Damascus the Solemn

I make introdoction: Tis is blog. I rite. Sank you.

I went to Bayt ul-Qaseedeh again tonight and I heard translations of two American poets - Langostun Hugges and Ahlahn Gisnburg.

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Tonight, I am back to cookings. I've been eating for a long time now a combination of things: eggs with cheese cooked in olive oil, served on pita bread (which I am told by my tutor has no other name than "khubz aadi" here - "regular bread") and sometimes with sesame seeds; and then a second, less easily summarized dish of questionable construction - a soup of sorts (though I have to add water to it every time I heat it back up, because it all disappears in the refrigerator) comprised of chicken wings, chicken wing stock, onions and peppers and cabbage, a copious seasoning of cumin and salt, and.. let me look.. noodles and white beans. Tonight, I wanted something I could finally call reasonably edible. I had managed to secure a recipe for chickpeas and chorizo. We do not have chorizo here, but there are some little sausages that every butcher shop has, so they can claim a more diverse offering than just butt beef. I think sausage-making is heavily censored by the government in Syria. This is not because I happened to see a black mercedes with smoked windows and h black-suited men in it pull up to my local butcher shop and confiscate a string of weisswurst the butcher had been toiling over with a German sausage-making manual, but simply because I have only happened to see one type of sausage. Ever. Since my arrival. I attempted this recipe. But did I follow it? I am not a follower (I do follow a couple of podcasts, actually). Did it mention the inherent difficulties in sautéing cooked chickpeas? Did it give me reason for caution? Alas, if it had, I would not be eating warm Hommos (which is actually just the name for chickpeas here, but I'll let it slide) with sausage and onions and leftover cabbage mixed in. Shallow-fry your chickpeas with care.

But this is not a cooking blog. If it were, I know you would have the good sense never to read it. It is a Syria blog. I am in Syria. And what's more Syria is about to enter Summer Time! Summertime could not be further from the present moment. But Summer Time is just a day away! And isn't that just almost as exciting? Thus the natural balance will be restored. No one on the internet, by the way, has accurate info on Summer Time.

This weekend is Easter - Eid ul-FiSH. The capitalization means you don't say "fish". Fasaha, (composed of the same three consonants as FiSH - intro Arabic lesson!!) is a lovely and most convenient verb that most logically means "to celebrate Easter". Your first Arabic sentence - "NufSuHu eid al-FiSH" - "We celebrate Easter on Easterday". This is a perfectly nonsensical Arabic sentence that no Arab will understand if you say it to him/her. How am I celebrating Easter? "Sawfa nufSuHu fee il-Ladheekia" - "I will celebrate Easter in Latakia". By eating fish (not FiSH!) and hopefully some calamari as well. Latakia is a port city on the northern Mediterranean coast of Syria and a very old city which in fact has one of the few fully intact Roman arches in Syria (Damascus has a broken one). I will take a picture for you. It also apparently has a beach or two. We shall see about that. I will not forget my bathing suit, however. I will make my journey by bus and I will know not how long it is for that I stay. One of the most remarkable sights to see in Latakia is the ancient Phoenician city of Ugarit, where the alphabet was invented. If you remember from elementary school, it was the Phoenicians who invented an alphabet - not just for their own personal use - but for you and me too! (This was at about the same time that the Egyptians got around to coming up with hieroglyphics - something the Syrians had had in similar form for millennia, they are quick to boast). This was in the 1000s B.C., I think.. roughly. So hopefully I will see these things, and so will you. Latakia's about the size of Baltimore, for reference..

So I will go do work, I will go to work, and then I will set the wheels a-turning like those ancient Phoenician mariners before me, if the oceans were asphalt and their ships coach buses.

Live on in America!

David

Oh, also, I think I did some injustice to my pomelo experience in my last email. Let me try again: Imagine that you have a large yellow squishy ball, like the ones used in gym class dodge ball. Now imagine that there's a smallish grapefruit inside of it and that you want to get to it and eat it. Get to it. Rip off the layers of white fleshy void. Eat it. Now you have conquered a pomelo.

***You can read more about the Phoenicians at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenicians!!!***