Pink pasta with cheese sauce
Making pasta at home is a lot more forgiving and taste a hundred times better than store-bought; even the so-called fresh pasta places don’t make it that thin, the most critical factor in a good pasta in my humble opinion. Anyway, if you make the dough the night before,...
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Crumble with potatoes, bacon and squash
One thing I admire about French (and American) chefs: They have no qualms taking specialties from around the world and modifying them with the utmost confidence; now I don’t know who came up with the idea of a savory crumble but I see it on French cooking sites a...
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Bazin (Libya)
Feeling compassion and a heavy heart for folks who have to endure a tragic and nightmarish situation in Libya, I escaped into the kitchen and made a very ancient and traditional Libyan dish, bazin. Libya is an extraordinary country with a wide coastline of beautiful beaches and a rich history...
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Salmon ceviche
My beautiful cousin Isabelle had invited me to one of her parties and being the hostess with the mostest, it was as usual a glorious spread of platters holding the most tantalizing foods, Lebanese, Italian, French, even sushi. However, I kept filling my plate with just one dish: A...
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Choco-tahini rice crispie bars
What happens when hunger pangs start manifesting themselves and it is 4 PM? I propose grabbing (just) one of these and having a cup of (decaf) coffee. Made of dark chocolate (good for you), tahini (great for you), peanut butter (great for you) and puffed rice (protein). If you...
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Dukkah sticks
These days I am obsessively reading Al-Jazeera and thinking more than ever about all these tragic yet exhilarating events unfolding in the Middle East. According to my Egyptian friend Phoebe, dukkah was originally a poor man’s snack, widespread in the Coptic community. People did not have much (still the...
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Okra stew (vegan)
In Texas, okra is practically a state vegetable, offered fried at every BBQ joint and road stand. Well, okra aka bamieh is also beloved in the Eastern mediterranean shores, especially in Egypt, Lebanon and Syria. Now that Easter is fast approaching and people will be fasting, this dish will appear...
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Chicken muhammara (Djej muhammara)
Cannot get any more down home than this! I had this dish very often one summer while in the mountains preparing for my Arabic high school diploma exams. It was a welcome respite from studying; and with the tomato sauce, there is no need to add ketchup! A traditional...
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Cream of Butternut soup
Egyptians are famous throughout the Middle East for their irrepressible sense of humor; during these momentous events of the past few weeks, jokes fused from the Egyptian street, one after the other. Here is one: Mubarak goes to heaven where he meets former Egyptian presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser and...
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