A Jew Cooks Palestinian: Sage Tea
I first learned to make sage tea from a Jew who called himself Palestinian. Mr. Yadeni was born in pre-state Palestine in the early 1900s. By the time I met him, he was old. He had made some money creating Israel’s first lock company in 1947, the still-going Yardeni Locks, and he lived on plot […]
A Jew Cooks Palestinian, Potato Edition
For dinner last Sabbath, I cooked mostly Palestinian. I made potatoes roasted with lemon, dill and scallions, green beans stewed with olive oil, tomato and onions, and meatballs in a tamarind tomato sauce, all from cookbooks by Joudie Kalla. (I also served a smoke-roasted chicken with lemon, fresh bay leaves and garlic, arugula salad, and […]
A Jew Cooks Palestinian, Egg Edition
I started cooking from Joudie Kalla’s Baladi cookbook by making a more complicated dish—meat stuffed grape leaves with tomatoes and potatoes—then I moved on to a simpler cabbage salad. This dish is even easier than that—eggs with yogurt, chili, olive oil and lemon. Joudie writes that it is her father’s favorite breakfast, and I can […]
A Jew Cooks Palestinian, Cabbage Salad Edition
Cooking my way through Joudie Kalla’s Baladi cookbook, I found myself hooked on the least likeliest of recipes: cabbage salad. The Arabic name is also the description: Salatet malfouf bil toum wa na’na’ , or Cabbage Salad with Cumin and Mint. There’s not much more too it, just olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. […]
An American Jew (Me) Cooks Palestinian Food
I’m cooking my way through Joudie Kalla’s Baladi cookbook. The latest recipe: meat-stuffed vine leaves with tomatoes and potatoes, or “Auntie Dunia’s kufta bil warak ma’batata.” The fragrance—cumin, onion, tomato, grape leaves, parsley—immediately transported me to the land from which it comes—what Palestinians call Palestine and Israelis call Israel. How is it possible, you wonder, […]