Tag Archives: Baghdad

Why People Cook in Time of War

Books, Destinations, Food, Iraq, Lebanon, Memoir, Travel, , , , , , , ,
Lebanese Kibbeh Nayeh
Lebanese Kibbeh Nayeh, raw ground meat

Day of Honey
Destinations: Baghdad and Beirut

Book: Day of Honey:A Memoir of Food, Love and War (Org. Feb. 2011, New in paperback 2012) by Annia Ciezadlo

“Day of honey, Day of onions.” Arab proverb.

 

Other books dissect the causes and results of war in the Middle East. Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love, and War focuses on something more basic–the everyday life of people caught in a war zone and the way that food becomes a survival tool in more ways than simply nutrition.

Most civilians experience war not as the fighters and victims that parade across television screens, but as tired housewives peeling potatoes and wondering, all the while, at the stupidity of it.  Being trapped in the house with Umm Hassane [in Beirut with her Lebanese mother-in-law] forced me to experience the awful, humiliating tedium of war without the anesthetic of danger or the narcotic self-importance of risk–to go through it not as a witness, not as a journalist, but as a human being.

  Continue reading Why People Cook in Time of War →

Baghdad in War Time

Books, Destinations, Iraq, , , , , , ,

 

Destination: Baghdad, Iraq
Book: Barefoot in Baghdad: A Story of Identity – My Own and What It Means to Be a Woman in Chaos (NEW August 2010) by Manal M. Omar

A GUEST POST by Wynne Brown

(You may remember Wynne Brown’s review of Riding by Faith from Mexico to Canada Across America. Now she introduces another new book by another woman motivated by faith–but a different faith and a very different setting.)

Barefoot in Baghdad isn’t your typical travel book — unless war zones happen to be your itinerary of choice. Continue reading Baghdad in War Time →