culinary correspondents

On the sweetness of memory and the bitterness of loss 

During last year’s visit home, I spent no few hours around the house going through cupboards and suchlike. When cleaning the pantry out, I came across Ima’s fruit preserves and marmalade from 2003, 2004, 2006. I remember the stuff grossing me out back then, but it was now 2011 and I couldn’t bring myself to throw it out. Going through the pantry, there were other things - things that only she would have bought - that I couldn’t quite throw out either.

When loss has pulled on all your heartstrings, pulled them taut to the point of snapping, you feel as though there is no chance of finding another string to pull on or another memory to gather. But then you see something, smell something, taste something  - at times in the most unpredicted or absurd circumstances - and it elicits a pull of something new, unexplored, a moment or taste of once-upon-a-time that you cant help but hold on to so tightly: to protect, to maintain unchanged, to maintain intact, to keep for future use, to keep from spoiling, to keep for private use.

The sweetness of memory tempers the bitterness of loss, the bitterness of this day in this bitter month (11 Mar Cheshvan) four years ago.

May her memory be blessed, may these memories be blessed. 

Culinary postcard - from the Levant

Excited to share a gift sent to me from the mountains of Lebanon. This image is an exclusive shot from the collection of acertainblindess - a window into life in North Africa and the Middle East, as seen through the lens of one very talented (and intrepid!) traveller. Images which can be felt and read, pulsing with life and story. Visit his blog and lose yourself there! As a taste, here is the image “hundreds and thousands” and the story behind it:

…

two nights ago i stayed in an unmarried woman’s house - which happens to be a, oh, five hundred year old (or so) ottoman palace that was built on her ancester’s land - which the ottoman’s then sold back to the family when they left lebanon (or, the lebanese region of the sham.) the palace has some serious historical cred - it was occupied numerous times during the lebanese civil war by opposing forces then finally occupied by the syrian army who stripped the house down to basically it’s stone walls and nothing else. after a 22 year exile, the family returns and lives in a massively grandiose stone palace that has nothing inside it (no doors, no light fittings) - and basically, with the passage of time one of the daughters of the family lives inside the palace and cares for the family farms and cooks for her divorced brother who lives next door.

one of the rooms has been converted into lodgings for peeps like me who are walking aimlessly around lebanon - and boooya - its by far the most awesome room i have stayed in for a long time. tastefully decorated in a very very minimalist style, with enough privacy for me to speak to the woman while having my shower and she was cooking upstairs. it was freaking delightful, and if i wasn’t pressing so hard on the track i would have stayed at least another two days.

i diverge seriously…. she welcomed me into the house with her hands covered in what first appeared to be blood. and after my initial shock wore off - it turns out she makes fig jam from the family farm (they have six fig trees) along with a whole bunch of other produce. after lunching with her brother and cousin, we got stuck into this jam in serious, spoonful quantities - just spooned straight from the jar onto fresh lebanese bread (you know, the very large and very thin pita type bread) amazing.

but more to the point - i freaking wish you were there to photograph the jam making process - the whole palace - three stories of stone awesomeness with something like ten empty rooms - and the fig jam process everywhere. buckets of figs, jars of figs… i’m not down enough with the process to know what it all was. but i wanted to eaaaaaaat all those squashed figs (but decided, for my own safety, not to)
…