I have spent most of my adult life away from Syria. Although I carry pieces of my country in my heart, food is what really keeps me connected to my roots in Damascus. During the month of Ramadan, where Muslims observe a strict regime of fasting from sunrise to sunset, the Syria that I long for comes to life in my kitchen. A whiff of spices erases my heartache in a second, and I fly back in time, on wafts of fragrant rice, to a place I have not visited in eight years.
Home.
From the sunset adhan of the Umayyad Mosque to the buzz in the kitchen just before the meal is ready, from the smiles and chatter of friends to the display of dishes on the table, Ramadan never fails to bring Syria to my doorstep. Then again, perhaps this is now just an idea of a place, born of longing and distance.
Muslims are frequently reminded that Ramadan should be more about fasting than festivities, a time for reflection and spirituality, but the long tables and colourful dishes are what stay with me, year after year.
The iftar table is subject to rules that must not be broken. For many, soup is mandatory. People from Damascus, however, often swap it for fatteh, a succulent dish of layered, crisp pitta, yoghurt and stew that the natives of Homs also claim as theirs. Fattoush, a glorious Levantine salad flavoured with sumac and pomegranate molasses is another must-have. A great cook once described it to me as "a party in a bowl".
A savoury pastry, such as a cheese pie or meat-filled sambousek moves diners from the beginning of the meal to its culmination – the plat de resistance. This should be meat with a side of rice. It must also be slow-cooked, preferably in a stew, as many Syrians prefer something simmered in a sauce after several hours of fasting.
Then comes the grand finale: dessert. The culinary crescendo should end on the happiest of notes – clotted cream, pistachios and sugary orange blossom syrup.
One sometimes wonders how to reconcile Ramadan’s spiritual requirements with the very earthly nature of its celebrations. It is a month of abstinence before anything else, religious leaders strive to remind us. However, in many households, these two things are not mutually exclusive, as time for reflection and prayer follows meals with family and friends.
My own versions of Ramadan meals started when I was a student overseas, and developed as my career took me around the world. Kathmandu, Khartoum, New York, Cairo. The holy month became a festive period, during which I proudly assessed my culinary progress. As years went by, the meals became more elaborate, and I moved up the ladder of Syrian cuisine, spending more and more time researching recipes and the best places to find ingredients.
The longer I spent away from Syria, the more I found myself searching for Syrian friends to invite to my iftars, and asking them about dishes typical of their cities and villages. It took me a while to realise that in designing my dinners, I wanted to see the whole of Syria at the centre of my house.
I wanted dishes that spoke of the diversity and richness of my country, rather than of its war and chaos. I caught myself describing a scrumptious vegetarian dish as “the minorities’ kibbeh”, in reference to the Christian, Alawite and Ismaili Syrians, who excel at making these dumplings simmered in olive oil and lemon juice.
I have also always included in every meal at least one dish from Aleppo, the city my father grew up in. Cherry kebab, for instance, is a peerless concoction of meat cooked in a compote-like mix of sour cherries. The fruits come from Idlib, now synonymous with misery, destruction and ongoing humanitarian tragedy.
To the Armenians – many of whom came to Syria more than 100 years ago, in the aftermath of the Ottoman government’s genocide against them – we owe a number of outstanding flavours, such as those found in the delicate lahm b'ajeen. These soft, round beauties are often my savoury fillers, their pastry covered with a mix of minced meat and pomegranate molasses. As my father lovingly explains, the dough should be so thin that "if you hold it against the light, you can see through it".
Today I dip my pie in yoghurt and think of strolls in old Aleppo, buying food off carts on the street, and of how little Levantine cuisine has changed over the generations: no quinoa tabbouleh in my house, no vegetarian lahm b'ajeen, no agave syrup.
“This is an iftar of national unity,” I think as I take a last look at the dishes I have laid on my dining table, ready for my guests on the first day of Ramadan. If only it were that easy. I and many friends around the world would be willing to spend countless hours in the kitchen, if only we could cook that one meal with the power to bring back loved ones and magically quiet the screams of the millions still suffering.
In this festive season, images of destroyed cities and those who have disappeared cast a sad shadow over Syrian tables. As I arrange the plates, in my Cairo dining room, I send one wish out into the universe: to, one day, stand in front of a similar meal in Damascus, at my parents’ house, the call to prayer from the nearby mosques echoing across the neighbourhood.
Tamara Alrifai is a Syrian columnist and human rights advocate living in Cairo
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MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League, semi-final result:
Liverpool 4-0 Barcelona
Liverpool win 4-3 on aggregate
Champions Legaue final: June 1, Madrid
PROFILE OF HALAN
Started: November 2017
Founders: Mounir Nakhla, Ahmed Mohsen and Mohamed Aboulnaga
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: transport and logistics
Size: 150 employees
Investment: approximately $8 million
Investors include: Singapore’s Battery Road Digital Holdings, Egypt’s Algebra Ventures, Uber co-founder and former CTO Oscar Salazar
Votes
Total votes: 1.8 million
Ashraf Ghani: 923,592 votes
Abdullah Abdullah: 720,841 votes
UK-EU trade at a glance
EU fishing vessels guaranteed access to UK waters for 12 years
Co-operation on security initiatives and procurement of defence products
Youth experience scheme to work, study or volunteer in UK and EU countries
Smoother border management with use of e-gates
Cutting red tape on import and export of food
2019 ASIAN CUP FINAL
Japan v Qatar
Friday, 6pm
Zayed Sports City Stadium, Abu Dhabi
Babumoshai Bandookbaaz
Director: Kushan Nandy
Starring: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Bidita Bag, Jatin Goswami
Three stars
Uefa Champions League play-off
First leg: Wednesday, 11pm (UAE)
Ajax v Dynamo Kiev
Second leg: Tuesday, August 28, 11pm (UAE)
Dynamo Kiev v Ajax
match info
Southampton 2 (Ings 32' & pen 89') Tottenham Hotspur 5 (Son 45', 47', 64', & 73', Kane 82')
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Our legal consultants
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Small Victories: The True Story of Faith No More by Adrian Harte
Jawbone Press
EA Sports FC 25
Developer: EA Vancouver, EA Romania
Publisher: EA Sports
Consoles: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4&5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S
Rating: 3.5/5
Draw for Europa League last-16
Istanbul Basaksehir v Copenhagen; Olympiakos Piraeus v Wolverhampton Wanderers
Rangers v Bayer Leverkusen; VfL Wolfsburg v Shakhtar Donetsk; Inter Milan v Getafe
Sevilla v AS Roma; Eintracht Frankfurt or Salzburg v Basel; LASK v Manchester United
The years Ramadan fell in May
Other ways to buy used products in the UAE
UAE insurance firm Al Wathba National Insurance Company (AWNIC) last year launched an e-commerce website with a facility enabling users to buy car wrecks.
Bidders and potential buyers register on the online salvage car auction portal to view vehicles, review condition reports, or arrange physical surveys, and then start bidding for motors they plan to restore or harvest for parts.
Physical salvage car auctions are a common method for insurers around the world to move on heavily damaged vehicles, but AWNIC is one of the few UAE insurers to offer such services online.
For cars and less sizeable items such as bicycles and furniture, Dubizzle is arguably the best-known marketplace for pre-loved.
Founded in 2005, in recent years it has been joined by a plethora of Facebook community pages for shifting used goods, including Abu Dhabi Marketplace, Flea Market UAE and Arabian Ranches Souq Market while sites such as The Luxury Closet and Riot deal largely in second-hand fashion.
At the high-end of the pre-used spectrum, resellers such as Timepiece360.ae, WatchBox Middle East and Watches Market Dubai deal in authenticated second-hand luxury timepieces from brands such as Rolex, Hublot and Tag Heuer, with a warranty.
Indoor cricket in a nutshell
Indoor Cricket World Cup – Sep 16-20, Insportz, Dubai
16 Indoor cricket matches are 16 overs per side
8 There are eight players per team
9 There have been nine Indoor Cricket World Cups for men. Australia have won every one.
5 Five runs are deducted from the score when a wickets falls
4 Batsmen bat in pairs, facing four overs per partnership
Scoring In indoor cricket, runs are scored by way of both physical and bonus runs. Physical runs are scored by both batsmen completing a run from one crease to the other. Bonus runs are scored when the ball hits a net in different zones, but only when at least one physical run is score.
Zones
A Front net, behind the striker and wicketkeeper: 0 runs
B Side nets, between the striker and halfway down the pitch: 1 run
C Side nets between halfway and the bowlers end: 2 runs
D Back net: 4 runs on the bounce, 6 runs on the full
Company Profile
Company name: Big Farm Brothers
Started: September 2020
Founders: Vishal Mahajan and Navneet Kaur
Based: Dubai Investment Park 1
Industry: food and agriculture
Initial investment: $205,000
Current staff: eight to 10
Future plan: to expand to other GCC markets
Contracted list
Ashton Agar, Alex Carey, Pat Cummins, Aaron Finch, Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Glenn Maxwell, Shaun Marsh, Mitchell Marsh, Tim Paine, Matt Renshaw, Jhye Richardson, Kane Richardson, Billy Stanlake, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, Andrew Tye.
ELIO
Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett
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Rating: 4/5
What is blockchain?
Blockchain is a form of distributed ledger technology, a digital system in which data is recorded across multiple places at the same time. Unlike traditional databases, DLTs have no central administrator or centralised data storage. They are transparent because the data is visible and, because they are automatically replicated and impossible to be tampered with, they are secure.
The main difference between blockchain and other forms of DLT is the way data is stored as ‘blocks’ – new transactions are added to the existing ‘chain’ of past transactions, hence the name ‘blockchain’. It is impossible to delete or modify information on the chain due to the replication of blocks across various locations.
Blockchain is mostly associated with cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Due to the inability to tamper with transactions, advocates say this makes the currency more secure and safer than traditional systems. It is maintained by a network of people referred to as ‘miners’, who receive rewards for solving complex mathematical equations that enable transactions to go through.
However, one of the major problems that has come to light has been the presence of illicit material buried in the Bitcoin blockchain, linking it to the dark web.
Other blockchain platforms can offer things like smart contracts, which are automatically implemented when specific conditions from all interested parties are reached, cutting the time involved and the risk of mistakes. Another use could be storing medical records, as patients can be confident their information cannot be changed. The technology can also be used in supply chains, voting and has the potential to used for storing property records.
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Three ways to boost your credit score
Marwan Lutfi says the core fundamentals that drive better payment behaviour and can improve your credit score are:
1. Make sure you make your payments on time;
2. Limit the number of products you borrow on: the more loans and credit cards you have, the more it will affect your credit score;
3. Don't max out all your debts: how much you maximise those credit facilities will have an impact. If you have five credit cards and utilise 90 per cent of that credit, it will negatively affect your score.
