3 Feb
Breakfast is my favourite meal and I love eating it out when I am travelling, even when I am in London. When I lived in Paris, near the Trocadéro, I walked every morning to the place to have a grand crème and a croissant or tartine, normally at one of the cafés lining the place unless I wanted a little elegance, in which case I would go to Carette. When I am in Beirut, I go to el-Soussi for fatteh at least once and I alternate between different bakeries for manaqish. And of course, I go to Amal Bohsali for k’nafeh. And when I am in America (which was the case until yesterday) I make sure to try different places for pancakes, and I always go to Brown Sugar Kitchen for waffles. Theirs are the best. Really!
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1 Aug
Very soon it will be the month of Ramadan, when Muslims around the world fast from sunrise to sunset, not letting even a drop of water go through their lips. After hard days’ fast come nights of feasting and socialising when people visit each other, bearing gifts and sweets. And if there is a sweet that symbolises this month in the Middle East, it is qatayef (pancakes similar to Scottish muffins but thinner).
You can have them plain, topped with qashtah (clotted cream), pinched half-closed to make them look like cones and drizzled with sugar syrup (in the fancy sweet shops they’ll be garnished with orange blossom jam). Or you can have them filled with cream, walnuts or unsalted cheese, then fried and dipped in sugar syrup. I love them fried, especially if I am having them at my friends, the aptly named Ramadan brothers, whose stall is at top of souk Madhat Pasha on Straight Street in Damascus.