Anissa's Blog

I have a wonderful Italian friend who always brings me delicious offerings when he returns from his travels. Sopressata from his wife’s village in the north of Italy or delicious salame from Milan but this last week, he came to dinner bearing the most wonderful slab of bresaola from Switzerland — in fact bresaola is from Italy’s…

This month’s belly dancer is very elegant for a change, and as a result perhaps a little boring. She is beautiful though, and her movement very graceful even if it lacks a little fire. And I also love the set which is actually one of King Farouk‘s palaces — the film from which the clip is taken is…

I had been wanting to meet Najaf Daryabandari ever since a London friend had told me about the fascinating lunch he’d had with him in Tehran. Najaf is a distinguished academic who has translated many classics and also written a two-volume tome on Iranian cuisine. My friend had lost his contact details but fortunately Nasrine, my Iranian friend knew him…

Anissa: It has been quite a while since Charles Perry did a guest post here but following a discussion and various questions on twitter about fat tail, I thought I would turn to our chief historian of medieval Arab cookery and ask him to enlighten everyone! Here is what he sent me. Charles: Europeans and Americans – and Australians,…

This may well be my last post from my trips to Iran and it is a problematic one because even though I took the clip above, I don’t remember what the filling is nor what the bread is called. I don’t even remember what it tasted like and you can see from the not so…