearing a hijab.  There are many reasons, including solidarity, national pride and faith. As this article in The Conversation explains, “some Muslim women in America may wear the hijab as a way of asserting their pride in the face of Islamophobia.”

The woman my friend and I met in the hotel told us:  “The strength of a woman has nothing to do with whether or not she chooses to cover her hair. There is no correlation. Wearing a hijab (headscarf) does not mean a woman is submissive. I have friends who wear it, and it’s perfectly normal. There are many different reasons a woman might wear one—it could be religion, family influence, cultural influence. But it does not take away her strength.”

My hope is that rather than focusing on the hijab and the myths surrounding it, the Western world will become aware of the far more real and pressing issues Arab women face today: the difficult consequences of a lack of legislation, including a lack of legal protection in all areas of society, from business to family life.  I wrote Hear Us Speak to bring these issues to light.

_____

Suzan Kanoo is widely considered to be one of the leading business women of Bahrain and has proven to be successful in many fields. After completing her degree in economics in the US, she joined the family business of KE Kanoo Group and was able to grow the car trading business to new heights. Aside from her work in business and investment, she is a sought-after speaker at global events, a writer and poet, and active in volunteering work for refugees, visiting camps all over the world under the banner of the UN.

The post Dispelling the hijab myth appeared first on Green Prophet.

Every Turkish kitchen produces dishes that began somewhere in Central Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe or the Balkans. Even with natural regional variations, there’s something characteristically Turkish in every bite you take. It’s the sweet/sour taste of pomegranate molasses, the tang of sumac, yogurt flavored with mint or dill, and Turkish pepper paste. So many flavors to intrigue and tease the palate.

The south of Turkey is especially famous for its dazzling variety of luscious foods, and Özlem Warren, food writer, teacher and blogger (www.ozlemsturkishtable.com), shows you shows you how to cook them yourself. Beginning her own family’s story, the book moves through Turkish culinary history and in particular, the world of southern Turkish cuisine.

We’re introduced to two essential Turkish condiments that appear over and over again throughout the recipes: red pepper paste and pomegranate molasses. I made the red pepper paste, and it wasn’t hard. I admit that I balked somewhat at making my own pomegranate molasses, but luckily every grocery store carries bottles of it where I live. There is a recipe for za’atar blend, which I was intrigued to see includes ground, cooked chickpeas. We love za’atar: see a version of za’atar pesto here.

Another thing you can count on in Turkish food is how healthy it is. There are infinite ways to cook vegetables and grains. People are eating more meat than formerly, but still prefer a relatively light touch of it in everyday foods. And most Turks still prefer to eat at home. You don’t hear moaning about fast-food taking the culture over, because everyone’s too busy cooking and eating foods made from scratch.

Özlem’s Turkish Table carries you through authentic recipes for soups and dips, a variety of mezze, and salads. Sections on the Turkish breakfast and savory pastries follow, segueing into chapters on vegetables, meat and poultry, grains, fish and seafood, and finally desserts. To help you build a typical Turkish meal, there’s a chapter on suggested menus.

The book is packed with attractive photographs, but it’s not a coffee-table book. It’s meant to be taken into the kitchen and cooked out of. Some recipes are quick and easy, like the mezze of sauteed carrots mixed with garlicky yogurt. Others are more elaborate, like the luscious kaytaz boregi, savory pastry squares topped with seasoned ground beef. The most time-consuming is oruk, bulgar balls filled with walnuts and ground meat. A dish for festivals.

It’s not a book for beginning cooks, but no recipe is really difficult to manage. For example, baklava might seem intimidating to make, but with filo pastry from the supermarket, a careful cook can easily produce a trayful of that exotic sweet from this book.

The instructions given are clear and easy to understand, with tips and explanations interspersed throughout to ensure the reader success. The only thing I found bothersome is the index, which is extensive and well-organized, but gives the names of some dishes only in Turkish, which assumes that readers remember their unfamiliar names. For example, what is sini oruğu? I’m mystified.

Altogether, Özlem’s Turkish Table makes a nice addition to the cookbook shelf. I’ve already promised to lend my copy to a friend married to a Turkish man – she wants to surprise him with dishes he doesn’t expect his Western wife to know. I’m confident that they’ll find a good few keepers in this book.

Özlem’s Turkish Table, 2018.
304 pages with an introduction by Ghillie Başan
ISBN 978-1-912031-94-8

Publisher: GB Publishing
Available from the author’s website (www.ozlemsturkishtable.com); GB Publishing (www.gbpublishing.co.uk/ozemsturkishtable), or via Kindle.

The post Ozlem’s Turkish Table cookbook for everyday and festivals: Our Review appeared first on Green Prophet.

You can’t download the books; instead click and add titles to an “bookbag” function that stores your selections so you can read online at your own pace.

These ten titles that may grab you, publisher briefs offer a synopsis for each:

The Forgiving Air: Understanding Environmental Change by Richard Somerville (UCP 1996)
Written by a scientist for non-scientists, this primer humanizes the great environmental issues of our time highlighting the interrelatedness of human activity and global change.  The hole in the ozone layer, the greenhouse effect, acid rain, and air pollution are explained in accessible prose. A new preface addresses developments in environmental policy that have occurred since publication.

Pollution in a Promised Land: an Environmental History of Israel  by Alon Tal (UCP 2002)
Virtually undeveloped one hundred years ago, Israel, the promised “land of milk and honey,” is in ecological disarray. Alon Tal provides the first-time-ever history of Israeli environmentalism, interviewing hundreds of experts and activists who have made it their mission to keep the country’s remarkable development sustainable amid a century of political and cultural turmoil.

Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S. Interests in the Middle East, 1945-2000 by Melani McAlister (UCP 2001) In the twentieth century, cultural products (films, news, museum exhibits and novels) profoundly shaped ideas about the relationship between America and the Middle East. In this interdisciplinary work, McAlister  explores the significant intersection of culture and politics that is at the heart of both nationalism and globalization.

Mass Mediations: New Approaches to Popular Culture in the Middle East and Beyond by Walter Armbrust (UCP 2000)  Mass media are as ubiquitous in Cairo and Karachi as in Los Angeles and Detroit, and popular culture through mass media defines the scale and character of social interaction in the Middle East.. From Persian popular music in Beverly Hills to postmodern Turkish novels to the music of an Israeli transsexual singer, these essays illustrate the multiple contexts of modern cultural production and challenge conventional assumptions about the region and its relation to the West.

Colonising Egypt by Timothy Mitchell (UCP 1991)
Timothy Mitchell examines the peculiarity of Western conceptions of order and truth through a re-reading of Europe’s colonial encounter with nineteenth-century Egypt.

Frontiers and Ghettos: State Violence in Serbia and Israel by James Ron (UCP 2003)
James Ron uses controversial comparisons between Serbia and Israel to present a novel theory of state violence. Formerly a research consultant to Human Rights Watch and the International Red Cross, Ron witnessed remarkably different patterns of state coercion. He presents an institutional approach to state violence, drawing on his field research in the Middle East, Balkans, Chechnya, and Turkey, as well as dozens of rare interviews with military veterans, officials, and political activists on all sides. Studying violence from the ground up, the book develops an exciting new framework for analyzing today’s nationalist wars.

A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity by Daniel Boyarin (UCP 1994)
Are the Epistles of Paul the spiritual autobiography of a first-century Jewish cultural critic? What led Paul – in his dramatic conversion to Christianity – to such a radical critique of Jewish culture? The book examines the apostle’s famous formulation, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, no male and female in Christ”, encouraging a richer appreciation of our own cultural quandaries as male and female, gay and straight, Israeli and Palestinian, and as humans.

A Nation of Empire: The Ottoman Legacy of Turkish Modernity by Michael E. Meeker (UCP 2002)  Michael Meeker combines anthropological and historical methods to examine the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic, providing a new understanding of the complexities and contradictions of modern Turkish experience.

Remaking the Modern: Space, Relocation, and the Politics of Identity in a Global Cairo by Farha Ghannam (UCP 2002)  In an effort to restyle Cairo into a global capital meeting the demands of tourists and investors and to achieve President Anwar Sadat’s goal to modernize the housing of the urban poor, the Egyptian government relocated residents from what was deemed valuable real estate in downtown Cairo to public housing on city outskirts. Based on years of ethnographic fieldwork among five thousand working-class families, this presents an illuminating analysis of Cairo’s urban engineering and the struggle of the working class community to confront associated alienation and dislocation.

Three Mothers, Three Daughters: Palestinian Women’s Stories by Michael Ghorkin (UCP 1996)
This remarkable collection of oral histories from six Palestinian women affords an unparalleled view into the daily lives of women who have lived, and continue to live, through a turbulent and rapidly changing era. Highly personal events such as courting, marriage, and childbirth are interwoven with memories of upheavals such as the wars of 1948 and 1967. These beautifully written narratives bear witness to the power of Palestinian culture in sustaining the often difficult lives of women and provides brilliant testimony to the experience of living in the midst of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The collection is dynamic, with new titles being added over time.  Browse for yourself, drop a few titles in your bookbag.  They even offer a cookbook.  Maybe there is a such thing as a free lunch.

The post 700 free e-books to up your Middle East IQ appeared first on Green Prophet.

Or samples from a tenth-century cookbook. Or amusing little line drawings, or a page on an abandoned Jewish delicacy made from cattail reed pollen.

After a scholarly introduction the recipes begin on Chapter One, Bread. It’s studded with proverbs, folk songs, photographs, drawings, and transcriptions of ancient documents relating to food. Can you resist a recipe for a bread called Lover’s Window? Its sweet, sesame-sprinkled bread whose dough is stretched out in the middle to make holes that you can peer through.

And that’s only the first chapter. The second, dealing with dairy products, includes a modern recipe for Geymer, a thick clotted cream, with a folk song comparing a lover’s white cheeks to it. In all, there are 20 chapters that cover vegetables, salads, snacks, sandwiches, side dishes, meat main dishes, stuffed foods (where the emphasis is on kubba), fish, poultry, grains and beans. savory pastries, every kind of sweet, and beverages. One chapter is dedicated to rice alone.

It’s easy to see that the author has tested and cooked every recipe herself. Tips and hints are attached to the recipes, that can only have come from her kitchen experience. The photographs aren’t gorgeous, but more than adequate to express appetizing  foods like baked fish stuffed with za’atar and sumac. From simple peasant food like the combination of rice and lentils known as majadra, to a sumptuous, entire lamb stuffed with almonds, rice, raisins, peas and spices, this cookbook will keep the creative cook busy for at least a year, if one chooses to cook everything in it.

The great thing about all this delicious exotic cooking is that almost always, ingredients are easily found. Most are already in your pantry. Some ingredients may have to be especially shopped for, like tamarind concentrate or sumac, but if you enjoy browsing through Middle East markets, that’s just part of the fun.

At the end of the book are sections on menus (including pages on historical table manners and hygiene), an excellent glossary and recipe index, a bibliography, and separate indexes covering ancient, medieval, and Ottoman foods and ingredients, plus a name and subject index. This book is a treasure. It’s just a matter of parking it somewhere in your kitchen where you can flip it open and go on to cook the next mouthwatering recipe.

A Cookbook and History of the Iraqi Cuisine is the sub-title of this food encyclopedia.

Ms. Nasrallah was a professor of English and Comparative Literature at the universities of Baghdad and Mosul. Her English translation of the 10th-century Annals of the Caliph’s Kitchens and Delights From The Garden of Eden have won Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in 2007. We reviewed her book Dates here on Green Prophet.

Delights From The Garden of Eden: a cookbook and history of the Iraqi cuisine.
Equinox Publishing Ltd.
ISBN 978-1-84553-457-8.
574 pages.

You can order Ms. Nasrallah’s books online here.

Recipes from Nawal Nasrallah:

• Healthy Herbed Zucchini Fritters
• Simit, The Iraqi Bagel
• Iraqi Watermelon Rind Jam

The post Delights From The Garden of Eden by Nawal Nasrallah – Our Book Review appeared first on Green Prophet.

We’ve posted about the Cafe Clock blog here, including the recipe for its famous camel burger. In this delightful cookbook, Stevens includes recipes from the Cafe Clock as well as some traditional Moroccan dishes that she discovered  herself. Her warm, frank tone and the stories that introduce many of the recipes almost bring the reader to the Café and the alleyways of the medina.

The photographs by Julius Honnor tend to be dark and moody, with a still-life quality that highlights Fez ambiance rather than the food. But if you’re interested in getting a good look at  the day-to-day of the medina, your armchair curiosity will be satisfied, and your appetite will probably wake up too. The plain blue cover with swirling Arabic calligraphy only hints at  the color and richness of this Moroccan recipe collection. With tongue in cheek, we suggest that it might have been richer for another version of Moroccan Love Potion.

The collaboration between the Cafe Clock and Stevens come through Mike Richardson, British ex-pat weary of a career as a successful London maître d’ and searching for a new life in Fez:

“Mike…was determined to create something new. Little did he know…that what he would end up creating would become one of the most important social centres in the city, a true hub for Moroccans, expats and people passing through. Today, Fez without the Café Clock  is unthinkable.” So writes Stevens in her introduction.

Richardson hired  Moroccan cooks and acquired a business partner. With the cafe’s roaring success in camel hamburgers and seasonal specials based on ingredients from the medina, the time came to put a book together. Stevens, with an idea for a Moroccan cookbook already in her head, considers it serendipitous that Richardson invited her to write it.

The eleven recipe chapters cover breakfast and brunch; burgers and sandwiches; soups; fish; poultry; meat; salads; snacks; desserts; breads, and preserves and condiments.

When the recipes call for very localized ingredients – like camel hump or eggs scrambled with desert truffles from the sub-Sahara – Stevens sensibly suggests Western substitutes. While it’s unlikely that the Western reader will take the trouble to make the paper-thin trid bread, the engaging story and photographs are fun to leaf through. On the other hand, there are four entirely doable ways to bake and eat the basic khobz bread. The recipe for roast lamb mechouia style calls for few ingredients and looks simple to make, but according to the author, it’s dangerously seductive:

“The smell alone of this dish is enough to get you salivating, and by the time it emerges from a slow oven it’s maddening. No wonder it’s traditionally torn apart with the fingers and eaten with no embellishment.”

To waken love, the author recommends adding plenty of dried rose petals to food – even to the camel burgers. To rouse  the taste buds, there are recipes for herb and flower-infused salts, charmoula spice mix, and other Moroccan pantry staples.

No less an author than Claudia Roden recommends Clock Book as “delightful” and “evocative.” I add, it’s a foodie’s treasure.

Clock Book by Tara Stevens

Publisher: 33 Books Ltd., England

160 pages

Moroccan dishes on Green Prophet:

• Chickpea and Spinach Soup
• Baghrir, Moroccan Crepe

Images from Café Clock cookbook courtesy of 33 Books Ltd.

The post Clock Book – Recipes From a Modern Moroccan Kitchen, by Tara Stevens appeared first on Green Prophet.

Working in Qatar has clearly given the academic Mari Luomi access to lots of information about the climate change rhetoric and reality of the Gulf. It also puts her in a rather awkward position in terms of being able to voice her criticism. After interviewing Luomi for Green Prophet around a year ago, however, I was really interested in reading her forthcoming book. And I wasn’t disappointed. It’s an honest portrayal of the region with a focus on Qatar and Abu Dhabi and the complex factors at play which mean the two countries have taken rather divergent paths to dealing with climate change.

The book, which is very readable, charts Qatar and Abu Dhabi’s shift from passive players towards a somewhat more active and moderate climate policy. It explores the social contract in many of the Gulf countries based on fossil fuels (political obedience is exchanged for cheap energy and money) as well as a lack of domestic demand for a more active climate policy. This is reflected in the fact that cutting fuel subsidies, which would make conservation and a greater push toward efficiency feasible, is often seen “as an uncrossable line.” (p.91)

‘The Gulf Monarchies and Climate Change’ highlights this bind as something of a chicken or egg situation. The countries need a stronger civil society to influence the government to take more action but government discourages this through the fossil fueled social contract and then say civil society aren’t pushing it and they need more domestic support. Luomi finds that although action is being taken, the issue is still not a priority in terms of national policy. In fact, global mitigation against climate change is often seen as a bigger threat to the countries than actual climate change (due to a loss of revenue if they have to stop selling oil).

Indeed, due to the complex set of interests around the issue most of the green campaigning is very non-controversial and focuses on conservation and beach clean-ups rather than emission. Luomi focuses on various case studies such as Abu Dhabi’s nuclear programme, Masdar as well as Qatar’s strong position in terms of natural gas and the impact of this on climate policy. One of the author’s real strengths is being able to weave a story about how these countries operate socially, economically and also environmentally. Luomi also takes a rather pragmatic look at what motivates action/inaction which I think reflects the reality of the situation in the Gulf. She is also keen to point out that the region has a tiny impact in terms of emissions (historically and also today) and won’t be able to stop dangerous climate change alone.

I found the reporting on the nuclear project in the UAE particularly interesting and the book is a mine of useful data and statistics. The data coming from Qatar was particularly interesting as there is so little information on the country’s developments. The penultimate chapter looked at the Gulf monarchies role in the UNFCCC negotiations; the influence of Saudi Arabia, the growing focus on CCS, the continued influence of negotiators from the oil-sector, Bahrain and Oman’s rapidly declining oil which marks the beginning of divergent interests in the GCC, UAE cultivating an image a clean tech leader in the region and need to move away from the ‘Saudi position’. All really interesting stuff and a must read. Although some would criticise the huge a focus on energy, I think this a well-written and well-researched book on the emerging and often contradictory position Gulf nations take on climate change.

For more green book reviews see: 
A No-Nonsense Guide To Climate Change by Danny Chivers
Book Review – I’m With The Bears
Earth Architect Nader Khalili’s Book: Racing Alone
‘Beacons – Stories For Our Not So Distant Future’

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In “Racing Alone”, the late Iranian earth architect Nader Khalili who died in 2008 recounts the years leading to the realization of his dream; building a dwelling that infuses Persian culture, history, art, and  ingeniousness, and a structure that promises the utility of withstanding the tremors of earthquakes and revolutions, heat and cold.

His material: fire, air, water and earth.

In his journey, Nader initially struggles with infiltrating westernized architectural dogmas, experienced technocrats, iron and cement, bureaucracy, and imported expectations. Ironically his toils subsequently start to breakthrough in 1979, as the Iranian revolution begins.

In September 1978, a 3 minute earthquake in Tabas, central Iran, claimed over 15,000 lives and activated a wave of social unrest which ignited the Iranian revolution. The earthquake turned out to be a blessing for Nader’s dream, the damage caused by the earthquake is an opportunity to gain the trust of affected communities, to rebuild safer homes using fired clay, and bring back Iranian knowledge and architecture to the Iranians.

“The greatest problem in rehabilitating the village is not the money, the manpower, or the material, it is rehabilitation from an imported shock. To reverse all this fatal propaganda that results in the blind copying of the ways of the capital city and in losing respect for their own values will need a revolution by itself,” he said.

And so Nader shifts gears and begins his own revolution, on his motorbike, along the dusty roads of Iran.

Nader always had a vision, a dream, which like many of us, he didn’t “dare to share with others until it can be shown in a solid form”. How to get there and what exactly the endpoint would be, he didn’t know; but the feeling, which one could call faith, gave him the courage to “race alone”.

Destiny makes him stumble across the solution; a practical, traditional, and beautiful solution, which had been lost and nearly forgotten but which Nader and his friend Ali Aga enthusiastically and impatiently try to recapture and animate.

Nader was naïve, passionate, a dreamer, a romantic and a believer in the truth of simplicity. If you love Iran, and know what it feels like to have a dream,“Racing Alone” is an extremely enjoyable and heartwarming autobiography.

Top image of Nader Khalili via Quadiri Rifai

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