Anissa's Blog

I have to finish the year with my favourite belly dancer, Tahiya Carioca. She is beautiful. Her movement is perfect and she is never vulgar which is quite an achievement for a belly dancer. I read somewhere that she never looked at her audience which could be why she is not given how suggestive the movements…

Anissa: Time for a guest post by the great Charles Perry. This time it is about an edible virgin, or to be more precise her breasts. Don’t worry, I am not being prurient and there is nothing obscene about these breasts. As Charles explains, Mediterraneans and Arabs have this habit of calling sweets after charming female attributes.…

When my friend Roberta who I stay with when I am in the Bay Area suggested we go for a doughnut, I wasn’t sure at first. The only ‘doughnuts’ I love are the catalan xuxos which I had every morning at Bar Pinotxo in the Boqueria when I was in Barcelona testing recipes for my Fifth Quarter. That was until I went on the scales…

I may not have been to an olive harvest before but I have been to an olive press, including the ancient ones in Volubilis near Meknes, Morocco. However, the one Tonino and Mary use near their farm has nothing ancient about it. In fact, it is very modern with the process completely automated from when the olives are poured into…

I am just back from California where I was hoping to go to the olive harvest but I never got the time. A few weeks earlier I was in Lebanon and I had intended to do the same down south but I was there too early. Thank goodness I went to Sicily in between, and…