BALADI: PALESTINE – A CELEBRATION OF FOOD FROM LAND AND SEA

JOUDIE KALLA, QUARTO GROUP UK, H/B, $55

Baladi means ‘my home, my land, my country’ and for Joudie Kalla that means Palestine. It’s joyful family food, rooted in tradition, essentially Palestinian, but mixed with Jordanian, Lebanese and Syrian as her grandparents were forced to leave and adapt. It’s scattered with location shots to give you a flavour, and that flavour is of stony olive groves, packed vibrant markets piled high with fresh-as fruit, vegetables and spices, glistening fish being off-loaded from bright fishing boats, and flatbread cooked over coals. My copy is already bristling with Post-it notes: I’m going to start with garlic labneh and poached egg on flatbread (all oozy-yolked creaminess with a yeasty chew), pomegranate and za’atar lamb chops with lemon, mint and yogurt will be on the barbie just as soon as we remember to fill the gas bottle and I reckon watermelon juice with mint and orange blossom will be this summer’s cooler. In a refreshing variation from the usual, recipes are grouped by markets and village life (including cheeses, preserves and drinks), the fields and earth, the bakery, the farm, the hills and orchards, and rivers and seas. Curiously there are lots of pictures of cute, long-eared goats, though no recipes for goat. TW