Tag Archives: Middle East

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 →

Ground Breaking Jordanian Film

Destinations, Jordan, Middle East, , , , , , ,

A Movie for Troubled Times in the Arab World

Destination: Jordan

Movie: Captain Abu Raed (2009) written and directed by Amin Matalqa

A Guest Post by Jane Boursaw

You know a movie is good when you’re still thinking about it years later. Such is the case with Captain Abu Raed, a touching, uplifting film I saw at the Traverse City Film Festival in 2008. Continue reading Ground Breaking Jordanian Film →

An American in Syria

Books, Destinations, Memoir, News, Syria, , , , , , ,

Books for Troubled Times in the Arab World

UPDATE June 8,2011: This interesting news article compares three versions of what is happening in northern Syria, as refugees pour over the border into Turkey. And in June, 2013, the news is eve worse. Here’s a New York TImes report from the Christian Quarter of Damascus.

Damascus Christian Quarter
Damascus Christian Quarter. Photo by Sebstian and Tyson

Destination: Damascus Syria Book: The Bread of Angels, A Journey of Love and Faith (2010) by Stephanie Saldaña For adventurous travelers who are curious about the country of Syria, Stephanie Saldaña’s book, The Bread of Angels, introduces the Syria of today (well actually 2004 and 2005).  Earlier, we read a magnificent depiction of a slightly earlier Damascus in The Calligrapher’s Secret, but this book brings us closer to the present. Continue reading An American in Syria →