Support Local Farmers

The message is simple, eat food that is grown locally. Meet the person who grows your fruit and vegetables. Create a direct link between the one who is in touch with the earth to feed your mouth. Got it? I love this drawing.

Hospitality News Cover Dec 2012

I love this photo and I am really proud to be amongst these great folks. May God always give me the strength to continue to seek out the best of our culinary heritage. May all these chefs continue their paths in a dignified and honorific manner to make us proud to be Lebanese. My message to them, don't try to imitate the rest of the world, but on the contrary impose your traditions and food culture to the rest of  world. We have so much to be proud of... Merry Christmas to all...

Sara Dickerman's on Mouneh

Sara Dickerman @saradickerman

my@WeekdayKUOW cookbook rec: Mouneh by @BarbaraMassaad. gorgeous food traditions from Lebanon, but useful for NW produce too!

Sara Dickerman is a former restaurant cook and an award-winning food writer based in Seattle. Her work can be found in publications like Slate, Saveur, The New York Times, and this site.

Start at minute 48:00 to listen to Sara Dickerman speak of Mamnoon restaurant in Seattle where I worked as a food consultant this summer and my book Mouneh.

Yeah!

Beirut Manifesto

For those who wrote this (Scene) , I want to say "Thank you!"

Earth Market Opening

Some of the Earth Market producers

Yesterday was the first day of the opening of the market. I arrived in a hurry early morning with all the traffic heading to Beirut listening to "Ya Zamen", Mike Massy. The parking was full of producers all ready for the day. I was really touched and tearful to see them all there smiling. They are like family to me. I have gone through many adventures with each one of them while doing my book Mouneh. The market needs work and we are going to focus on making it better every week. I bought a few items at the market: sage, basil (two types), watercress (rashad) to eat with my goat labneh, organic mix salad, honey (orange blossom), lentil mix for making soup and maklouta ... I wanted to share also my discovery of Oum Ali's Lebanese-style nutella , what a woman! What she did is mix carob molasses (very typical of our mouneh) with cocoa. Amazing! I made sandwiches for my children with this spread for school this morning. I bought a bouquet of wild flowers to decorate my house and heart... Very much in need of beautiful and simple pleasures! Also, found a tiny pumpkin for soup tomorrow. Did I mention the gingerbread men cookies? They always remind me of my childhood in the US. I felt so happy coming back home with all these goods, that's special. Next week, and the every week I will be at the market. Should you need advice or just want to chat - we are setting up a table for Slow Food memberships to start programing our events for 2013. Hope to see you there!

Thank God for Flowers

A special thought goes to Roy Harb, whom unfortunately could not join the market because of a health emergency. Thankfully, he is recovering in the hospital. We put out his mother's products despite all. The market would simply not be the same. Suddenly, a strong wind blew and we knew that you were with us. We are praying for you!

A Sign of Good Luck Roy

Opening of the 2nd Slow Food Earth Market

It's tomorrow already! I'm so excited. It just feels right. I want Slow Food to be an important part of our Lebanese way of life! This week around the world people celebrated Terra Madre Day. We, in Beirut, are also celebrating with this new food / producer venture. Slow Food Beirut, with a team of dedicated members, (including the dekkenet team at Falamanki without whom this could have never been possible) will work on getting people from all regions of Lebanon to join this street market. I will personally work with them on an individual basis to work on creating different food stations based on local goods. This is what I want out of all this, I want us to continue learning about our food culture and make all these people part of our lives— all our lives. Hope to see you there! It will become a weekly outing for me, a destination to meet others who feel the same way we do about food and heritage.

Food Photography

I learned to photograph food by practice, only! It started with my journey while researching for the Man'oushe book about 10 years ago . At first, it was not an easy task. As they say, "practice makes perfect". I became obsessed with photography and because I loved food, the two just came together. I hate to photograph food with artificial lighting because it makes the food look too polished. Food photography entails colors, textures, lighting, and authenticity - yes, authentic feel of food. That's what I look for when I take those photos, not glossy images of fake food that look so perfect that you don't want to eat them. I was hired lately by Chef Joe Barza, Lebanese food activist, to take some photos for his website. The joy of the photo shoot was to eat all these delightful plates after our work. I can vouch that they were quite delicious! If you are interested to learn food photography, just start by snapping away and analyzing each shot. Now with digital technology, it's very simple.