Tag: food

by jad

Our Marmite God

There’s a sticky sandwich spread in the United Kingdom called marmite. It’s as dark and goopy as molasses but has a savory flavor that’s so strange and inscrutable that the company that produces it decided decades ago to celebrate its divisive distinctiveness with a slogan that declared: “Marmite—You Either Love It or Hate It.” Brilliant. Why pretend that your yeast extract is just like peanut butter when it’s so demonstrably not? By fully owning your bizarreness, your fans become your best evangelists and you may even generate a healthy margin of profit from the curious seeking something new (even if … Continue reading “Our Marmite God” →

by jad

Saret Pizza

Lebanese people of a certain age can often be found expressing their frustration at the sheer audacity of the accumulation of circumstance with two half-moon gestures encircling an invisible drain, indicating the metaphorical girth of just how badly or how far the matter’s gone. “Tekhnet.” It has become quite thick. Lebanese people of a slightly younger age will widen the gyre, indicating that matters are so out of hand that the axes have collapsed and the pipe has transmorphed into “pizza.” Two fingers on two hands in the shape of an L around a very large O, wlo, “saret pizza.” … Continue reading “Saret Pizza” →

by jad

The Ex: 20 Weeks of Gratitude, Week 6

Part 1: Difference Today I want to talk about hummus. That’s not hummus in my photo, that’s mtabbal, aka baba ghannouj. I don’t want to talk about mtabbal at all. I took that photo years ago to talk about “my” culture. I want to talk about chocolate–flavored hummus. Rick Flair-endorsed, BDS-listed #SuperBowl ‘mmus. I want to talk about how my views have both changed and remained the same when it comes to this amorphous cellular cake of matter and meaning we call human culture. I didn’t think much about hummus before I started leaving Lebanon; that’s when it stopped being … Continue reading “The Ex: 20 Weeks of Gratitude, Week 6” →

by jad

The Last Mile

It has happened, and my head is still spinning. My last weeks in Beirut, a proverbial blur, left no room to think or plan or feel — senses heightened, yes, but nothing sinking in; a cartoon dog of emotions–“no take, only throw”–onwards, forwards, one thing to the next, and here we are now entertain us. You don’t put off the get-togethers when you’re about to leave, so you find yourself more energetic and affirmative than ever before. “Yes,” I will go to your BBQ. “Yes,” I will join you for drinks afterwards. “Yes,” I’ll have another beer. I wrote those … Continue reading “The Last Mile” →