“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. There was dancing in the streets and celebrating. Hindsight may leave us wondering if, in the end, this all turned out well for Iran and/or the rest of the world, but in commemoration, celebration, or commiseration, it seemed a good inspiration for a dinner based on Persian flavors – and after the intro for the evening, the Shah didn’t come up in conversation. One of the fun things this weekend was the variety of opinion over the different dishes – usually, there’s one, or perhaps two, clear favorites of pretty much everyone, including us. This weekend, it’s a tossup – I’ve heard from various guests that each dish was at least someone’s favorite.

Unlikely you’ll remember the fun with a cauliflower kuku a couple of years ago. I followed pretty much the recipe that I gave there, with the exception that I didn’t cook anything bit by bit, but put the whole mixture into buttered ramekins and then baked them like little muffins or souffles. To give it a little kick, I made a jalapeño oil (peppers, olive oil, salt pureed together) on the side for those who wanted…

An article in the New York Times gave me this recipe, which I followed fairly closely, using apricots rather than plums (an option offered up in the text). Most of the adjustments came simply from “seasoning to taste” as I went along. The one major(?) difference after the first night, I felt the dumplings soaked up too much of the liquid in their initial cooking, so I cooked them first in simmering beef stock, and then added them to the soup only a few minutes before serving so they could pick up a little pink tinge from the beets, and leave the soup… soupy.

I started off from this Persian Chicken and Peaches recipe with the only real differences being that I used all chicken thighs, marjoram instead of oregano, crushed plum tomatoes instead of tomato sauce, and fresh sliced peaches instead of canned – which also cut back on the sweetness, something I found to intense in the original recipe. For the chili powder, I used ground chipotles.

I wanted to feature a rice pilaf, or polow as it’s called in Iranian cooking. I found a wonderful recipe for a “wedding polow” which I played around with a bit. First off, I sauteed some cardamom and cinnamon in butter to flavor it, then added thinly sliced onions, julienned carrots, and fine slivers of orange peel, cooking those until soft. Then I added equal parts of sugar and water, just enough to cover the mixture, a pinch of saffron threads, and some salt, and cooked it for about ten minutes together. Meanwhile, I toasted some slivered almonds and whole pistachios. When the mix was done cooking, I added in the nuts and a splash of orange blossom water. I set that all aside. I rinsed basmati rice really well until the water ran clear, then toasted it lightly in some neutral oil, added an equal volume of water to the rice and cooked it over medium heat, covered, until all the liquid was absorbed. Then, I poured the earlier mixture into the pot, mixed it up, turned the heat down low, and left it to cook, covered, for about 20-25 minutes, stirring it up once every 5 minutes or so. It absorbed all the liquid, and toasted a little on the bottom, which is the idea as I understood it, finally seasoning it with salt and pepper to taste. Atop the pilaf (and a mere accoutrement, because the rice was so good on its own), I put triangles of pan-roasted lamb loin simply seasoned with salt and pepper. This was, unquestionably, my favorite dish.

Date and walnut or date and pinenut desserts are popular in Persian cuisine, though rather than do something traditional styled, I went with something I’m more comfortable with, a tart. I basically used the recipe for the Engandiner Nusstorte that I’ve made a couple of times before, but substituted half and half chopped dates and pecans (just because they were available and so rarely are here) for the walnuts, and also added a tablespoonful of orange blossom water to the mixture. For cooking it, in addition to brushing the top with egg yolk, I sprinkled it liberally with sugar that caramelized on top as it cooked. This one drew the most rave compliments.

“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, and the Wardrobe

Buenos Aires – My first thought is, I never want to look at a shawarma again. I’ve had my fill, enough. But, I know it’s just a matter of time, I do love the things, it was just a little overwhelming to hit nine different spots in the course of just a couple of weeks. In reality, only two of these three count… as you’ll see.

[Note: Going to have to edit this one – I stopped back in one day when passing by and I noticed that there were people lined up for the shawarma – it could have just been that it’s the only place in this part of town, but, you never know. And it looked, somehow, different. And it was. Fresh pita, absolutely delicious, well seasoned meat, and, they now offer a fresh green chili sauce to spice it up for those who want it hot. I’ve been back several times since and it has continued to be really, really good, and they still make a mean café árabe! Likewise the hummus, which I tried again, though a little light on the garlic/cumin end of things, is now perked up with plenty of lemon, hot paprika and good olive oil. Amira is still there, but has new people working with her in the kitchen and out front.]

[Note: this place now has a take-out window that’s opened during nice weather, just for shawarma, so have to stop back and see how they fare with that….] [Closed permanently, I think during the pandemic]

“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 pretty certain. Still, it was off to the Holy Land, or, as it’s called here, Tierra Santa – an amusement park… or maybe not amusement, but “theme park”. I’ll get into the park itself in another post, because it’s deserving of at least a modicum of attention, derision, or simply annotation – but despite the fact that it was on my list of things to get around to doing, my principle reason for going was that I’m still on the hunt for shawarma. Someone had mentioned to me that there was a place in Tierra Santa that offered up a very good version of the sandwich, and, hey, why not accomplish two things at once? Now, the place they recommended, the Baghdad Cafe, doesn’t exist, and as best anyone in the park knew, never has existed (and, in fact, the only reference to it I can find is a posting on the Argentina’s Travel Guide blog – however, with a half dozen restaurants in the park, it turns out that three of them offer up shawarma. Hey, I’m a pro, I can handle three… I may not have eaten again for the rest of the day, but I managed.

So, amidst the various activities of the park… again, in another post… I plopped myself down first at the Arca de Noe Armenian restaurant. Here, for 14 pesos – hey, this is theme park food after all, so figure on nearly double the price of places outside of its wailing wall, I dug into half a pita bread, loosely packed with reasonably good, tender bits of beef, packed with a fair amount of a yogurt and mint cucumber salad and a bit of lettuce. A little skimpy, mildly seasoned, but it was… okay. With a 6 peso bottle 375ml bottle of water, a round 20 pesos plus tip (we won’t touch on the park entrance fee of 20 pesos, since, I imagine, most people won’t head to Tierra Santa simply for a shawarma).

And, the award for the skimpiest shawarma around goes to Tiberio Arabian cafe. For the same price as the Noah’s Ark version above, a teeny, flimsy little tortilla comes wrapped around maybe 7-8 pieces of salty, gristly, chewy meat, a few desultory strips of lettuce, and watered down yogurt with a measly couple of shreds of cucumber in it. On the flip side the same 6 pesos bought a 500ml bottle of water… okay, that didn’t make up for it at all, though the extra water was necessary just to wash down what I was able to eat of this poor excuse for… anything.

On the other hand, hand’s down the biggest, juciest shawarma I’ve tried to date (including the ones coming up in the next, and probably last, post on the subject), was to be had for a peso less, 13 pesos, at La Puerta de Damasco – which also gets points for offering a chicken version as well as beef. Well seasoned with lemon and spices, and absolutely delicious, this is also the only place of the trio that carves the meat in front of you – their shawarma station is outside on the patio, with the tables surrounding it. The sandwich is packed with meat, and also a really nice mixed salad of lettuce, tomato, onion, cucumber and carrots, all dressed in an herb yogurt, and an option for hot sauce. They even get points for the carver dipping the pita bread in the dripping fat from the meat and then grilling it on both sides by holding it up against the rotisserie flames. How can you not like that? The same 6 pesos for a 500ml bottle of water, but hey, a peso saved is a peso earned, n’est pas?

So, presuming that you’re not going to Tierra Santa just for the shawarma, where you’d have to figure in the cost of admission, you’re still looking at a bit of a hike to get there (along the Costanera Norte, past the domestic airport and just before the city university), and roughly 75% more in cost than the places I reviewed in “Book I” of this Chronicle.

“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 in a multitude of visual sightings around the city. There’s been a running joke in Buenos Aires for several years now that when your restaurant is about to go under, start serving sushi – and all of the sudden you’ll have every trendoid in the city flocking to your tables for the ubiquitous salmon and cream cheese sushi rolls. But with economic trends (300 restaurant closings within city limits during the months of September and October!), sushi may turn into a trend too expensive for José el Plomero to spend his hard earned pesos at. Perhaps the shawarma sandwich is the trend wave of the near future? A bit of online research turned up much confusion, argument, dissent, and bickering about just exactly where to go for the best spit roasted beef, lamb, or chicken wrapped carefully in flatbread – so the only thing there was to do was get myself out there and bite the pita….

Claiming to be the first to serve shawarma in the city, Arabian Food, Lavalle 697 at the corner of Maipú, 4328-4700, in Retiro is a small lunch counter with cafeteria trays and those useless plasticized napkinettes that we all hate. Street shills are passing out flyers up and down the block, and the place is clearly popular – Monday at lunchtime there was a short line, and as fast as any of the dozen bar stools or chairs in the place emptied, it was filled by another patron. We settled on one each of the beef and lamb, plus a couple of side falafel on a plate. Arabian Food offers up beef, lamb, and chicken versions, the only place I checked out that does – wrapped in a thin, heated pita bread with a smidgen of chopped lettuce, tomato, and onion, a splash of tahini sauce, and the option for a moderately spicy hot sauce to be added (mostly tomato puree with a little bit of hot pepper in it). The meat is moist though not what I’d call juicy, and underseasoned – perhaps a shake or two of some salt and pepper, let alone other spices, would serve them well – then again, the falafel too, was a bland fried cone of mashed chickpeas. The place is relatively cheap for the ‘hood – 8-11 pesos for a shawarma sandwich, and a “promo” of two beef shawarmas with a soda for 19 pesos, a savings of a whopping 2 pesos over ordering those three items individually. There’s a full menu of other middle eastern specialties, take-out and delivery are both available. [Closed permanently during the pandemic]

This place gets the most whispers about it – and for good reason, it’s really just dead-on perfect when it comes to the food. Demashk, Charcas 3816 in Palermo, 4833-6699, itself barely qualifies as a hole in the wall – or maybe that’s exactly what it qualifies as – there’s enough room outside of the kitchen for a service counter and an opposing wall “bar” with a few barstools – though they do have a few tables outside on the sidewalk. It’s a little greasy and grimy. The two cooks (owners?) are friendly and pretty attentive. The place is definitely frequented by the middle eastern community, at least half the people eating and/or who came in to get take out. There’s a full menu of various specialties available to dine in or take out, they offer delivery and catering services, plus a selection of middle eastern products on a couple of shelves available for purchase.

The shawarma itself, only available in beef. Beautifully cooked, with just a hint of a char on it, and layered with flavor. The meat was juicy, dripping, sloppy – and spiced with a tangy, lemony marinade, along with an array of spices that had been rubbed into it. Smartly, given the juciness, the shawarma is wrapped in a little plastic bag cone to catch the juices rather than having them drip all over everywhere, and a real napkin wrapped around that. This was everything a shawarma should be, and for a mere 7 pesos.

Haysam, Scalabrini Ortiz 1601, Palermo, 4833-9321, is a tough call. The ambiance is a corner coffee shop, with a few tables inside and a few more out. The staff are friendly, though a little off in space. Despite the fact that it was mid-lunch hour, the shawarma meat (beef only) slowly turning on a spit, wasn’t close to being ready, and there were already people waiting for their sandwiches, and more of us ordering – in fact, the cook, was downstairs taking a break, while the counter girl wandered about aimlessly, assuring each of us that it would be no more than five minutes (despite the meat still being basically rare), alternated with screaming down the steps for the cook to get upstairs and do something. And, again, despite being lunch hour (around 1 p.m.), she’d just gotten around to filling the coolers with sodas and water, so none of them were cold, and she only had a few ice cubes to allot to each person.

Now, the shawarma itself, is another story. When the cook came upstairs, eventually (15 minutes after I’d arrived), he sliced some meat off the spinning spit and tossed it on the flatop grill, where he browned it up quickly. It doesn’t end up with the same char that way, but hey, it’s what I was served, so it’s what I’m going with. The meat itself, nice and juicy, not quite dripping like at the previous spot, but plenty of moisture – that may be due to the grilltop cooking. The seasoning, an intriguing blend that I’d guess was black pepper and cinnamon – quite different from any I’ve tried before (I’m guessing something regional, I should have asked where they were from) – and delicious. Haysam also uses the paper bag cone trick, though puts the napkin inside to absorb some of the juices, which just made it a soggy bit of paper inside the plastic – I just peeled it all off and rewrapped in the plastic alone. I’d give this place points for having the largest shawarma – easily 50% bigger than the ones at either Demashk or Arabian Food – and at only 8 pesos.

Now, there’s another place that’s on my list to check out, but there’s a minor hitch. The place is a little middle eastern foods market, at the corner of Malabía and Cabrera, where I’ve bought many ingredients in the past. It’s a great little shop, and they serve up shawarma, but it seems only at lunchtime on Friday and Saturday – both days I rarely have time off to head that way. So, checking the place out will have to wait until a) I have a Friday or Saturday off when I feel like having shawarma, or b) someone decides to stop and pick me one up to go and delivers it over here. I’m slightly skeptical, only because the owner of the shop spent so much time assuring me that he has the best shawarma, that no one else in town remotely compares, and I shouldn’t try one anywhere else – and then admitting he’s never tried anyone else’s in town. I have no problem with an ego, and know many chefs who have big ones, but that was just silly.

Those four are the only places I had recommended that offer cheap, to go or quick bite shawarma in town. I’m sure there are more, and I’m happy to check out other suggestions. There are plenty of sit-down, nicer dining style restaurants, like Chef Iuseff or Hanan that offer shawarma on their menus, but we’re talking more platter style service than sandwich, and prices in the 25-30 peso range. I’d also had a small place called Al Amal recommended to me, but it turns out they’re no longer serving lunch except on Saturdays, and, at least based on the menu posted in their window, they don’t offer shawarma – I don’t know if it’s something they’ve simply stopped having on the menu, or something that is offered up as a daily special – it also looks more like a sit-down dining spot, despite being small.

“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 Vatican’s Swiss Guards to keep peace on the Temple Mount. Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis told the Contra Costa Times in July that he knew how to fix the situation—but he kept the details to himself. The policy debate resembles my family’s Thanksgiving dinner conversation after I knock a glass of red wine onto my mother’s white tablecloth: everybody has an idea about how to fix it, everybody is eager to share their thoughts, many ideas sound superficially plausible, and it’s difficult to distinguish among competing solutions.”

– PolicyMatters.net

Buenos Aires – I vaguely remember some famous statesman being quoted once to the effect that most international conflicts, in the end, are settled over dinner – i.e., at some point, the conflicting sides have to sit down at the table and have a conversation – and its usually eased by having food on the table. I can’t find the quote, and I don’t remember who said it, but it makes sense to me. Now, of course, there’ve been many dinners, both big public affairs, and probably a good number of small, intimate private ones, aimed at solving the “crisis” in the Middle East. Clearly, they haven’t served the right menu yet. No guarantees that we did either, nor was it really our intent, but given my recent series of classes in the cooking of the region, which, in answer to the folks who’ve been inquiring as to “whatever possessed you to take a class at the Club Sirio?”, came about because I really like the cuisine of the area, and I recently acquired a copy of Aromas of Aleppo: The Legendary Cuisine of Syrian Jews by Poopa Dweck. Oy, I feel for her – I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, and no doubt where she grew up in Aleppo, Syria her name didn’t cause much commentary, but I have no doubt that in Deal, New Jersey, where she lives now, it just might…

My point, however, is that “middle eastern” or “arab” cooking doesn’t mean “islamic jihad” and suicide bombers blowing up hors d’oeuvres. The region encompasses muslims, jews, christians, and probably the odd hindu or buddhist; and a dozen and a half countries, many of which are locked in various “other” conflicts, or not – Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Turkey, and Cyprus… there was lots of play room. On to the food, which was drawn from ideas garnered in the class, the aforementioned book, a couple of others that I already had, and a few ideas thrown in passively by the internet.

We made stuffed grape leaves in class… or watched them being made anyway. Traditional meat and rice filling and all that, and someone in class piped up with “what about vegetarians?” Well, while he didn’t have a recipe to hand out, Chef Abdala threw back a sort of “hmm… well, there’s this really delicious, cool filling you could make from: rice, almonds, golden raisins, tomato, cilantro, cardamom, baharat, coffee, and olive oil…” He left it at that and moved on, but I scribbled it down thinking it sounded interesting… First off, “baharat”? He referred to it a few times during classes, but passed it off as “a mix of spices, don’t worry about it, you can use allspice”. Interesting, as it turns out, and in fact, Poopa, our erstwhile author, uses allspice throughout her recipes – I wonder if its because baharat is hard to find in central NJ? The mixture, as it turns out, is readily available in middle eastern markets here – and looking it up it’s a blend of nutmeg, black pepper, coriander, cumin, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, paprika, and chili powder. To me, it doesn’t taste anything like allspice. Oh, and wait, coffee? Yup, he assured us on being questioned, that some freshly ground coffee in the mixture was a good thing – okay then. I winged it, as I generally do, and came up with this filling – note that the rice is raw – it’s just rinsed briefly in cold water…

… and then about a heaping teaspoonful went into each grape leaf, then I rolled them up – being careful not to overfill them, nor roll them too tightly – remember, the rice is going to swell up to nearly three times its size when it’s cooked. I like the method of cooking them too – line a pot with slices of tomato, then put the grape leaf packets in a ring, side by side, around the outer edge, wedged in pretty well together. Then fill the center with vegetable stock and a few crushed garlic cloves, put a heavy plate in to hold them in place and under the liquid, bring the pot to a simmer and cook for about 40 minutes. I served these cold, but they’re good hot as well. Alongside, a take on the Aleppo version of hummus, bringing in a bit of Turkish flavor – I made a blend of chickpeas (just cooked, and the skins removed – not canned, though I’ve tried that and it works well for this recipe too), olive oil, salt, lemon juice, tahini (sesame paste), garlic, cumin, and in place of Aleppo pepper, which as far as I know isn’t available here, I used some urfa-biber, a mildly spicy smoked Turkish pepper that I picked up a package of on my last trip to NY. Given that we hadn’t covered pita bread in class, I decided to defer to the internet and a recipe that, as assured, works out “perfectly”.

Sticking with the book for a moment, though combining two different recipes, a simple vegetable soup (celery, carrots, chickpeas (hmm, that was my addition, not in the original recipe, but I cooked too much for the hummus…), garlic) and flavoring it with lemon (juice and grated rind) and mint, and then meatballs made of ground beef (better to grind you’re own…) with some dry rice, baharat, cinnamon, and salt mixed in. Packed tightly into small meatballs and then simply dropped in the simmering soup and left to cook until the rice is done. Delicious! I loved the combination of flavors in this one, and it drew a couple of rave comments from guests.

This is my own twist on a couple of different dishes from different places. Traditionally, small eggplants are hollowed out and filled with a meat or vegetable stuffing, then layered with quince in a pot, cooked slowly for a couple of hours in the oven in a bit of stock, and then served topped with candied quince. I took out the latter as too sweet, but I got to this recipe because quinces and baby eggplant are in the markets this last week or two. I decided to simply braise them together with the spices that would normally have gone into the meat filling, just without the meat. So into a pot went the cleaned and destemmed baby eggplant, then I topped those with slices of quince, tomato, and white onion. Seasoned with good amounts of mint, allspice, cinnamon, garlic, some sugar and salt, olive oil, the juice of a lemon, and some pomegranate molasses. I covered it and cooked it slowly for a couple of hours, and it comes out great! Since I was playing with some spice mixture ideas, I spotted an Egyptian one called dukka, which I modified only in leaving out yet more chickpeas, and simply made a mix of sesame, coriander, cumin, thyme, mint, and salt, and then a quick flatbread that I rolled out really thin, topped with the spice mixture, and baked until it was chewy with just crispy edges.

Okay, not thrilled with the presentation, thrilled with the flavor. I’ll work on the former. The chicken leg/thigh combination skinned (save the skin, preferably in one big piece), and then marinated for about ten hours in a shawarma marinade – very typical throughout Israel, Lebanon, Jordan – white wine, vinegar, lemon, dried chili peppers, allspice, salt (all blended together) – and then quickly sauteed in a pan just to lightly brown the outside. Meanwhile, I cooked some spaghetti until it was just barely al dente – you want this on the undercooked side. Tossed it with some olive oil and then put it into little casserole dishes line with the chicken skin (for flavoring and to help brown the spaghetti a little was the idea, turns out it prevented the latter but added a whole lot to the former). Set a chicken piece atop each little casserole and into the oven to finish cooking, letting the meat juices drip into the spaghetti, which does crisp up a little bit, but not as much as I was hoping for. Flipped the spaghetti out onto the plate aside the chicken, removed the piece of chicken skin, and voila. At the very least it needs to be sprinkled with a little chopped parsley, no?

Taking off from a traditional dessert that involves little mini-empanadas filled with plain ricotta, then deep fried, and soaked in syrup and then served cold. I decided to go with a full sized empanada filled with our homemade ricotta that I’d sweetened a bit and added raisins and walnuts to. I baked them instead of deep frying them, then soaked them in a syrup made from sugar, water, lemon, cinnamon, cloves, and orange blossom water (pretty much right out of the class), topped them with a mix of cinnamon and sugar and served them up hot. They’re also really good the next day, cold, with coffee in the morning… trust me.

So, our little contribution to middle eastern multi-culturalism. To the best of my knowledge, no one attended who’s going to have much say in the solving of any conflicts in that part of the world, but, hey, you never know…

“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 in passing, about 5-6 weeks ago, that a class in cocina arabe was coming up at the Club Sirio Libanés, nearby to the house. I’ve eaten in their restaurant, and wasn’t overly impressed – good, but nothing exciting – however, it sounded like an interesting opportunity to see some of the techniques that go into the recipes, if not the recipes themselves. I contacted Chef Abdala of the restaurant, and he responded quickly with details on the class. Upfront, 350 pesos didn’t sound too bad for a four session, hands-on, limited enrollment class, as he stated it. Turned out, that enrollment wasn’t so limited, when I showed up on the first evening there were twenty students in attendance, and a few more joined the class at the other sessions, and a few didn’t return – so all in all it ran at about that number. But the disappointment was that it wasn’t hands-on. I clearly wasn’t the only one who had been under that impression – in the first few moments of seeing the classroom demo style setup for the course, someone piped up with the question about it – the chef’s response “well, if you want to come up and push the on/off button on the food processor, you can do that…”.

It didn’t turn out to be totally non-interactive – on a few of the dishes he asked for volunteers to come up and scoop one thing or another into a mold or roll a grape leaf, but overall, it was a demo class, followed by eating. Still, I learned a few tips and tricks to making some things turn out right, and I have the set of recipes from the class – some of which were very good, while others were simply okay – but given that I’ve got other recipes to use, I now at least have the methodology to help make them work out well. So hmm… do I recommend the class? I’m not sure – if you don’t mind paying 80 some pesos for a two hour session where you’ll watch someone make and explain how to make 4-5 dishes, and then getting a chance at the end to sample them – I suppose it’s a decent value and it was certainly interesting. And given how expensive some of the organized cooking classes here are getting to be, it’s probably not at all out of line – I may have just been spoiled by the private classes in cheese, preserve, and sausage making that only ran about 40-45 pesos for a 3-4 hour session… on the other hand, I certainly got far more out of those.

Over the course of the course… we learned the basics of: hummus, tabouleh, kebbe (both cooked and raw styles), fatay (arab style empanadas), babaganoush, falafel, salsa taratur (sesame-lemon sauce), various stuffed vegetables, rice and vermicelli, persian rice with chicken, chicken with honey and cous-cous (well, instant cous-cous, though he told us how to make the real stuff), a braised lamb dish (the last two not on the original lesson plan, but added in), and four different pastries. Promised in the upfront communication, plus on the list of recipes we received at the beginning of the class that we could count on learning – but never materialized – making pita bread, two other pastries, making both the drinkable and the thick styles of laban (more or less yogurt), and shawarma (though he did list off the marinade ingredients and talk about how to make it).

Met some new people. Got some ideas for recipes. Got some ideas for teaching… overall, I suppose, not a bad return on the investment of cash and time…