Rachel Ray's Intifada

So great that the Palestinians have an ally in Rachel Ray. What a courageous and bold statement to make, wearing a Kuffiyeh while she's peddling Dunkin Donuts .

Maybe Rachel could do a benefit cooking show, for the children of Gaza and cook with fair trade Palestinian EVOO. Dunkin Donuts should sell Awamat and donate the proceeds. The possibilities are endless...I have a renewed hope for a just solution to the conflict.


Right. Dunkin Donuts got complaints and pulled the ad immediately, claiming that it was paisley pattered and not a Kaffieyh....hipsters everywhere are protesting, claiming that the anti-war scarf is pertinent in the struggle to look edgy yet accessible.

How to eat for a week....

On two boxes of grape tomatoes, and a hunk of cheap mozzarella

You may have noticed that I haven't yet posted my supposedly fabulous recipe for vegetarian kibbeh. Yeah, it needs a little work. The end result was a delicate touch of parsley and mushroom sauté [actually leftover filling from stuffed mushrooms] sandwiched between two think layers of a gummy, grey mass. My lousy rendition of kibbeh used barley couscous mashed with a potato and half a jar of cumin and coriander each, to make it taste like something. Whole-grain barley couscous was not a hit at my dad's store, and as such, I have about 15 boxes on my shelf. As much as I wanted couscous and bulgar to be the same thing, they clearly are not.

My kibbeh was...heavy. I ate it, of course, but it wasn't very good.

And then there was "fun with indoor grilling" adventure I had last week. Thinking that I could fashion my own inexpensive grill pan by placing the teensy rack from our toaster oven directly on our gas stove gives me points for ingenuity, but I was not winning any cooking contests. I brushed corn on the cob and red peppers with a spicy yogurt based marinade and chard them until they were black. And they tasted, well, burnt. And chewy. And boring. My roomates were also not thrilled that I f-ed up the toaster oven rack, and it took a full week until the kitchen was restored to full usability.

It was time, I decided, to do something simple. There are whole books written about how to cook with three ingredients and a drizzle of olive oil. As fun as it is to invent new combinations of flavors and textures, its important to honor the old standbys, the tried and trues. And so, here is one weeks worth of tomato basil ideas, all of which were fabulous and satisfying.

For all of these, I used quality Lebanese olive oil and generous sprinklings of course sea salt. Good olive oil is key. If you wouldn't take a shot of it straight, its probably not worth your time.

Monday: Tomato Basil Mozzarella Salad
Ann took the reigns on this one, diced the tomatoes and mozzarella, and chopped the heck outta some basil. It was almost as fine as being run through the food processor. My original vision was a chunkier salad, but this turned out to be really great, almost like a salsa that you can eat on its own, or spooned on a cracker.

Tuesday: Tomato Basil Sandwich
Just like it sounds, with a smear of mayo and some salt and pepper.

Wednesday: Tomato Basil Omelet
What a little light cream can do. I wisked 3 eggs with about 2 tbsp light cream and my eggs were rich and fluffy. I considered sauteeing the filling before I put it in the omelet, but I decided on putting them in fresh instead. It was a good choice-the tomatoes were tender in the omelet, but still had some shape and the basil was fragrant and pungent.

Thursday: Bruschetta
On rosemary bread,and diced tomatoes again, but I just tore the basil and sliced the mozzarella because I was short on time. The key with this was to drizzle the bread with olive oil before and after adding the tomatoes and basil and sticking it under the broiler until the cheese melted and the bread got crispy. Oh my, was it a treat.

Friday: Tomato Basil Pasta

Olive oil. Salt. Spaghetti. Thats it!

Saturday: Tomato Basil Couscous
I used fresh tomatoes, but it would be particularly tasty with sundried tomatoes.

Sunday: Stuffed Tomatoes
The last of my basil will get mixed with breadcrumbs and cilantro and set stuffed into the hollowed out shell of a tomato. Recipe to follow [provided that all goes well].

Kibbeh

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Its so weird how shit happens.

Just last week, I swear, I was overcome by a somewhat inexplicable surge of anxiety about my Lebanese-ness. There was a time in my life [like, last year], where obsessing about my Arab identity was how I spent most of my mental energy, but these days, I would like to think I'm a little more grounded. But, out of nowhere, I am suddenly wishing I had been more proactive about making plans to visit over the summer, regretting dropping out of Arabic class, missing my aunties and cousins, and wondering why it had been so long since I ate foul beans for breakfast.

And then I wake up yesterday morning and gunmen are roaming Beirut. And fighting on the Cornish Mazraa, the street where noor and mahar sleep at night, where 3 generations of my family have lived and watched war through their windows. What the hell is going on?

Its 2006 all over again, and I'm having the same existential crisis that I did then. Halfway across the world, people I love are stuck in their homes and afraid to leave. And I am here, playing pool and drinking beer with my friends, half glad that the tv is playing Rocky 3 and not the news, but unable to dissolve the pit of worry and in my stomach.

And my inexplicable surge of Lebanese-ness suddenly makes more sense.

I'm normally not so esoteric, but I totally believe that families find a way to communicate. If we don't have the luxury of words, some other way will have to do. What else can I do in these situations but send positive and optimistic thoughts their way?

First things first, I'm gonna make a batch of kibbeh.

I haven't made it yet, so I will post the vegetarian recipe once I've cooked it. In the meantime, here is an adorable recipe for kibbeh from my adorable arabic cookbook [the one my mom bought in Oman when she was in the Peace Corp in the 70's].

Also, check out The Kibbeh Equation over at Desert Candy...its a very good post about what makes Kibbeh kibbeh.

Kibbeh

2 1/2 cups cubed tender lamb

2 cups burghul (crushed wheat)

2 medium sized onions

2 tsp. salt (or to taste)

1/2 tsp. pepper

Ice water

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Kibbeh is virtually the national dish of Lebanon and to call it a meat loaf does not quite raise it to the heights it deserves. Its traditional preparation is dramatic. It requires a stone mortar and a heavy pestle called the jorn and modaqqa. The meat is pounded with rhythmic motions until it is smooth and pasty. All the neighborhood knows the sound of kibbeh in the making.

Select lamb from loin of the animal. Pound the cubed meat with a teaspoon of salt in a stone mortar with a wooden mallet. Remove meat from mortar when it becomes pasty. Now pound onion with a teaspoon of salt and the pepper until it is reduced to a pulp. Combine meat and onion and pound together until very smooth. Wash burghul well in running water but do this quickly so that it does not soften. Press to remove water. Knead burghul and meat with the hands. Pound together in mortar. Add salt to taste. Dip mallet in ice water occasionally to keep meat moist and smooth. Properly prepared kibbeh must be pounded at least an hour. Then it is ready to be eaten as it is, or cooked in a variety of ways.

Preparation time may be shortened considerably by grinding meat several times through fine blade of meat grinder. Grind onion twice. Grind onions with meat once. Combine washed burghul with meat-onion mixture. Knead well, seasoning with salt and pepper. Grind this mixture three times adding a tablespoon of ice water to keep it smooth.

(From Food from the Arab World Marie Karam Khayat and Margaret Clark Keatinge, Khayat's, Beirut 1959)