a celebration of Humans, Food, & Culture
ALAA
Captured By The Recipe Hunters In Lebanon
Meet Alaa
A poet, a cook, and a mother of five.
Alaa rhymes her way through the kitchen creating poems for every recipe that she cooks and serves. Her poems are free-flowing rhymes of the ingredients and flavors of her dishes! Below is a picture of Alaa singing to a fellow chef and Kamel, the founder of the Souk El Tayeb Organization, as they try her Syrian Tabbouleh Recipe.
How did you learn how to cook?
"I learned how to cook from my mother and grandmother, as I was by their side in the kitchen ever since I could walk. I adapted my family’s traditional recipes to my own flavor. My favorite food to make and eat is kibbeh. I love kibbeh so much that when it became too dangerous in my hometown in Syria and we had to flee, I ran back into my home, not to collect family pictures and albums, but to grab my beloved kibbeh machine, that should I could not bear to live without."
What have you learned from Tawlet and Caritas?
"I feel blessed. People really care about me and the Syrian people in general. I feel humbled that people are interested in my country’s cuisine, that they want to taste the food of my people, and that I am the one who gets to cook it for them."
What was the best part of the program?
"It was a lot of fun to write all of the recipes down with my Syrian friends and then to be able to teach them to the Lebanese chefs."
What is your dream?
"My dream is to have my own restaurant, to cater private functions and develop a business around my love of food."
SYRIAN TABBOULEH
RECIPE
Read more about Souk el Tayeb and how they are helping the Syrian community here!
Written by The Recipe Hunters: Anthony Morano and Leila Elamine