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gothhabiba · 5 months

Note

loving your falafel research saga and just wanted to ask - something I remember hearing about falafel is that while Israeli culture definitely appropriated it, the concept of serving it in pita bread with salads, tahini etc. is a specifically Israeli twist on the dish. I wonder if you found/know anything about that?

The short answer is: it's not impossible, but I don't think there's any way to tell for sure. The long answer is:

The most prominent claim I've heard of this nature is specifically that Yemeni Jews (who had immigrated to Israel under 'right of return' laws and were Israeli citizens) invented the concept of serving falafel in "pita" bread in the 1930s—perhaps after they (in addition to Jews from Morocco or Syria) had brought falafel over and introduced it to Palestinians in the first place.

"Mizrahim brought falafel to Palestine"

This latter claim, which is purely nonsense (again... no such thing as Moroccan falafel!)—and which Joel Denker (linked above) repeats with no source or evidence—was able to arise because it was often Mizrahim who introduced Israelis to Palestinian food. Mizrahi falafel sellers in the early 20th century might run licensed falafel stands, or carry tins full of hot falafel on their backs and go from door to door selling them (see Shaul Stampfer on a Yemeni man doing this, "Bagel and Falafel: Two Iconic Jewish Foods and One Modern Jewish Identity," in Jews and their Foodways, p. 183; this Arabic source mentions a 1985 Arabic novel in which a falafel seller uses such a tin; Yael Raviv writes that "Running falafel stands had been popular with Yemenite immigrants to Palestine as early as the 1920s and ’30s," "Falafel: A National Icon," Gastronomica 3.3 (2003), p. 22).

On Mizrahi preparation of Palestinian food, Dafna Hirsch writes:

As Sami Zubaida notes, Middle Eastern foodways, while far from homogeneous, are nevertheless describable in a vocabulary and set of idioms that are “often comprehensible, if not familiar, to the socially diverse parties” [...]. Thus, for the Jews who arrived in Palestine from the Middle East, Palestinian Arab foods and foodways were “comprehensible, if not familiar,” even if some of the dishes were previously unknown to most of them. [...] They found nothing extraordinary or exotic in the consumption, preparation, and selling of foods from the Palestinian Arab kitchen. Therefore, it was often Mizrahi Jews who mediated local foods to Ashkenazi consumers, as street food vendors and restaurant owners. ("Urban Food Venues as Contact Zones between Arabs and Jews during the British Mandate Period," in Making Levantine Cuisine: Modern Foodways of the Eastern Mediterranean, p. 101).

Raviv concurs and furnishes a possible mechanism for this borrowing:

Other Mizrahi Jewish vendors sold falafel, which by the late 1930s had become quite prevalent and popular on the streets of Tel Aviv. [...] Tel Aviv had eight licensed Mizrahi falafel vendors by 1941 and others who sold falafel without a license. [FN: The Tel Aviv municipality granted vending license to people who could not make their living in any other way as a form of welfare.] Many of the vendors were of Yemenite origins, although falafel was unknown in Yemen. [FN: Many of the immigrants from Yemen arrived in Palestine via Egypt, so it is possible that they learned to prepare it there and then adjusted the recipe to the Palestinian version, which was made from chickpeas and not from fava beans (ṭaʿmiya). Shmuel Yefet, an Israeli falafel maker, tells about his father, Yosef Ben Aharon Yefet, who arrived in Palestine from Aden [Yemen] in the early 1920s and then traveled to Port Said in 1939. There he became acquainted with ṭaʿmiya, learned to prepare it, and then went back to Palestine and opened a falafel shop in Tel Aviv [youtube video].]*

But why claim that Yemeni Jews invented falafel (or at least that they had introduced it from Yemen), even though its adoption from Palestinian Arabs in the early days of the second Aliya, aka the 1920s (before Mizrahim had begun to immigrate in larger numbers; see Raviv, p. 20) was within living memory at this point (i.e. the 1950s)? Raviv notes that an increasing (I mean, actually she says new, which... lol) negative attitude towards Arabs in the wake of the Nakba (I mean... she says "War of Independence") created a new sense of urgency around de-Arabizing "Israeli" culture (p. 22). Its association with Mizrahi sellers allowed falafel to "be linked to Jewish immigrants who had come from the Middle East and Africa" and thus to "shed its Arab association in favor of an overarching Israeli identification" (p. 21).

Stampfer again:

On the one hand (with regard to immigrants from Eastern Europe), [falafel] underscored the break between immediate past East European Jewish foods and the new “Oriental” world of Eretz Israel.** At the same time, this food could be seen as a link with an (idealized) past. Among the Jewish public in Eretz Israel, Yemenite falafel was regarded as the most original and tastiest version. This is a bit odd, as falafel—whether in or out of a pita—was not a traditional Yemenite food, neither among Muslims nor among Jews. To understand the ascription of falafel to Yemenite Jews, it is necessary to consider their image. Yemenite Jews were widely regarded in the mid-20th century as the most faithful transmitters of a form of Jewish life that was closest to the biblical world—and if not the biblical world, at least the world of the Second Temple, which marked the last period of autonomous Jewish life in Eretz Israel. In this sense, eating “Yemenite” could be regarded as an act of bodily identification with the Zionist claim to the land of Israel. (p. 189)

So, when it's undeniable that a food is "Arab" or "Oriental" in origin, Zionists will often attribute it to Yemen, Syria, Morocco, Turkey, &c.—and especially to Jewish communities within these regions—because it cannot be permitted that Palestinians have a specific culture that differentiates them in any way from other "Arabs." A culinary culture based in the foodstuffs cultivated from this particular area of land would mean a tie and a claim to the land, which Zionist logic cannot allow Palestinians to possess. This is why you'll hear Zionists correct people who say "Palestinians" to say "Arab" instead, or suggest that Palestinians should just scooch over into other "Arab" countries because it would make no difference to them. Raviv's conclusion that the attribution of falafel to Yemeni immigrants is an effort to detach it from its "Arab" origins isn't quite right—it is an attempt to detach it, and thus Palestinians themselves, from Palestinian roots.

"Yemeni Jews first put falafel in 'pita'"

As for this claim, it's often attributed to Gil Marks: "Jews didn’t invent falafel. They didn’t invent hummus. They didn’t invent pita. But what they did invent was the sandwich. Putting it all together.” (Hilariously, the author of the interview follows this up with "With each story, I wanted to ask, but how do you know that?")

Another author (signed "Philologos") speculates (after, by the way, falsely claiming that "falafel" is the plural of the Arabic "filfil" "pepper," and that falafel is always brown, not green, inside?!):

Yet while falafel balls are undoubtedly Arab in origin, too, it may well be that the idea of serving them as a street-corner food in pita bread, to which all kinds of extras can be added, ranging from sour pickles to whole salads, initially was a product of Jewish entrepreneurship.

Shaul Stampfer cites both of these articles as further reading on the "novelty of the combination of pita, falafel balls, and salad" (FN 76, p. 198)—but neither of them cites any evidence! They're both just some guy saying something!

Marks had, however, elaborated a little bit in his 2010 Encyclopedia of Jewish Food:

Falafel was enjoyed in salads as part of a mezze (appetizer assortment) or as a snack by itself. An early Middle Eastern fast food, falafel was commonly sold wrapped in paper, but not served in the familiar pita sandwich until Yemenites in Israel introduced the concept. [...] Yemenite immigrants in Israel, who had made a chickpea version in Yemen, took up falafel making as a business and transformed this ancient treat into the Israeli iconic national food. Most importantly, Israelis wanted a portable fast food and began eating the falafel tucked into a pita topped with the ubiquitous Israeli salad (cucumber-and-tomato salad).

He references one of the pieces that Lillian Cornfeld (columnist for the English-language, Jerusalem-based newspaper Palestine Post) wrote about "filafel":

An article from October 19, 1939 concluded with a description of the common preparation style of the most popular street food, 'There is first half a pita (Arab loaf), slit open and filled with five filafels, a few fried chips and sometimes even a little salad,' the first written record of serving falafel in pita. [Marks doesn't tell you the title or page—it's "Seaside Temptations: Juveniles' Fare at Tel Aviv," p. 4.]

You will first of all notice that Marks gives us the "falafel from Yemen" story. I also notice that he calls Salat al-bundura "Israeli salad" (in its entry he does not claim that European Jewish immigrants invented it, but neither does he attribute it to Palestinian influence: the dish was originally "Turkish coban salatsi"). His encyclopedia also elsewhere contains Zionist claims such as "wild za'atar was declared a protected plant in Israel" "[d]ue to overexploitation" because of how much of the plant "Arab families consume[d]," and that Israeli cultivation of the crop yielded "superior" plants (entry for "Za'atar")—a narrative of "Arab" mismanagement, and Israeli improvement, of land used to justify settler-colonialism. He writes that Palestinians who accuse "the Jews" of theft in claiming falafel are "creat[ing] a controversy" and that "food and culture cannot be stolen," with no reflection on the context of settler-colonialism and literal, physical theft that lies behind said "controversy." This isn't relevant except that it makes me sceptical of Marks's motivations in general.

More pertinent is the fact that this quote doesn't actually suggest that this falafel vendor was Yemeni (or otherwise) Jewish, nor does it suggest that he was the first one to prepare falafel in pitas with "fried chips," "sometimes even a little salad," and "Tehina, a local mayonnaise made with sesame oil" (Cornfeld, p. 4). I think it likely that this food had been sold for a while before it was described in published writing. The idea that this preparation is "Israeli" in origin must be false, since this was before the state of "Israel" existed—that it was first created by Yemeni Jewish falafel vendors is possible, but again, I've never seen any direct evidence for it, or anyone giving a clear reason for why they believe it to be the case, and the political reasons that people have for believing this narrative make me wary of it. There were Palestinian Arab falafel vendors at this time as well.

"Chickpea falafel is a Jewish invention"

There is also a claim that falafel originated in Egypt, where it was made with fava beans; spread to the Levant, including Palestine, where it was made with a combination of fava beans and chickpeas; but that Jewish immigration to Israel caused the origin of the chickpea-only falafal currently eaten in Palestine, because a lot of Jewish people have G6PD deficiencies or favism (inherited enzymatic deficiencies making fava beans anywhere from unpleasant to dangerous to eat)—or that Jewish populations in Yemen had already been making chickpea-only falafel, and this was the falafel which they brought with them to Palestine.

As far as I can tell, this claim comes from Joan Nathan's 2001 The Foods of Israel:

Zadok explained that at the time of the establishment of the state, falafel—the name of which probably comes from the word pilpel (pepper)—was made in two ways: either as it is in Egypt today, from crushed, soaked fava beans or fava beans combined with chickpeas, spices, and bulgur; or, as Yemenite Jews and the Arabs of Jerusalem did, from chickpeas alone. But favism, an inherited enzymatic deficiency occurring among some Jews—mainly those of Kurdish and Iraqi ancestry, many of whom came to Israel during the mid 1900s—proved potentially lethal, so all falafel makers in Israel ultimately stopped using fava beans, and chickpea falafel became an Israeli dish.

Gil Marks's 2010 Encyclopedia of Jewish Food echoes (but does not cite):

Middle Eastern Jews have been eating falafel for centuries, the pareve fritter being ideal in a kosher diet. However, many Jews inherited G6PD deficiency or its more severe form, favism; these hereditary enzymatic deficiencies are triggered by items like fava beans and can prove fatal. Accordingly, Middle Eastern Jews overwhelmingly favored chickpeas solo in their falafel. (Entry for "Falafel")

The "centuries" thing is consistent with the fact that Marks believes falafel to be of Medieval origin, a claim which most scholars I've read on the subject don't believe (no documentary evidence, + oil was expensive so it seems unlikely that people were deep frying anything). And, again, this claim is speculation with no documentary evidence to support it.

As for the specific modern toppings including the Yemeni hot sauce سَحاوِق / סְחוּג (saHawiq / "zhug"), Baghdadi mango pickle عنبة / עמבה ('anba), and Moroccan هريسة / חריסה ("harissa"), it seems likely that these were introduced by Mizrahim given their place of origin.

*You might be interested to know that, despite their Jewishness mediating this borrowing, Mizrahim were during the Mandate years largely ethnically segregated from Eastern European Zionists, who were pushing to create a "new" European-Israeli Judaism separate from what they viewed as the indolence and ignorance of "Oriental" Jewishness (Hirsch p. 101).

This was evidenced in part by Europeans' attitudes towards the "Oriental" diet. Ari Ariel, summarizing Yael Raviv's Falafel Nation, writes:

Although all immigrants were thought to require culinary education as an aspect of their absorption into the new national culture, Middle Eastern Jews, who began to immigrate in increasing numbers after 1948, provoked greater anxiety on the part of the state than did their Ashkenazi co-religionists. Israeli politicians and ideologues spoke of the dangers of Levantization and stereotyped Jews from the Middle East and North Africa as primitive, lazy, and ignorant. In keeping with this Orientalism, the state pressured Middle Easterners to change their foodways and organized cooking demonstrations in transit camps and new housing developments. (Book review, Israel Studies Review 31.2 (2016), p. 169.)

See also Esther Meir-Glitzenstein, "Longing for the Aromas of Baghdad: Food, Emigration, and Transformation in the Lives of Iraqi Jews in Israel in the 1950s," in Jews and their Foodways:

[...] [T]he Israeli establishment was set on “educating” the new immigrants not only in matters of health and hygiene, [77] but also in the realm of nutrition. A concerted propaganda effort was launched by well-baby clinics, kindergartens, schools, health clinics, and various organizations such as the Women’s International Zionist Organization (WIZO) and the Organization of Working Mothers in order to promote the consumption of milk and dairy products, in particular. [78] (These had a marginal place in Iraqi cuisine, consumed mainly by children.) Arab and North African cuisines were criticized for being not sufficiently nutritious, whereas the Israeli diet was touted as ideal, as it was western and modern. […] [T]he assault on traditional Middle Eastern cuisines reflected cultural arrogance yet another attempt to transform immigrants into “new Jews” in accordance with the Zionist ethos. Thus, European table manners were presented as the norm. Eating with the hands was equated with primitive behavior, and use of a fork and knife became the hallmark of modernity and progress. (pp. 100-101)

[77. On health matters, see Davidovich and Shvarts, “Health and Hegemony,” 150–179; Sahlav Stoller-Liss, “ ‘Mothers Birth the Nation’: The Social Construction of Zionist Motherhood in Wartime in Israeli Parents’ Manuals,” Nashim 6 (Fall 2003), 104–118.]

[78. On propaganda for drinking milk and eating dairy products, see Mor Dvorkin, “Mif’alei hahazanah haḥinukhit bishnot ha’aliyah hagedolah: mekorot umeafyenim” (seminar paper, Ben-Gurion University, 2010).]

**On the desire to shed "old, European" "Jewish" identity and take on a "new, Oriental" "Hebrew" one, and the contradictory impulses to use Palestinian Arabs as models in this endeavour and to claim that they needed to be "corrected," see:

Itamar Even-Zohar, "The Emergence of a Native Hebrew Culture in Palestine, 1882—1948"

Dafna Hirsch, "We Are Here to Bring the West, Not Only to Ourselves": Zionist Occidentalism and the Discourse of Hygiene in Mandate Palestine"

Ofra Tene, "'The New Immigrant Must Not Only Learn, He Must Also Forget': The Making of Eretz Israeli Ashkenazi Cuisine."

#sorry for this but you should've known better than to ask me about falafel at this stage in my life #falafel research saga

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c-h-pictures · 1 year

Text

BSD as things said at the markets

Kunikida: We might give you a list of things to buy.

Kenji: You want me to bring the rucksack then?

Dazai: No, bring a wheelbarrow.

Kenji: Kyoka already thinks I'm the stereotypical country kid! I don't need to bring a wheelbarrow into the city markets!

Ranpo, after seeing the Italian dessert stall and the Turkish dessert stall: I'm happy, I've found the important ones.

Kunikida: And turn right and we're on King Street.

Chuuya:

Chuuya: This can't be King Street.

Dazai: *looking for a sign that says King Street*

Kunikida: It is.

Chuuya: But the Italian cheese and meat stall isn't here.

Dazai: They're always here!

Kunikida: Maybe they're on a different street.

Chuuya: Where would they go? Town Hall? That's closed for repairs for another three years! And that's not including all the work time lost during COVID!

Chuuya:

Chuuya: Maybe they're at the other end?

Dazai: You're too hopeful, if they aren't in their spot, they just aren't in the country.

Chuuya: I blame Brexit. It got finalised at the beginning of this year with the terms of travel.

Kunikida: For what?

Chuuya: For the Italian cheese and meat stall not being here.

Kunikida: You're still hung up about that?

Chuuya: Yes!

Dazai: What if the desert stall isn't here? They're Italian too.

Chuuya: The agreements concerned dairy products where there are significant amounts of dairy. We got biscuits back, I think they'll be fine with pastries.

Dazai: What about the chocolate?

Chuuya: Less sure about the chocolate.

Kunikida: Can we just find somewhere to eat dinner?

Dazai: This is clearly more important Kunikida!

Chuuya: Dazai! I was right!

Dazai: You said maybe they were at the other end, this is the middle.

Chuuya: Who cares? The stall's here!

Dazai:

Dazai: Thank you.

Chuuya: Why are you thanking me?

Dazai: I do not know.

Kunikida: Can we please make a decision on food?

Chuuya: We already have.

Kunikida: Really?

Dazai, pointing at Chuuya: Halloumi fries from the Greek stall a few up.

Chuuya, pointing at Dazai: Traditional spiced potatoes from the Moroccan stall a couple down because he doesn't want a full meal since he's not that hungry.

Kunikida:

Chuuya: Kunikida! Come back!

Kunikida: What have you found?

Chuuya: You said you wanted present ideas.

Kunikida, looking at a selection of insects, arachnids and bats in resin: Huh.

Dazai: He already has a scorpion and a Scarab beetle.

Chuuya: I do!

Kunikida: Well, we've got to go otherwise we'll be late for the concert.

Kunikida: So. You want a pair of amber earrings, steampunk style skulls with or without dragons, and dead insects.

Chuuya: No! I want a pair of amber earrings, steampunk style skulls with or without dragons and maybe the dragon in its own, and dead animals.

Dazai: Don't make this worse, Kunikida.

Kunikida: We said the same thing.

Chuuya: We didn't. Spiders and scorpions are arachnids and bats aren't even invertebrates!

Kunikida: Dazai?

Dazai: Your fault. You called them all insects in earshot of Chuuya.

#bsd incorrect quotes #bsd kunikida #bsd kenji #bsd dazai #bsd ranpo #bsd chuuya #kunichuuzai

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raatart · 14 days

Text

a complete boycott list in alphabetical order

a complete list of companies / brands / franchises to boycott in support of palestine that i have been working on putting together for a while now.

remember to support your local businesses

stand with palestine against genocide

(Food & Beverages)

Activia

Acqua Panna

Akmina

Absolute Vodka

Algida

A&W

Aquafina

Alpro

Actimel

Burger King

Baskin Robbins

Ben & Jerry's

Bugles

Betty Crocker

Badoit

Becel

Coca Cola

Costa Coffee

Cadbury

Cheerios

Cheetos

Campbells

Calve

Cappy

Chiquita

Dominos

Dasani

Dunkin' Donuts

Doritos

Dr Pepper

Danone

Dolcela

Damla

Dogadan

Evian

Eden

Fanta

Frito-lay

Fruit by the Foot Roll Ups

Falim

Fresca

Gatorade

Greggs

Hardees

Haagen Dazs

Heinz Ketchup

Hershey's

Hard Rock Cafe

Heinz

Innocent

Israeli Fruits & Vegetables

Jacob's

Jaffa

KitKat

KFC

Kbueno

Kraft Mac & Cheese

Kellogg's

Kraft

Lipton

Lays

McDonald's

Mars

Marks & Spencers

Maggi

Marila

Monster

Mountain Dew

Mehadrin

Minute Maid

Milk Bar

M&M's

Magnum Ice Cream

Milka Chocolates

Nestle

Nestle Cereals

Nescafe

Nesquik

Nespresso

Nido

Nutella

Nature Valley

Nestle Milo

Nestle Carnation

Nestle Coffee Mate

Nestle Nestum

Nimbooz

Nestea

Orea

Original Shredded Wheat

Papa John's

Pepsi

Pringles

Pizza Hut

Perrier

Pillsbury

Popeyes

Pretty a Manager

Pure Life

Powerade

Popup Bagels

Quality Street

Quaker

Redbull

Ruffles

Starbucks

Subway

Smartwater

Sweetgreen

Snickers

Sprite

Sabra

Sunkist

Strauss

Smarties

S.pellegrino

Schweppes

Sana

Sirma

Sara Lee

Toblerone

Tang

Twix

Tesco

Tropicana

Vittle

Volvic

Wall's

Walmart

Walkers

Wrigley's

7Up

(Clothing)

America Eagle

Adidas

Alo

Adina Eden Jewelry

Converse

Calvin Klein

Cat

Castro

Drew

Diesel

Good American

GAP

H&M

Kamili

Levi's

Lumberjack

Mango

Nike

Oasis

Puma

River Island

Skims

Skinny Dip

St. Mark

Style Nadia

Timberland

Victoria's Secret

Vakko

We Wore That

Wyeth

Zara

(Beauty)

Aveda

Amika

Avon

Aussie

Aveeno

Always

Aesop

Ahava

Bobbi Brown

Blistex

Bath & Body Works

Britney Spears Fragrance

Becca

Biotherm

Beauty Blender

Clinique

Covergirl

Colgate

Calgon

Camay

CeraVe

Christina Aguilera Perfumes

Clean & Clear

Crest

CND

Cacharel

Dr. Jart+

Dove

Dettol

Darphin Paris

Dark & Lovely

Essie

Elidor

Fenty Beauty

Fair & Lovely

Garnier

Gillette

Glam Glow

Honest Beauty

Haci Sakir

Herbal Essences

Head & Shoulders

Hugo Boss

Jo Malone

Johnson & Johnsom

Kerastase

Kiehl's

Kylie Cosmetics

Kylie Skin

Kotex

L'Oreal

Lacome

La Roche-Posey

Lifebuoy

Lux

Lubiderm

Maybelline

MAC

Moroccan Oil

Maui

Matrix

Max Factor

Nyx

Neutrogena

Nivea

Nature's Beauty

Niely

Olay

Origins

Orkid

Oral-B

Oax

Pepsodent

Pantene

Revlon

Rimmel

Rexona

Rhode

Summer Fridays

Schick

Smashbox

Sephora

Sensodyne

Skinceuticals

Skin Better Science

The Body Shop

Too Faced Cosmetics

The Ordinary

Tom Ford Beauty

Tampax

Takami

Urban Decay

Ulta Beauty

Vichy

Vaseline

Veet

Yes to

Yuesai

(Luxury)

Chanel

Estee Lauder

Georgio Armani

LVMH

Louis Vuitton

La Mer

Lavs

Le Labo

Mugler

Maison Margiela

Prada

Raplh Lauren

Tiffany & Co.

Tom Ford

Tommy Hilfiger

Valentino

Yves Saint Laurent

(Tech & Entertainment)

Aol

Amazon

AirBnB

Apple

BBC

Buxton

Barbie

Booking.com

CNN

Disney+

Dell

Energizer

Ford

Fiverr

Galaxy

Hyundai

Hulu

IBM

Intel

Lego

Motorola

Movenpick

Mattel

Microsoft

National Geographic

Nokia

Netflix

Oracle

Oxi

Philips

Rolls Royce

Siemens

Sodastream

Toys R Us

Volvo

Valvoline

Wix

(Other)

Axa

Ariel

Aero

Ambi Pur

Airwick

Aroma

AVC

Amway

Ace Hardware

Andrex

American Express

Bounty

Black & Decker

Bonux

Bref

Braun

Benadryl

Band-aid

Barclays

Blue Cross Blue Shield

Better Help

Caltex

Chevron

Culligan

Citi Bank

Chicco

Cravola

Clearblue

Capital One

Dash

Drynites

Dosmestos

Doona

Expedia

Finish

Febreeze

Fixodent

Fairy

Goop

Gerber

Gys

HSBC

Huggies

Hayat

Imodium

JCB

Kimberly-Clark

Kleenex

Lion

Little Swimmers

Lenor

Mr Muscle

Minidou

Monsanto

Nicorette

Omo

Pampers

Purina Felix

Payoneer

Palmolive

Protex

Pull-ups

P&G

Prima

Pril

Paramount Pictures

Rejoice

Rinso

Rogaine

Signal

Sensus

Sudafed

Tide

Unilever

Us Cellular

Vim

Vanish

Vicks

Yumus

(Places)

Disney

(People)

Ashley Tisdale

Amy Schumer

Andy Beshear

Bono

Ben Savage

Bella Thorne

Beyonce

Chris Evans

Claire Holt

Ciara

Chris Rock

Chris Pine

Demi Lovato

Dwayne Johnson

DJ Khaled

Eva Longoria

Gal Gadot

Ian Somerhalder

Jamie Lee Curtis

James Maslow

Justin Bieber

Jennifer Aniston

Jaclyn Hill

Jack Harlow

Jordan Peele

Joseph Quinn

Jack Black

Kylie Jenner

Kim Kardashian

Kris Jenner

Kerry Washington

Katie Perry

Karlie Kloss

Khloe Kardashian

Kat Graham

Kendall Jenner

Kourtney Kardashian

Lebron James

Lana Condor

Lana Del Rey

Millie Bobby Brown

Malala

Mindy Kaling

Mark Hamill

Madonna

NFL

Nina Dobrev

Natalie Portman

Nabela

Nicole Richie

Noah Schnapp

Octovia Spencer

Perez Hilton

Paul Wesley

Phoebe Tonkin

Pia Mia

P!nk

Ronaldinho

Rihanna

Sofia Richie

Shaquir O'neal

Selena Gomez

Tara Strong

Taika Waititi

Taylor Swift

Tyler Perry

Usher

Vanessa Hudgens

Viola Davis

#boycott #boycott israel #boycott mcdonalds #boycott starbucks #boycott disney #boycotting #pro palestine #fuck israel #support palestine

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bu1410 · 2 months

Text

Palermo - Italy

Hotel du Lac - Tunis

Hammamet - Tunisia

Costantine - Algeria

Fez - Morocco

Casablanca - Downtown

Typical Moroccan ''Grand Taxi

Benalmadena - Spain

Good evening TUMBLR - March 4th - 2024

From today , in order not to boring my 3 or 4 readers, I decided to alternate the writing of my work's experience, with holidays/vacation's adventures.

I hope that will make my writing less boring and more various.

Neverthekess, the overall title remains the same':

''Mr. Plant has owed me a shoe since July 5, 1971."

Ch. I - August 1975 - Italy - Tunisia – Algeria – Morocco – Spain – France – Italy.

So me and my ''partner in crime'' Gianluigi, we decided to make a Mediterramean circumnavigation: the Citroen DS19 purchased from by Mr. Proserpio, Gianluigi's uncle, for the modest sum of 300,000 lire (150 euros) we hope it will take us on a journey through six countries. The travel from Milan to Palermo was smoothly. It should be noted that the works on the Salerno – Reggio Calabria highway section (especially in the Lagonegro area) were already underway, and will continue for many years to come. Once in Palermo, we slept the night in a moribund AGIP Motel, an attempt by ENI (italian Hydrocarbur Giant) to provide Italy with a network of decent and not excessively expensive motels, obviously doomed to failure.

TUNISIA We board the ship to Tunis early in the morning and the got first surprise: on the ferry there is Mr. Mastelloni, a very popular Italian comedian at that time, of which no one ever really understood what he was, artistically speaking I mean. However, it was easy to understand: he was accompanied by a young ''blondy boy'' with blue eyes, similar to the main carachter of ''Death in Venice'' movie. As well as by two whiskey-coloured Afghan dogs, which were ''trendy'' at that time. We spent the night standing up, since we had a bridge ticket, so we slept little and badly on the sofas in the on-board bar. After docking in Tunis and disembarking, we understood that we were behind everyone at the customs check. A business card from the son of the Tunisian Minister of Industry, in Gianluigi's possession, comes to our aid (we have to deliver to this guy two sample chairs produced by G. Luigi's workshop for possible approval and export). As soon as the local policeman saw the business card, he immediately made us leave the queue, and in an instant, followed by the protests of the other passengers in the queue under the midday sun, we were outside the fence of Tunis port. We stay overnight at the Hotel du Lac, a building with the strange shape of an inverted pyramid: from the window of our room, on the 22nd floor, it was easy to see the sidewalk about 60 meters below: ''Let's hope that the building doesn't tip over this very night'' I told my friend. In the evening we take a tour of the old Medina, with dinner in a typical restaurant: large crevettes dish with a unique flavor at a price at which in Italy you would eat a sandwich on the street! For the rest, at the time, there was no nightlife, the clubs were all closed, in a sort of early lockdown. The following day, after having delivered the chairs to the Minister's son (followed by his exaggerated thanks) we left for Hammamet, where we would treat ourselves to a couple of days of relaxation before embarking on the journey to Algeria. And here I must make a premise: Tunisia in 1975 was a nation that was emerging from the long post-colonial period, and was governed by a Socialist regime. The ''Mediterranee hotel'', where we stayed, was a typical expression of this management: the various activities of the hotel - kitchen, rooms, swimming pool, beach -were managed by various cooperatives.

The result was simply disheartening. On the access staircase to the restaurant, in a glass showcase, the day's food was displayed: lunch with tomato-colored soup where 2 crevettes were floating - green salad with tomatoes, carrots, peppers and hard-boiled eggs. Two flies flew happily inside the box… and then there was nothing else…. In the hotel lobby we come in touch with a group of Italians from Abeille Insurance on a reward trip. The wife of one of them, a tall, large guy weighing at least 120 kg, takes us by the arms and, speaking in a low voice, she asked: - ''I saw that you have a car, right? - ''Yes, I answer cautiously… - - Well, the Lady continues – I ask you a favor, would you take my husband to eat in the city this evening? We are willing to pay for dinner for you too, there is no problem, please, we have been here for three days, my husband doesn't eat anything that is offered to us, and this morning when he got out of bed he almost fainted to the floor ……'' Well, the rumors spread at fast speed: attracted by the possibility of ''eating'' in the evening, 8 Italians found us and board our the Citroen before we can say anuthing! We choose the ''Barberousse restaurant''and we were threated with excellent grilled meat and local rosé wine – our guests had a sort of big binge, and all of them filled several take away containers. After the dinner, while wandering around the Medina of Hammamet, we understand the reason for Mr. Mastelloni's trip to Tunisia: some advert on the walls inform us that the 'Deuxieme Festival des Homosexuelles'' (the 2nd Homosexual Festival) was underway in a nightclub of the city!!! We were really astonished that in a Muslim country such kind of festival could take place. After a two-day stay where we also discover that around the hotel swimming pool yet another cooperative cooks excellent meat and fish brochette, we set off for Algeria.

ALGERIA The Tunisian state roads have good asphalt, and the journey was smooth till the border. The formalities at the Tunisian border post were completed in a few minutes. Then a couple of kilometers of ''No Man's Land'' took us to the Algeria border post.

The police shack was in very bad shape. The immigration policeman at first doesn't believe it was me on passport picture. (I had a mustache in the passport photo). Than he went back into the guard post box with both of our passports. After about twenty minutes, the Algerian policeman opened the shack's window and, shouting incomprehensible words in Arabic, literally throwed our passports at us! I stop Gianluigi from replying, I collect the passports and said ''merci Monsieur, au-revoir'' we finally left: certainly not a good welcome to Algeria!

Algeria is a land that is iconographically symbolized by deserts and dunes, but the region we pass through instead appears to us as a sort of ''African Switzerland''. Kabylia is mountainous and green and in the distance you can see numerous flocks of sheep and cows. The farms are bordered by well-maintained fences. We travelled quickly, and in the evening we arrived in Constantine. We pass impressed on the famous Sidi M'Cid: a 164 m long suspended bridge that crosses the Rhumel river in Constantine. It was opened to traffic in April 1912 and until 1929 it was the highest bridge in the world, standing at considerable height of 175 m. The next day we were traveling towards the North-West - at midday we have a quick lunch in white Algiers: its kasbah is still impressive but we had no intention of stopping there. And then away again, the roads were worse than the Tunisian ones; the asphalt is often full of potholes or completely missing. This is despite the country being a large oil producer, so asphalt should be available at very low cost. It was evening when we arrived in Sidi Bel Abbes and for the overnight stay we choose the pompous ''Intercontinental'' an old hotel built during the French occupation of the country. The rooms were dirty, sheets not washed since when? Bathrooms with taps from which a trickle of water flows slowly. The dinner, however, is a farce: - ''What are you offering for dinner''? - ''Des pates avec sardines'' (Spaghetti with sardines) - ''Et apres''? (And after''? - ''Des sardines'' (Sardines) - ''Chaude''………….(hot…) The next morning we literally escaped from the Intercontinental and pass through Tlemcen. From the main road it was possible to have a glimpse of the vineyards of the famous ''Coteux de Mascara'' rosé wine planted by the French. During the years of the civil war from 1991-1995, all the vineyards were removed. At the Western Algerian border we were lucky, and we crossed without problems. Further on, after the usual 2 kilometers of no man's land, at the Moroccan border post of Zouij Beghal a singular encounter: four Italians from Venice traveling in an Opel Rekord: - ''Where do you come from?'' we asked them

- From the Cape North'' - ''Cape North''? - Yes, we have few days holidays, and we promised ourselves to run from Padua to Cape North – than Morocco – Algeria – Tunisia – Italy. - ''Ahh….ok …''vaste programme''……. good continuation guys ….''

MOROCCO In the meantime, the Moroccan policeman kindly asked us to give a lift till the first village to an elderly lady that was carrieng a box containing four chickens. It is very common practice in Morocco, being asked to give a lift of stranded people. Once left the lady at the Attamiaas souk, our journey continued towards Oujda, the first important Moroccan city on the road to South-West. The route was very tormented, with ups and downs among the stony hills and sudden, very steep descents towards the ouadis and their unsafe bridges. We were crossing one of these bridges, where the road narrows sharply, when, about halfway through it, suddenly a blue Mercedes Grand Taxi enters the bridge from the opposite side!!! The Mercedes star on the hood of the car seems to get bigger and bigger as the taxi gets closer to us! In this situation - Gianluigi was driving - the only thing to do would be to stop and lean the car as much as possible against the balustrade of the bridge. Which - for inscrutable reasons - my friend didn't do! In fact I had the feeling that he speeds up in an (useless) attempt to reach the opposite end of the bridge before the Mercedes meet us! By then we understood that two cars cannot pass on the bridge at the same time, and we huddle closer and closer to the right parapet of the bridge, fearing the impact of the bodies at any moment! WHICH HAPPENED ! But… after a skid I believe due to the blow received on the side of the Citroen by the Mercedes, my friend managed to put the car back in the right direction!! We arrived on the other side of the Ouadi and we find ourselves at the first lay-by and we stop – for a moment we didn't had the strength to go down and check the damage to the car. In the meantime we realize that the blue taxi, far from stopping, has disappeared up the opposite slope. At this point Gianluigi took out a providential bottle of whiskey from the cardboard box, purchased on the ship between Palermo and Tunis! A couple of sips and we recover from the scare! It was needed!! Finally we got out of the car and realize that the end part of the left side of car's bodywork was missing! The impact with the Mercedes detached it. As we run back, and we see it lying in the middle of the bridge: it was a little battered, but once we returned to our car, we manage to put it back in his place: everything was resolved with a great scare and minor damage to the car, but it

could have gone much worse: the clash could have thrown us further down, onto the dry riverbed of the Ouadi and than perhaps I wouldn't be here to tell you about it…… After a couple of hours (and after a few further sips of whiskey because every now and then the memory of the narrow escape came back to us) we arrived in Fez.

Fez was founded under the rule of the Idrisids during the 8th-9th centuries AD. It initially consisted of two autonomous and competing settlements. Successive waves of mainly Arab immigrants from Ifriqiya (Tunisia) and al-Andalus (Spain/Portugal) in the early 9th century gave the nascent city its Arab character. After the fall of the Idrisid dynasty, other empires came and went until the 11th century, when the Almoravid sultan Yusuf ibn Tashfin united the two settlements in what is today the neighborhood of Fes el-Bali. Under Almoravid rule, the city gained a reputation for religious culture and mercantile activity. Fez reached its peak in the Marinid era (13th-15th centuries), regaining its status as a political capital. Numerous new madrasas and mosques were built, many of which survive today, while other structures were restored. These buildings are counted among the distinctive features of the Moorish and Moroccan. We stayed at the Moorish-style hotel les Merinides, where in the evening we had a delicious dinner of local dishes. The night was spectacular, the hotel stood on a hill and I cannot forget the view of the city lights, and of the sky illuminated by the full moon and a myriad of stars. The next day, unfortunately (in the sense that with hindsight we should/could have taken more advantage of the hospitality of Fez…) we left again for Casablanca, our final Moroccan destination. Yes, because August 15th was approaching, the date on which we had an appointment with the Mr. Proserpio in Benalmadena, on the Costa del Sol, Spain. Now my three readers need to consider an important factor: we are in 1975, so no cell phones, no computers etc and international calls between Morocco and Europe were very problematic. We arrived in Dar El Baida (Casablanca) and the problem arises of finding the Toubkal hotel (a structure we found in Morocco's tourist brochures). As soon as we arrive in the city, we notice a fruit and vegetable shop: I stopped, get out of the car and show off my French knowledge (I studied it in middle school, and my teacher would be proud of me…) I ask the greengrocer: - Excuse me Monsieur, the direction to go to the Toubkal hotel? - And he ''The Toubkal Hotel''? T'as dit l'Hotel Toubkal??? Ahh yes……Wait…. one minute……'' I saw returning from the shop with two very fat Maroccan women, together by bags and bags of fruit and vegetables. Whereupon the rear doors of the Citroen are opened, and everything - bundled women, vegetables, fruit is introduced into the car!! Then the greengrocer approaches the window and says to me:

''Elles save ou' est l'hotel Toubkal, elles vont vous donner la management''! Au revoir, M'salamah! '('They know where the Toubkal hotel is, they will give you the management''! Goodbye)

So we set off again, and at every crossroads I was asking: ou'? And the women: ''a droite - a gauche-tout droite'' (Where to go''? and the women ''To the right - to the left - go straight...''). We end up leaving the city, and it occurs to me that the Toubkal hotel is near the Place des Nations Unies, therefore in the city centre……. You should know that the Moroccans have established a scale of values of ''shrewdness'' of nationalities where obviously they are in first place - les Marocain sont de raquins (Moroccans are like sharks) and all the others are more or less imbeciles. According to this scale, the Japanese are considered the most badmouthed, followed by the Germans and the English - Italians and French are nationalities that should not be trusted too much… Well, when we now understood that we have been victims of a typical ''Moroccan'' scam, the women say ''ici ici'' (here...here) and tell us to stop - we were in a suburban street, and so we asked the women: So where is hotel Toubkal '' ? They get out of the car, look at each other perplexed and then at

'in unison, throwing their hands in the air in the typical Arab expression, they tell us: ''ça moi je ne sait pas…'' (This I dont know) and disappear with all their belongs! We than continued following the signs for Center Ville until we reached the aforementioned square and then finally, in a side street, the Toubkal hotel. We spent a couple of pleasant days in Casablanca, visiting mosques and the waterfront, eating exquisite Atlantic fish dishes and drinking excellent Moroccan wines (Rosé Boulaone – Red Guerrouane). We spent the evening at the (reconstructed) coffee shop from the famous movie ''Casablanca'' at the Hyatt hotel: waiters in period uniforms, delicious dishes, mint tea served in an exemplary manner.

And then we started the journey to Spain: Tangier (Tanja as the Moroccans call it) was the first stop over on the way back to North. While waiting for the ferry that will take us to Algeciras, across the Strait of Gibraltar, we stay in an old hotel, Les Almohades, directly on the seafront. In the evening we go out for a walk on the promenade, before dinner, and we were approached by a Moroccan guy who was dragging himself on homemade crutches. Like all Tangerois he was fluent in at least three foreign languages, and he offered us ''hierba, buena cossa……'' (hashish) and then kif, the ''smoke'' of Moroccan production. Gianluigi senses the deal (if he brings it to Spain he will be able to resell it at a good profit) and buys a couple of pieces.

''Good - says my friend - let's take him to the hotel and then go out for dinner'' But at this point the limping Moroccan changed register and becomes annoying - suddenly some friends of the guy materialize who - following our steps - sing and shout like:

''hierbaaaa…… hieerbaaaa los hombres tenern hierbaaaa…policia…policiaaaaa'' (Hashish......hashish.....this guys have hashish...). My friend immediately come up with a plan: ''Let's get to the first street, turn the corner and then start running uphill towards our hotel – we'll get rid of the ''stuff'' before entering the lobby. No sooner said than done, once we reach the corner we started running! The chasers understood the game, and started running too, always shouting! With a great surprise, looking back, we discovered that the limper has thrown his crutches to the ground and he was running like a new Usain Bolt!! We manage to maintain a certain advantage, and arrived near the hotel and Gianluigi throwed the package of stuff into a rubbish bin, as we enter the hotel. We went up to the room, and with the lights off we were looking down to the street: the pursuers have arrived, and after a meeting with their neighbors, they head to the rubbish bins, where they recovered the stuff! And then, not satisfied, they direct sneers at us towards the window where they suppose we are observing the scene of their triumph! It was like that Gianluigi's career as a ''smoke trafficker'' ended, before it even began.

Early in the morning we boarded one of the first ferries to Algericiras. After a quiet Strait of Gibartar crossing, and having traveled the 120 km that separate Algeciras from Benalmadena, we arrived at the residence where – supposingly – Mr. Proserpio & Family were waiting for us. We had managed to reserve an apartment for the entire month of August - the Proserpio family would stay there for 15 days, with Gianluigi and me for the rest of the month.

Citron DS19 Pallas

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angel-inrealtime · 1 year

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November F1c Prompts Day 10

Day 10 - Sound (Voice)

You can (and do) wax lyrical about all the things you love about him. Friends say it’s disgusting with an affectionate tone of voice and a not insignificant amount of eye-rolling.

Near the top is his voice.

There’s just something...it’s like crushed velvet. Soft and warm and lush, something you can wrap around yourself for comfort, when you need it.

You’re not sure when he started using voice notes on top of texts, but you love so much to be able to listen to him retelling stories from the day like that, when you’re apart and your schedules don’t line up to call before bed. It always seems to happen on the days you could use it the most, too.

Generally you keep a small group of clients who have repeat work or ongoing projects, who know you don’t keep fixed hours and trust that the work will be done to your usual high standard. You make it clear, always, when onboarding new clients that this is the case without saying why. You’ve learned to trust your gut about potential red flags.

The latest one has been an exercise in not disregarding that for the sake of being excited to work with a brand (In not disregarding that generally, by the time you’re being suggested to help, engaged with that level of desperation, the cultural bar is underground).

So you’ve been travelling less to races and now you're in an awkward time zone compared to Daniel, snatching flurries of text messages back and forth and the very occasional phone call. You’d fallen asleep listening to him tell you about the day before, woken up to a half dead phone and a few text messages.

You spend a moment reading your messages from the other morning with a sigh.

Even after you shower, trying to decompress with the water as hot as you can stand and scrubbing your skin until it’s pink (like you can wash the day off, if you just try hard enough), you can still feel the tension all through your body.

You give in to the urge to order takeaway for the second time in the week, content that the Moroccan place down the street won’t let you down, at least, and open your emails for what you promise yourself will be the last time of the evening. Only to be incensed at the email clearly not meant for your eyes from the managing director (unsurprisingly the source of a lot of the issues). You storm to the office and plug your laptop in at your desk, screens lighting up bright in the near darkness.

By the time you’ve finished your furious typing (kept it professional, because God forbid you react accordingly to some obnoxious business man), there are tears streaming down your face. You leave the email on the screen to re-read with a cooler head in the morning and pop the hoodie of Daniel’s jumper up as you head downstairs to pick up your food.

It turns from angry tears to frustration at crying quickly, feels like your eyes are just overflowing for the sake of it. When your phone vibrates you pick it up without checking the caller ID, half expect it to be the director. “Y/N speaking.”

“Hi Y/N speaking, I’m Daniel.”

You burst into almost sobs just from the sound of his voice. “Sorry! Sorry, I...”

“Hey.” He must move somewhere quieter, voice soft around the edges suddenly. “What’s the matter bub? Are you okay? Darling.”

Your phone chirps in your ear with the FaceTime request and you sniffle. “I look awful.” You protest feebly. You want to see his face.

Daniel tuts. “I’ll be the judge of that.” When you hesitate still he makes a soft noise in his throat. “C’mon, I miss your face.”

You tuck yourself further into his hoodie, swipe over your cheeks with the sleeve in an attempt to tidy your face up a little. But the bags under your eyes are dark and now you’re all puffy from crying.

“There’s my girl.” He says it with the softest smile and still, it makes your stomach jump.

“Hi. Sorry, you’re probably busy...”

“Nah don’t worry about it. Making time.” You watch him squint at the screen, feel pinned under his scrutiny. “Are you okay? You look so tired. Are you sleeping?”

You prop the phone up against the wall, rest your head on your arms to look at him. You feel rubbed raw. “Today just...I’m an idiot.”

Daniel snorts. “I have it on good authority that isn’t true, babe. What happened?” He nudges.

You watch him like he’s still watching you – he looks just as tired, and thinner in the face than he should. “Ah I gave my initial feedback on some of the issues in a meeting – because I was asked to. But I think they wanted me to sanitise it, or something, which...what’s the point?”

Daniel makes a noise of understanding, fiddling with his hair now he can see it in the camera. And then he smiles a sly little smile. “Were you all sexy businesswoman?”

It does what you think he wanted it to; you laugh, just a little. “Daniel.”

“What did you wear? I’m a very visual person, you know. Just wanna set the scene.”

You keep laughing, shaking your head. “You’re the worst. I love you.”

You’ll never get tired of the sunshine bright smile it puts on his face to hear it; you’d say just that and nothing else forever to keep him that way. “And I love you. But what were you wearing?”

“That green silk skirt you like, with the white cashmere turtleneck, and a black suit jacket and black Louboutin heels.”

“The patent ones?”

“Yeah.”

He makes an appreciative noise. “Hot. Anyway, carry on. Scene fully visualised.”

You roll your eyes. “The rest of them seemed open to the ideas but the director’s just a...He’s the one causing the issues but heaven forbid we have a shred of self-reflection, or anything. But he sent this huge rant about me to a bunch of people and didn’t realise he included me.”

Daniel pulls a face. “Cunt. Want me to fight him?”

You give him a soft smile (he would, if you said yes). “Offer appreciated but unnecessary. I just...I don’t know, I’m so mad at myself then for ignoring the warning signs because I wanted to work with the company. I should know better.”

“Optimism and hope that something is good isn’t a bad thing, bub.” You can hear the weight behind what he’s saying. “Don’t punish yourself for it.”

“I know I shouldn’t. Anyway, I typed a response withdrawing my services effective immediately because they’re technically breaching my contract with all of his demands. I’m going to sleep on it and read over it in the morning but otherwise...I’ll meet you in Italy on Wednesday night?”

His eyes go wide in his face. “You’re gonna come to Monza?” He sounds almost awed.

“I haven’t seen you in weeks because I’ve been busy and you and the team have been hell bent on a good result there, my love. Yes, I’m coming to Monza.”

Daniel’s grin turns soft. “Lucky me.”

Crushed velvet, you think.

#f1 fanfic #daniel ricciardo fanfic #November f1c prompts #daniel ricciardo x reader #formula 1 imagine #f1 imagine #daniel ricciardo x you #daniel ricciardo imagine #f1blr #daniel ricciardo fanfiction #f1 x reader #f1 x you #f1 driver x reader #f1 driver x you #formula 1 x reader

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mchiti · 10 months

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tw: violence

Five italian policemen were recently arrested for beating and torturing people they would stop in the streets for no reason. Most of them were migrants. One of those people tortured and abused is called Adil and he's Moroccan, he's the one who reported the aggressions. A good man who never had issues with the law and who even ended up on the news a few years ago for finding a bag with a laptop inside and giving it back to its owner. [you might know of that european tendency to treat migrants kindly only when they give wallets and bags back or save lives, right....]

Well, a few months ago Adil was walking in the streets when he suffered an aggression by an italian racist asshole. He called the police up and when they got there, instead of arresting the racist asshole, they arrested him. And while they were taking him away they were screaming "arab piece of sh*t, moroccan piece of sh*t, you need to go back to your country." He was beaten up badly at the police station and left with no water and food. Then he was taken to a repatriation centre where he was stuck for an entire MONTH. They didn't check his documents, they didn't even know he is married with an italian woman who was, in the meantime, looking for him everywhere, and whom he couldn't even contact. So, of course, he was not repatriated.

He came back home and went to report everything. Thanks for him, it was found out those policemen did the same to others. They were arrested. They are, though, only a small fraction of a culture of racism, violence and classism that keep growing. It's around us and in every angle of Europe. If you're from a country like the one I live in, with a very fascist government in power, I'd suggest you to not stay silent.

#daily chronicle from fascist it4ly: done #back to study im sorry for being absolutely inactive etc

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mariacallous · 5 months

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Some years ago, while celebrating Hanukkah at the home of Moroccan Jewish friends, I got my first taste of sfenj. I knew (and loved) the Israeli jelly donuts called sufganiyot, but sfenj, while also donuts, were something different. The yeasted dough was familiarly puffy, but instead of being shaped into a plump round, it was formed into rings. And instead of sufganiyot’s jam filling and snowy cap of powdered sugar, my friends served sfenj two ways: dipped into granulated sugar or generously drizzled with an orange-blossom-scented syrup. Naturally, I was smitten with this new-to-me expression of Hanukkah frying.

A few years after tasting sfenj, I learned about sfingi — another doughy fritter, which hails from Southern Italy and can be found in many Italian American bakeries. The term “sfingi” refers to a couple of different pastries, including simple, free-form donut holes rolled in sugar, and a more elaborate fried round that gets topped or filled with sweetened ricotta (think: cannoli filling) and sweet Amarena cherries. In Naples, the fritters are sometimes called zeppole, but in Sicily and other parts of Southern Italy, they usually go by sfingi or, to further confuse matters, sfinci.

Some Italian families make sfingi to celebrate Christmas, but they really shine on March 19th, or Saint Joseph’s Day, which honors the Virgin Mary’s husband. On that day, many Italians — particularly Sicilians who consider St. Joseph to be their patron saint — pull out all the stops to throw a feast that often ends with sfingi and other decadent sweets.

Sfenj. Sfingi. Two donuts with remarkably similar names. There had to be a connection, right? As it turns out, the North African Hanukkah treat and Southern Italy’s feast-day fritter likely do share a common ancestor. The name for both pastries comes from the Arabic word “isfenj,” which translates to“sponge,” and refers to the way dough soaks up oil while it fries, and also to its bouncy texture. (Interestingly, sufganiyot also means sponge in Hebrew, suggesting a linguistic connection between all three donuts.)

This connection also hints to the influence that Arabic cuisine had across both North Africa and Southern Italy. According to some historical accounts, sfenj originated in Moorish Spain in the Middle Ages. (The era and region similarly gave rise to the traditional Sephardic Hanukkah dish, bimuelos — small, sweet fritters that are often round in shape.) From there, the dish spread to places where Moorish traders traveled, including the Maghreb – North African countries that border the Mediterranean Sea.

Today, sfenj are popular across Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. In Morocco, they were traditionally prepared by sufnajeen — bakers dedicated to the craft of making sfenj. They were (and are) considered an everyday breakfast pastry or street food snack, and are served alongside coffee or mint tea.

Jewish Moroccans, meanwhile, adopted the fritter for Hanukkah, when Jews traditionally eat foods fried in oil. They introduced sfenj to Israel when they immigrated there in the mid-20th century. In Israel, however, sfenj never caught on in quite the same way as sufganiyot. Moroccan Jewish families still make them, and they’re available in food markets nationwide, but you are not likely to see piles of sfenj in bakery windows across Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, they way you will sufganiyot.

Sfingi, meanwhile, hail from Palermo, Sicily’s capital. The recipe for the ricotta-cream-filled version was invented by nuns, who adapted the dessert from Arabic cuisine and dedicated it to St. Joseph. In the weeks leading up to St. Joseph’s Day, you will find sfingi di San Giuseppe – in all of its fried, cream-filled glory — in bakeries across Southern Italy, and in communities across the world that are home to Southern Italian communities.

I like to joke that the reason Hanukkah lasts for eight nights is so home cooks can dedicate each night to a different fried treat. From potato latkes and sufganiyot to bimuelos and sfenj, there is no shortage of Hanukkah dishes to celebrate. But this year, if my patience for frying (and my appetite for fried foods!) hold, I might just add sfingi to my Hanukkah menu.

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disgruntledkittenface · 1 year

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snippet

thank you @louisandtheaquarian and @nouies for tagging me to share a snippet! I finished a draft of the first chapter of the fic I’m working on and I think it’s rough but I reallllllly like the story

“So you all live here in Southampton?” Harry asks, looking around as Zayn and Liam nod.

“Not me,” Louis says, trying to subtly inch away from Zayn, who still has his arm around his shoulders. “My dad has a place here, but I live at my mom’s house in Sag Harbor.”

Harry rests his hand on Louis’ knee, as if to comfort him. No one he’s ever had a crush on has been able to read him so well, so quickly. He angles his body toward Harry, finally disentangling from Zayn, who’s distracted by something over by the game of cornhole.

“It’s really nice,” he says, keeping his voice down so only Harry can hear. “Our house is on the water, and the downtown area is really nice. It feels like a small town. Well, that’s kind of true everywhere in the Hamptons…”

“Yeah, there’s lots of…” Harry gestures vaguely with his free hand. “Like small businesses and American flags and people saying hello on the street.”

“See,” Louis says, tilting his head. “You already get the vibe, you know the area.”

“So why’d your mum pick Sag Harbor? Because it’s a good place to raise a family?”

“Yes and no,” Louis admits, smoothing his hair off his forehead. “It is good for families, but since the divorce, she does whatever she can to avoid my dad. She doesn’t even come out to the house in the summer, she always goes to Europe. I think she’s in Saint-Tropez right now.”

“Oh, I love it down there,” Harry says, grinning. “We try to go every year. There’s this great little Moroccan restaurant that’s a little off the beaten path, Salama. You should tell your mum to go there.”

“Oh,” Louis says, his back stiffening as he realizes that the restaurant Harry is talking about is closed. He doesn’t want to say anything in front of his friends, so he just nods. “Yeah, yeah, I will.”

“Uh, didn’t that place shut down, like, five years ago?” Luke laughs derisively from the log across the fire. “Thought you said you go every year, dude, how did you not know that?”

“Oh, shit, that’s right,” Harry says, rubbing his fingers over his mouth as he appears to remember. “Now that you say that, it’s been longer than I thought since I’ve eaten there.”

“I don’t even know if she’s still there anyway,” Louis says to Harry. He’ll have to murder Luke later. For now, all he wants is to talk to Harry outside of a tennis lesson. “She could be eating Moroccan food in Morocco for all I know. She only checks in, like, every other month.”

“One time, my parents went to Croatia for a month,” Harry says, a laugh bubbling in his voice, “and no one told me. I thought I just kept missing them at breakfast.”

“Oh my God,” Louis laughs. “Really?”

“It’s the God’s honest truth,” Harry insists, holding up a hand as if to swear it.

They huddle together by the fire, and Louis tells Harry more stories about the lengths his mom goes to in order to avoid his dad, and how she ends up avoiding him in the process. The party continues around them, and after a while Harry finally gets up to get a drink. He cracks open a can of beer on his way back from the coolers, bumping into Luke and spilling about half of it on him. Louis hides his laugh behind his hand as Luke’s date dries him off with a beach towel. He almost never gets to see Luke get any karma. There’s a twinkle in Harry’s eye when he sits back down next to Louis, and Louis starts to suspect that Harry spilled the beer on purpose, but then Luke starts cheering at his phone, distracting him.

I’ll tag @crinkle-eyed-boo @allwaswell16 @louandhazaf @kingsofeverything @haztobegood @beelou @wabadabadaba @neondiamond

#my apologies to hot luke in this fic!!!!#an american tragedy au

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anissapierce · 4 months

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Also half of all moroccan street sandwiches are like tht...hell a lot of restaurant ones too... Man to have a moroccan street food sandwich rn... The fact tht theyre so good i dont even Notice that i havent had cheese until two weeks in

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visitmaghreb · 1 year

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When foreign tourists learn how to drink tea in the Moroccan way 😅 #funny

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karim7sblog · 1 year

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10 Must-See Destinations in Morocco That Will Leave You Spellbound

culture

Morocco is a North African country that is rich in history, culture, and natural beauty. From the bustling city of Marrakech to the peaceful town of Chefchaouen, Morocco has a lot to offer to travelers who are seeking unique experiences.

Marrakech

Marrakech is a vibrant city that is known for its bustling markets, traditional architecture, and historic landmarks. One of the must-see landmarks in Marrakech is the Jemaa el-Fnaa square, which is home to snake charmers, street performers, and delicious street food. Other must-see landmarks include the Koutoubia Mosque, Bahia Palace, and the Saadian Tombs.

Casablanca

Casablanca is the economic capital of Morocco and home to the largest mosque in Africa, the Hassan II Mosque. The mosque is a stunning structure that showcases intricate Moroccan architecture and offers a breathtaking ocean view. Other notable landmarks in Casablanca include the Rick's Cafe and the Royal Palace of Casablanca.

Fes

Fes is a city that is steeped in history and culture. The city is home to the oldest university in the world, the University of Al Quaraouiyine, which dates back to the 9th century. Fes is also famous for its traditional tanneries, which have been producing leather goods for centuries. Other must-see landmarks include the Bou Inania Madrasa, the Dar Batha Museum, and the Royal Palace of Fes.

Chefchaouen

Chefchaouen is a small town that is located in the Rif Mountains. The town is known for its blue-painted buildings and peaceful atmosphere. Chefchaouen is a great place to relax and enjoy the scenic views of the surrounding mountains. Other notable landmarks include the Kasbah Museum and the Ras Elma River.

Essaouira

Essaouira is a coastal city that is known for its relaxed atmosphere and beautiful beaches. The city is also famous for its historic fortifications and traditional fishing port. Other must-see landmarks include the Skala de la Ville, the Essaouira Citadel, and the Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdallah Museum.

Rabat

Rabat is the capital city of Morocco and home to the Mausoleum of Mohammed V, which is a stunning example of Moroccan architecture. The city is also home to the Hassan Tower, which is an incomplete mosque that dates back to the 12th century. Other notable landmarks include the Royal Palace of Rabat and the Chellah Necropolis.

Atlas Mountains

The Atlas Mountains are a stunning range that spans across Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. The mountains are home to traditional Berber villages and breathtaking landscapes. A trek through the Atlas Mountains is a must-do activity for any adventurous traveler.

Sahara Desert

The Sahara Desert is the largest hot desert in the world and covers most of North Africa. The desert is a magical place with towering sand dunes and clear night skies. A camel trek through the desert is an experience that you will never forget.

Ouarzazate

Ouarzazate is a city that is located in the middle of the desert and is known as the gateway to the Sahara. The city is home to the Kasbah of Taourirt, which is a stunning example of Moroccan architecture. Ouarzazate is also a popular filming location for Hollywood movies and TV shows.

Agadir

Agadir is a coastal city that is known for its beautiful beaches and relaxed atmosphere. The city is a popular tourist destination and offers a range of activities, including surfing, golfing, and hiking in the nearby hills.

In conclusion, Morocco is a country that is full of unique experiences for travelers. From the vibrant city of Marrakech to the peaceful town of Chefchaouen, and from the stunning Atlas Mountains to the magical Sahara Desert, there is something for everyone in Morocco. The country is rich in history, culture, and natural beauty, and a visit to any of these ten must-see destinations is sure to leave you spellbound. Whether you are seeking adventure, relaxation, or simply a chance to explore a new culture, Morocco is a destination that should be on your travel bucket list.

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kammartinez · 8 months

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When Roxy Music was recording “Street Life” for the 1973 album Stranded, they hung a mic out the window of AIR Studios above Oxford Street, but they didn’t like the results and they ended up mixing in the sounds of a Moroccan market instead. As “Street Life” begins, we hear traffic amid four haunting chords and a shimmering hi-hat rhythm, and then Bryan Ferry belts out that he wishes everyone would leave him alone. He goes out for a walk. “Each verse seems to have its own character,” he later said, “like blocks on a street.” A fan since my youth of early Roxy Music, I still hear that song’s ethereal city vibe when I, too, wish everyone would leave me alone and, like Bryan, hit the streets.

If I go left, heading into what I think of as downtown Echo Park, I glimpse the green folds of the Angeles Crest as I pass Craftsman and Victorian houses and courtyard bungalows. I turn onto Sunset Boulevard, passing barber shops, burger stands, bookstores, and botanicas. I can get my knives sharpened and my shoes repaired, shop for groceries, eat eighty different kinds of food. The streets are full of people of all kinds, even as Echo Park comes twentieth in a walkability ranking of L.A. neighborhoods, according to some website. MacArthur Park, which is more population-dense than parts of Manhattan, ranks higher, as does Hollywood. But here I have the option of avoiding commerce by going three blocks north to the park, where I can walk miles of shaded trails. Or stroll my little residential enclave, where people are sitting on their stoops, a guy is working on his ’68 Camaro, trees are heavy with citrus, softball-size dragon fruits shine redly through a fence. I can walk to Echo Park Lake, due west, entirely through an alleyway, where among overgrown fig trees and sidewalk pulverized to dirt you might think you were in some Mississippi backwater Barry Hannah was describing, but you’re parallel and just behind Sunset. At the lakefront are picnickers, food carts, fishermen creating what my son refers to as “pressure on the lake.” One day I watch a guy and girl furtively produce a pristine white duck from a knapsack and release it. They’ve clearly just bought the thing at a live-poultry shop and are trying to rewild it among the mallards and grebes, but the mission seems also to be a form of courtship.

On these walks, minutes from home, I am certain that Los Angeles, which I moved to from New York twenty years ago, is the most beautiful city in the world (and yes, I have seen the world). But that’s only if I go west or north or south. If I head east, toward downtown, 1.5 miles away, my booster talk ebbs. It’s freeway overpasses, empty lots, and fortress-like buildings, a dead zone.

I should be able to walk to the opera house, Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Broad, the Bradbury Building, or City Hall, to the grand old theaters on Main Street, the jewelry district, Union Station. To Philippe the Original on Alameda, a hundred-year-old deli where undertakers from the nearby mortuaries park their hearses and stop in for a sandwich. To the new Frank Gehry building on Grand, across from my son’s music school. (Late in life, Gehry now seems to believe in design that prioritizes not postmodern showiness but plazas and shade and places for the passerby to sit.) But to get to the pedestrian-friendly world downtown involves several blocks of monolithic residential architecture along freeways, all by the same developer, inward-facing buildings with dark and empty storefronts, bunker parking, and sky bridges. The tenants of these places don’t have to ever step foot on the street. I’ve heard they are mostly USC students, but you don’t see them. The only people I might encounter are unhoused individuals, and those in this particular area often appear to be in severe mental crisis, as they linger beyond buildings that are as obdurate and closed as medieval armories.

Dubbed the Renaissance Collection, these buildings form a plaque that separates the people of Echo Park from downtown L.A. They were built by Geoffrey Palmer, a little man who resembles a ventriloquist’s dummy and is gifted at making enemies. Palmer buys up forlorn and odd plots alongside freeways, where he builds his “Italianate” developments, as Italian as leatherette is leather, but less charming. In 1973, the artist Gordon Matta-Clark purchased random little slices of land around New York City for a conceptual art project he titled Fake Estates. Perhaps the unsavory parcels that Palmer acquires would remain similarly conceptual were it not for the very real fake estates he builds on them. This is his own defense—that he’s building where no one else dares—but he seems to take almost libidinal satisfaction in perching rows of apartment balconies over the 110–101 freeway interchange. The off-white stucco exteriors of his buildings are coated with soot within days of completion. In 2003, he illegally bulldozed the last Victorian of Bunker Hill while building the Orsini, a few blocks from my house. Palmer is vehemently opposed to affordable housing and has spent tens of millions on lawsuits and ballot measures to ensure that he won’t have to build any. He recently settled a class-action suit over systematically keeping tenants’ security deposits. One of Trump’s biggest donors, he has bragged that his company hasn’t paid federal taxes in thirty years. In the fall of 2014, a fire was deliberately started in Palmer’s half-built and wood-framed Da Vinci, a block down from the Orsini. Flames shot higher than many buildings downtown, stretched a city block, melted freeway signs, and cracked one hundred and sixty windows in the iconic John Ferraro Building, headquarters of Water and Power. The consensus among architects, residents, and journalists was that almost anyone could have started the fire, given how many people hate Palmer. City commissioners joked, in a planning meeting, that they sure hoped everyone present had an alibi. The city sued Palmer for the reckless conditions that allowed the blaze to grow so large. The person who started it was caught and sentenced to prison. He supposedly did it for Michael Brown, to protest the police killings of unarmed black men. No one was hurt. The Da Vinci was promptly rebuilt.

“Why is Everything So Ugly?” wondered a recent editorial in n+1. The editors structured their thoughts on the subject around a Situationist-style dérive they take through New York City. They begin by pondering a new condominium tower limply called the Josh, which has been erected in place of a recently demolished hundred-year-old building. The Josh, they tell us, is made of plastic, concrete, and “an obscure wood-like substance”—materials that have been chosen not for quality and beauty but on the basis of global supply-chain availability, a cookie-cutter design review process, and a cost-saving preference for semi-skilled labor. The Josh is already looking shabby at five months old. When it rains, its façade gets “conspicuously . . . wet.” Their dérive continues past more than one Bank of America, alongside a vape shop, and into a theater, where a shitty franchise based on a TV show of a comic book is playing. After the movie, there’s a run-in with blindingly bright LED lights, resulting in a visit to urgent care.

Google reveals that the building the editors are calling the Josh is actually the Greenpoint—located, as you might guess, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn—but the Josh does more work to illustrate certain ideas than the real name might. I think I know eighteen Joshes. No offense to any of them; I too have a common name and would wager the Josh could have been called the Rachel in the blink of an eye. Still, the Josh has a certain sound when isolated as a branding mechanism, with its soft landing into sshh, whether put to service selling wine or machines for living. I chuckled about the Josh. It, or he, made me think of that guy Tom from MySpace, everyone’s first friend. I imagined Tom living at the Josh, enjoying an industrial salad at a particle-board table. But names are merely symptoms. They are not the cause of “the violence of the new ugliness” that the n+1 editors ponder. Branding arises from standardization. If the things that are made are more or less the same, difference itself must be manufactured.

The Situationists first began undertaking their dérives—which means to drift, to walk without a fixed plan—in response to a rail strike. Guy Debord and others tumbled drunkenly through the night, walking or hitchhiking, and found that the new routes they forged promised a change of orientation, a new outlook. In Debord’s autobiographical Panegyric, at a point in his life when he had lost hope in the city and headed for the hills, he regrets that a “flood of destruction, pollution, and falsification had conquered the whole surface of the planet, as well as pouring down nearly to its very depths.” (Had Debord, too, noticed how wet the Josh was looking?) Five years later he shot himself in the heart. It wasn’t just that everything was ugly and the revolution stalled, if not foreclosed. Alcohol had done him in.

I decided, on a recent afternoon, to conduct my own dérive, straight into the morass between my street and downtown. I left the house, took a right, another right, and then a left over the 101 freeway. If this overpass could talk, I thought. It might tell of the many women and the many nights of flinty bargains with men in cars. By daylight, it was empty. I turned left onto Temple Street, passing a hotel that abuts the 101, and a sun-blasted bus stop where my kid was let off in grade school, and from which he began conducting his own dérives. This block of Temple has a bakery, a liquor store, and until recently, D’Bongo Party Supplies, then falls into a post-human stretch: there is a tow yard, a recycling center, a cul de sac against the freeway where there was a tent encampment until it burned, and a huge and empty bus yard. That’s all on one side of the street. On the other is the massive retaining wall of a high school baseball diamond. The reason there is open land here, greenery, even if it’s chemically treated monograss beyond chain-link, is that this was an oil field, and it isn’t safe to put up buildings. (What look like lampposts around the field are actually vents that allow methane gases to escape.)

Beyond the baseball/methane field, I pass our own version of the Josh, but it’s called the Charlie. The Charlie is new. There used to be an auto repair and car wash here that was run by a family. Now there is a narrow eight-story building in “space gray” with a gaggle of red real estate balloons bobbing on the wind. I have driven past at night. The units are dark, while the Charlie’s eight-story “parking podium” glows meanly, prison-bright.

From the Charlie I cross the street toward a new Palmer monstrosity on a ten-acre site that used to be a Bank of America data center. Construction is not yet finished. The invasive palms that have been chosen as Palmer’s signature “lush Mediterranean landscaping” have just been trucked in and still have their fronds gathered into ponytails. Even with their fronds let down, they will provide no shade. There’s a giant piss-elegant fountain but it’s dry. now renting 2 months free + free parking, a big sign says. The name of this new addition to Palmer’s suite of Italianate freeway rentals is the Ferrante. Maybe the name came from his wife, a Parisian who seems a little more cultured than he is. Perhaps she’s a fan of Elena Ferrante’s books. I have no proof. I’m guessing.

We’ve been told for years now that Elena Ferrante is a fiction, a made-up name, like Tom, or the Josh. But someone is of course writing those books. Whoever they are, they’re talented, but the insistence on anonymity is starting to seem a little showy, even a bit tacky, if not as tacky as the Ferrante and its 1,150 units. I pass its blank row of street-level commercial spaces. Palmer won’t even try to rent them out. And apparently there’s no fine for leaving them empty. As an architect explained to me, he doesn’t build that income into his plans. Why should a developer care if there is street life? I turn left and walk under a highway overpass and approach the rangy back edge of our neighborhood CVS. What does CVS stand for? No one seems to know. Everything you might want to buy there is now locked up, and you have to press what feels like a panic button to get access to the shelves.

I cross through the parking lot, past a weird machine with a tower on it, flashing a blue light. This is some kind of automated security apparatus, but I’m not sure how it works. A barefoot boy asks me for a light. I don’t have one, I tell him.

Remember how outraged everyone was to discover that the author JT LeRoy, supposedly an ethereal rent boy/lot lizard, was actually a middle-aged woman? They acted like this was the ultimate con, something ugly and counterfeit masquerading as something genuine and tragic and hot. Meanwhile, Elena Ferrante is purporting to be a middle-aged woman. What if she’s a teen boy turning tricks in parking lots? I think, as I turn out of the lot and go right on Sunset.

I walk toward Palmer’s Orsini, which lines both sides of the street, all of its commercial space dark and empty and locked. There is no one here except one man in rags setting bits of trash on fire on the sidewalk. Is it Palmer’s fault that people are setting things on fire? It’s more complicated than that. But with no street activity, people act out. Or, their actions are starker, and less muted by a variety of people and vibrancies that a healthy street should reflect. At the end of this very long, sterile block is one other person, a young woman. Her arms are covered with injection scars. She seems not to notice me. She’s in a kind of Sisyphean struggle, attempting to push an e-scooter that is not activated, its wheels on lock.

The next day I drive back down this street, heading to pick up my son from music school. I spot the woman who tried to push the scooter. She’s still here, as if this bleak zone were her proving ground. Her shirt is off now, and she is throwing her half-clothed body against the brick exterior of the Orsini. But the building is constructed not to feel her, the street not to see her, and I barely see her myself, because my light is green.

While parts of the designed world might be ugly at any speed, it is only the slowness of traveling on foot that causes true discomfiture, by forcing a walker to behold, worry over, brood upon, those to whom this ugliness shouts loudest.

#essays

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