Bread and Stories
It sizzled the moment it touched the iron, filling the little kitchen with the smell of salt-cured pork and hardwood smoke. I was probably no more than six or seven years old, but I already knew what came next. Thicknin' gravy.
Bread and Stories
Reminiscing about his childhood dream of becoming an astronaut, my friend Larry said, "Back then, everything was possible." That wistful statement resonated far beyond its context. Back then—however far back you want to plant that bright flag of possibility in your or the nation's history—
Bread and Stories
A chance to cheer on —and cheer up — a remarkable family.
Bread and Stories
It's such an odd little word: short but drawn out, comical yet faintly sinister.
comfort food
I had craved the warming spices of the chai, but someone smiling at me with genuine warmth was the comfort I truly needed. In a world that often feels numbingly cold, comfort food and human community are both essential sources of warmth, and they are best served together.
Tuareg
Spring is time for feasts and festivals of renewal and rebirth—Easter, Passover, and Iran's Nowruz (literally "new day")—but this year it was hard to get into the spirit. [I link to Inhinan's post below, but I'm putting it here, too,
Bread and Stories
Tea is our wine. We drink it morning and night.
Stories to feed the spirit.
Tea is our wine. We drink it morning and night.
Pondering the Enlightenment while defending the castle.
French Pancakes: we ate them all the time as children, generally for dinner, mostly in winter. Standing at the stove of our Southern home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia
I was sitting here thinking about the kinds of love—how no matter what the movies try to sell us, nobody can make it on eros alone.
I told a version of these friends' love story for Valentine's Day two years ago. They are always the first people I think of when trouble boils over within Iran and between Iran and the U.S. It seems like a good time to retell their story...and to share Solmaz's world-famous walnut cookie recipe.
Food and stories: in the case of my old Jewish relatives, it's impossible to separate the two.
I think we tell and hear too few kinds of stories about ourselves...
In our digitally intertwined, always-on lives, one of the more startling windows into another person's day is the accidental connection: the butt-dialed call, the mis-addressed email or text. Yesterday I answered the phone and heard a friend cussing at some "moron" in traffic.
Amna's warmth, humor, and hospitality have touched many people in the small southern town where she lives. She and her husband work, raise their kids, and look out for their neighbors like any American family—but their journey to "ordinary" was anything but. Until a few
I share "Three Thanksgivings" in gratitude for my family. They truly deserve a Homs-at-Home sitcom, written just for them, starring them as themselves, except for me. I’d like Joan Chen to play a glamorous (finally!) version of me.
I was born in Misrata, a city on the Mediterranean coast of Libya, but I took my first steps in Tripoli where I grew up and spent most of my life. From an early age I was bilingual, speaking Arabic and Tamasheq, the Tuareg language. The two languages embody vastly different ways of being...
Or: "Lady, I'd Move."