Avocado and Persimmon: November’s Seasonal Produce
November in the Middle East offers a colorful spread of fruit and veg, including some heritage varieties.
Slow Food
A 3-day healing retreat on urban farming, fermentation for $15
A group of young Jewish ecologists and spiritual teachers are creating a 3-day virtual workshop, starting Sunday. You will get 20 workshops for $15.
Most Americans aren’t connecting climate to their kitchen
Yes, we know. This is a site where we delve into issues facing the western east. The region that the world knows as the Middle East but which we are rebranding as something less archaic, more in tune with what the near East is about. Like the rest of the world, we look to America […]
The Slow Food Movement defines Slow Meat
Meat the Change - What is slow meat? Wild pastured? Whole animal meat. Organic. Raised with spirit? Bought at ethical prices? Slaughtered ethically? All of the above. The Slow Food Movement develops its standards, and a quiz.
Baharat blend – make your own mouth-watering Arabian spice mix
I live in the Middle East. Whenever my mom comes to visit she freaks out over the new flavors. Middle East cuisine has its own distinct curries and flavors for vegetables, fish and meat. There aren’t thousands of varieties, but like Indian cuisine the flavor of a good spice blend depends on its source, blend […]
Chefs’ dream garden grows in the middle of Manhattan at Farm.One
Local, real food (#realfood) is more than a rage. It’s the new everything in food. After decades of eating shipped-in waxy veggies, greens and fruits, consumers and chefs are demanding a new kind of food. Vegetables and fruits that are local, and full of flavor. We want food with high oil and vitamin content that […]
Brooklyn’s Gotham Greens builds world’s largest urban rooftop farm
Growing green roofs is now mandatory for new buildings being built in Canada and France. Middle Eastern countries facing dire food and water insecurity know that farming close to home can cut down greenhouse emissions and if farmed hydroponically can drastically cut the water bill –– in some cases by 90%! Puttings its money where […]
The Cropking family makes it hydroponics back to school time
Parents are happy to be sending their kids back to school soon. But Green Prophets everywhere know it’s open season to keep learning no matter your age. Urban farming is all the rage. Forget about buying at the Farmer’s Market. What about starting a hydroponics hobby garden or business in your backyard? Consider that NASA engineers […]
Meet the man who cooks with the sun
Here’s a story about ingenuity and creativity. About a man who uses a solar cooker to prepare meals. If you wish, you can see it as a testament to how the human spirit prevails even under the toughest conditions. If you’re willing, you can see it as an opportunity, a mutual interest, or a proposition […]
Grow fresh food in the middle of Manhattan? Meet Henry
It’s a natural thing for every human being to want: the ability to grow fresh, healthy food anywhere we call home, even if that’s in the concrete jungle of New York City. We may spend our days and nights plunking away at keyboards or talking into little plastic boxes but who doesn’t yearn to eat […]
Making a little Disco Soup for brunch with leftover food in Lebanon!
On the occasion of World Food Day, Beirut will play host to the funkiest food salvage event in history: Disco Soup! While it’s not the first Disco Soup to hit the Middle East (Tel Aviv had its version Disco Shuk last April where droves came out for free food), this event in Lebanon only goes […]
Swimming UpStream with Steven Looi’s water farm
A two-minute cruise by bike down the street from my parent’s house and I discover a very special social experiment.
Saudi man’s charity fridge reduces food waste and helps the poor
A charitable man who wishes to remain anonymous recently installed a refrigerator outside of his home in Hail, Saudi Arabia. His neighbors can leave their excess food inside the refrigerator where it is kept fresh and clean. Needy people can then anonymously use this excess food without the shame of begging.
Foraged wild greens and fatayer turnovers recipe
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.
Open Restaurants is the new Open Houses of Tel Aviv
In a world premiere last week, Israel launches open kitchen workshops, giving insiders and everyday folk a fly-on-the-wall experience in some of Tel Aviv’s best restaurants.
Erotic eggplant makes baba ghanoush more exciting [photos]
I am a fan of baba ghanoush, and I am a fan of food that looks erotic. In today’s way of conventional farming we’ve grown accustomed to getting that perfectly symmetrical eggplant or tomato.
Aquaponics is farming with a fishing rod in Israel
Chinese proverb: Give a man a fish, and you feed him for the day. Give him a fishing rod and feed him for life. New Israeli proverb: Give a man a fishing rod and a hydroponics farm, and you give him food and sustainable income for life. The new Israeli proverb could be summed up […]
Delights From The Garden of Eden by Nawal Nasrallah – Our Book Review
Want to get close to Iraqi food traditions and culture? This cook book is for you. Lyrical memoirs of Nawal Nasrallah’s childhood in Iraq, and the place that food had in that culture, drift through the pages, pausing for sidebars that offer tidbits like four paragraphs on ancient wives in ancient kitchens. Or samples from a […]
Arab Restaurant Offers 50% Discount When Cell Phone Is Off
An Arab-owned restaurant in Abu Ghosh, Israel has come up with a brilliant new Slow Food marketing campaign that may get people eating better: restaurant owner Jawdat Ibrahim has promised a whopping 50 percent off your bill if you turn your cell phone off when dining.
The Right Way to Eat an Apple (video)
Well, your mom has been teaching you wrong. The right way to eat an apple is not from its sides. There is another more complete way of eating an apple, a trick you need to teach the kids.
Cooking Locusts – A Recipe From Moshe Basson’s Kitchen
When you are given a locust plague, Moshe Basson from Jerusalem gives you a feast.
Eat Like A Sustainable Israeli: Tajine of Sweet Potatoes and Prunes RECIPE
A vegetarian slow-cooked casserole with a fine Middle Eastern blend of flavors. Sustainable cooking means healthy food from local sources and fair worker’s wages. Sustainable agriculture not only maintains, but also enriches the natural resources that our food supply depends on. Join Green Prophet as we tour the Middle East region offering the quintessential sustainable dishes […]
Grow 7 Healing Herbs At Home
You can grow a living medicine chest in your garden with little effort. The old song says, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. Let’s add echinacea, garlic and basil. Most are culinary herbs with poetic histories. All are green medicines that you can harvest at will. The herbs don’t take up much space, if not much […]
Download Moroccan Recipes Based on Argan Oil
33 exotic Moroccan recipes from the women who make and cook with argan oil. The argan tree is a Berber identity icon, and production of its oil is traditionally a woman’s job. But as with many folkways, interest in argan began to dwindle. It’s a finicky process with low yield. Unless marketed wisely, it’s hardly […]
The World’s Oldest Living Olive Trees Are Lebanese
Sisters or the the Olive trees of Noah, are the 16 oldest olive trees in the world found in the community of Bechealeh, Lebanon. Some 6,000 years old, folklorists say these have Biblical origins.