![]() ![]() When I first started using it, I followed the advice of Heidi Swanson who suggested trying one new recipe a week to keep from getting overwhelmed. This is ideal for making cleanup easier, but adds cooking time.īut once you learn how it works, there’s a lot to love. Also, some recipes call for using the sauté function first, so everything essentially happens in one pot. ![]() Other recipes have you delay the release, and others don’t have you touch the release button at all, which can take up to 20 minutes. Some recipes call for a manual release, which is when you press a magic button and all the steam comes whizzing out in about two minutes. The process of allowing the Instant Pot to pressurize takes roughly 10 minutes, so you need to tack that on to whatever you’re making, as well as some release time on the back end. Yes, you can cook rice in about nine minutes, tortilla soup in about six minutes, and carrots in about three minutes, but here’s where the learning curve comes in: warming up. The first thing we should clear up about the Instant Pot is it will not make your dinner instantly. This blog post could very well be titled Instant Pot: A Love Story, because in the course of a year my adoration of this machine has grown by leaps and bounds. My heritage may hail from another region, but that’s the other beautiful thing about food: even cooking another country’s cuisine, it’s still possible to find ways to connect those flavors to your own unique stories, and appreciate our shared humanity. I often think of my own grandmother when I’m stirring pancake batter in her old yellow Pyrex bowl, which I’ve inherited.Īll this was in my mind as I walked into my neighborhood Lebanese cafe for a container of thick, strained yogurt. It’s an incredible thing to feel not only rooted in your own kitchen, but aware of those who came before you. Like my exiled auntie who prepared the dishes of her lost childhood, whenever I’ve gone on hejira, I’ve found myself back in spice markets and import stores and falafel stands … The spices bring back memory-the oldest, shining memories, that came long before any painful new mistakes and reversals.”Ĭooking, it seems, can help us travel through time-back through our own memories and those of our ancestors. “I prefer the solace of cooking, which can offer both freedom and comfort. As an adult, Abu-Jaber clings to this resonant word through life’s ups and downs, like times when she’s moved across country for new job or left two previous husbands. Just leaves.” Her aunt called this flight the hejira-part escape, part migration, part pilgrimage. ![]() “They ate the herbs that grew in the fields-wild thyme and oregano. In an essay titled “Leaves,” Diana Abu-Jaber recounts a story told by her grandmother, about the Palestinians fleeing from their villages in 1948. ![]() The book celebrates all the ways food brings joy, even when we’re in the midst of moves, relationships falling apart, loss, or feeling homesick, and how we piece things back together again. This reminder came on the heels of finishing a new collection of essays, Eat Joy: Stories & Comfort Food From 31 Celebrated Writers, (affiliate link) which I heartily recommend for yourself or as a gift. Authenticity comes form a place of love, memory, and honor, and not from authority.” “Lots of folks (my family included) have learned to make do with the ingredients available in their new home after immigrating, and za’atar made from French thyme out of necessity is no less authentic than za’atar grown in the hills of the Levant. Like many spice blends, this one has been subject to variations and interpretations over the years, but traditional versions always include wild thyme, which isn’t the same kind you’ll find in the U.S. Just a few days earlier I’d come across a post about za’atar on Cardamom & Tea, one of my favorite food blogs of late. ![]()
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