Two men, crouching against the wall just inside the Damascus Gate. Spread out before them were three piles of spring’s freshest bounty — crisp grape leaves, green chickpeas still in their pods, and what was that last one? I squinted. Wheat. Fresh, green wheat berries. Ariella and I stopped. What …
Where have I been for these past two weeks? Two continents and more than a dozen towns on the other side of the Mediterranean basin — Spain and Morocco.
Pasta fonduta is a little-known Italian dish, but if it were from the Levant, it might be something like this. It comes by way of my cousins, who were here for a short visit that involved lots of communal cooking. The original dish, which comes via a recipe by Jamie …
The week-long Passover holiday can often end with a fizzle, but Moroccan Jews know how to let it go out with a bang — with music, drums and sequins, and lots of sweets and leavened pastries, of course. That’s Mimuna, the holiday our newspapers love to cover and our politicians …
This chocolate-covered caramelized matzo is so good that I initially thought of publishing it as a way to finish up matzo after Passover — as in, matzo worth eating even when you don’t have to. But why save the good stuff for last? Why not start the holiday out right?
It can make a grown man cry. There’s nothing like a good, homemade horseradish to give you the kind of kick you can’t find in store-bought jars, probably because the manufacturers fear sending their customers running in the other direction. But if you ask me, the entire point of horseradish …
It’s not so common that I find something new and surprising at the shook, which makes it all the more exciting when it does happen. Poking my nose through one of the herb stands last week, I found a new, unfamiliar leaf. It looked like tarragon. I asked what it …
This soup says spring — delicate in flavor and appearance, with a lovely mix of the season’s latest offerings. With fresh fava beans, fennel and leek, their sweetness enhanced by fresh basil, this is a light soup for these days of intermittent rain and warmth.
Did you know garlic has a season? Well, you do if you frequent the country’s markets, where massive stalks of purple-green garlic are out in all their glory. ‘Tis the season for garlic, the time to stock up for an entire year. China is the world’s largest garlic producer, with …
This salad almost killed me. It’s a lovely mix of two spring vegetables — fennel and carrot. It gets its zest from fresh lemon juice, and a bite from hot pepper. It’s somewhere between a salad and a pickle — it sits long enough to absorb the flavors, but unlike …
