Food Artisan

A CHOCOLATE-COFFEE BICERIN IN TURIN February, 2010

What makes chocolate so desirable? Is it the sweetness, the bitterness, the dark colour, the melting effect, the smooth texture? Or is it all of the above? Or perhaps it’s more of a fantasy in our minds....

In Turin, it is definitely not a fantasy in my mind. Let me tell you a love story about a drink and a city. The drink is the bicerin and the place is Caffè al Bicerin!

Of Comfort and Discomfort January, 2010

Is it the smell of tomato paste cooking over a wood fire in late September; the vision of a hot, thick whitish kishk (a local delicacy of goat’s milk and cracked wheat); a sweet, ripe fig – or better yet, fig jam loaded with sesame seeds; or a runny manoushé b’zebdeh w’sekkar (a flatbread dripping with melted butter and crystal sugar). These are all examples of simple, recognizable flavours that contribute to personal and collective memories, of individuals and communities across Lebanon.

Merry Meghli! December, 2009

One wonders whether Christmas is about the hysteria of shopping and what one receives or the dinner one has to prepare…or attend. Some Western traditions have been adopted in Middle Eastern cities like Beirut, where such delicacies as the bûche de Noël (Yule-log cake), marrons glacés (glazed chestnuts) and chocolates are modern-day clichés that have replaced our own Christian traditions that have replaced the true traditions of our Christian origins

Endless Summer of Preserved Abundance November, 2009

What if life was an endless sweet summer, with fruit trees forever bearing apricots and peaches, wheat stalks always heavy with grain, and fresh herbs growing every day of the year? What if the air was always fragrant with jasmine and gardenia, and all of humanity was forever young and strong?

Schizophrenic underground delicacies September, 2009

“Who ever says truffle, pronounces a great word” … and these are not my words, but nothing less than Brillat Savarin. A wrinkled, often black tuber that is part of those “gastronomic myths”. There is the category of “regulars” as meat, wine, cheese, poultry … and the “exceptionals” like a pistil of flower (saffron) or an underground tuber (truffle) or fish roe (caviar).

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