11 Comments
User's avatar
Harry Gilonis's avatar

PS - I meant to say, but pressed ‘SEND’ first, that ‘Gaza Kitchen’ also contains a lot of writing about the (pre-2023) difficulties of managing producing food, and of cooking it; and fascinating interviews with local home-cooks, street-food cooks, farmers, fishermen, etc.k which are quite heart-rending, and anger-inducing, enough, without thinking of how infinitely worse everything is now.

Expand full comment
DRNaturegirl's avatar

Brilliant. Thanks as always.

Expand full comment
Catherine Phipps's avatar

Thank you!

Expand full comment
Mark Thomas's avatar

Adored this post, Catherine - such a treat to read. That white bean and lamb stew sounds so delish, I bet it smells phenomenal! Will for sure be picking Lugma up - can't wait to see what desserts/sweet are inside.

Expand full comment
Catherine Phipps's avatar

Thank you! Oh yes, that was an omission, sorry, I only mention the mess! There are some lovely fragrant things - pistachios, honey, blossom waters, dates, tahini, labneh all feature.

Expand full comment
Mark Thomas's avatar

Haha thank you, my mouth is watering already!

Expand full comment
Sophie Donnelly's avatar

I recently got Lugma out of the library, as I do to decide whether to invest in it myself and it's definitely one to buy. Delicious food and wonderful writing to accompany it.

Expand full comment
Ann's avatar

I also did the same and completely agree about resolving to buy. So many wonderful sounding recipes!

Expand full comment
Harry Gilonis's avatar

I am a recent subscriber (though I own, and use, your first two PC books), so please forgive me if you already know - perhaps have already reviewed - Laila El-Haddad and Maggie Schmitt‘s ‘Gaza Kitchen’. Not merely timely, but also a wonderful book - the cuisine is intriguingly different from Palestinian cooking (I use Christian’s Dabdoub Nassar’s ‘ Classic Palestinian Cuisine’). If you don’t know the book, there’s a new editioncom8ng out from al-Saqi this autumn. think it would appeal to you, given what you write about Bahraini food; there’s a lot of use of chillis, and of dill leaf, and - new to me, and wonderful - dill seed.

Expand full comment
Catherine Phipps's avatar

Hi - welcome and thank you for getting my first PC books! I haven't either of those, so thank you for mentioning. I recipe tested for Yasmin Khan on Zaitoun - a book also full of stories. Also Fadi Kattan's Bethlehem and a self published, rather random book called Sahten: The Skatepal Cookbook, which was created to help fund a sustainable skate scene in Palestine which they are still managing to do in both the West Bank and Gaza - or at least were last time they updated their website. I'm going to be talking about all of these, and Sami Tamimi's Boustany soon and shall add Gaza Kitchen to the list.

Expand full comment
Mira Dessy's avatar

Thank you for sharing, I've added Ferment and Dip In to my reading list :-)

Expand full comment