Culture
In an Istanbul Restaurant, Texas Meets the Black Sea
Can Chef Sertan Cavusoglu sell Istanbulites on American barbecue? “Turks,” Cavusoglu says, “don’t have any guarantee in their lives—except for their food.”
Memory Songs
In a refugee camp in Jordan, a Syrian flute helps a displaced shepherd keep the past alive: “It took weeks to learn how to breathe in and blow out at the same time,” Jehad says. “Now I can play nonstop for hours.”
Beirut, City of Lights
One of the world’s oldest cities, Beirut is also among the Middle East’s most diverse, with sizable populations of many Muslim and Christian sects. Photographer Scott Lashinsky sends these pictures of Beirut’s many colors.
‘We Don’t Sell This’
In a Jordanian village, the Al Qurashi family has been making olive oil for generations: “Harun dumps the pulp into a pan and massages the mess with his fingers. He scoops up a fist-sized portion, squeezes it between his palms.”
Who Was Hawa Tako?
In Somalia, the debate about a national hero’s legacy: “There are two ways of remembering Hawa Tako. There is the woman and there is the meaning of the woman. The stories of our national heroes become monuments of personal and collective memory.”
My Grandmother Taught My Mother Who Taught Me
Nellie Safadi teaches Danny Wright how to make a Jordanian culinary staple: “In Arabic,” she says, “the word mansaf means ‘blow up.’ People eat the dish so fast it looks like it has exploded in every direction.”
