Tag Archives: garlic

Poached eggs on artichoke bottoms in a sage pesto

The French have an expression avoir un coeur d’artichaud (referring to someone with  a fickle heart); why do I think of it whenever I think of using artichoke bottoms? Heat index over 100F in Beirut, humidity at 80%, not the time to be planning heavy meals. Artichoke bottoms are widely available frozen (check middle-eastern grocers [...]
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Eggs with tomatoes and sumac

A very small restaurant  opened near our house; it has only outdoor  seating: wooden tables, benches,  umbrellas and a hedge of huge sunflowers; it serves country-style dishes in  clay ramekins.  Basic, mountain-style food that villagers and farmers  used to eat  before the big migration to the city depleted the mountains of its inhabitants. I thought [...]
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White fish fillets with herbs, tomato sauce and arak

One of the people that I really enjoy spending time with is Um Elias (Mother of Elias, her first born son, a traditional way to call mothers here). She is a true mountain girl, a mother to six grown children, a grandmother of five and  still youthful-looking; every morning she  drinks her Turkish coffee  and [...]
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