I’m still glowing. What We Eat put on a fundraising dinner to benefit Syrian refugees via Unicef. The evening was a huge success, raising over $5,000.00 (and counting!), bringing people together to share ideas, and celebrating the vibrant food of Syria. It was a diverse crowd of friends, family and clients but there are no better unifiers than a good cause and good food.
We were inspired by the #CookForSyria campaign, which began as a super-club in England and evolved into a global movement in which everyone from top chefs to people at home raise money for the cause. It has taken the UK and Australia by storm and it looks like it will be spreading through the US by June of this year. We’re early adopters:)
It’s incredibly difficult to understand what’s happening in Syria and impossible to distill down into a paragraph or two. There are multiple wars going on within the country with too many outside, self-interested players involved (US included). I’d encourage you to read the two links below to begin to get a better idea:
What I take away above all else from reading about the situation in Syria is that there is no end in sight and nearly no hope for a happy ending ever. It makes me wish we could simply open our borders, and open our homes to as many people who are trying to flee as possible. Syrians didn’t ask for this life.
I feel lucky to have been born into a country known as the land of opportunity. I get to live in New York. I truly believe that anything is possible if I just dream big enough and work hard enough to make it happen. This feels like a given, a right. It’s not. People in Syria will never know a “normal” life. They aren’t free to pursue their dreams because they are busy with staying alive and keeping their children alive.
But our dinner wasn’t meant to be about contemplating the misery in Syria or our issues with our own country or the world. It was about recognizing how lucky we are, doing what we could to help in a small way, and about celebrating the hospitality-driven food culture of Syria. Syrian dishes are created to be shared, placed in the center of the table and enjoyed as part of a big group so that’s exactly what we did.
Here is our menu.
Kristina, Rian, Charlotte, Emily and I worked all day to make it happen. Highlights?
- Charlotte realizing what it actually takes to make 100+ pitas from scratch. Holy ****! I cannot believe she didn’t have a mental breakdown with this uphill battle. I would have cried.
- Kristina and Rian’s desserts, which were both recipes from their Middle Eastern grandmothers. Rian’s grandma Maro’s nazook recipe is at the end of this post. OMG make them!
- Working up to the very last minute until our guests arrived. We planned to have some time to beautify ourselves….that didn’t happen.
- Emily, our newest WWE addition fitting in seamlessly and working tirelessly. We’re so lucky to have found her!
- The crowd. Simply the best.
We’ll have some video highlights to come but I wanted to share this moment when it was still fresh. If you feel moved, please feel free to donate here. Any contribution, no matter how small, helps.
(A special thank you to Brooklyn FoodWorks who donated the space, to my Dad for donating the amazing Lebanese wine, Ruby Young from The Party New York for the gorgeous greenery and to all who made it out to dine with us last night.)
Grandma Maro’s Nazook
Note from Rian: This recipe has been passed down from my great grandmother, Mannig Kouyoumjian, who was a surviver of the Armenian Holocaust , to my grandmother, Maro who immigrated to South Carolina from Baghdad, Iraq – to me as a present for my birthday. So, let’s just say this recipe is meaningful 🙂
Ingredients for the dough
1.5 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 sticks butter, room temperature
1 pint whipping cream
1 package yeast dissolved in 1/4 cup warm water
6 cups flour
1 tbs baking powder
1 tsp salt
Mix the sugar and 3 eggs in an electric mixer. Add in vanilla, butter and yeast and continue to mix until dissolved. In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking powder and salt. Add flour mixture to the batter and mix with a wooden spoon, blending into a soft dough. Handle the dough as little as possible (do not knead). Cover the dough with warm blankets and set it to rise in a warm place for 3-6 hours. It won’t rise much, but should be about 1.5x its original size. Divide dough into 4.
Ingredients for the filling (Khorissgh)
2 sticks butter
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
2 tbs cardamom
Rub your hands to blend the above ingredients to a coarse Khorissgh. Divide Khorissgh into 4.
Once dough has risen for 3-6 hours, on a well floured board, roll a section of the dough into a flat disk. Sprinkle part of the Khorissgh on the disk and gently roll the rolling pin over top for an even spread. Roll the disk into a cylinder and flatten down with a rolling pin to a thickness of no more than 1 inch. Cut diagonally into 1 inch strips and place nazook on a lightly greased cookie sheet.
Whisk 2 egg yolks and 1 tbs of water in a bowl. Brush each Nazook with egg wash and bake in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes or until golden brown.
Cool on a wire rack. Nazook is best served with Baghdadi tea.