April’s biggest bargain is fresh, green garlic If you love the odorous bulb – and don’t mind your house smelling like a salami for a few days – now is the time to head out to the shuk and snatch up braided ropes of fresh garlic. Or braid your own, or simply hang it up […]
Recipes US offers a portal into hundreds of thousands of blogger recipes, many connected to the Middle East. There is no doubt that home cooking is a good thing for our planet. Forget about the packaging waste you save by cooking up a storm at home, but there is all that petrol going out to […]
Fresh artichokes are all over Middle Eastern markets now. Lovers of the edible thistle enjoy scraping the steamed, seasoned leaves with their teeth and never mind getting melted butter or vinaigrette all over their fingers.
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.
Major 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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Thousands of animals have died and more are infected with a deadly strain of foot-and-mouth disease that has plowed through Egypt. Despite government assurances that they were in control of Egypt’s foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), an outbreak has swept through the country, killing more than 10,000 animals to date. The UN Food and Agriculture Association (FAO) […]
Ever wonder what to do with eggplants? Read on for some Middle Eastern eggplant ideas. At the start of the month, markets didn’t have much new. Everything in February’s post still applied. Newcomers like strawberries were still expensive and not sweet yet. Now, seasonal produce is on the upward swing towards summer’s abundance and those […]
Recovered from an archeological dig, an extinct date variety springs back to green life in the Arava Valley. Dates have always been a staple in the Middle Eastern diet. Mentions of them have come down from ancient times. Now the hope of actually eating the fruit of an extinct variety exists.The story goes back 2000 […]
Many Egyptians have stopped buying meat after thousands of livestock have died from foot and mouth disease in the last three weeks. Even though it is extremely rare for humans to contract foot and mouth disease, many panicky Egyptians have stopped purchasing meat since the virus began to spread through the country, leaving thousands of […]
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) issued a special alert on the food security situation in Syria this past week, voicing serious concern over the state of food security, especially for vulnerable groups, because of continued civil unrest since March 2011. According to the Syrian Central Bureau of Statistics, inflation increased between June […]
Flavorful basil for cooking now grows on trees, says Hishshtil, Israeli garden and agricultural nursery. I’m used to growing a handful of basil sprouts in a window box, never enough for two batches of pesto (see our delicious pesto recipe here). It seems like a dream to stroll over to a tree and pluck off […]
You can make variations of sauerkraut and all sorts of winter sauces, using natural fermentation
When mothers want to give their little ones the best (and most environmentally friendly) nutrition there is – breast milk – but can’t, they can turn to the breast milk bank. The health benefits of breastfeeding have been praised by health care professionals for years, and breastfeeding is obviously a healthier choice than formula. What […]