Archive | Food Recipes

Open arms and hot soup in Eastern Ukraine

In the city of Zaporizhzhia – the first major stop for refugees fleeing Mariupol and other war-torn towns in southeastern Ukraine – we met Nella, who became a local guide, bringing us to refugee centers and hospitals, opening doors around town. On our second visit, she greeted us with homemade Ukrainian perishke, savory donuts stuffed […]

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Breakfast with the Batallion

We headed out in the early hours to visit one of the newly liberated towns surrounding Kyiv. The area was one of the first targets of Russian forces in late February and early March as they tried to encircle the capital and take hold of some air fields. That advance was largely unsuccessful, and Ukrainian […]

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Hiwa’s Do-It-Yourself Dolma Recipe

On the road, a home-cooked meal is an absolute luxury: a respite from the impersonal hotels and convivial but antiseptic restaurants that greet us at the end of each day. In Northern Iraq, we were invited (hooray!) to Hiwa’s house for his casual take on a traditional Middle Eastern dish, dolma.  Now, I knew dolma only as stuffed grape leaves. […]

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Outside Beirut, Home-Cooked Hospitality

It doesn’t take long to escape the traffic- and dust-clogged streets of Beirut. Just an hour spent bouncing around in the car will get you high into the hills, overlooking the corniche and the coastline, above the congestion and pollution. There you’ll find cedar trees (immortalized on the Lebanese flag), deep valleys and beautiful stone […]

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Quick Snack: A Russian Samovar at the Ukrainian Frontlines

The front lines of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine are bleak, particularly in February. The areas around Debaltsevo, hotly contested between Ukrainian troops and separatists/Russian forces, are rolling hills of frosty farmland, now sallow and muddy. The Ukrainians are hunkered down in [redacted], taking shelter where they can and using makeshift stoves, the local coal […]

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