Day of Honey

I wrote a fan letter to a writer yesterday. I've never done that before, but I had just finished "Day of Honey" in my taxi ride to work, and it was such an enjoyable book, so specifically meaningful to some of my recent experiences, that I felt that I should somehow commemorate it.

A New Yorker moves to the Middle East to be with her husband, and honeymoons in Baghdad. They then move to Beirut, where she wanders the same streets that we had explored on our holiday there. And she writes about the rituals and traditions in each city, the little nuances that make up Middle Eastern life, with a particular focus on food. Having taken an Arabic cooking class last month, this book really enriched that experience, describing so much more about how things are cooked, and why. And the life of a traveler, an expat, a nomad: We all struggle to reconcile these two sides of our natures: the nomad and the homebody...

So many favourite passages...

I wonder if someday I'll see Baghdad, and Mutanabbi Street, because this is my idea of paradise too:

My idea of paradise is more like Mutanabbi Street, in Baghdad's old city: an entire city street with no cars, just books and cafes. Every Friday, book and paper merchants laid down blankets and sheets of plastic, covered them with books, magazines, and newspapers, and hawked the written word as if it was potatoes or watermelons.

In Cambridge, back in the  MIT days, there was an Afghani restaurant with a thick-bearded breadmaker who looked like he had fought the Soviets. They served beautiful lamb and pumpkin dishes, and yogurt dips.  It became a regular hang-out for a while, especially after September 11. The author captures this when she writes:

After September 11, liberal New Yorkers flocked to Arabic restaurants, Afghan, even Indian - anything that seemed vaguely Muslim, as if to say, "Hey, we know you're not the bad guys. Look, we trust you, we're eating your food."  

There's something about wandering the grocery aisles here in Dubai that I find very comforting. So many familiar brands, mixed with so many unique products. The pomegranate seeds in a container. The boxes of dates, standing in tall piles. The non-Muslims-only pork sections. It's both foreign and familiar.

Some people construct work spaces when they travel... When I'm in a strange new city and feeling rootless, I cook... I cook to comprehend the place I've landed in, to touch and feel and take in the raw materials of my new surroundings. I cook foods that seem familiar and foods that seem strange. I cook because eating has always been my most reliable way of understanding the world.

Since working in my office here in Dubai, which is mostly made up of Lebanese expats ("yalla!"), I have noticed how my colleagues always comment on people's weight. Complimenting them on a weight loss, even when the recipient sheepishly protests that they have done no such thing, or stating the obvious when someone returns from a vacation with rounder cheeks, "you gained some weight!" Thankfully, I've never had any such comments directed my way, which I would find quite embarrassing.

We trooped into the living room [on a visit to Lebanon] and sat on matching brown sofas. "You got fat!" [the father] said to [the son] Mohamad as soon as he sat down... Mohamad had gained a little weight, but this seemed awfully direct. I was not yet accustomed to the Lebanese way of welcoming wandering sons and daughters home. Over the next six years, I would learn many things; one of them would be the unfortunate habit of greeting people by pointing out minor fluctuations in their weight.

In my cooking class, we sat rolling grape leaves one night, each of us creating dozens and dozens of the little tubes of ground lamb and rice wrapped in a vine leaf.  Our teacher looked at mine and said they were more cigar-shaped than the skinny shape that she had asked us to roll.

Stuffed grape leaves take forever to make. Make them alone and you'll die of boredom, which is why very few people make them these days. You need to be surrounded by relatives, friends, neighbors; you need gossip and stories and talk. Perhaps you have to be a little distracted, so that the leaves come out different sizes and cook in different times. Or maybe the leaves need to be rolled by many different hands...

On Middle Eastern hospitality, and why we're always offered something to drink in certain stores here.

The word for [water] spring, ain, is the same as the word for eye - both are essential; both produce water. Arabic folklore and literature abounds with stories of Bedouins who die nobly giving their share of water to another. To this day it is a desert tradition to greet outsiders with a liquid: a glass of water in the heat, a cup of tea against the frigid night.

I found this fascinating, about the word "tandoori":

Next time you order chicken tandoori at an Indian restaurant, chew on this: you are speaking a word that human mouths have been pronouncing, in one form or another, for at least four thousand years.

I love this story, so funny:

In Spain [the Iraqi Sheikh Fatih] had eaten Spanish food at a restaurant. "I remember, I had a very excellent drink there," he mused. "It was very delicious. I believe it is a sort of national drink of Spain."

He smiled and wrinkled his forehead, looking toward [another guest, the photographer] Moises. "What is it called, this national drink of Spain?"

Nobody said anything. I could tell from Mohamad's [her husband's] face he was thinking the same thing I was: Sangria. If the sheikh had drunk wine without knowing we did not want to call attention to it. Silently, we telegraphed Moises the urgent message: Please, Moises, don't say sangria.

Moises was quiet, a little hung over maybe, hunched above his plate. "The national drink of Spain is wine, man."

Sheikh Fatih laughed indulgently. "No, no, it was not wine!" he scoffed. "This was sweet! Very sweet, very delicious."

Maybe it wasn't sangria after all. Maybe it was horchata, or something else. Maybe there's some other national drink of Spain.

"What did it taste like?" I asked.

"Ahh..." he replied, looking into the distance, savoring the memory of travel. "I remember it was red; it had fruit in it. Very delicious, very sweet."

 This next passage reminded me of these photos that we took in Beirut.

Beirut still had neighbourhoods where old men wheeled up every morning on bicycles hung with hoop-shaped sesame breads called kaak, shouting "Kaaaaa-EEK!" Women would come out on their balconies, lower money down in baskets to the old men, and reel them back up filled with bread.

A crazy scene at a Lebanese funeral:

The sofas and armchairs were cleared out of the living room, which was then filled with dozens of metal folding chairs to make space for a stream of relatives, friends of relatives, and relatives of friends... An old man showed up in a rusty black suit and began reading verses from the Quran. Nobody knew who he was. Finally someone paid him five thousand lira to go away. Later we learned there was an entire class of freelance mourners, old men who scored the obituaries, attended condolences of perfect strangers, and remained until they were paid off - a kind of squeegee men of mourning.

And, lastly, even though there were so many more passages that I had underlined and enjoyed in this book, I will end with this one. From now on, I will always make pesto with a mortar and pestle because of this:

Pesto is best pounded by hand with a mortar and pestle; bruised, the cell walls of the basil leaves expel their oils more generously, making a silkier, more emulsified sauce than if they are slit open by the sharp metal blades of a blender or a knife. In this case, the secret ingredient is blunt force: pesto, from the Italian pestare, means "pounded."

Comments

[michelle]

Wonderful insight and post. Thanks for sharing. Hope you are having a wonderful birthday.

[Jennifer]

Thanks Michelle, there was a lot to learn from this great book - very enjoyable.

Had an awesome birthday, thanks for the note!