Fresh Cracked Pepper

Since I last posted, I don’t  really have much to say for myself,  food-wise. Late nights in the lab learning advanced digital editing software, long meetings trying to plan the production of a satire magazine, early-morning swims and hours studying Media Law result in meals of bananas and hummus-cucumber roll ups.  Save for a chocolate cake made with last summer’s frozen zucchini (will post on that one, soon) and a pretty ordinary Mexican Pizza, I haven’t been cooking up any show-stoppers lately.

And that’s OK, isn’t it? It’s these times when I’m glad I wrote blog posts months ago and stored them up, like little jars of oats, for a bleaker tomorrow. It’s also interesting how some things you think are toss aways come back and speak squarely to the present.

On a stifling day last summer I made an Israeli salad in a kitchen that had sumac, a spice I’d never cooked with. Now, nine months later, I’m going to Israel. I put the pictures  on the back shelf to share with you sometime when it seemed right, and now here it is, newly appropriate.

It’s called Za’atar Salad, and is a dish often deemed Israeli but eaten all over the Middle East. If any of you have seen the film The Visitor, Mouna makes this salad for Walter when he first joins her for dinner. It’s the most sensual salad-making scene I’ve seen in a long time — the way she juices the lemons by hand over the bowl of glistening primary colors.

I leave a week today for Jerusalem, a place that has existed largely in my imagination. It’s the place where my faith has its roots. I am imagining it will feel strangely familiar, almost enveloping. I know it will seem alien, too, separate and distinct from this North American Christianity I have been nurtured in. Sites might seem like felt board scenes or picture Bible pages writ large.

A Barn Birth. A Good Samaritan. A road in Damascus. Anger in a temple-turned-marketplace. A goblet of wine and some bread. A betrayal and an ear, cut away from a cheek. One man’s death, and a cold stone tomb. All these stories swirling in the dust, suddenly louder than words.

It will likely be touristy, politically charged, mystical and commercial all wrapped up like a gyro, and yet I can’t wait.

My companions will be thirteen other students and three of the chaplains from Syracuse University’s interfaith chapel. Like this salad, we will be a colorful mix of personalities and stories, flecked with the new flavors of a place we might not have been able to visit in another time. Muslims, Jews and Christians we will share our stories and play their colors off  each other.

As this simple salad did, maybe we’ll show each other a new way of experiencing the ingredients of the three Abrahamic faiths.

And so while I prepared rather poorly  for Lent this year (yoga followed by free pancakes at IHOP), a visit to the Holy Land seems like a good way to kick-start my journey toward the joy of Easter. I think it would be so easy to feel pressure regarding a trip like this, especially if you’re a person who derives part of their spiritual identity from the place. You know, pressure to see the right things, feel profound emotions, that kind of thing.

I think I’ll just try to take it all in—slowly, and making sure to chew after every bite.

Za’atar Salad

This  salad takes well to creativity, so go ahead and throw in whatever you fancy: grated feta, chickpeas, watercress, hard-boiled eggs. Or throw it in some pita bread with a dollop of Greek-style yogurt.

serves 4

1 cup peeled, seeded, and diced cucumbers

2 cups cubed fresh tomatoes

1½ cups chopped yellow bell peppers

½ cup diced red onions

1 Tbsp minced fresh thyme

1 Tbsp toasted sesame seeds (toast in a toaster oven for 2-3 minutes until fragrant)

1 to 2 tsp powdered sumac, or to taste (available at Samir’s if you live in Syracuse, NY; the herb lends a tangy, almost lemony-hot distinctiveness to the salad)

1 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, the better quality the . . . better?

2 Tbsp juice from the freshest lemons you’ve got.

½ tsp salt

fresh cracked pepper to taste

¼ cup minced fresh flat-leaf parsley (optional)

1. Toss all ingredients together in a serving bowl. Serve at room temperature or chilled.

Adapted from the Moosewood Restaurant New Classics
Per serving: 97 calories, 2.4 g protein, 5.4 g fat, 12.2 carbs, 0 cholesterol, 312 mg sodium, 3.1 g fiber

~ by Jen on March 1, 2009.

Posted in fresh finds, mains, middle east, salads, vegetarian
Tags: israel, israeli salad, jerusalem, middle eastern salad, peppers, sumac, summer salad, thyme, tomatoes, vegan, vegan israeli food, vegetarian, za'atar, za'atar salad