“I never planned in my imagination, a situation so heavenly A fairy land that no one else could enter – from Stars Fell On Alabama Buenos Aires – Thirty years ago this past weekend, the Shah of Iran’s reign over the country once known as Persia ended, and he and his family fled to Egypt.… Read More A Shah Fell On Eslamabad
“He had eaten his share of the dinner, but he hadn’t really enjoyed it because he was thinking all the time about Turkish Delight – and there’s nothing that spoils the taste of good ordinary food half so much as the memory of bad magic food.” – C.S. Lewis, author, from The Lion, The Witch,… Read More The Chronicles of Shawarma: Book III
“A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive and honey.” – Deuteronomy 8:8 Buenos Aires – Notice, no mention of shawarma. I’m pretty certain it doesn’t come up in either the old or new testament, nor in the koran. I could be wrong, but I’m… Read More The Chronicles of Shawarma: Book II
“He that but looketh on a plate of ham and eggs to lust after it hath already committed breakfast with it in his heart.” – C.S. Lewis, author Buenos Aires – The subject of shawarma has come up numerous times recently, in casual conversation with aquaintances, in more in-depth chats with those closer, and seemingly… Read More The Chronicles of Shawarma: Book I
“Everybody has a plan to save the Middle East. That guy with the bumper sticker does. Most of your friends do. Neocons have a plan. Peaceniks have a plan. Likudniks have a plan. The Bush Administration certainly thinks it has one, and we’re told the Democrats are working on theirs. Tom Clancy imagined deploying the… Read More Crisis, Schmeisis…
“A waiter arrived with a tray of falafel, the one item on the menu that didn’t taste as if it had been scraped off the wick of Aladdin’s lamp.” – Tom Robbins, skinny legs and all Buenos Aires – Continuing on my educational journey about one cuisine or another or method of cooking, I noted… Read More How to Roll a Falafel (and other stories)
“A highbrow is the kind of person who looks at a sausage and thinks of Picasso.” – Alan Patrick Herbert, Novelist Buenos Aires – I decline to enter the debate, and yes, there is a debate – well, more like hotly contested opinions – as to what constitutes a true merguez sausage. Given that merguez… Read More In Merguez Waters
“Attention K-Mart shoppers, there’s a blue light special on…” Buenos Aires – It was more than a moment of indecision, it was days of indecision. Two events on the calendar for the weekend – Independence Day in Mexico and the traditional New Year’s Day in Persia, long before it became Iran. Was it to be… Read More Two for One