A traditional Job’s Wednesday turmeric & tahini rice pudding from Beirut
The ongoing attacks on Lebanon, and I say Lebanon because the attacks on Beirut stopped (for now) a few weeks ago, have made me feel demotivated about sharing stuff. The things that I do often; writing, posting, sharing. I haven’t touched my camera since January. This is not a post for pity, but an attempt at narrating reality. Or at least my reality. What I am experiencing. Others might not be feeling the same way. Others might be resuming their daily routines as if nothing happened. Some never had their routines disturbed at all. Mine have been.
I see people doing stuff. I don’t know if it’s true or it’s what I see through my perception, but I feel that everyone is faking it, doing it for the show—and that’s not a judgement, but an observation. I want to resume doing things for fun. I want us to be happy for real, not as a distraction or out of “resilience”.
It drags. And it feels like it will never end. But we know it does. Not that it makes any difference. It is a day followed by another day, with just a different label.
This month comes after Christmas and New Year’s festivities, a time where we put aside the non-urgent worries and eat and drink and exchange gifts and all. The time that comes after definitely pales in comparison. And this is how January feels like; pale, cold, long, boring sometimes, and often dark. And that is not about the global political decisions of a few rich inept individuals which they bestow upon us during the first few days of EACH of the past few years.
My birthday is in the middle of January. I don’t really enjoy having a big celebration for my birthday. I used to invite a few friends (the number fluctuated over the years) for brunch or dinner where I would cook and share a meal. I haven’t done that for many years now, maybe at least 7 years. I have been getting a surprise gathering in the past couple of years.
This year I made a cake. And I made a video and I am writing a post about it. I read somewhere that the magic we used to feel when we were little at celebrations was created by the adults who were around us. And now we are the adults and it is our responsibility to create that magic, even if it is just for us. But how can we create magic when we are surrounded by death and despair everywhere we look?
DELUSION. That is it. It is a privilege to be delusional in this economy and I know I don’t have that luxury.
But I have to take short breaks of delusion and detachment and pretend everything is fine for a minute. That’s the only way to keep going.
Each year I feel less and less excited about celebrating my birthday. I don’t know if it’s because of the world we live in, or the geographical location we live in, or because it’s in the middle of the longest month in the year. Or could it be because I am getting older?
Not that it makes any difference. It is a day followed by another day, with just a different label.
I made a video documenting the day. I show the cake recipe I made which I will share in the post afterwards, and how the day went overall.
I created this tradition of making Mjaddara during the first week of the year. After days of overeating and drinking during the holidays, and after spending too much, a dish with little ingredients, low effort, and high nutrition. It happened one year that I posted the dish on my instagram story and many messaged me telling me they either made it as well or were planning to make it. Thus declaring the first week of the year to be Mjaddra week. In 2023, I posted the recipe on my blog to make it official.
People in Lebanon, most probably also in other parts of Bilad Al Sham, have a tradition of making a dish that is white in color for the new year. Something with yogurt mostly. Something to signify and manifest a bright year ahead. Italians make something with lentils, for lentils look like coins and that signifies lots of money.
Food photographers: Liz and Max Haarala Hamilton – Food stylist: Valerie Berry – Prop stylist: Aya Nishimura
This year, on the first week of the new year, I was recovering from the super flu. A virus that will wreck your body. Itchy throat, fatigue, drowsiness, cough, and fever. I was barely able to cook anything. I missed cooking something white. I didn’t make Mjaddara. But this past week, someone gave me an idea to make Rishta bi Adas, a dish I have in my book Bayrut The Cookbook. I haven’t made it in a while, probably since the past winter. This has been the coldest this season and I decided to make Rishta without the need to go out and buy anything. I didn’t have flour. I didn’t have wide pasta. Thankfully I had small red lentils and onions and lemons and soup noodles. The dish was made. The dish tasted good. Of course I prefer it with homemade noodles and crispy fried dough on top to give it an extra crunch. But I do not regret it.
One of the dishes that always causes a dispute is mjaddara. There are so many variations to the recipe, but the uniting elements are lentils, onions, and bulgur or rice. The debates range from which lentils are used and are they creamed, to whether you use bulgur or rice or spices and is it mjaddara or mdardara? The list goes on… To me, mjaddara is when the proportions of lentils to bulgur/rice is higher. Mdardara uses almost equal proportions and is flavoured with cumin and fried onions on top. Mjaddara safra uses split yellow lentils; mjaddara hamra uses whole ones and gets its flavour from deeply caramelising the onions. Msaffaye means ‘strained’ and is made by pureeing cooked brown lentils, then cooking the rice or bulgur with them until thickened. A recipe in Kitab al-Tabikh, a cookbook compiled in 1226 by al-Baghdadi in Iraq, stated that this beloved vegetarian dish was served with minced (ground) meat in rich people’s celebrations, while the meatless one was the food of the poor.
Mjaddara hamra is what my family used to make. It is common in South Lebanon and Palestine. My grandma called it the ‘nails of the knees’ because of the high iron content. Pair it with some fresh bread, a zesty salad, green olives and lots of fresh veggies.
Last year, at the beginning of 2021, I had made Mjaddara and shared it on Instagram and, to my surprise, so many of my friends also made it the same week. This year I decided to make it official and annonce the tradition of Mjaddara Week as the first week of every year.
The reason behind everyone making Mjaddara on the first week of the year is because we just want something quick and easy that has nothing to do with the holidays food that we’ve been having for the past two week, and Mjaddara comes to the rescue with its nutritional value and affordability and for the fact that we’d serve lots of seasonal veggies and pickles with it.
Italians have lentils on the new year and consider it a symbol of good fortune for the upcoming year for they resemble little coins and we have Mjaddara.
Therefore, by the power vested in me, I declare the first week of every year to be The National, or rather International, Mjaddara Week.
soft Arabic bread or markouk/saj bread, for scooping
Zesty Cabbage Salad
fresh veggies and herbs
pickled chillies & green olives
Procedure
Add the lentils to a large saucepan, cover with 2 litres (8 cups) of the water and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes.
Place the onions in a cold sauté pan with the olive oil, set over a medium–high heat and fry until they start to caramelise. Stir often to make sure they are browning evenly, and keep them on the heat until they turn from caramelised to very dark brown – almost but not quite charring. The burnt onions are what gives this dish its special flavour. Once the onions reach this stage, add the extra cup of water and bring to the boil.
Pour the onion mixture into the cooked lentils, then stir in the bulgur.
Season to taste with the salt. Bring to the boil and cook for a further 5 minutes, stirring often, until the bulgur has soaked up the extra liquid.
Ladle onto plates and let cool slightly before serving with your chosen accompaniments. I love to scoop this dish up with soft Arabic bread.
Note on the photo: I have spent all my morning looking for the photos of Mjaddara I have from 2018 to no avail. I have a chunk of my 2018 photos and recipe, which i have uploaded to the blog then, missing from my storage. I had to resort to the header uploaded back in September 2018 as my recipe photo which is of the lentil porridge mjaddara that is puréed and strained 🥲
This is the year where people either found a great success as the silver lining of things, or utter failure and disappointment.
In Lebanon, our government took it on itself to give us the latter, no matter how hard we tried to pull ourselves together. Despite our revolution attempt and all the other attempts that followed, we couldn’t cope with the economic crisis and the unrecognized collapsing of the local currency which preceded a worsening state and verified one governmental failure after the other. The cherry on top was the Beirut blast that took place on August 4 at around 6:07 pm.
