Writing a cookbook and editing another one put an end to this blog for a long time. Attempting to revive; we shall see.
I just got a press release from a restaurant I like, doing a new thing I am excited about: every Monday night, they're going to do a special menu from the countries of northern Africa, popping over to the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea in some cases. I love this food, and there's not enough of it in Seattle, and so I am excited. The press release, in attempting to describe the region, calls it "the Muslim world". (my god! would they ever call Italy and France "the Catholic world? Or describe a German restaurant as featuring food from "the Lutheran world?") I rolled my eyes and kept scrolling down, where I see the list of countries that will be the focus of each of the coming months. One of the countries is Israel. The final set of countries are Berber; typically (but not entirely) Muslim but not Arab. The name of the series is the unfortunate Arabesque.
Again, I like the food and I like the restaurant. But I also like to think that one of the points of eating food from regions around the world is so you learn something about the people--true and interesting things, rather than "oh them, they're all Muslim, plus Arab!" And, silly me, I know, but I'd like to think that even if whoever wrote the press release is a dope, that some non-dope at the restaurant might have read this and approved it. I'm sure I'll stop in a time or two in the next few months to see what the food's like, but more than that: I'll be poking around more down in the Rainier Valley, where I'll be offered bananas with Somali meals and delicious tea with Eretrian dinners, and can find halal Vietnamese (is Viet Nam in the "Muslim world?") and both Iraqi and Armenian falafel.
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