Beyrootdown (and get it)

My first foray into homemade Lebanese food. These little tasties are filled with chard and onion—my take on the little spinach filled yummies found in a mezze. Delish!

Stairways and windows. Casablana is a must for brunch in Beirut. A beautiful space overlooking the Sea, organic eats, and a beautiful space. This is just the entryway.

Hey, snail! How’d you get up on the 7th floor?

mcroce:

Ideal world

Not a bad start.

Antique tiles make for tying a room together, even when the rugs are up for the season. These are in my colleague’s home.

More tile-y goodness. I love the Levant steez. Serious: people live in beautiful spaces.

A tree grows in Beirut. And has fruit.

Truffle shuffle!

I picked up this little plum-sized Syrian truffle from the corner grocer on a whim, seeing as I don’t recall having *ever* seen fresh truffles at my corner store EVER. Seeing as how I don’t know if $25 per kilo is a good price or not for truffles, I got just this one. I got home, showed T-mun our latest culinary adventure, and then was like, “so what’s the deal with Syrian truffles?” and found this New York Times article that describes this magical little delicacy:

The truffles spring from microscopic spores distributed just underneath the surface of the sand. (Cultivation has long proved elusive.) They grow into long, invisible threads, which attach themselves to the roots of squat rockrose bushes. Lightning triggers a chemical reaction that makes the accompanying rain rich in nitrogen compounds, which in turn seem to prompt the truffles to grow.

If there are no early thunderstorms, the truffles do not appear; indeed, sellers say five years can go by without any truffles. One Bedouin nickname for them translates as ”the potatoes of thunder.”

We have had a lot of rain and thunderstorms this spring, so it makes sense that these little nuggets are showing up, but there’s something kind of magical about a fungus that needs lightning to get started, kind of like Manzanitas that have adapted to needing fire in order to germinate. And it’s a fungi, which is its own categorical quagmire—all in all, definitely outside the norm.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do with this little dude, but he’s gonna get ATE!

A 10”x10” Earth Pit, seen in the sidewalk in the Bourj Hammoud neighborhood. What is this for? And what happens, pray tell, when one gets removed?

Byblos-GO!