I love dairy and while other parts of the world might be more renowned for their cheeses, the variety and quality of Lebanese cheese is immense. I visited Lezze B Kingdom dairy in the Northern mountains of Lebanon to learn how they make their small-batch cheeses and experienced the beauty of this life that seems of another time. There are also the bigger dairies located in the Beqqa Valley with shops on the highway to Damascus with their gorgeous arrays of traditional Arabic cheeses.

As my 50th birthday approaches I thought it would be fun to take a look back and share some of the weird and wonderful things that make me who I am. What weird jobs did I have, hobbies, events, personal quirks? Each month over the next 4 months leading up to my big day in December, I'll list 7 more items.

A child of the 70s and 80s from the Midwest originally, I was brought up in a household of convenience food but with a mother who had Martha Stewart tendencies and aspirations. There the variety of fresh produce was limited even though I was born surrounded by some of the richest farmland in the world (it’s used almost exclusively for industrial food products and feed requiring corn and soybeans). My mother used to say over and over to me that there was no lettuce other than iceberg lettuce until the 80s in Central Illinois, and spaghetti bolognese was classified as “exotic” and “ethnic” well into the 80s.

Man’oushe is a breakfast and lunch staple in Lebanon. Much like you see New Yorkers desperately clinging to lox and cream cheese stuffed bagels as they head to work, Beirutis are munching on a folded half moon of crispy dough with different toppings wrapped in white paper as they begin their days. The plate-sized dough is most often simply smeared with a mixture of zaatar spices and olive oil.

Summers will never not remind me of visits to Decatur, Illinois as a child. Searching for home, identity, and a place as we moved and what does homecoming mean?

It’s toot season in Lebanon! Mulberries to the rest of us….but isn’t toot just an excellent word for them? If I’d ever opened a restaurant in Beirut I knew I wanted to call it Toot! Or if I ever write a book about my time in Lebanon call it Toot Toot a’ Beirut…..which comes from the title of a song by Marcel Khalife written about the excitement of traveling to Beirut.

When we lived in London I used to laugh at my husband when he called someone back home in the Middle East as the first minutes were invariably spent in greetings and niceties and all manner of polite tete-a-tete for what seemed an eternity. Really, like the first five minutes. But then we moved to Amman and then Beirut and I got caught up in that exact same culturally polite back and forth and my English became peppered with these Arabic phrases and words for which there isn’t a good English translation and are an ingrained way of life.

I felt like a genuine Circassian lady earlier this week as I prepared all of these delicious traditional snacks! And it made me so happy to share with you this large part of my life that people wouldn’t normally know about. These little pockets of culture and tradition that have a way of finding their way to the surface and spreading a little light on those who care to take a closer look are make me tick!

Loqum are a not terribly sweet donut that is often eaten in the morning with a strong cup of black tea, some Circassian cheese, and spoonfuls of honey and homemade jams.