Booklist's Man'oushe Book Review

A review that just came in from the American Library Association’s Booklist magazine for the book Man'oushe:

“Despite the dislocation caused by its civil war and the continuing conflict with its neighbor to the south, Israel, Lebanon has managed to nurture its justly admired culinary traditions. Among these institutions are the city’s bakeries, each unique to its neighborhood and serving deliciously fragrant breads and pastries. Massaad’s book celebrates these bakeries and teaches how to replicate their products in a contemporary American kitchen. Specifically, man’oushé refers to breakfast bread, a disc of flat bread perfumed with sesame and wild thyme. Working from just several basic yeast doughs, Massaad shows how to form and bake a host of Lebanese breads and meat pies. A reasonably adept home baker will find Massaad’s recipes easy to follow, and thanks to the Internet, assembling ingredients is not a burdensome challenge. The book’s full-color photographs bring into focus not just the foods but also the lively characters who constitute a remarkably diverse nation. Especially useful for libraries with significant Middle Eastern immigrant populations.”

—Booklist

Man'oushe in the USA at Barnes & Nobles

Soup for Syria in Revolt Magazine

Read the interview I had with Revolt magazine concerning my new book project Soup for Syria. 

© Barbara Massaad - Syrian Mother and child in a refugee camp in Lebanon.

Mezze : Shortlisted in the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards

Mezze : A Labor of Love has been nominated on the short-list of the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. It is competing with these books. Awards will be decided in May. May the best win!

C05 – MEDITERRANEAN – DUN GIFFORD AWARD

- Albania – Kuzhne Mesdhetare, Katerina Gremo, Mirela Vasili (Mali Peshti)
- Australia - Colour of Maroc, Rob and Sophia Palmer (Murdoch Books)
- Canada – Three Sisters back to the Beginning, Bakopoulos (Adelfos)
- France – Passedat (Flammarion)
- Israel – A Week in Lesbos, Adi Strauss, Jonathan Roshfeld, Ron Kedmi
(Adi’s Lifestyle)
- Lebanon – Mezze, Barbara Abdeni Massaad (Massaad)
- Spain – Oleum – La Cultura del Aceite de Oliva, Carlos Falco,
Marqués de Griñon (Grijalbo)

Cookbook effort aims to feed Syrian refugees

Cookbook effort aims to feed Syrian refugees 
This is the link to the article that was printed yesterday in Lebanon's Daily Star.

January 29, 2014 12:35 AM
By Brooke Anderson

The Daily Star BEIRUT: Last month, as people across the Lebanon huddled under their covers trying to keep warm during a brutal winter storm, Barbara Abdeni Massaad was at home in Beirut thinking of those who must be suffering even more from the cold – Syrian refugees in makeshift tents in the Bekaa Valley. She had to act. “It was very cold that week. I thought: What about the people in the Syrian camps? I couldn’t sleep. I had to do something. Everyone has to do something,” she says, sitting at her booth at the farmers market in Hamra where she runs the Slow Food Foundation, which aims to promote wholesome and traditional food. This is where she sells her cookbooks every Tuesday morning and where she also collects clothing donations which she distributes to Syrian refugees. It is also where at the end of the year she will be selling a new self-published book of soup recipes whose proceeds will go to Syrian refugees, whose plight she says is the worst she has seen in her 25 years of living in Lebanon after having moved here from the U.S. “If I were a barber, I would go and cut their hair for free. But I write cookbooks, so I did a book. I decided to do soup,” says Massaad, who has been a serious cook since the age of 15. “The most  important thing is empathy. We can’t be indifferent.” On her book’s Facebook page, Soup for Syria, she quotes Matt Flannery, founder of the micro-finance group Kiva: “Whatever your skill, whatever your expertise, there’s a way to apply that to help people you care about.” She also quotes he 13th-century Sufi mystic Rumi as saying, “If you have much, give of your wealth. If you have little, give of your heart.” With this book, which she believes could generate thousands of dollars, her goal is to raise money to build a temporary pop-up kitchen in the Bekaa town of Zahleh, where Syrian refugees can have wholesome hot soups such as lentil and vegetable – the same recipes likely to make it into the book. Other proceeds would go directly to refugees to pay for their needs. And while the book will be in English, she might have it translated to Arabic to distribute among interested Syrians depending on the project’s success. “My dream is to give them a kitchen where they can have healthy meals,” she says. “There’s a war and people shouldn’t go without food.” So far, the response to her endeavor has been enthusiastic, with people eager to give their time and skills in the printing and recipe contributions. She has already started getting contributions from Lebanese farmers who sell their goods at the market. She is expecting more submissions from local chefs, restaurateurs and foodies. The soups will all be regional dishes that can be made with local ingredients so that Syrians themselves can make them. “The book won’t be too sophisticated. I want the Syrians to be able to make the soups,” she says. Massaad also wants the project to be a message to everyone that they can use their time and skills to help Syrian refugees. “I want the world to see what’s happening here and I want to show rich countries that this is not permissible in 2014,” she says.

Being a War Refugee - Last Night's Dream

Dreams speak to us sometimes if you are willing to listen...
I woke up this morning very confused.
Confused because I was still in my bed, in my home, in my country...
We take those things for granted, at least most of us do.
I had a dream that I had to flee Lebanon, chaos... war... very loud noises.
My age:15 years old at least, still a teenager ... today my daughter's age.
I did not have responsibilities, no family, no husband, no children.
My parents were vaguely present in the dream.
I remember we had to flee to a neighboring country: Syria.
We were not welcomed. We were treated like dirt, like cattle in a crowded field of animals.
Our car, which is the one I own now, a 4-wheel was packed with comforters and clothing.
We passed the borders with resilience.
I arrived wearing a summer dress. The village looked crowded.
A woman came to me and said, "hurry the supermarket shelves are emptying by the minute, don't forget to buy peanut butter."
Strange!
I felt so insecure for I felt unwanted, lost and confused.
What future did I have here or anywhere else?
I was a refugee in a foreign land.
Unwanted.
Sad.
Miserable.
Was this dream God's way of giving me empathy, quietly in the middle of the night?
I am not a refugee.
Yet, I can relate to those who are living as one today in my country.
May God give me and others the strength to make a difference in their lives: men,  women and children alike.

It was a horrible feeling to be in this situation.
I felt it.
I have empathy.
I can walk in their shoes.
Can you?

Passion for Adventure

A book worth reading sometimes in your life:

“Make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservation, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty.” ― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

A picture take by my loving husband...in a field of wheat in Belgium

In Search of Soup Recipes ...

Because the book, Soup for Syria will include soup recipes... I invite you to share yours. My friend Tina and collaborators of Slow Food Beirut and I are going to test all recipes and feed the needy in Hamra during the Slow Food Earth Market on Tuesday. Eventually, we will take the giant casserole to the camps to give warm bowls to the children to show we care ...

The producers of the Earth Market have already shared their recipes. We will start testing them next week. If we all do a small effort, we can conquer hatred!

"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth"