Latest / Cookbook Love Podcast / Episode 411: Recipes, Hospitality, and Hope in a Time of War with Sarah Trad

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Episode 411: Recipes, Hospitality, and Hope in a Time of War with Sarah Trad · Cookbook Love Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker: You are listening to the
• 0:03
  Speaker: Cookbook Love Podcast with
• 0:04
  Speaker: Maggie Greene, episode number
• 0:06
  Speaker: four eleven.
• 0:11
  Speaker: Welcome to the Cookbook Love
• 0:12
  Speaker: Podcast, a podcast that
• 0:14
  Speaker: celebrates cookbook readers,
• 0:16
  Speaker: buyers, collectors, writers, and
• 0:18
  Speaker: clubs.
• 0:19
  Speaker: And now your host, cookbook
• 0:21
  Speaker: author, culinary dietitian, and
• 0:23
  Speaker: cookbook writing coach, Maggie
• 0:25
  Speaker: Greene.
• 0:31
  Speaker: Hi, everybody.
• 0:32
  Speaker: Welcome back to another episode of the cookbook Love Podcast.
• 0:36
  Speaker: How's everybody doing today?
• 0:37
  Speaker: Hope you are all doing well.
• 0:40
  Speaker: I got a little bit of a later
• 0:41
  Speaker: start this morning than I
• 0:43
  Speaker: normally do, coming down here to
• 0:46
  Speaker: my cookbook bunker to get some
• 0:47
  Speaker: work done because I had, I had
• 0:50
  Speaker: key word, an appointment
• 0:52
  Speaker: scheduled to take one of my cats
• 0:55
  Speaker: in to have her groomed and have
• 0:59
  Speaker: some matting addressed in her
• 1:00
  Speaker: fur.
• 1:01
  Speaker: I think I probably told you all
• 1:03
  Speaker: back in the fall we adopted a
• 1:05
  Speaker: bonded pair of medium hair black
• 1:10
  Speaker: cats.
• 1:11
  Speaker: It's a mom and a baby.
• 1:12
  Speaker: They look like twins, but they're not.
• 1:16
  Speaker: They're different ages.
• 1:16
  Speaker: The mom is probably for the babies.
• 1:19
  Speaker: Probably now about one.
• 1:21
  Speaker: And the mom has matting under her neck and up between her
• 1:25
  Speaker: shoulder blades that I haven't been able to successfully tackle
• 1:30
  Speaker: or get rid of with the combing that I use on their hair.
• 1:36
  Speaker: The baby, she just has a couple little spots that I'm able to
• 1:39
  Speaker: work on and she's fine.
• 1:41
  Speaker: But the mom, I wanted to get it checked out because I didn't
• 1:44
  Speaker: want them to irritate her skin.
• 1:46
  Speaker: I wanted to be sure everything was okay.
• 1:48
  Speaker: So I had scheduled her to go to
• 1:50
  Speaker: the vet this morning, and he was
• 1:51
  Speaker: going to look at them, and if he
• 1:52
  Speaker: needed to, he was going to put
• 1:53
  Speaker: her under light sedation and
• 1:55
  Speaker: just give her a summer body
• 1:57
  Speaker: shave.
• 1:58
  Speaker: So I took their food up last night, made plans to load her up
• 2:02
  Speaker: into the crate, and when I went.
• 2:03
  Speaker: Not the crate her carrier.
• 2:04
  Speaker: When I went to load her in the carrier, I realized I had never
• 2:08
  Speaker: put her in a carrier before.
• 2:11
  Speaker: Well, she wasn't having any part of it.
• 2:13
  Speaker: The first thing is, is that she
• 2:14
  Speaker: does really like me, and she
• 2:16
  Speaker: does come to me, and she does
• 2:18
  Speaker: love treats and all that kind of
• 2:19
  Speaker: stuff.
• 2:19
  Speaker: And she does let me hold her a little bit.
• 2:22
  Speaker: When I picked her up, she was fine, but when I started to put
• 2:24
  Speaker: her in the carrier, I got her in, but she slipped out as I was
• 2:28
  Speaker: trying to zip up the top.
• 2:30
  Speaker: So I waited about thirty minutes
• 2:33
  Speaker: and put on a pair of gloves I
• 2:35
  Speaker: already had on a long sleeved
• 2:36
  Speaker: shirt and decided I was going to
• 2:38
  Speaker: try the tail approach, and when
• 2:39
  Speaker: I picked her up, wrapped her in
• 2:41
  Speaker: a towel, and I got her into the
• 2:42
  Speaker: carrier.
• 2:43
  Speaker: But again, before I could get the top zipped up, she slipped
• 2:48
  Speaker: out again, and by that point she had had it.
• 2:52
  Speaker: She ran to a little hiding place
• 2:54
  Speaker: where she has in our back
• 2:56
  Speaker: storage room, and I really
• 2:59
  Speaker: haven't seen her too much since
• 3:00
  Speaker: then.
• 3:00
  Speaker: She I saw her.
• 3:01
  Speaker: She, she did come out and started eating and, um, but I
• 3:05
  Speaker: think she went back there again.
• 3:06
  Speaker: So I called the vet and I said, I'm going to have to practice
• 3:09
  Speaker: getting her in her carrier and maybe have to load her up in the
• 3:14
  Speaker: carrier, take her straight away early in the morning while
• 3:18
  Speaker: Warren is still home.
• 3:19
  Speaker: So if I get her in there, he can
• 3:20
  Speaker: help me zip it up or to try
• 3:21
  Speaker: another carrier.
• 3:23
  Speaker: It's kind of funny.
• 3:23
  Speaker: I have a hard top carrier that the top comes off and she might
• 3:28
  Speaker: lay inside of it because when I pack my suitcase to go on trips,
• 3:32
  Speaker: she lays in my suitcase.
• 3:34
  Speaker: So I thought, well, maybe if I put the bottom of the carrier
• 3:36
  Speaker: out and put a towel in it, put some treats in it, she might not
• 3:41
  Speaker: think a thing about it.
• 3:42
  Speaker: She might get used to laying in it, and then it would not be
• 3:46
  Speaker: that hard to get her in it.
• 3:47
  Speaker: The next time I need to take her to the vet.
• 3:50
  Speaker: So that was what I did this
• 3:52
  Speaker: morning and I felt really bad
• 3:53
  Speaker: for her because when we adopted
• 3:56
  Speaker: these cats from the Ohio Alley
• 3:59
  Speaker: Cat Rescue in Cincinnati and,
• 4:01
  Speaker: um, I think they came from a
• 4:03
  Speaker: hoarding situation.
• 4:05
  Speaker: So, um, they were well treated at the foster home where they
• 4:09
  Speaker: were cared for.
• 4:10
  Speaker: They got their shots, they got spayed.
• 4:13
  Speaker: Um, they came here and they've been great cats, very sweet.
• 4:17
  Speaker: Two females, but I just had not
• 4:21
  Speaker: even thought about whether or
• 4:22
  Speaker: not she would go into the
• 4:23
  Speaker: carrier.
• 4:23
  Speaker: Our previous cat, Virgil,
• 4:25
  Speaker: literally would just like, do
• 4:27
  Speaker: anything that you wanted him to
• 4:29
  Speaker: do.
• 4:30
  Speaker: When he picked you picked him up.
• 4:31
  Speaker: He was such a chill cat.
• 4:33
  Speaker: I could easily get him into the carrier.
• 4:35
  Speaker: He practically walked into the carrier.
• 4:37
  Speaker: Now, our cat prior to that, um,
• 4:40
  Speaker: was maybe a little bit trickier,
• 4:42
  Speaker: but I didn't even think too much
• 4:43
  Speaker: about it.
• 4:44
  Speaker: I think because our cat, prior to that, we had had since she
• 4:47
  Speaker: was a kitten and she was used to us handling her.
• 4:50
  Speaker: But this mama is probably just not as used to it.
• 4:53
  Speaker: So I called the vet.
• 4:55
  Speaker: Apologized for not bringing her
• 4:58
  Speaker: in and said, I'm going to need
• 5:00
  Speaker: to practice, so I'm going to
• 5:01
  Speaker: have to have a couple of other
• 5:02
  Speaker: strategies to get my sweet mama
• 5:05
  Speaker: cat into the carrier to go get
• 5:07
  Speaker: her groomed.
• 5:09
  Speaker: And in the meantime, I'll just keep brushing her and working on
• 5:12
  Speaker: the mats myself.
• 5:13
  Speaker: But that's what I've been up to this morning.
• 5:16
  Speaker: It's kind of funny, you know?
• 5:17
  Speaker: You think you know what you're going to do?
• 5:19
  Speaker: Go to the vet, go back, pick her up.
• 5:21
  Speaker: Well, anyway, that didn't work out like it was supposed to.
• 5:24
  Speaker: So then I decided, well, I kind of had clothes on that I was
• 5:29
  Speaker: going to go to the vet in.
• 5:31
  Speaker: So I changed my clothes, put on
• 5:33
  Speaker: some skort and, uh, different
• 5:36
  Speaker: shoes and went out and watered
• 5:38
  Speaker: all my flowers, picked a ton of
• 5:40
  Speaker: tomatoes.
• 5:40
  Speaker: We have little yellow cherry tomatoes.
• 5:43
  Speaker: We have red tomatoes that are about the size of a. Well, maybe
• 5:50
  Speaker: a bigger than a golf ball, maybe a small tangerine, maybe a
• 5:54
  Speaker: little bit smaller than that, maybe apricot sized and, uh,
• 5:58
  Speaker: tons of tomatoes on our patio.
• 5:59
  Speaker: And we started these plants from seed and, uh, using a gallon
• 6:05
  Speaker: milk jugs that we split open, leave a hinge on the back, put
• 6:09
  Speaker: the dirt in, put the seeds in, and then it makes like little
• 6:12
  Speaker: mini greenhouses and we sprout the seeds in the springtime, we
• 6:17
  Speaker: transplanted them into the soil and they are doing great.
• 6:20
  Speaker: They started to turn colors, um, beginning of July and we have
• 6:24
  Speaker: had a ton of tomatoes.
• 6:25
  Speaker: So that's been fun.
• 6:26
  Speaker: And I picked a lot of tomatoes, watered my flowers and came back
• 6:30
  Speaker: in, ate some lunch, regrouping now and recording these podcast
• 6:34
  Speaker: introductions for you, uh, for the next couple of weeks.
• 6:38
  Speaker: So that's my story from today, working with my cats.
• 6:44
  Speaker: And, um, if you have pets, I'm sure you know what that's like
• 6:48
  Speaker: to try to get them into a crate or to get them to where they
• 6:52
  Speaker: need to go.
• 6:53
  Speaker: Luckily, she's not ill.
• 6:55
  Speaker: It really was just a grooming appointment.
• 6:57
  Speaker: But anyway, I'm gonna try again the next time.
• 7:02
  Speaker: So a couple of things.
• 7:04
  Speaker: Um, I'm working on a brand new class for aspiring cookbook
• 7:09
  Speaker: authors, but I need a little bit of help from you if you're
• 7:12
  Speaker: willing to do this.
• 7:14
  Speaker: This next class is going to be all about working on building
• 7:17
  Speaker: your cookbook audience.
• 7:20
  Speaker: And I want to make sure that this class answers everything
• 7:23
  Speaker: that you all want to know and need to know.
• 7:27
  Speaker: So if you have a few minutes and you are willing to answer
• 7:33
  Speaker: questions on a short survey that I'm doing, um, I would love your
• 7:37
  Speaker: help and I'll drop a link below in the show notes.
• 7:40
  Speaker: There's only two questions on the survey.
• 7:42
  Speaker: And then if you leave your name and your email address.
• 7:47
  Speaker: I'll be sure to send you
• 7:49
  Speaker: information when the class is
• 7:51
  Speaker: ready.
• 7:52
  Speaker: Again, this is going to be a really fun class.
• 7:54
  Speaker: The details about it will be coming out very soon, but I need
• 7:58
  Speaker: your help in preparation for the class to make sure I'm covering
• 8:01
  Speaker: everything you all want to know ahead of time.
• 8:04
  Speaker: So the link is below in the show notes.
• 8:08
  Speaker: So today on the show, I'm excited to have an interview
• 8:10
  Speaker: with Sarah Trad.
• 8:12
  Speaker: Sarah is the author of A House
• 8:14
  Speaker: in the Lebanese Mountains
• 8:15
  Speaker: Recipes and Stories from BA
• 8:18
  Speaker: Trad.
• 8:19
  Speaker: In this episode, Sarah shares
• 8:21
  Speaker: the story of transforming her
• 8:24
  Speaker: family's ancestral Lebanese
• 8:26
  Speaker: mountain home into a guesthouse
• 8:29
  Speaker: and how the book captures the
• 8:31
  Speaker: food, hospitality, philosophy
• 8:34
  Speaker: and cultural identity of Lebanon
• 8:37
  Speaker: even in the midst of ongoing
• 8:39
  Speaker: conflict.
• 8:40
  Speaker: On the show, we talk all about the history of the house.
• 8:44
  Speaker: The communal nature of Lebanese cuisine.
• 8:47
  Speaker: The book's design and recipe development and photography
• 8:51
  Speaker: process, as well as Sarah's broader message that beauty, joy
• 8:57
  Speaker: and tradition must be preserved, especially in times of war.
• 9:03
  Speaker: So without further delay, let's
• 9:05
  Speaker: dive into this interview with
• 9:07
  Speaker: Sarah Trad.
• 9:09
  Speaker: Hi, Sarah, welcome to the Cookbook Love Podcast.
• 9:13
  Speaker: Hi, Maggie.
• 9:13
  Speaker: Thank you for having me.
• 9:14
  Speaker: Yes.
• 9:15
  Speaker: So excited that you're here.
• 9:17
  Speaker: Author of a beautiful new book.
• 9:19
  Speaker: But before we get started and talk all about the book, why
• 9:22
  Speaker: don't you tell everybody a little bit about who you are and
• 9:25
  Speaker: what you do?
• 9:27
  Speaker: Huh?
• 9:28
  Speaker: So my name is Sarah Trad.
• 9:30
  Speaker: I'm Lebanese.
• 9:32
  Speaker: I, uh, opened, um, a hotel with a guest house in the Lebanese
• 9:37
  Speaker: mountains in twenty eighteen.
• 9:40
  Speaker: Um, before that I opened the yoga studio in Beirut.
• 9:46
  Speaker: Um, and anyway, I've also been
• 9:49
  Speaker: there and then I was the
• 9:52
  Speaker: co-founder of a drug rehab in
• 9:54
  Speaker: Beirut.
• 9:54
  Speaker: So I've been, I've been in different fields and I'm, I'm
• 10:00
  Speaker: now the author of this book, this recipe book.
• 10:03
  Speaker: Um, and I'm also in the process of opening, um, a restaurant in
• 10:09
  Speaker: Athens and Adele.
• 10:11
  Speaker: Nice.
• 10:12
  Speaker: So I was going to ask if you had lived in Lebanon all your life.
• 10:16
  Speaker: No, as a, unfortunately, as a
• 10:18
  Speaker: good Lebanese, I've been all
• 10:20
  Speaker: around.
• 10:20
  Speaker: I was brought up in Saudi Arabia and then I was, I lived in Paris
• 10:25
  Speaker: for thirteen years and um, Lebanon for six years and New
• 10:30
  Speaker: York for four years.
• 10:32
  Speaker: And now I'm in Athens.
• 10:35
  Speaker: Yes, yes.
• 10:36
  Speaker: And you actually opened you called it a hotel or a guest
• 10:40
  Speaker: house in Lebanon, correct?
• 10:44
  Speaker: Yes, exactly.
• 10:45
  Speaker: Yes.
• 10:45
  Speaker: So why don't we talk a little bit about that particular story?
• 10:49
  Speaker: I think that's something that
• 10:50
  Speaker: everybody's going to need to
• 10:51
  Speaker: hear to give some context to
• 10:53
  Speaker: what we're going to talk about
• 10:54
  Speaker: today.
• 10:55
  Speaker: So my my father and my mother bought this old traditional
• 11:01
  Speaker: Lebanese house in the mountains in the eighties.
• 11:05
  Speaker: They were not living in Lebanon.
• 11:06
  Speaker: And that's the house where we would spend our summers.
• 11:10
  Speaker: So it was a big house with seven rooms, a big garden.
• 11:13
  Speaker: And my father passed one year after we bought the house.
• 11:17
  Speaker: And basically for the next thirty something years we would
• 11:21
  Speaker: even though we were living, we weren't particularly living in
• 11:24
  Speaker: Lebanon, but we would go and spend our summers in that house
• 11:29
  Speaker: and we never really restored.
• 11:32
  Speaker: I mean, it was restored when we when we came into the house, but
• 11:36
  Speaker: thirty years later, it was for, you know, it was getting old.
• 11:41
  Speaker: We were not really doing the right renovations.
• 11:44
  Speaker: And when my mom passed in twenty
• 11:45
  Speaker: thirteen, I just stopped going
• 11:48
  Speaker: to the house and it was falling
• 11:51
  Speaker: apart because houses don't like
• 11:53
  Speaker: to be abandoned, as we all know,
• 11:55
  Speaker: especially in a humid mountain
• 11:58
  Speaker: where, you know, the the winters
• 12:00
  Speaker: are humid and the summers are
• 12:02
  Speaker: hot.
• 12:02
  Speaker: And yeah, the house was not happy at all.
• 12:06
  Speaker: And I was feeling very guilty.
• 12:08
  Speaker: And I knew that if I ever sold that house, I would feel, um, I
• 12:15
  Speaker: would regret it all my life.
• 12:16
  Speaker: And I had to find a way.
• 12:18
  Speaker: So I thought of making a business out of it.
• 12:20
  Speaker: At the time, I was living in New
• 12:22
  Speaker: York, and I moved back to
• 12:23
  Speaker: Lebanon and decided to transform
• 12:26
  Speaker: this family house into a guest
• 12:28
  Speaker: house and to make my dream
• 12:31
  Speaker: house, you know, not to make it
• 12:33
  Speaker: like some people go into
• 12:34
  Speaker: business and they just do the
• 12:36
  Speaker: the lowest or the the less the
• 12:40
  Speaker: minimum quality required to pass
• 12:42
  Speaker: the.
• 12:43
  Speaker: No, I did my dream house and it became beta trap.
• 12:48
  Speaker: Yes, yes.
• 12:49
  Speaker: And that's the name of the house.
• 12:50
  Speaker: It looks like from the notes
• 12:51
  Speaker: that it said it was dated back
• 12:53
  Speaker: to the eighteenth century, once
• 12:55
  Speaker: believed to have been a convent,
• 12:59
  Speaker: and the house had passed through
• 13:01
  Speaker: many generations.
• 13:02
  Speaker: And then now it stands, of course, as the peaceful retreat
• 13:06
  Speaker: that you have created.
• 13:08
  Speaker: Um, how did you all learn about the history of the home?
• 13:11
  Speaker: So basically it's, it's architects that, you know, that
• 13:15
  Speaker: know how to read the houses, if I may say.
• 13:17
  Speaker: And because it was a house that was built in several phases, uh,
• 13:21
  Speaker: it wasn't built in one go.
• 13:23
  Speaker: And some of the, the, some of the constructions have dates on
• 13:27
  Speaker: them, like eighteen eighty eight, eighteen seventy four.
• 13:30
  Speaker: And if you look at the architecture of the back part of
• 13:33
  Speaker: the house, there's like a facade with nine doors and a small
• 13:37
  Speaker: rooms that had several doors.
• 13:39
  Speaker: So that looks like cells.
• 13:40
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 13:41
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 13:42
  Speaker: And the region at the so Lebanon is multi-confessional.
• 13:45
  Speaker: And this is a very Christian area.
• 13:48
  Speaker: Um, so we think it was a nunnery in the.
• 13:51
  Speaker: I mean, they think not I don't think anything.
• 13:53
  Speaker: I'm just listening.
• 13:54
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 13:55
  Speaker: But they think that it was a nunnery probably in the around
• 13:59
  Speaker: seventeen sixty and then, you know, it changed hands and
• 14:03
  Speaker: became what it is today.
• 14:04
  Speaker: Right, right.
• 14:05
  Speaker: And when you actually did the
• 14:07
  Speaker: updating and the remodeling, the
• 14:09
  Speaker: design and the aesthetic and the
• 14:11
  Speaker: atmosphere were something that
• 14:12
  Speaker: you really put a lot of thought
• 14:14
  Speaker: into.
• 14:15
  Speaker: Um, tell us a little bit about what that was like because like
• 14:18
  Speaker: you said, you didn't just do this to operate a business.
• 14:21
  Speaker: You were putting something else into the house that you wanted
• 14:24
  Speaker: to share with everybody.
• 14:26
  Speaker: So I was inheriting that house, uh, that my mother had We had
• 14:32
  Speaker: the custody of because I, I, I really feel that the house has
• 14:36
  Speaker: its own life, its own soul, and we're just custodians and I, I
• 14:40
  Speaker: didn't want to change anything.
• 14:42
  Speaker: The, the decoration when my mom had, it was really, really nice.
• 14:45
  Speaker: So I didn't want to.
• 14:46
  Speaker: I wanted to keep that soul, keep
• 14:48
  Speaker: that vibe, respect the house
• 14:50
  Speaker: itself and not, you know, not be
• 14:53
  Speaker: over heavy hand, not be heavy
• 14:55
  Speaker: handed on the restoration at
• 14:56
  Speaker: all.
• 14:57
  Speaker: Uh, keep it as it is as much as possible.
• 15:00
  Speaker: I basically was redoing plumbing
• 15:02
  Speaker: and electricity and things like
• 15:04
  Speaker: that, that, you know, the
• 15:05
  Speaker: infrastructure that you don't
• 15:06
  Speaker: really see.
• 15:07
  Speaker: But I kept everything as is.
• 15:09
  Speaker: Um, and I, my friend Mario said, so I put a team together, um, of
• 15:15
  Speaker: people that knew more than me.
• 15:17
  Speaker: So I had an architect, an interior designer.
• 15:20
  Speaker: I had, um, a graphic designer.
• 15:23
  Speaker: I had, uh, someone specialized
• 15:26
  Speaker: in hospitality, all these
• 15:27
  Speaker: specialties that are needed to
• 15:29
  Speaker: build that kind of project and
• 15:31
  Speaker: that I mean, all those skills
• 15:33
  Speaker: that I. I only had an opinion
• 15:36
  Speaker: about that.
• 15:36
  Speaker: I don't have those skills.
• 15:37
  Speaker: So I put together this dream team and we, um, yeah, we worked
• 15:43
  Speaker: on it for three years.
• 15:44
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 15:45
  Speaker: And it says that it blends eastern and Western influences.
• 15:49
  Speaker: And there is a approach to the way that you collected things to
• 15:55
  Speaker: actually even decorate the home.
• 15:57
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 15:58
  Speaker: It's a, it's, you know, I come
• 16:00
  Speaker: from Lebanon, which is
• 16:02
  Speaker: geographically the eastern
• 16:03
  Speaker: Mediterranean.
• 16:04
  Speaker: Um, in other words, the Levant.
• 16:07
  Speaker: And um, because of our geography, we are extremely
• 16:10
  Speaker: cosmopolitan in the sense that we're in the, you know, we have
• 16:14
  Speaker: all the Mediterranean.
• 16:15
  Speaker: So you have the south of Europe and the north, the north of
• 16:18
  Speaker: north, the north of Africa.
• 16:20
  Speaker: Right.
• 16:20
  Speaker: But you also are at the end of the Silk Route.
• 16:23
  Speaker: So our houses in our my part of
• 16:26
  Speaker: the world typically will have,
• 16:28
  Speaker: uh, you know, Chinese pots and
• 16:31
  Speaker: they come from they used to come
• 16:33
  Speaker: from China.
• 16:33
  Speaker: If you go to antique dealers,
• 16:34
  Speaker: you will find Chinese pots and
• 16:36
  Speaker: Persian carpets and, and, uh,
• 16:39
  Speaker: European, uh, you know,
• 16:41
  Speaker: furniture.
• 16:42
  Speaker: It's all mixed up.
• 16:43
  Speaker: It's all blended.
• 16:44
  Speaker: And it's and for us, it's completely natural.
• 16:47
  Speaker: This is who we are.
• 16:49
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 16:49
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 16:50
  Speaker: With Ottoman, you know, Ottoman, I don't know, chandeliers, which
• 16:55
  Speaker: you also can see in beta.
• 16:57
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 16:57
  Speaker: So that makes that can maybe be exotic for others is just very
• 17:02
  Speaker: natural for us.
• 17:03
  Speaker: Yep.
• 17:04
  Speaker: So how big is the guest house and how many rooms does it have?
• 17:08
  Speaker: So we have eleven rooms.
• 17:11
  Speaker: Um the garden is quite big.
• 17:13
  Speaker: Um, I don't know about, I, I
• 17:15
  Speaker: don't know, I don't know about
• 17:17
  Speaker: square feet.
• 17:17
  Speaker: I know about square meters.
• 17:19
  Speaker: So it's twenty four.
• 17:20
  Speaker: It's a big big, it's got you.
• 17:21
  Speaker: There's a little forest at the
• 17:23
  Speaker: entrance and it's a very large
• 17:24
  Speaker: garden.
• 17:25
  Speaker: And then you have eleven rooms, but the rooms are spread out.
• 17:30
  Speaker: So it's not gigantic, but it's, uh, it's quite big.
• 17:33
  Speaker: Yeah, but it still feels intimate.
• 17:35
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 17:36
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 17:36
  Speaker: And the name of it is be a trad.
• 17:39
  Speaker: Now trad then would be after your last name.
• 17:42
  Speaker: Correct.
• 17:43
  Speaker: And the first word means what.
• 17:45
  Speaker: So the first word bait.
• 17:47
  Speaker: Bait means house.
• 17:48
  Speaker: House.
• 17:49
  Speaker: Okay.
• 17:49
  Speaker: But it's also like the house of trad means the trad family.
• 17:53
  Speaker: Yes.
• 17:54
  Speaker: So it's it's house and family at the same time.
• 17:56
  Speaker: Yes.
• 17:57
  Speaker: Very good.
• 17:57
  Speaker: Awesome.
• 17:58
  Speaker: So that gives us a picture of what the the house is like.
• 18:01
  Speaker: And there's a reason that you,
• 18:02
  Speaker: um, hope that people can
• 18:05
  Speaker: understand why it's important
• 18:06
  Speaker: that we're talking about this
• 18:08
  Speaker: house and this location in the
• 18:10
  Speaker: world.
• 18:11
  Speaker: Um, especially based on the countercultural narrative that
• 18:15
  Speaker: we sometimes hear on the news or in social media feeds.
• 18:19
  Speaker: So let's talk a little bit about Lebanon and this area of the
• 18:23
  Speaker: world and what you would love for our listeners to know.
• 18:27
  Speaker: So as some of you might know,
• 18:30
  Speaker: um, I come from a very agitated,
• 18:33
  Speaker: noisy, violent, often violent,
• 18:36
  Speaker: um, uh, area of the world that's
• 18:40
  Speaker: permanently in wars, whether
• 18:43
  Speaker: Lebanon or the neighbors or the
• 18:45
  Speaker: neighboring countries.
• 18:46
  Speaker: And, um, this has been our reality.
• 18:50
  Speaker: I'm fifty two and this has been my reality since I was born.
• 18:54
  Speaker: However, in parallel to all that, there is a very soft, um,
• 19:00
  Speaker: refined, delightful, uh, happy life that goes on.
• 19:05
  Speaker: I know it sounds, uh, you know, hard to believe, but there is.
• 19:10
  Speaker: And even people will tell you that Lebanon, you know, has the
• 19:14
  Speaker: best parties and the best the joy of life that's so strong
• 19:18
  Speaker: because because we are permanently in wars and we, we
• 19:22
  Speaker: really do appreciate every minute of of our lives and want
• 19:26
  Speaker: to make the best out of it.
• 19:27
  Speaker: So, um, today, I mean, when I
• 19:31
  Speaker: did this book, I had three wars,
• 19:33
  Speaker: uh, whether Gaza or with the, in
• 19:38
  Speaker: the neighboring territories or
• 19:40
  Speaker: in, in Lebanon, I mean, and, and
• 19:43
  Speaker: the day of the launch was also
• 19:44
  Speaker: the launch of in, in, in March
• 19:46
  Speaker: was the launch of another war in
• 19:48
  Speaker: Lebanon.
• 19:48
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 19:49
  Speaker: So when people ask what actually
• 19:52
  Speaker: the writer, Gilles Khoury at
• 19:54
  Speaker: some point told me, Sarah, don't
• 19:55
  Speaker: you think we should stop the
• 19:56
  Speaker: book?
• 19:57
  Speaker: I mean, there's all these wars happening.
• 19:59
  Speaker: Do you really think it's relevant?
• 20:00
  Speaker: I said, it's more relevant than ever.
• 20:02
  Speaker: We need to talk about who we
• 20:04
  Speaker: are, our culture, the happiness
• 20:06
  Speaker: in our daily life, the beauty in
• 20:08
  Speaker: our houses.
• 20:09
  Speaker: So yeah, I think it's essential.
• 20:13
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 20:13
  Speaker: And I think to talk, to talk to
• 20:15
  Speaker: others, but also to transmit to
• 20:18
  Speaker: my children.
• 20:18
  Speaker: I have two daughters.
• 20:19
  Speaker: And it's also the idea of transmitting that joy and those
• 20:24
  Speaker: traditions and those, you know, that taste, right?
• 20:27
  Speaker: Because when we have those, that kind of emotion and feeling in
• 20:30
  Speaker: our heart and in our soul, it's hard to tamp it down.
• 20:34
  Speaker: Those are the kinds of things that wars can't tamp down,
• 20:36
  Speaker: actually, is the human spirit and the things that we believe
• 20:40
  Speaker: in and the way that we want to connect with people.
• 20:42
  Speaker: And the things that we want to
• 20:43
  Speaker: talk about, it will never, ever
• 20:44
  Speaker: go away.
• 20:46
  Speaker: It's part of who we are and maybe our culture.
• 20:51
  Speaker: At the end of the day, when you see all the violence and wars,
• 20:55
  Speaker: what does keep you human is your cultures and your traditions.
• 20:59
  Speaker: And, you know, this is where that's why when we it's a drama
• 21:05
  Speaker: when like, um, historical sites are, are bombed.
• 21:11
  Speaker: Yes.
• 21:11
  Speaker: Because it's, I know people
• 21:14
  Speaker: think that human life is the
• 21:15
  Speaker: most human life is essential,
• 21:17
  Speaker: but historical sites are the
• 21:19
  Speaker: proof of our history and our
• 21:21
  Speaker: culture.
• 21:22
  Speaker: And they are.
• 21:23
  Speaker: I mean, you know, this is what
• 21:24
  Speaker: makes us civilized or human,
• 21:27
  Speaker: right?
• 21:27
  Speaker: Right.
• 21:28
  Speaker: And if they're if they're gone, um, for some reason, the stories
• 21:32
  Speaker: obviously can still be told.
• 21:35
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 21:35
  Speaker: Yes, absolutely.
• 21:38
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 21:38
  Speaker: Yep.
• 21:39
  Speaker: All right.
• 21:39
  Speaker: So that tells us a little bit
• 21:40
  Speaker: about you and the house and then
• 21:42
  Speaker: the way that you actually work
• 21:44
  Speaker: to, uh, recreate and rebuild the
• 21:47
  Speaker: house.
• 21:48
  Speaker: Uh, let's talk a little bit
• 21:49
  Speaker: about food and, um, the
• 21:53
  Speaker: connection with food and the
• 21:55
  Speaker: house and, uh, maybe even a
• 21:57
  Speaker: little bit about, um, you serve
• 21:59
  Speaker: meals there.
• 22:00
  Speaker: Do you feed people there?
• 22:01
  Speaker: And then what food actually meant to the house even as it
• 22:04
  Speaker: being in your family.
• 22:06
  Speaker: So my mother used to absolutely love entertaining.
• 22:12
  Speaker: She was a social butterfly that could spend twenty four hours,
• 22:17
  Speaker: seven days a week with people entertaining, hosting,
• 22:21
  Speaker: connecting people to each other.
• 22:24
  Speaker: I mean, she just loved it.
• 22:26
  Speaker: However, she didn't know how to cook, so.
• 22:31
  Speaker: And she always wanted to make
• 22:34
  Speaker: sure that her her food was
• 22:36
  Speaker: delicious.
• 22:37
  Speaker: It was unsophisticated.
• 22:38
  Speaker: It was delicious.
• 22:39
  Speaker: It was not made by her, but her table was.
• 22:43
  Speaker: I mean, people would love going to her house.
• 22:45
  Speaker: It was generous.
• 22:46
  Speaker: It was delicious.
• 22:47
  Speaker: It was soulful.
• 22:49
  Speaker: And, and, and she made me
• 22:51
  Speaker: realize that the most important
• 22:54
  Speaker: ingredient for a party to be
• 22:56
  Speaker: successful is to really want to
• 22:58
  Speaker: do it, and to really want to
• 23:00
  Speaker: host, to host from the heart,
• 23:01
  Speaker: not host from the, the duty or
• 23:04
  Speaker: the ego, but really from the
• 23:05
  Speaker: heart.
• 23:06
  Speaker: So that's where I came from.
• 23:08
  Speaker: I mean, I come from that was my tradition.
• 23:11
  Speaker: And we always had home cooked Lebanese food at home.
• 23:15
  Speaker: So my mother was not at all this, you know, super
• 23:18
  Speaker: sophisticated with food.
• 23:21
  Speaker: Uh, she wasn't really a foodie, as per say, but she liked
• 23:27
  Speaker: honest, wholesome food that she understood, which was home
• 23:31
  Speaker: cooked Lebanese food.
• 23:32
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 23:33
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 23:33
  Speaker: And that's the kind of food that
• 23:34
  Speaker: you have represented here in the
• 23:36
  Speaker: book.
• 23:37
  Speaker: Absolutely.
• 23:38
  Speaker: And funnily enough, when I
• 23:39
  Speaker: opened beta, trans people told
• 23:41
  Speaker: me, you're going to have Italian
• 23:42
  Speaker: food.
• 23:43
  Speaker: I said, no, no, no, they have French food.
• 23:45
  Speaker: I said, no, I'm going to have food.
• 23:47
  Speaker: That's true to where I am and
• 23:49
  Speaker: who I am, and it's going to be
• 23:51
  Speaker: Lebanese.
• 23:52
  Speaker: And they're like, oh, really juicy.
• 23:54
  Speaker: You know how people always think
• 23:55
  Speaker: that other foods are better than
• 23:57
  Speaker: your own?
• 23:58
  Speaker: Right, right.
• 23:59
  Speaker: And people just love it.
• 24:00
  Speaker: Because today I realized that
• 24:02
  Speaker: when, when I was serving this
• 24:04
  Speaker: traditional food and people
• 24:06
  Speaker: didn't have mothers or wives or
• 24:09
  Speaker: themselves were not cooking
• 24:10
  Speaker: anymore because they don't have
• 24:11
  Speaker: time.
• 24:12
  Speaker: Urban life has taken over in Lebanon too.
• 24:14
  Speaker: Like everywhere else, they.
• 24:16
  Speaker: They were so happy.
• 24:18
  Speaker: It's so.
• 24:18
  Speaker: People love our simple foods
• 24:20
  Speaker: because nobody's doing it
• 24:21
  Speaker: anymore.
• 24:22
  Speaker: And it's honest.
• 24:23
  Speaker: It's.
• 24:23
  Speaker: We try and get the best ingredients and we.
• 24:26
  Speaker: Sometimes you use a. Techniques
• 24:28
  Speaker: that are a bit more
• 24:29
  Speaker: sophisticated than the
• 24:30
  Speaker: traditional housewife.
• 24:32
  Speaker: So which makes it a bit more delicious.
• 24:34
  Speaker: So it's made with a bit of a twist.
• 24:37
  Speaker: Uh, but it's true to tradition.
• 24:39
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 24:39
  Speaker: And one of the things about Lebanese food is the communal
• 24:42
  Speaker: aspect of it.
• 24:44
  Speaker: Please tell us a little bit more about what that means.
• 24:47
  Speaker: So I'm going to go back to my
• 24:50
  Speaker: mother, as I always do in this
• 24:53
  Speaker: book.
• 24:53
  Speaker: My mother, if we were if we were five or twenty five for dinner,
• 24:57
  Speaker: had the same quantity of food and that might people might
• 25:02
  Speaker: think that's a waste.
• 25:03
  Speaker: It wasn't.
• 25:04
  Speaker: First of all, it enabled her to
• 25:06
  Speaker: keep her door open, and anytime
• 25:08
  Speaker: anybody would call last minute,
• 25:09
  Speaker: she would say, yes, please come
• 25:11
  Speaker: for dinner.
• 25:12
  Speaker: and she knew there would be enough enough food.
• 25:14
  Speaker: And she would love to say, don't
• 25:16
  Speaker: worry, I'm not adding a piece of
• 25:18
  Speaker: steak.
• 25:19
  Speaker: So, you know, I mean, there's enough just come so that that's
• 25:23
  Speaker: that keeps the door open.
• 25:24
  Speaker: And it, you know, the attitude
• 25:25
  Speaker: is, uh, and also if there are
• 25:28
  Speaker: leftovers, there is everybody in
• 25:30
  Speaker: the building that can have the
• 25:31
  Speaker: food around.
• 25:33
  Speaker: So it's, it's, it's always
• 25:34
  Speaker: sharing and always so our food
• 25:36
  Speaker: is, is, is generous and it's,
• 25:39
  Speaker: it's quantities.
• 25:40
  Speaker: So it's communal.
• 25:41
  Speaker: The de facto.
• 25:42
  Speaker: Yes, yes.
• 25:44
  Speaker: Now, I think that it's important for people to get a vision of
• 25:47
  Speaker: what this book is like.
• 25:49
  Speaker: If you want to describe the book
• 25:51
  Speaker: a little, the physical book
• 25:52
  Speaker: itself.
• 25:52
  Speaker: And then I'd love to talk about some of the foods and recipes
• 25:56
  Speaker: that are in the book.
• 25:58
  Speaker: So as we discussed earlier, earlier on, it has the format of
• 26:01
  Speaker: a coffee table book.
• 26:04
  Speaker: I would like to talk about the photographer who's one of the
• 26:07
  Speaker: greatest photographers around today and who does not do
• 26:10
  Speaker: cookbooks at all.
• 26:12
  Speaker: He does architecture and interior designs.
• 26:16
  Speaker: He's French.
• 26:17
  Speaker: Um, and he's an amazing photographer.
• 26:20
  Speaker: I don't know how he accepted to do this book.
• 26:23
  Speaker: I think he was probably not very
• 26:25
  Speaker: focused when, when I asked and
• 26:28
  Speaker: then when he came to Lebanon, I
• 26:29
  Speaker: told him, but you don't do
• 26:31
  Speaker: cookbooks.
• 26:32
  Speaker: He said to me, you know what?
• 26:33
  Speaker: My mother used to cook, and I just loved your project, so I'm
• 26:36
  Speaker: just going to do it.
• 26:37
  Speaker: He does.
• 26:37
  Speaker: So he's he was basically photographing my salads like he
• 26:41
  Speaker: was photographing buildings.
• 26:43
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 26:44
  Speaker: So the photography is really nice.
• 26:46
  Speaker: And the first part of the book is all about the story of the
• 26:49
  Speaker: house, the story of my family, how the way my mother hosted
• 26:54
  Speaker: with tips about hosting, her tips about hosting.
• 26:57
  Speaker: And then you have recipes.
• 27:00
  Speaker: So I hate I because I don't cook, I don't cook either.
• 27:06
  Speaker: I mean, I'm not a I'm not the best cook around.
• 27:10
  Speaker: I depend on recipes.
• 27:12
  Speaker: So if the recipe is not good, I don't know how to fix it.
• 27:15
  Speaker: So I wanted to make sure that our recipes were true to our
• 27:18
  Speaker: taste and were dummy proof where I needed to be able to do them.
• 27:24
  Speaker: So what we did is Lynn Hazim,
• 27:26
  Speaker: who's a friend who opened, who
• 27:29
  Speaker: just opened her restaurant in
• 27:30
  Speaker: Dubai called Middle Child, got
• 27:32
  Speaker: all the recipes from our chef,
• 27:34
  Speaker: and then we had three hundred
• 27:38
  Speaker: plus people around the world
• 27:39
  Speaker: test them and get we got all
• 27:42
  Speaker: their comments and then wrote
• 27:44
  Speaker: our recipes.
• 27:44
  Speaker: So these recipes are dummy proof.
• 27:49
  Speaker: They.
• 27:50
  Speaker: She takes you by the hand and
• 27:51
  Speaker: she walks you through the
• 27:52
  Speaker: recipe, not expecting you to be
• 27:54
  Speaker: a cook or to understand when she
• 27:56
  Speaker: says cut in squares, she will
• 27:58
  Speaker: say what size the squares need
• 27:59
  Speaker: to be.
• 28:00
  Speaker: You know, she she really, really
• 28:02
  Speaker: makes it easy and um, not
• 28:05
  Speaker: intimidating to go through the
• 28:07
  Speaker: recipes, even complicated
• 28:08
  Speaker: recipes.
• 28:09
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 28:09
  Speaker: And I think that's important
• 28:10
  Speaker: because sometimes if people
• 28:12
  Speaker: search for a recipe online, what
• 28:14
  Speaker: might happen to their
• 28:16
  Speaker: ingredients?
• 28:16
  Speaker: If that happens, even though that's predominantly sometimes
• 28:19
  Speaker: the way that people are getting recipes these days.
• 28:24
  Speaker: So absolutely, there's two things about that.
• 28:27
  Speaker: First of all, as you're saying, you don't always know if if
• 28:30
  Speaker: you're not a really seasoned chef or if you don't know the
• 28:34
  Speaker: recipe ahead of time or what you want as a taste, you don't know
• 28:37
  Speaker: what you're falling on.
• 28:38
  Speaker: It might be good, it might be bad, you might, you don't know
• 28:41
  Speaker: how it's written.
• 28:42
  Speaker: But also, um, as I said, I, I
• 28:45
  Speaker: did this, this book from my, for
• 28:48
  Speaker: my daughters because like, I'm
• 28:50
  Speaker: expecting them to have the same
• 28:51
  Speaker: problem as me when I travel, I'm
• 28:53
  Speaker: calling home all the time asking
• 28:55
  Speaker: for, okay, how do you do that
• 28:57
  Speaker: stew?
• 28:58
  Speaker: Because I'm missing it.
• 28:59
  Speaker: So. And I want the taste of that stew.
• 29:02
  Speaker: The stew of my of my home, of my family of beta rats.
• 29:05
  Speaker: I don't want anybody else to.
• 29:08
  Speaker: So that's also that's also you won't get online.
• 29:12
  Speaker: You.
• 29:12
  Speaker: You don't know who who's whose palette you're following, right?
• 29:16
  Speaker: That's true.
• 29:17
  Speaker: That's true.
• 29:18
  Speaker: And I think that you did a nice
• 29:19
  Speaker: job with the way the recipes are
• 29:21
  Speaker: presented.
• 29:22
  Speaker: It looks like there's several
• 29:23
  Speaker: menus that people can put
• 29:25
  Speaker: together.
• 29:26
  Speaker: So what we also did.
• 29:27
  Speaker: Absolutely.
• 29:28
  Speaker: And that's the third part, um,
• 29:30
  Speaker: is that we, we gave examples of
• 29:33
  Speaker: menus.
• 29:33
  Speaker: So the way if you were to host, how could you use these recipes?
• 29:38
  Speaker: How would you, what would you associate with what.
• 29:40
  Speaker: And it kind of gives you a, you know, a how to use those
• 29:46
  Speaker: recipes, which is nice.
• 29:48
  Speaker: So yeah, there is a little, um, pink part in the middle of the
• 29:51
  Speaker: book and it's um, suggestions of recipes of menus.
• 29:55
  Speaker: Sorry.
• 29:56
  Speaker: Right.
• 29:56
  Speaker: And one of them, the head note says it's your regular buffet
• 29:59
  Speaker: menu, but it can serve from twenty To more than fifty
• 30:03
  Speaker: guests, depending on the quantities that you prepared.
• 30:06
  Speaker: So when you talk about communal eating, that's kind of what
• 30:09
  Speaker: you're talking about.
• 30:10
  Speaker: There also is that these can be made in larger quantities and,
• 30:14
  Speaker: and a lot of food served at one time as a buffet.
• 30:17
  Speaker: Exactly.
• 30:18
  Speaker: My mother used to, even when she had official dinners with, you
• 30:21
  Speaker: know, people who wanted to talk like she didn't like served.
• 30:25
  Speaker: Um, how do you say it when, when
• 30:27
  Speaker: you have someone serving the,
• 30:28
  Speaker: the dish at the table and not to
• 30:30
  Speaker: buffet?
• 30:31
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 30:31
  Speaker: She preferred the table service is what we were hearing.
• 30:35
  Speaker: She hated table.
• 30:36
  Speaker: Exactly.
• 30:37
  Speaker: So she didn't like even though it enables you to talk, you
• 30:40
  Speaker: know, and to focus on the conversation instead of focusing
• 30:43
  Speaker: on food, she didn't care.
• 30:44
  Speaker: She preferred having the family
• 30:46
  Speaker: style buffet where you're
• 30:47
  Speaker: standing up, you're sitting
• 30:49
  Speaker: down.
• 30:49
  Speaker: So it enables you to move to change partner.
• 30:51
  Speaker: I mean, you could talk to someone else than just your
• 30:53
  Speaker: neighbor, etc., etc. and that's exactly what we do at beta.
• 30:57
  Speaker: We always have a buffet, whether breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
• 31:01
  Speaker: It's a big buffet.
• 31:02
  Speaker: And, um, it's a buffet that I have to tell you that contrary
• 31:07
  Speaker: to the hotel buffets where the dishes are really big and they
• 31:11
  Speaker: just stay there for four hours, our dishes are smaller than what
• 31:15
  Speaker: my mother would have had.
• 31:16
  Speaker: So we're always refilling them, replenishing.
• 31:19
  Speaker: So they stay fresh.
• 31:20
  Speaker: They don't just sit there.
• 31:22
  Speaker: I we want the plates to empty and then we refill.
• 31:25
  Speaker: So it's always nice and fresh and crispy.
• 31:28
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 31:28
  Speaker: At the, at the guest house.
• 31:30
  Speaker: Then the food preparation or meals are part of what people
• 31:33
  Speaker: get when they stay at the house.
• 31:36
  Speaker: Uh, what do you mean?
• 31:38
  Speaker: And they serve like a a
• 31:39
  Speaker: restaurant they can eat or do
• 31:42
  Speaker: you do?
• 31:42
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah.
• 31:43
  Speaker: So so so you can come from bed
• 31:45
  Speaker: and breakfast for half board or
• 31:47
  Speaker: full board and basically full
• 31:49
  Speaker: board.
• 31:49
  Speaker: You're eating all the time.
• 31:50
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 31:52
  Speaker: That means you would be fed breakfast, afternoon lunch.
• 31:56
  Speaker: Dinner.
• 31:56
  Speaker: Right.
• 31:57
  Speaker: Food all day long.
• 31:58
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 31:58
  Speaker: aperitivo dinner.
• 32:01
  Speaker: And they complain, but they love it.
• 32:04
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 32:04
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 32:04
  Speaker: Well, I would think it's an
• 32:05
  Speaker: experience to be able to do
• 32:07
  Speaker: that, though.
• 32:07
  Speaker: You talk about a vacation where you don't have to worry about
• 32:10
  Speaker: really anything then.
• 32:11
  Speaker: Uh, and you know what I like Maggie, is also we spend our day
• 32:17
  Speaker: making choices and deciding what coffee we want and what, you
• 32:21
  Speaker: know, what we need to do at work and how you were taking
• 32:24
  Speaker: decisions all day.
• 32:25
  Speaker: You get to trade.
• 32:26
  Speaker: And you, if you ask me, what is there for lunch, I'll tell you,
• 32:29
  Speaker: I don't know.
• 32:30
  Speaker: It's it's a surprise.
• 32:31
  Speaker: It's a buffet.
• 32:32
  Speaker: Just let us pamper you.
• 32:33
  Speaker: Don't worry.
• 32:34
  Speaker: We don't know.
• 32:35
  Speaker: You don't need to decide.
• 32:36
  Speaker: You don't need to choose anything on the menu.
• 32:38
  Speaker: Just be and we'll pamper you.
• 32:40
  Speaker: And I love that, um, you know,
• 32:43
  Speaker: you truly wanted it to feel like
• 32:45
  Speaker: an escape.
• 32:46
  Speaker: That people could come slow down
• 32:48
  Speaker: and not really have to make any
• 32:50
  Speaker: decisions or do anything while
• 32:52
  Speaker: they're there.
• 32:53
  Speaker: Exactly.
• 32:55
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 32:55
  Speaker: So what's the climate, Escape
• 32:57
  Speaker: the climate like a year round
• 32:59
  Speaker: climate?
• 32:59
  Speaker: Or are there seasonal aspects to the weather?
• 33:02
  Speaker: No. It's seasonal, it's Mediterranean, it's seasonal.
• 33:06
  Speaker: Um, so our winters, but like everywhere we're, we are like,
• 33:11
  Speaker: we are living climate change.
• 33:15
  Speaker: Winters are winters, but they people would tell me twenty,
• 33:20
  Speaker: thirty years ago you had ten days of snow.
• 33:22
  Speaker: Now you hardly have one, but
• 33:24
  Speaker: it's still wintry and you know,
• 33:26
  Speaker: the trees lose their leaves,
• 33:27
  Speaker: etc.. Right.
• 33:28
  Speaker: Um, uh, the spring is spring and um, summertime is quite foggy.
• 33:34
  Speaker: We have fog because we're just over the sea.
• 33:38
  Speaker: I mean, you can see the sea from, from the house.
• 33:40
  Speaker: And so the humidity of the coast just goes up.
• 33:44
  Speaker: And, uh, so today everybody was looking at me with, um, I was at
• 33:48
  Speaker: the beach and everybody was looking at me very angry because
• 33:51
  Speaker: they felt they were in Scotland because of the fog.
• 33:55
  Speaker: And it's cold.
• 33:56
  Speaker: So Europe is burning these days, but Beirut is not that hot.
• 34:00
  Speaker: It's anyway.
• 34:01
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 34:02
  Speaker: So we have seasons and we see them.
• 34:05
  Speaker: I I'm always I'm fascinated.
• 34:07
  Speaker: Every year on the twenty first of September, I look at the
• 34:10
  Speaker: leaves and they're going red.
• 34:13
  Speaker: It's the official day of fall.
• 34:15
  Speaker: And our leaves go.
• 34:16
  Speaker: Even if the weather hasn't
• 34:17
  Speaker: changed, even if it feels like
• 34:19
  Speaker: summer.
• 34:20
  Speaker: ET cetera.
• 34:20
  Speaker: ET cetera.
• 34:21
  Speaker: The the the the leaves go red.
• 34:23
  Speaker: So yeah.
• 34:24
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 34:25
  Speaker: That's nice.
• 34:25
  Speaker: So nice to see the distinctive change of seasons.
• 34:29
  Speaker: So I can't help but think that
• 34:31
  Speaker: the food and the design and the
• 34:33
  Speaker: hospitality, there's a common
• 34:35
  Speaker: thread of beauty through all of
• 34:38
  Speaker: these.
• 34:41
  Speaker: Um, I hope so.
• 34:43
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 34:44
  Speaker: Beautiful food, beautiful book.
• 34:46
  Speaker: Um, the hospitality sounds beautiful.
• 34:48
  Speaker: And if people are wanting to try
• 34:52
  Speaker: some of these things in their
• 34:54
  Speaker: own home.
• 34:55
  Speaker: What are you have?
• 34:56
  Speaker: Simple things that you might
• 34:57
  Speaker: suggest people do if they're
• 34:59
  Speaker: trying to maybe recreate a
• 35:01
  Speaker: little bit of that where they
• 35:02
  Speaker: live.
• 35:04
  Speaker: So I think people should just, you know, you say Lebanese food
• 35:10
  Speaker: and you look at the pictures, you might feel intimidated,
• 35:12
  Speaker: like, oh ho ho ho ho, this is too complicated for me.
• 35:15
  Speaker: Or these are ingredients I don't understand.
• 35:17
  Speaker: Or I think you just go step by step and you go.
• 35:21
  Speaker: You start with the easy recipes like hummus.
• 35:23
  Speaker: I always talk about hummus
• 35:24
  Speaker: because it's something that
• 35:26
  Speaker: you're very familiar with in the
• 35:27
  Speaker: US, though.
• 35:29
  Speaker: I, you know, I've seen those
• 35:31
  Speaker: walls of hummus in the
• 35:32
  Speaker: supermarkets and they don't
• 35:33
  Speaker: taste like anything like
• 35:35
  Speaker: Lebanese hummus.
• 35:37
  Speaker: Um, so start with that.
• 35:40
  Speaker: It's, you know, you know, it's an easy one.
• 35:43
  Speaker: It's a simple one.
• 35:44
  Speaker: And it's very different to what
• 35:45
  Speaker: probably what, you know, we put
• 35:47
  Speaker: less lemon.
• 35:48
  Speaker: We don't put garlic.
• 35:49
  Speaker: We, you know, it's a soft hummus.
• 35:51
  Speaker: Um, and then slowly, slowly go into the salads.
• 35:54
  Speaker: The salads are simple, but as
• 35:56
  Speaker: you know, if you just change in
• 35:58
  Speaker: one ingredient or two in a
• 35:59
  Speaker: sauce, you go to a completely
• 36:01
  Speaker: different world.
• 36:02
  Speaker: Um, and I, and I think in the
• 36:05
  Speaker: US, you find most of the
• 36:07
  Speaker: ingredients in any, uh, Middle
• 36:10
  Speaker: Eastern grocery.
• 36:11
  Speaker: I know in New York you would,
• 36:13
  Speaker: but I think in New York, but I
• 36:15
  Speaker: think everywhere you'll have at
• 36:17
  Speaker: least one.
• 36:18
  Speaker: You could find them online for sure.
• 36:20
  Speaker: So, you know, just grab a
• 36:22
  Speaker: pomegranate molasses and tahini
• 36:25
  Speaker: and, you know, just a few of
• 36:26
  Speaker: those ingredients and, and
• 36:28
  Speaker: you're transported to beta
• 36:29
  Speaker: trade.
• 36:31
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 36:31
  Speaker: And it says in your, um, this
• 36:34
  Speaker: hummus here that you use dried
• 36:36
  Speaker: chickpeas to start cook them
• 36:38
  Speaker: from dry.
• 36:39
  Speaker: And then you add bicarbonate of soda or baking soda to.
• 36:44
  Speaker: Yeah, the hummus, lemon, tahini, sea salt and water.
• 36:49
  Speaker: Exactly.
• 36:50
  Speaker: And nothing else.
• 36:52
  Speaker: Um, and you don't have to start from scratch.
• 36:54
  Speaker: You can use canned chickpeas.
• 36:57
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 36:58
  Speaker: Something I've often wondered that I've heard some cultures
• 37:01
  Speaker: talk about and not others, is whether the chickpea peel itself
• 37:06
  Speaker: like comes off of the chickpea or if you.
• 37:09
  Speaker: Absolutely.
• 37:10
  Speaker: So when do you blend them?
• 37:12
  Speaker: Blend it in.
• 37:13
  Speaker: No, we we try and take them off.
• 37:15
  Speaker: So when you're boiling the chickpeas and it can take hours.
• 37:18
  Speaker: If you don't have a a pressure cooker.
• 37:20
  Speaker: Right.
• 37:21
  Speaker: Um it will come out and ideally you want to get them off because
• 37:26
  Speaker: it takes the bitterness out.
• 37:29
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 37:29
  Speaker: And I think sometimes that's what when you take that off,
• 37:32
  Speaker: it's much it seems like the resulting hummus is much softer.
• 37:36
  Speaker: Smoother.
• 37:38
  Speaker: Um.
• 37:38
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 37:38
  Speaker: Because you don't have to chop that the skin or the whole, it's
• 37:42
  Speaker: not really the whole, but the outer skin of the chickpea off.
• 37:46
  Speaker: Absolutely.
• 37:47
  Speaker: It makes it much softer and the.
• 37:50
  Speaker: The baking soda is also precious.
• 37:52
  Speaker: If you can soak them in baking
• 37:54
  Speaker: soda, that also makes everything
• 37:56
  Speaker: softer.
• 37:57
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 37:58
  Speaker: Well, one thing everybody always loves is sweets or desserts.
• 38:02
  Speaker: Tell us a little bit about what someone might see, uh, from a
• 38:06
  Speaker: sweets or dessert perspective.
• 38:07
  Speaker: So I, so as I, the same way our decoration is our living time
• 38:14
  Speaker: decoration is cosmopolitan, influenced by east west Europe,
• 38:19
  Speaker: Mediterranean are desserts.
• 38:21
  Speaker: Desserts a Lebanese will have at home will be influenced by
• 38:25
  Speaker: French desserts, but also our delicious Lebanese desserts.
• 38:28
  Speaker: So here you have fruit tart.
• 38:31
  Speaker: That sounds very stupid, but it's delicious fruit tart.
• 38:34
  Speaker: We, um, we even opened a shop.
• 38:37
  Speaker: Uh, that that does just does tarts.
• 38:40
  Speaker: So it's a really, really good, good recipe.
• 38:43
  Speaker: But we also have Custard this
• 38:47
  Speaker: which I love because for me it's
• 38:48
  Speaker: the um which is a, it's a milk
• 38:52
  Speaker: custard with um mastika and
• 38:56
  Speaker: orange blossom and pistachio,
• 38:59
  Speaker: which all represent my culture
• 39:02
  Speaker: completely.
• 39:03
  Speaker: And it's very simple.
• 39:04
  Speaker: It's delicious.
• 39:05
  Speaker: Um, if you like custard it, it's just, it's very simple, but you
• 39:10
  Speaker: just travel with it.
• 39:12
  Speaker: Um I also have.
• 39:14
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 39:14
  Speaker: No, so I also have for instance, this um, uh, apricot paste
• 39:20
  Speaker: salad, we call it salad, but it's not, it's apricot paste.
• 39:24
  Speaker: No, but I mean it's a fruit
• 39:25
  Speaker: salad with almonds, walnuts,
• 39:28
  Speaker: pistachios and apricots and
• 39:31
  Speaker: delicious.
• 39:32
  Speaker: Um, but you also have a chocolate tart chocolate, which
• 39:37
  Speaker: is, I think you call it halva.
• 39:39
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 39:40
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 39:41
  Speaker: So it's, it's really it's Is East meets west.
• 39:44
  Speaker: Yes.
• 39:45
  Speaker: Yes.
• 39:45
  Speaker: Our desert, some of them are purely eastern, like Lebanese,
• 39:49
  Speaker: but others are a combination.
• 39:51
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 39:52
  Speaker: Well, the book is a delight to look at everything from the
• 39:55
  Speaker: photos to the design.
• 39:57
  Speaker: You get a feel for what the house and the gardens are like.
• 39:59
  Speaker: I even see a pool in the photos, of course.
• 40:03
  Speaker: Lovely photos of the food, beautiful menus.
• 40:06
  Speaker: So I think that from a food journey perspective, it's
• 40:09
  Speaker: certainly well worth the trip through the book.
• 40:13
  Speaker: And then also from a design
• 40:15
  Speaker: perspective, all all about the
• 40:16
  Speaker: house.
• 40:16
  Speaker: But what does this mean to you
• 40:18
  Speaker: to go back to re, uh, to the
• 40:21
  Speaker: family home?
• 40:22
  Speaker: And what does this it's kind of
• 40:25
  Speaker: fascinating when you've lived in
• 40:26
  Speaker: many different places to even
• 40:27
  Speaker: think about home and what that
• 40:29
  Speaker: actually means.
• 40:32
  Speaker: Well, it's, it's funny you mention it.
• 40:35
  Speaker: I, I felt it felt so satisfying to save this house because it
• 40:40
  Speaker: was going down, you know, a complicated path that someone
• 40:45
  Speaker: told me it won't come back if you just leave it.
• 40:48
  Speaker: It.
• 40:48
  Speaker: Abandoned.
• 40:49
  Speaker: Abandoned homes lose their vibes, lose their energy.
• 40:52
  Speaker: Um, and and I just feel the house is happy to be back.
• 40:55
  Speaker: I know it sounds a bit crazy,
• 40:57
  Speaker: but I do feel it's happy to be
• 40:58
  Speaker: back.
• 40:59
  Speaker: And I feel I've saved.
• 41:01
  Speaker: I don't know my past somehow.
• 41:04
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 41:04
  Speaker: And and I've honored and I've honored my mother.
• 41:07
  Speaker: And somehow I'm telling a story that I'm hoping my children
• 41:10
  Speaker: will, you know, will appreciate and even continue.
• 41:14
  Speaker: Right.
• 41:15
  Speaker: I think it's always sad when a
• 41:17
  Speaker: building like you mentioned, or
• 41:18
  Speaker: something is destroyed or torn
• 41:21
  Speaker: down.
• 41:22
  Speaker: Um, I think it's even worse
• 41:23
  Speaker: though, is abandoned, abandoned
• 41:26
  Speaker: buildings.
• 41:26
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 41:27
  Speaker: There's guilt.
• 41:27
  Speaker: There's a lot of there is and
• 41:29
  Speaker: there's, um, there's a
• 41:31
  Speaker: particular my father was born in
• 41:33
  Speaker: Chicago.
• 41:34
  Speaker: He was the son of a German immigrants.
• 41:37
  Speaker: And I was looking up the
• 41:39
  Speaker: hospital where he was born, but
• 41:40
  Speaker: there were photos of the
• 41:42
  Speaker: hospital was in Edgewater,
• 41:44
  Speaker: Chicago.
• 41:45
  Speaker: Um, but I think it was abandoned in the late seventies, early
• 41:51
  Speaker: 80s, and then went on to be used as another type of property.
• 41:56
  Speaker: But they had pictures of the abandoned hospital like, and,
• 41:59
  Speaker: you know, surgery suites with just like things in there, you
• 42:04
  Speaker: know, IV pumps, surgery equipment, uh, hospital beds.
• 42:09
  Speaker: The nurses had a pool up on the roof and like, I could not.
• 42:13
  Speaker: So, you know, it was built at a
• 42:14
  Speaker: time where they did those kinds
• 42:16
  Speaker: of things.
• 42:16
  Speaker: But to, to see it abandoned to me is just tragic because people
• 42:22
  Speaker: were probably born there.
• 42:23
  Speaker: People probably died there,
• 42:25
  Speaker: people were healed there, people
• 42:27
  Speaker: were made better, people got
• 42:30
  Speaker: worse.
• 42:30
  Speaker: I mean, but all these lives of
• 42:32
  Speaker: people inside this hospital and
• 42:34
  Speaker: my father, I don't know if he
• 42:35
  Speaker: was born in that particular
• 42:37
  Speaker: building or if they had built a
• 42:38
  Speaker: new one.
• 42:39
  Speaker: But I think abandoned buildings is just haunting.
• 42:45
  Speaker: It's like an it's like an
• 42:47
  Speaker: abandoned community or a dying
• 42:49
  Speaker: community.
• 42:49
  Speaker: You know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a bit shocking.
• 42:52
  Speaker: And when you say the building, you feel you're saving a
• 42:55
  Speaker: community, you're saving a family, and you're saving the
• 42:58
  Speaker: spirit and the memory of the people that have been in that
• 43:01
  Speaker: building before you.
• 43:03
  Speaker: Exactly.
• 43:03
  Speaker: You know, when you look at the building in your home, you
• 43:05
  Speaker: think, well, okay, if this was truly built part of it in the
• 43:09
  Speaker: early eighteen hundreds, and if it was a convent, think of all
• 43:14
  Speaker: the people there.
• 43:15
  Speaker: Their their daughters were being
• 43:16
  Speaker: dropped off or they're going
• 43:18
  Speaker: away and they're making a vow to
• 43:20
  Speaker: this vocation and they're living
• 43:21
  Speaker: there.
• 43:21
  Speaker: Some might have been really happy and some might not have
• 43:24
  Speaker: been very happy.
• 43:25
  Speaker: Absolutely.
• 43:25
  Speaker: Absolutely.
• 43:26
  Speaker: And the building just contains all these different lives.
• 43:29
  Speaker: So for a family home, even just
• 43:31
  Speaker: on a smaller scale, that's why
• 43:33
  Speaker: people often have they feel a
• 43:36
  Speaker: sense of loss when parents like,
• 43:38
  Speaker: leave a family home or they, uh,
• 43:41
  Speaker: move.
• 43:41
  Speaker: Or maybe they go downsize, or
• 43:43
  Speaker: they upsize to a different home
• 43:44
  Speaker: for the children that were
• 43:45
  Speaker: there.
• 43:46
  Speaker: It's always like, that was my, that was like the center of
• 43:49
  Speaker: their universe, I guess.
• 43:51
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 43:51
  Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
• 43:53
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 43:54
  Speaker: So yeah, I have very much that feeling with the, with beta.
• 43:58
  Speaker: And I'm very.
• 43:59
  Speaker: So when the guests tell me,
• 44:01
  Speaker: isn't it strange to have
• 44:02
  Speaker: foreigners sleeping in your
• 44:03
  Speaker: house, I said, no, it's thanks
• 44:06
  Speaker: to you guys that we've saved the
• 44:07
  Speaker: house.
• 44:08
  Speaker: I'm actually very grateful and
• 44:09
  Speaker: I'm very happy to see life in
• 44:11
  Speaker: the house.
• 44:11
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
• 44:11
  Speaker: I was not going to feel seven
• 44:14
  Speaker: rooms and go up there all the
• 44:15
  Speaker: time.
• 44:15
  Speaker: I mean, I wouldn't have, right?
• 44:17
  Speaker: So no, I only have gratitude and happiness when I see it because
• 44:21
  Speaker: you like it's kind of interesting to think that the
• 44:23
  Speaker: house then is happier with people in it.
• 44:26
  Speaker: Yes, absolutely.
• 44:28
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 44:28
  Speaker: And it's definitely better maintained.
• 44:30
  Speaker: Sure.
• 44:31
  Speaker: Because people are in there and they're moving around and you
• 44:34
  Speaker: can see if there's a water spot on the ceiling, or if there's a
• 44:37
  Speaker: window that needs to be repaired, then it can be taken
• 44:40
  Speaker: care of right away.
• 44:41
  Speaker: Um, and there's always something with the house there, and I'm
• 44:45
  Speaker: sure with the, with a older house, it's it's true.
• 44:49
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 44:51
  Speaker: Always something.
• 44:52
  Speaker: Always.
• 44:53
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 44:53
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 44:54
  Speaker: And then the gardens and all the
• 44:55
  Speaker: other things that are outside on
• 44:56
  Speaker: top.
• 44:56
  Speaker: No, it's a permanent.
• 44:58
  Speaker: You, you don't, you just it's it's a full time job.
• 45:01
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 45:02
  Speaker: You know, all year round.
• 45:04
  Speaker: So if your mother could come visit now, what would she say?
• 45:08
  Speaker: I think she'd be very happy.
• 45:09
  Speaker: I have to say, I think she would really be happy.
• 45:12
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 45:13
  Speaker: And people that come are happy.
• 45:15
  Speaker: So, um, I also think that means
• 45:17
  Speaker: the house is happy and my mom's
• 45:19
  Speaker: happy.
• 45:19
  Speaker: Right.
• 45:19
  Speaker: Otherwise, we wouldn't have had, you know, what's happening now.
• 45:23
  Speaker: I wouldn't be telling you about the house.
• 45:24
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 45:25
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 45:26
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 45:26
  Speaker: And again, I don't think that,
• 45:27
  Speaker: um, any of this is to try to
• 45:31
  Speaker: Overlook what's going on from a
• 45:34
  Speaker: cultural or political
• 45:36
  Speaker: perspective.
• 45:37
  Speaker: I don't think that's the purpose of any of these conversations,
• 45:39
  Speaker: but I think it just goes to show you in the world the, um, the
• 45:43
  Speaker: way that dark and light like operate in the same space, you
• 45:49
  Speaker: know, you know, I, I, I always, I tell the story in the book,
• 45:54
  Speaker: uh, when there was the Beirut blast, you know, we had this
• 45:58
  Speaker: blast that was second to a nuclear blast in my, in Beirut.
• 46:03
  Speaker: And, uh, two hundred people died
• 46:05
  Speaker: and five more than five thousand
• 46:07
  Speaker: people were injured in, uh, on
• 46:09
  Speaker: the fourth of August twenty
• 46:10
  Speaker: twenty.
• 46:11
  Speaker: Uh, when that happened, I had
• 46:12
  Speaker: just delivered my second child
• 46:14
  Speaker: and I was, um, so I was in beta
• 46:18
  Speaker: and I look at my team and I'm
• 46:20
  Speaker: like, okay, we're going to
• 46:21
  Speaker: close.
• 46:21
  Speaker: I mean, what am I doing?
• 46:23
  Speaker: Putting music and having good food.
• 46:26
  Speaker: And I mean, this sounds so superficial compared to the
• 46:30
  Speaker: tragedy that my city has.
• 46:32
  Speaker: I really wanted to close.
• 46:33
  Speaker: So for the first three days,
• 46:35
  Speaker: obviously we put the music off
• 46:37
  Speaker: and there was nobody in the
• 46:39
  Speaker: house and I was ready to close
• 46:41
  Speaker: until the third day when I.
• 46:44
  Speaker: People started coming like they
• 46:45
  Speaker: had booked and they started
• 46:46
  Speaker: coming.
• 46:47
  Speaker: So we have this long alley, um, as an entrance and I could see
• 46:51
  Speaker: them arrive and from far everybody looked normal.
• 46:54
  Speaker: And as soon as they got closer, you would see someone with a
• 46:57
  Speaker: broken arm, someone with his nurse because they couldn't see
• 47:01
  Speaker: their eyes were full of glass.
• 47:02
  Speaker: But anyway, all these people were coming just to heal.
• 47:08
  Speaker: They were just coming for respite.
• 47:10
  Speaker: They were just coming to take a break.
• 47:12
  Speaker: And people would tell me, this is the first time in a week that
• 47:14
  Speaker: I have slept.
• 47:16
  Speaker: This is the first time I have eaten.
• 47:18
  Speaker: They would.
• 47:18
  Speaker: My other daughter was two years old.
• 47:20
  Speaker: They would spend the day at the pool with my daughter and I'd
• 47:23
  Speaker: go, okay, I'm sorry.
• 47:24
  Speaker: I'll take her away.
• 47:24
  Speaker: I mean, you know, who wants to spend the day with no no no no
• 47:26
  Speaker: no no no no, we want to talk.
• 47:28
  Speaker: We're so happy.
• 47:29
  Speaker: They were happy to talk to a child because it made them
• 47:32
  Speaker: forget the drama.
• 47:33
  Speaker: So I realized that in the worst
• 47:36
  Speaker: darkness, you need those
• 47:38
  Speaker: sanctuaries of of life, of
• 47:41
  Speaker: happiness, of joy, where you
• 47:42
  Speaker: just can reconnect to your own
• 47:44
  Speaker: life.
• 47:45
  Speaker: Happiness and joy.
• 47:46
  Speaker: Yes.
• 47:46
  Speaker: Whatever the circumstance and we as Lebanese, we know that.
• 47:50
  Speaker: So nobody has guilt.
• 47:53
  Speaker: I know for, for, for, for outsiders and foreigners, it
• 47:56
  Speaker: sounds a bit disrespectful.
• 47:58
  Speaker: It could sound disrespectful.
• 48:00
  Speaker: But in my country we know nobody
• 48:02
  Speaker: has guilt for for continuing
• 48:05
  Speaker: life when it's some other places
• 48:07
  Speaker: in our country are not, you
• 48:09
  Speaker: know, go through bad moments
• 48:10
  Speaker: because this is how we've
• 48:11
  Speaker: survived.
• 48:12
  Speaker: This was our survival skill, right?
• 48:15
  Speaker: And kit, right.
• 48:16
  Speaker: You wherever you can, you, you bring life and you bring joy
• 48:21
  Speaker: because you don't know what tomorrow will be made of.
• 48:24
  Speaker: Right?
• 48:24
  Speaker: And you said this has kind of been part of your life and part
• 48:28
  Speaker: of who you are.
• 48:29
  Speaker: Permanent war.
• 48:30
  Speaker: Um. Since you were a child.
• 48:33
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 48:35
  Speaker: So, I mean, you could say, well, because of that, I'm not going
• 48:37
  Speaker: to do anything.
• 48:38
  Speaker: I'm just going to let the house go to ruin.
• 48:40
  Speaker: I'm not going to offer hospitality to people.
• 48:42
  Speaker: I'm not going to decorate.
• 48:43
  Speaker: I'm not going to serve food.
• 48:44
  Speaker: But where are we when we give in to that?
• 48:48
  Speaker: No.
• 48:48
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 48:49
  Speaker: No, you don't want to do that
• 48:50
  Speaker: then no. Then basically you're
• 48:52
  Speaker: giving into your own life and
• 48:53
  Speaker: just kind of living it one
• 48:55
  Speaker: hundred percent.
• 48:55
  Speaker: My motto has always been, we have to be people of hope.
• 48:58
  Speaker: We have to be people that always offer.
• 49:01
  Speaker: Uh, there's always has to be a
• 49:03
  Speaker: glimmer of something that people
• 49:04
  Speaker: can look forward to and share
• 49:07
  Speaker: and enjoy.
• 49:08
  Speaker: Um, because it goes, they go,
• 49:10
  Speaker: you don't know sorrow unless you
• 49:12
  Speaker: know joy.
• 49:13
  Speaker: It's, you have to have both in order to know both.
• 49:16
  Speaker: Right, right.
• 49:17
  Speaker: One hundred percent.
• 49:18
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 49:18
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 49:19
  Speaker: So your cookbook, um, will
• 49:21
  Speaker: obviously be something that
• 49:22
  Speaker: lives in your kitchen, in your
• 49:24
  Speaker: daughter's kitchen.
• 49:25
  Speaker: But I love to ask my guests, as we're wrapping up about
• 49:28
  Speaker: cookbooks in your life leading up to this, if they were a part
• 49:32
  Speaker: of what you did or, or not, or if you had any favorite cookbook
• 49:36
  Speaker: you would like to share.
• 49:38
  Speaker: So I, I lived for thirteen years
• 49:42
  Speaker: in France, and the first time I
• 49:43
  Speaker: lived alone as a young adult was
• 49:46
  Speaker: in Paris.
• 49:47
  Speaker: And so my, my reference cookbooks at the time were very
• 49:51
  Speaker: basic, but they were French, I mean, written in French.
• 49:53
  Speaker: Anyway.
• 49:53
  Speaker: And this is so Francoise Bernard.
• 49:56
  Speaker: It's called Recette facile.
• 49:58
  Speaker: She's a classic.
• 49:59
  Speaker: It's like this big, big, this thick book.
• 50:02
  Speaker: And that has all the main, um,
• 50:05
  Speaker: the main, uh, it has all the
• 50:06
  Speaker: main French classic home food
• 50:09
  Speaker: recipes.
• 50:10
  Speaker: Um, it's a very good simple benchmark to do everyday food
• 50:15
  Speaker: and I use that.
• 50:16
  Speaker: And then there was marabou, which is a French publisher, um,
• 50:22
  Speaker: had these books.
• 50:23
  Speaker: I think she's Australian.
• 50:25
  Speaker: She's called Trish the same d e
• 50:28
  Speaker: s e I n e. And she had many
• 50:31
  Speaker: books.
• 50:32
  Speaker: What attracted me were the photos.
• 50:34
  Speaker: The photography was beautiful.
• 50:37
  Speaker: And for someone like me who's not the best cook in the world,
• 50:41
  Speaker: I always buy cookbooks because I think that if I buy them, I'm
• 50:44
  Speaker: cooking them, which is.
• 50:45
  Speaker: And they usually just sit there and I don't cook.
• 50:48
  Speaker: But I actually did her recipes
• 50:50
  Speaker: because they were easy and they
• 50:51
  Speaker: were often, more often than not
• 50:53
  Speaker: delicious.
• 50:54
  Speaker: So I could say that these two
• 50:56
  Speaker: books I would take around with
• 50:57
  Speaker: me when I travel to make sure
• 50:58
  Speaker: that I had my, um, you know, my
• 51:01
  Speaker: class, my, my just everyday
• 51:02
  Speaker: cooking.
• 51:03
  Speaker: Nice.
• 51:04
  Speaker: Very good.
• 51:04
  Speaker: Well, I will, uh, look those up
• 51:06
  Speaker: and link to those in the show
• 51:08
  Speaker: notes.
• 51:09
  Speaker: So people listen to this podcast from all over the world.
• 51:13
  Speaker: Sarah.
• 51:14
  Speaker: And I'd love for you to tell
• 51:16
  Speaker: them how they can connect with
• 51:17
  Speaker: you online.
• 51:18
  Speaker: And maybe there's someone who
• 51:19
  Speaker: might like to come to visit your
• 51:22
  Speaker: baby?
• 51:22
  Speaker: Yes, yes, that would that would be great.
• 51:25
  Speaker: So I'm, I have an Instagram account that I manage myself,
• 51:30
  Speaker: uh, called beta b e I t t r a d. Um, so as when you, you know,
• 51:38
  Speaker: what's happening in the house when you, when you connect to
• 51:40
  Speaker: our Instagram account, it's also connected to the Facebook, but
• 51:44
  Speaker: I'm not following the Facebook.
• 51:45
  Speaker: I'm really on Instagram.
• 51:47
  Speaker: Um, so if you need, if you want to talk to me or ask me, I'm
• 51:50
  Speaker: when you message the Instagram, I'm the one answering, okay, um,
• 51:54
  Speaker: you could also get our book.
• 51:56
  Speaker: So, um, it should be in the, the
• 52:01
  Speaker: bookstore next to you, the
• 52:02
  Speaker: closest bookstore next to your
• 52:03
  Speaker: house.
• 52:03
  Speaker: And if it's not, ask for it.
• 52:05
  Speaker: Otherwise you can find it on Amazon.
• 52:07
  Speaker: But yeah, try the bookstore, try the bookstores.
• 52:10
  Speaker: Yes.
• 52:10
  Speaker: I think it's always good if we
• 52:11
  Speaker: can support our local
• 52:13
  Speaker: bookstores.
• 52:13
  Speaker: And I've read articles that, uh,
• 52:16
  Speaker: independent bookstores are
• 52:17
  Speaker: actually more and more are
• 52:19
  Speaker: opening again.
• 52:21
  Speaker: Uh. People are.
• 52:22
  Speaker: I hope so, wanting to read and use books.
• 52:25
  Speaker: And I think it's a little bit of
• 52:26
  Speaker: a revolt against, um, AI and
• 52:29
  Speaker: computerization and doing
• 52:32
  Speaker: things, especially with
• 52:33
  Speaker: cookbooks.
• 52:33
  Speaker: Like you mentioned, when you buy a curated set of recipes that
• 52:37
  Speaker: someone has developed and had tested, you know, that things
• 52:40
  Speaker: are going to work.
• 52:41
  Speaker: Plus you get the story and of
• 52:43
  Speaker: your situation, you get the
• 52:44
  Speaker: story of the home, your country,
• 52:46
  Speaker: your family, and then, of
• 52:48
  Speaker: course, all the beautiful food
• 52:49
  Speaker: that is contained in the book as
• 52:52
  Speaker: well.
• 52:54
  Speaker: So, so the book is coming out in the US, uh, mid September, but
• 52:57
  Speaker: you can already pre-order it in your bookstore or online.
• 53:01
  Speaker: Very good.
• 53:01
  Speaker: Um, and it's out around the
• 53:03
  Speaker: world, you know, in Europe, uh,
• 53:05
  Speaker: Australia, um, in Europe,
• 53:08
  Speaker: Australia and the rest of the
• 53:09
  Speaker: world is already out and under a
• 53:11
  Speaker: different title.
• 53:12
  Speaker: By the way, we have an American
• 53:14
  Speaker: title, which is a house in the
• 53:16
  Speaker: Lebanese mountains and the rest
• 53:18
  Speaker: of the world has been tried as a
• 53:20
  Speaker: title.
• 53:20
  Speaker: Okay, yeah.
• 53:21
  Speaker: So the US title, A House in the Lebanese Mountains, Recipes and
• 53:25
  Speaker: Stories from betrayed.
• 53:26
  Speaker: And then in the other countries, the name of the house is the
• 53:29
  Speaker: title of the book.
• 53:30
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 53:30
  Speaker: So yeah, this, this episode for anyone that's listening in the
• 53:34
  Speaker: US is being released before the book comes out in the US.
• 53:38
  Speaker: But because we have people that listen from all over, uh, the
• 53:41
  Speaker: book can either be pre-ordered if you're in the US or it can be
• 53:44
  Speaker: ordered in other countries like Sarah mentioned now.
• 53:49
  Speaker: Very good.
• 53:50
  Speaker: Well, I can't thank you enough for coming on the show, sharing
• 53:53
  Speaker: a little bit more about you and your beautiful home and your new
• 53:57
  Speaker: book with everybody.
• 53:59
  Speaker: Um, and I wish you nothing but success with the book.
• 54:02
  Speaker: And thank you again for inviting us into this important story.
• 54:07
  Speaker: Thank you, and I hope you enjoy it.
• 54:10
  Speaker: Thank you so much for joining us today for this episode of the
• 54:13
  Speaker: Cookbook Love Podcast.
• 54:15
  Speaker: again.
• 54:15
  Speaker: All the links can be found in the show notes at w w w dot
• 54:19
  Speaker: cookbook dot co.
• 54:20
  Speaker: And if you are interested in
• 54:22
  Speaker: writing a cookbook of your own,
• 54:24
  Speaker: please check out the free
• 54:26
  Speaker: Cookbook Writing Masterclass
• 54:28
  Speaker: called How to Get Paid to Write
• 54:29
  Speaker: a Cookbook.
• 54:30
  Speaker: It is designed specifically for
• 54:32
  Speaker: food or nutrition experts, and
• 54:35
  Speaker: you can check that out at w w w
• 54:37
  Speaker: dot cookbook writers academy dot
• 54:39
  Speaker: com.
• 54:42
  Speaker: So that's it for today's episode of the Cookbook Love Podcast.
• 54:45
  Speaker: This is your host, Maggie Green.
• 54:47
  Speaker: And until next time, have a
• 54:48
  Speaker: great day and keep loving your
• 54:51
  Speaker: cookbooks.
• 54:56
  Speaker: Thanks for listening to the Cookbook Love podcast.
• 54:58
  Speaker: You can find out more
• 54:59
  Speaker: information at w w w dot
• 55:01
  Speaker: cookbook.