How to begin describing the fabulous Lebanese - and Yemen - food I've stuffed myself with since arriving. Not being committed to working during the day like Charlie, I can spend all day with Huda and the girls shopping, sightseeing and, of course, eating! It was my great fortune to grow up with a Lebanese mother who loved to cook the same Lebanese dishes for me that she grew up eating. So I was eating hommus, tabbouleh, kibbi, stuffed grape leaves, pita (we call it Syrian bread), baklava and all of the wonderful Middle Eastern dishes long before they became popular and available in the US. Having that as my "baseline" so to speak, my quest here is to see if anyone can top my Mom's cooking.
When you eat Lebanese style, you usually have Mezze, which means lots of small dishes of food (sort of like tapas). I'll describe last night's dinner, but first the day. Huda, James, Charlie and I had a great day, which started with a traditional Yemen breakfast of Foul - a dish of foul beans, tomatoes, onion, garlic and Yemeni spices, slightly mashed and served hot, with scambled eggs, pita bread and always a huge plate of fresh veggies, followed by fresh fruit.
After that gut busting beginning, we visited Jeita Grotto, one of the new seven wonders of the world - it is a mammoth cave filled with the most amazing stalagtites, stalagmites, columns, underground river, pools, and exotic formations, some that sparkle, some look like marble, others alabaster. It is beautifully lit to showcase the beauty of nature and a concrete path/bridge takes you far into the cave. Sadly, no photos are allowed and Charlie saw one man get kicked out because he tried to take a photo. You reach the mouth of the upper cave by cable car. After your walking tour there, you take a short train ride to the lower cave and take a very short boat ride in the underground river. We expected our boat driver to provide a little info, but he just held on to the tiller in silence. Luckily Huda and James have been about a zillion times and were great tour guides!
After we left the grotto, we stopped at a fresh produce stand where Huda felt it was her duty to empty the stall and transfer everything into the back of the SUV. I took photos! I must tell you the fruit and veggies are the best I have ever had - crisp, flavorful, perfectly rippened - say, did you know tomatoes have flavor???? Fresh figs, cherries, melons, apricots, peaches.....sigh.
I learned how to open and eat a fresh almond. From the tree they are green and the size of an apricot. You bite the outside, which is a little fuzzy and slightly soft, to crack it, then open it with your hands, remove the outer skin, inner skin and voila! you have a sweet, blazing white almond. I may never eat another roasted one....but then, the nuts here are amazing too - varieties and preparations I have never seen anywhere. (Yes, I have been on the scale, and no, the news is not good!)
Okay, after the produce was loaded by forklift into the car, we were off to an early dinner/late lunch back up the mountain. Here's what we had - some words may ot be familiar so I'll try to describe. Hommus, baba ghannough (roasted eggplant hummos), lebne (a thick yogurt/cheese - tart and smooth), raw and cooked kibbi (lamb with bulghur and spices), tabbouleh (parsley/mint/tomato/scallion salad with lemon and olive oil), fattoush (green salad with toasted pita), kibabs (variety of meats, ground and formed into long rolls) with roasted whole onions and tomatoes, a huge plate of fresh veggies with a huge whole tomato, half head of cabbage (so sweet it tasted like it was soaked in sugar), half head of romaine, thin, crisp cucumbers, yellow, red and green peppers, green onions, and a huge bunch of mint. Maybe that was it, but I'm sure I've forgotten something. The table was loaded!!!! So were we. James and I smoked shisha first, which is the tradition. Shisha is flavored tobacco (ours was apple) in a water pipe - better to look it up than have me try to describe it - but you each get a mouthpiece, then share the shisha pipe, passing it back and forth. When you inhale, the water bubbles in the bottom of the device. You and the tobacco never meet, it stays at the top on this tall device witha few pieces of charcoal to heat it. The "shisha guy" comes by to tend the charcoal and replenish tobacco if needed.
So after we rolled out of the restaurant, we came home to change for our big evening out. We had tickets to Dance Fever, a wonderful stage show with dancers, a variety of entertainers and a Cirque du Soliel strong man duo. Best of all, the show was at Casino di Liban, a glitzy complex with gambling, showrooms, clubs and restaurants, perched on a hillside with a view of Beirut that was breathtaking. The Lebanese love to party, entertain and stay up very late. As we drove back up the mountain toward home about midnight, every restaurant (and they are huge) was jammed, cars parked 3 and 4 deep, some actually in the road! Dinner at midnight is normal. Hmmm, maybe I would be really skinny here if I had to stay up that late for dinner. We stopped on the way home to eat again!
Anyway, no one has topped my Mom yet, but I've olnly been here a week, so there are many more tabboulehs to taste!
Thanks to all of you who have responded and let me know you are getting and enjoying these blogs. I have learned so much already about lifestyle here, the Middle East, the wars here and how we are perceived as a country. I am still looking for my relatives and found out my grandmother's family is a large, important family in Lebanon, just wish I knew even one family connection here to track down. Oh well, I'll keep trying. I see my mother and my aunts in the women here, many of the traits and facial expressions and the way they speak Arabic look exactly like what I remember. (Found out Lebanese Arabic is very different from other countries, sort of like someone from Maine and someone from Georgia wouldn't sound the same).
We are about to have a party here, a housewarming, so I'll run. Keep reading....oh, and we may stay another week depending on boat progress. I keep encouraging Charlie to slow down, slow waaaaaay down.
Love to all,
Lari
