Behemoth

Depends on the country. In a few places I've had business dinners (including Tokyo and Riyadh -- yes, you read that right), it's considered poor manners NOT to have more than one drink at a business dinner. ← What were you drinking at a business dinner in Riyadh? Tea? For those of you who don't know, alcohol is illegal in Saudi Arabia, and as far as I've understood, the ban isn't widely flouted as in the US during Prohibition. Perhaps the analogy with cocaine in the US today may be more apt. ← Many business meals in Saudi Arabia take place at people's homes, where there are usually large areas designed in houses to allow for social functions around meals. And virtually every meal I had at homes in Riyadh included plenty of alcohol that had been obtained on the black market. Never had, or was offered, a drop in restaurants. As my friend used to say, some of the most astonishing wine cellars in the world lurk below the sands of the Arabian desert..... ← Sorry to continue the off-topicness, but Chris speaks the truth. My dad says its the only place where, when visiting people's houses, he wasn't asked what he would like to drink, but rather what brand he would like to drink. On topic: I always thought my table manners were of the solid continental sort, but I clearly wouldn't pass muster in France. Bread placement? Ugh. No wonder they all look so unhappy.

Avril 50 on Penn campus carries the great German brand, Niederegger. No fruit shapes, though...just plain and chocolate-covered logs, and the occasional lucky pig. In terms of taste, this stuff blows all others clear out of the water, IMO.

With a small disk it would be worth trying -- the only problem I could see might be that it would get clogged up a lot. With the food mill you just reverese direction to loosen up the holes. The food mill, BTW (having cost all of $11) has definitely earned its storage space in our kitchen.

Thanks all, at least now I have some brands to ask for -- my initial search was in the supermarket, so the next step is to check local liquor stores. Andrew, we wondered the same thing, but couldn't find any specific information.

I had to jury-rig my own tahini for the first time over the holidays. We were visiting my in-laws in rural north germany and there was no tahini to be found. Toasted sesame seeds, a mix of sesame and (mostly) veg oil into a blender until liquid. The hummus came out particularly well, great sesame flavor. At least, what little of it there was left for me to taste... My only "secret" is I like to use a food mill when I have the time, it takes off the chickpea skins and makes the texture lighter.

After transporting countless bottles of liquor intact across the atlantic the bottle of high-percentage rum I brought with me from Germany broke in my bag. I need the stuff for "Feuerzangenbowle", essentially a mulled wine drink into which you drop a flaming cone of rum-soaked sugar. The rum was 57% alcohol by volume, made especially so that the sugar will burn long anough to turn liquid. I have been unable to find an american brand with higher than 80 proof. Any idea if such a product is available in the US?

Hispania, naturally. Sorry, I am grading freshman math papers, so I'm feeling a little punchy. But to answer the question non-wise-assfully, this is interesting because it has been true for me lately...in any case, I have been eating more Mexican food than Chinese food these days. I suspect this is merely because I have better access to good Mexican food than I do to good Chinese food where I live. I do however have good Korean food nearby for the first time, so I have also been eating a lot more of that too.

And here's your proof. What is bashkir??? I think I heard the term before but I certainly do not know what it means. Elie ← Towel! ("Manshafeh" to you non-natives ) Did anyone outside of tripoli use "Ouda" for room? I have been informed by Turkish friends that this is indeed a turkish word. It could just be my family -- my poor grandfather had to fight on the side of the Ottoman empire in WW1.

It is always amazing to me how a country the size of conneticut could have such disparate regional dialects. I was pretty old before I realized that when I asked for a "bashkir" outside of tripoli nobody would have any idea what I was talking about. I thought it might be a turkish word, but turkish friends assure me its not. I still haven't figured out where it comes from. We had both, I think. Sometimes I wonder how much my culinary experience was modified by having an american mother, but she learned most Lebanese stuff from my aunts, who, come to think of it were fairly open to experimentation. (My mom, btw, claims to have started the fashion of tomato peel roses on tabbouli, in the late 60's, inspired by a chinese cookbook. I can't substantiate this claim but I find it rather amusing.)

No no, not a root cellar. Literally shove it into a flowerpot filled with dirt. Some sun is nice but it doesn't need a lot. Water it once in a while. It is hard to kill actually. I had to leave town for two months before mine died. edit: oops, I see andie beat me to it.

That's smart! It's a root, so bury it in the root cellar. Thanks! ← Its particularly nice because it grows new shoots! The first time I made the mistake of burying it vertically. Lay it in the dirt horizontally, and it doesn't need to be completely buried, either.

I plant mine. You can dig it up, chop off a hunk and rebury it, no problem.

Hmm, "rub" = pulp, no? I thought the molasses was "dibs". (sorry, need to practice my mad arabic skillz every once in a while )

You didn't eat basil with kibbee nayyeh? Weird, we always did. It tastes amazing, BTW. As for fattoush, for me it has to have purslane and sumac, otherwise it's just a plain old salad. I am always on the lookout for clean areas to forage purslane, though last summer I attempted to plant some (in a pot, in a pot. I have friends in the EPA )

Elie, thanks so much for taking the time to type that up. I am at the end of my semester & travelling for 2 weeks over the holidays, but once I come back I will definitely give it a go, and post results. Happily, we will have a house guest then so I won't eat it all myself.

Our neighborhood association is having its annual holiday party, and we're supposed to bring "finger food". I thought it would be amusing to be the one who shows up with chips and dip: homemade potato chips and chipotle mayonnaise: Chufi -- your dinner looks fabulous, as usual. You guys wear your wedding bands on the right also? (edited -- how many typos can I make in one post? yeesh.)

God, that is diabolical. No wonder they are so freakin' good.

Hey did anyone notice the Hallab site has a recipe for Kashta? Recipe (Click on the photo to see the recipe.) The english is a little weird, some translation might be needed. Presumably the "toast bread" is just half a slice of white bread with crust cut off. Do you think the corn flour is really supposed to be fine corn meal? Or corn starch? (I vote for the latter, but what do I know.) Anyway, here is an old Kashta recipe give to me by a family member, it seems more "echt" to me somehow: 1 litre whole milk 0.25 litres cream Mix milk and cream in a broad shallow pan on a stove. Bring slowly to a boil, then turn the heat as low as possible and allow the mixture to stand over it for half an hour. Turn off the heat, cover and leave the mixture to stand for 8 (8!!) hours before refrigerating. Place in the refrigerator for another 8 hours. With a knife, detach the thick layer of cream lift it off the top of the milk. Divvy up as needed. --------------------------------------------------------------------- I've been warned that you have to throw out the leftover milk for some reason I can't comprehend, apart from the fact that it has sat out for 8 whole hours. I've never made this because I never think of it 16 hours in advance and I am a big baby about waiting. My guess is for znoud el-sit, you seal filo dough around the cream, bake it at some absurdly high temperature and then soak it in attar while it's still hot. Any idea what baking temp would work? Filo usually needs about 40 minutes at 400 degrees, think the cream survive that long? (though basically it should have the consistency of fairly dry goat cheese.) Or maybe start it low then crank it up??

The pastry is just your basic pita bread dough/pizza dough, rolled out to about 1/8 inch thickness after first rising. Cut into circles, stuff and fold into the triangle shape. Bake as you would pizza, at very high heat (about 425 or so) or fry in time-honored middle eastern granny tradition. Now that I think of it, I wonder if the Peter Reinhardt formula for slow-rising pizza dough would be an improvement. Hmm, worth trying. Maybe someone has a more precise recipe for the filling, but I usually improvise. It is basically chopped spinach or chard, chopped green onions, mint and parsley, zaatar, lebanese spice mixture, raisins or toasted pine nuts, a little lemon juice or pomegranate molasses, salt & olive oil. Dry enough to not leak, wet enough to steam the spinach.

By the way, now I am not clear whether it was the first or second Hallab my dad bought sweets from. He always went to the "older" place, whichever that was. I'm thinking it might have been Abdul Rahman. I can barely remember where it is now, sad. A new Hallab shop (definitely Rifaat) opened a fancy shop right down the block from our house a few years before we moved. I would buy from them occasionally but it always felt unseemly to go in for less than a kilo, so it was never like, a casual snack. The french pastry-type places did a better business with teenagers for that reason, though most of us probably prefered the arabic stuff. (Though personally, I was always more of a cheese ka'k fan, despite my grandmother's dire warnings about cleanliness...) But this is material for a Lebanese street food thread. Do ka'k vendors even exist anymore?

That's fairly obvious, I just like to complain about it

Yep, fatayr bi-sbanigh. It is just a normal dough, no puff pastry, nothing fancy, really easy to make. The baked ones are healthier but the deep-fried version are my personal downfall. My mom makes both whenever I come to visit. I daintily eat a couple of the baked ones, and then secretly scarf down a couple dozen of the fried ones when no one is looking This is the middle eastern pastry shop I grew up with: Rafaat Hallab & Sons They are (or at least were) considered the best in Lebanon. Bummer, they only ship the boring stuff. I want the cream-filled goods, dammit! Hunger.... edit: Oh, they ship the "kashta" (cream) stuff inside lebanon. Look under products->other->kashta to see what I'm talking about. Sigh. edit2: Goodness, it looks like Marian Burros wrote something nice about them in the NYTimes (See Newsletter.) So hip, my hometown.

Oh man. So now y'all are making me want to take up baking?! These pics are amazing.

I think it's just too easy to make these generalizations about the U.S...Its a conservative country (though half the country was decidedly liberal), food is dumbed down (yet my local borders carries 10 different food publications, our kitchen supply shops are routinely packed, I can get lovely brussels sprouts on the vine at the otherwise truly lame neighborhood supermarket, never mind the wonders that await me if I'm willing to drive 5 minutes to the other one.) . There's a grain truth to pretty much anything you say about the U.S.. Some of us cook, some of us don't. (We contradict ourselves, we contain multitudes... ) Moreover, I think culinarily, we are less dumb about food now than we were 50, 30, even 20 years ago. As for experimentation, I can tell you right now that my Lebanese grandmother was an amazing cook, but she only cooked Lebanese food. Similarly, my husband comes from a family of good German cooks, but they mainly stick to german stuff, with the occasional Italian dish thrown in. I've found americans to be a lot more gung ho about trying new stuff, even if it is stir fry sauce out of a bottle or whatever. Finally, I see that some people probably cook less, but for personal reasons I have a lot of sympathy for busy two-career households. I happen to enjoy cooking as a hobby, so I am happy to do it most days, but some days I get home late and its fried eggs and toast and beans out of a can. And as much as I respect that other people make other choices, there is no way I am putting my day job second to putting a meal on the table, nope, never. That is just too much of a tradeoff.

Jinmyo, I hate to disagree with you but this is simply not true. As much as I like to complain about my countrymen, the one thing I do like about the US is the openness to many different ethnic cuisines. And I'm not talking only in big cities...in a "Heartland" town of 100,000 I can personally count 7 Korean places, 3 sushi places, two indian, at least 3 (real, non chain) mexican, at least one transcendantly good Italian place, 4 thai, 2 vietnamese, 2 middle eastern, the usual complement of chinese, good and bad....Some execute the cuisine better than others, but all these places are visited by both the recent immigrants and locals alike. But wasn't Jinmyo referring to cooking, not eating out? How many of those restaurant goers will cook those many different ethnic cuisines at home? How easy is it to find "ethnic" groceries in your Heartland town? I can't comment on the average European town as far as buying diverse groceries but I do know that it was a hell of a lot easier to buy them in Vancouver than it is in Sacramento...two cities of the same size, btw. ← I took it as her referring to both. To answer your question, ethnic groceries in my experience have a lot to do with the immigrant population. For example, I have excellent access to Korean, Indian, Mexican and Middle Eastern grocers because that is the population that lives here. The mexican and indian grocers tend to cater more to immigrants, but I see a lot of westerners in the asian and middle eastern stores. And when the local walmart carries pozole and salt cod, I figure it is at least somewhat mainstream. (I prefer to buy both from the indie place, but that's a different story.) Vancouver has an exceptionally diverse immigrant population relative to sacremento, so it might not be a fair comparison even if the numbers are similar. I would hazard a guess that the latter has a greater selection of mexican groceries.