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New to Arab America: Recipes from Linda Dalal Sawaya..a taste that will take you back home
Moving from your home country to the United States could be challenging sometimes. Apart from possible difficulties in language and dealing with different cultures, there is also the nostalgic side of it.
In the morning, you sometimes long for your mother’s pastry, including the cheese and za’atar mana’eesh. In the afternoon, you feel like having your tea with some mint or sage or a herb that you used to grow back in your front yard. The list goes on.
Sometimes, you can go have some of that Mediterranean food in a restaurant nearby, but nothing feels like home food. In our efforts to make you feel like home, we, at Arab America, welcome a new distinguished contributor, Linda Dalal Sawaya. She is a Lebanese American artist, illustrator, writer, teacher and cook. Her book “Alice’s Kitchen: Traditional Lebanese Cooking” brings to table the most popular recipes from Lebanon and the Mediterranean.
(Photo: Linda Dalal Sawaya)
On her book website, Sawaya says: ” Alice, my mother, learned the ways of her mother,, first in Douma and then in Detroit, where the family immigrated in 1926. In 1934, Mother married my father Elias, also from Douma, who was living in southern California, thus continuing her westward migration, leaving her Detroit Arab-American community and her parents behind.”
” Five years later, Sitto and Jiddo, my grandparents, joined them in Los Angeles. By the time I was a child, Mother and Sitto had become renowned for their great cooking. And I had the great fortune, as the youngest of five daughters, of being their assistant. Thus began my apprenticeship in our Lebanese kitchen. My primary role as dish-dryer and table-setter expanded after I begged to roll grape leaves and cabbage rolls—waraq ‘inab and malfouf; stuff our special light-green summer squash,kousa, and pinch mamouls, Easter cookies,” she adds.
Linda’s recipes include the famous vine leaves, or wara’ enab, with tips on how to make the filling, and how to roll the leaf itself.
Sawaya also brings you recipes of pickles, Turkish coffee, soups, and pies. In brief, it’s a collection of recipes that brings you back sweet memories of home, and at the same time, enriches your experience in Mediterranean food.
Linda Sawaya does not just bring you the recipe with its ingredients and steps; she rather brings it as part of a story to make your experience more personal, and to associate every part of the recipe with a humanistic touch.
She always says: “Remember, as my mother Alice said, “If you make it with love, it will be delicious.” That could be the secret behind her delicious recipes.
Linda Sawaya’s cook book can be purchased through her website, or through Amazon. You can also visit our website to read more on her recipes and enjoy the taste of home.
Samya Ayish
Contributing Writer
Arab America