Middle Eastern Cabbage Salad

Looking for a new cabbage slaw recipe to take to this summer's picnics?

Check out this classic Middle Eastern salad, which is as pretty as a rainbow, mayo-free, and as easy as it is delicious.  Dressed lightly with lemon and olive oil, and with a sprinkle of mint, parsley and green onion, this salad is a refreshing break from the classic coleslaw.  

Find the recipe over at MidEats!

And if you need other picnicking ideas, be sure to check out my last post, a Middle Eastern picnic recipe round-up.  

Sahtain!

Picnic Like an Arab: A Recipe Round-Up

For Mother's Day, my family went on a lovely hike at the Great Falls national park.  It was the kind of perfectly gorgeous day that you get in Northern Virginia a handful of times a year - brightly sunny and breezy, and the park grounds were packed with picnickers from all around the world.  Cigarette smoke wafted down few European tourists resting on some rocks, and beautiful (and fancy-dressed) Latin-American women walked by in their heels, dads with babies slung into backpacks trudged by.  In a rocky crevice, I rested on a rock while my children and husband scrambled across a stream, and a little girl with shiny black hair asked me if I knew where she could find a salamander.

In the green, open areas, some families were positively feasting - huge families congregated, with children scampering everywhere and grandparents, aunties and uncles lounged on plastic chairs, blankets, and impromptu hammocks, listening to music and stoked their charcoal grills (one family had actually wheeled out a sizable gas grill.  I was impressed.). I of course, tried to sneak peaks at what people had smoking on their grills and spread on picnic blankets.

The scene brought back so many memories from my childhood, where picnicking and barbecuing was serious business. We could just gather and eat food cooked out under the sky, or near water, with loads of friends and families spread out on picnic blankets and chairs, the mamas washing parsley and cucumbers for the tabbouleh under an open water tap.  I remember the green grassy hills and the palm trees by springs of Sachne, grilling fish with my aunts and uncles on the shores of Tiberias, and then, the teenage years of barbeques at in the local Jerusalem parks.  Other times, we grilled kebabs in the evenings on our flat, stone rooftop, under the canopy of stars, stoking the charcoal in tiny little grills while listening to the call to prayer, and then, afterwards, lying on mats and pillows to watch for shooting stars.

This was the Palestine that I loved.

In honor of the the start of picnic season, I have rounded up a few Middle Eastern picnic-friendly recipes, both mine and others.  I wish you joy this picnic season.  After all, is there anything better than the combination of good food, prepared and shared with good friends and family, and shared in the midst of beauty?

All about Milk Kefir + A Step-by-Step Tutorial on How to Make Milk Kefir at Home

Milk what?

Milk kefir (keh-feer) is a fermented milk drink, similar to a drinkable yogurt.  Thick, creamy, tangy, with a slight effervescence, some describe it as the "champagne" of dairy because of the lovely light fizz in this creamy drink.  When homemade, its flavor changes with the seasons, becoming thicker and milder in the summer, and yeastier in the winter. A living food, kefir is cultured with wild yeasts and bacteria, and depending on the milk, fermenting practices, and strains of microorganisms, its taste ranges from mild or pungent, tangy or sour.

What is Old is New Again

Kefir originates from the ancient the Caucasus region, where it was lauded as a gift from the gods, a traditional elixir for health and longevity.  Traditional kefir was made from fresh raw animal milk, and hung from skin bags near the doorways, so that the family's movements in and out would agitate the grains and the milk.  Today, you can find kefir just about anywhere in the world, but it remains popular in eastern and northern Europe. I remember sampling it when we traveled through Europe, and loved it immediately. I also remember seeing it on the shelves of the Jewish supermarkets in Jerusalem, which is why I had the impression for a long time that it was an Israeli drink. Arabs also drink it (my mother tells me that families in her childhood neighborhood in Nazareth brewed it) and it is often strained into a thick cheese, very similar to yogurt cheese, or labaneh. It is also rising in popularity in the United States, and you can find it in pasteurized forms in most natural food stores or in larger markets.

Milk is transformed into kefir when it is mixed with "kefir grains," usually left at room temperature, and left to ferment until it has thickened. "Kefir grains" are live active cultures, forming a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY).  These small, gelatinous particles develop into complex cauliflower-like structures. My toddler, who likes to help me make the kefir, describes the grains as "wet popcorn," which is a very apt description.

While this all sounds exotic, obscure, and (perhaps a little terrifying?) making kefir is very simple. All you need is a couple of grains, add them to milk, and leave them on your counter to ferment until thickened. If you are lucky, you can inherit some from a kind friend, or join a free culture-sharing Facebook page, where people mail them off or give them away freely. Otherwise, purchase them online.

Drink to Your Health

I am in love with this drink.  Have you ever tried something for the first time and you were instantly hooked? This tangy, fizzy, creamy, thick drink, just won me over at first swig. But it wasn't just the taste that drew me in.  It made me feel good.  Happy.  Relaxed.  And I thought that this was strange until I read that the word "kefir" is thought to derive from the Turkish word "keif" which means "good feeling." It turns out that kefir is rich in tryptophan, that amino acid that raises your feel-happy seratonin levels in your brain. After just a cup, I do notice that I feel slightly calmer and more relaxed.

Fertility and Traditional (Middle Eastern) Diets - Part Two

In my last post, I shared my fertility story, and described the impact that changing my diet had on my fertility.

I asked: is it possible that eating a more traditional diet, particularly a diet that has produced generation upon generation of Palestinians, supports fertility?  After looking at some of the recent research on fertility diets, here is what I found.  Here are some common components to fertility diets, with a short explanation of their benefits, and how they fit into a Middle Eastern cuisine.

{Disclaimer: I am not a nutritionist or a medical professional, so please consult a medical professional if you have any concerns about your fertility.  Not all fertility issues can be resolved through diet.  Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health who have studied this topic have concluded that diet can have a positive impact on those who struggle with some infertility (ovulatory dysfunction and possible endometrial problems), but other causes of infertility do not respond to dietary changes. To read more about their findings, find the link at the bottom of the page.}

1.  Eat and Drink Full-Fat Dairy

Do you know that skim milk and other low-fat dairy products actually promote infertility? Modern studies agree: full-fat dairy increases fertility, but low-fat dairy actually decreases fertility!  Women who ate two or more servings of low-fat dairy foods had an 85% increased chance of adulatory infertility problems.  (Listen to an interview with these Harvard researchers here, see another study here.). So even though the American public has been warned repeatedly about the dangers of natural saturated fat, and urged to drink low-fat or skim milk, women who wish to become pregnant are now encouraged to consume one serving of full-fat dairy every single day.

Why is this? Researchers are not sure, but they posit that fat-soluble hormones in the milk play a role in ovulation. We do know that since we need an ample supply of vitamins A, D, E and K to achieve pregnancy, and since these vitamins are fat-soluble, it is extremely important that you have a good source of fat for your body to be able to absorb them.

If you are on a low-fat diet, I think that this is the first change that you should make.  Ditch all of the low-fat dairy products and opt for high quality, full fat diary foods every day. Organic, hormone-free, whole, grassfed milk products will give you the most benefits, and if you can find a source for raw or low-temperature pasteurized dairy, that is even better.  Opt for butter, not artificial spreads, whole milk and whole milk yogurt and cheeses, real cream, and homemade, naturally-sweetened ice cream.  When I was growing up in the Middle East, we drank whole milk, ate full fat plain yogurt at most meals, and ate whole milk yogurt cheese (labaneh), and whole milk farmers cheese (jibneh baida) regularly, and even enjoyed cups of cultured cream (shemenet).