Part III in a series of 4 about cooking and healing with roses. More on eating and edible roses can be found here and here (cooking with fresh roses). Dried roses preserve the sweet, seductive perfume of the fresh flower, and there are many ways to use them. Pick up a package at a Middle […]
They’re healthy. They’re sweet. They’re pretty. They’re dense and filling, so one bite will satisfy you but never make you feel guilty about eating it. And you shouldn’t hold back from making them, either, since they’re done in a matter of minutes. Alright, enough with the fanfare (cause I’m their #1 fan): what are they? […]
You might have been introduced to the seemingly odd combination of watermelon and feta cheese through my Green Prophet recipe article here. Now, there’s a new food pairing in town: avocado and grapefruit as a salad. The bright citrus of the grapefruit perfectly complements the warm creaminess of the avocado. This colorful salad works well with seafood, and […]
Arabs eat hummous with religious fervour. And it’s true: mamma usually does best. As this Arab American in this video points out, if it comes in a plastic container, it is not hummous. Not the kind you want to eat any way. [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLGUFaizAHs[/youtube] For a great laugh watch the video above. And for a great hummous […]
We loved the feedback from the latest gadget for coffee lovers: a hybrid alarm clock that tells you to rise and shine by brewing a fresh cup of joe on your bedside table. I’d like to present you with a spin on that old cup of joe, in the form of a nutrient-rich, energy-boosting coffee smoothie. […]
In the Galilee’s Arab, Jewish, and Druze communities, life has a rural rhythm, slower than in big towns. You can tell that people like to stop and sniff the roses, as each garden displays roses and other lovingly tended fragrant bushes. And the old foodways are still alive in the Galilee, preserved by middle-aged housewives. […]
It looks like aliens took over the broccoli patch, doesn’t it? Romanesco broccoli is a unique vegetable that looks like a cauliflower gone crazy but has an intense broccoli flavor. It was first grown in Italy and is now available in more European countries, the US, and in Israel.
For Israelis, butter has mysteriously disappeared from being an open market product. We gather it’s a mix of climate change and the fact that a Chinese multinational bought out its national dairy. But leave it to use to keep the western east prosperous and happy. Hey, don’t mess with our butter. But if you have […]
The Jewish holiday of Purim 2018 begins this coming Wednesday night, the 28th of February, and continues through Thursday the 29th. In Jerusalem and other ancient walled cities, the holiday is called Shushan Purim and occurs on Thursday night, the 1st of March, through Friday.
It’s still chilly in the Middle East – still the season for comfort food. Try driving the cold away with msemmen, a flexible, square-shaped skillet cake (the best of Middle East and North African pancakes!), easily pulled apart into layers so you can stuff it. Msemmen is similar to the Emirati Khameer bread (recipe here), […]
A year has passed since I penned a sampler of how Valentine’s Day goes down in the Middle East. Tempus fugit, baby, that treacly holiday is back in Jordan with a vengeance and I’m seeing red.
Why would anyone want to eat plants that sting? And iron rich raw nettles do sting. But nettles – best foraged in fall or spring depending on where you live. They are a tasty, nutrient-dense food. People have been eating them since antiquity, and probably since pre-history. Their easily-metabolized iron rich content is so high […]
I’ve been cooking nonstop out of Nawal Nasrallah’s majestic cookbook, Delights From The Garden of Eden. And my family loves it, because every recipe yields a delicious dish. Like this one.
It happened. I am officially addicted to making ice-cream in my Vitamix machine. It arrived about six weeks ago by courier. At first I didn’t think that it would become such a staple in my life. It’s a high-powered blender, after all.
When I think of a meal based on a light protein – something quick to make and yet satisfying – I think of fish. Have you ever considered fish luxuriously drizzled with tahini?