I Wonder If Jesus Ate Pita Bread

I'll bet he did. And I'll bet he liked it too. Jesus was a Mediterranean guy, after all. One might even speculate that he was part Arab. How likely would it have been for him to be purely of European descent? Philip is telling me that the area in which Jesus lived was, by his lifetime, a real crossroads of cultures already. There were Mesopotamians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Phoenicians, Syrians, Egyptians, and Turks (for a start). Does it still bother some Christians to imagine that Jesus was probably not really white?

I like to imagine him as a blend of ethnicities. Though it would be deeply ironic if there was ever proof that he was of Northern African or Arab ethnicity. How that would make some millions of American and European Christians uncomfortable. Not that it's my life ambition to make anyone uncomfortable.

I like to think about what I brought back with me from my trip to Israel* to visit my father, his wonderful wife, and my half brother. I brought back with me, as souvenirs, a much sharper political understanding of the region, a deeper respect for the diversity of culture and the educational sophistication of that nation, some amazing cheesy Christian holy water and Jesus relic souvenirs which have sadly been lost in the fire, time spent with family which was both wonderful as well as raggedly emotional, and the best thing of all?

The experience of eating pita bread as it is eaten by the people who have been making it for a thousand years at least. It is not a pocket bread as Americans generally think of it. It's a flat bread that is used to scoop food up with. You tear it into pieces and use it to scoop up your meze dishes like Baba ghanoush or lebneh drizzled with olive oil, and maybe you use it to slop up some of the juices from your inevitable lamb dishes.

When you bring home new food ideas from trips abroad they stay with you a lot longer than trinkets do. I came home, found a recipe for home made pita from Deborah Madison's book, and I've been making it for the last twelve years. Every time I make it I think of Israel. I think of my father, his wonderful wife who is beautifully practical and yet also creative, and I think of my half brother who grew up knowing he had at least a brother and a sister but was raised alone. He's a full grown man now and I wish I could have grown up nearer to him so we could have gotten to know each other. Every time I make pita I feel like telling him that I have not smoked a cigarette in over four years now.

Every time I make pita bread I also think about the Arab restaurants where I had this exquisite flat bread and experienced the meze table for the first time. It makes me think of how textured and rich the Arab culture is. It makes me sad that my country is busy gunning it down right now. As though all Arabs were savages. Our government is restricting the seed saving rights of the Arab people we are currently occupying. The seeds we grow say a lot about the culture we nurture just as the bread we make and eat does. You take that kind of autonomy away from a people and you destroy who they are.

I make pita and remember that Arabs, like all other people on earth, have a lot in common with me on a cellular level. They have traditions that are meaningful to them; they have a rich history; they have an amazing culture which deserves to be respected by us all.

I feel confident that even if Jesus wasn't part Arab himself, he most likely ate lots of pita and no Wonderbread. I'm not really into Jesus from a religious perspective, but I'm fascinated by the stories about him and the times he lived in and endlessly riveted by the clash between who he apparently was and how so many Christians are so personally worried about me believing in him but then they ignore everything he supposedly stood for. It's like watching a silent film in which Jesus is doing all manner of peaceful things but the dialog stills are putting these words in his mouth:

"Ye Arabs are hoarding oil and God hates you for that so I am going to bomb your asses until you give it all to me!!!!"

I like to think that bringing pieces of culinary and cultural knowledge home with us from our travels helps us all connect with each other and helps to foster a greater respect for each other across the globe.

Petty Crimes And Misdemeanors

Petty misdemeanor #1: When the local health food store has a vast collection of Saturn peaches with moldy stem ends, and regular peaches covered in bruises and crawling with ants. Yes, ANTS. I know this is a tough economy, but there is no excuse to try to sell people old substandard food for the cost of a new born baby. They only partially atone for the lack of freshness that most of their produce exhibits by selling the most beautiful basil I have ever seen in my life which they only occasionally let go limp.

Petty Crime #2: To eat at Jack In The Box during the height of the best season of the year for fresh food. No wait, the crime is to eat there at all. Ever. I saw a huge line of cars at the Jack In The Box drive up window yesterday and it made me so sad to see so many people choosing salty grease flavor over all the options this season opens up- what about a tomato-basil-mozzarella salad with oil and balsamic vinegar? Or if you really crave that all American meal, why not make your own damn hamburgers? NOT HARD TO DO PEOPLE. If I could afford to do it I would stand on the other side of those drive ups and hand out really good food that's easy to make. I would drag all those pasty fast food asses to a cooking classroom and show them how cheap and easy it is to make good food at home.

Petty Misdemeanor #3: To pick carrots from your own garden and let them sit on the counter for two days getting wilty and then still not use them for anything. I must atone for this one by using them in a soup. I plan to make a lentil soup today. Lentil soup is so good. I have those fancy little French lentils that need using and it would just be the hugest shame to waste those carrots. Can I just defend myself a little bit here by pointing out that much of my garden produce has had to spend a couple of days on the counter due to overbooking the fridge space with other food? Can I get off with a warning this time?

Petty Crime #4: To shop at Walmart. Oh wait, that's more like a felony. I have gone there twice in two years, one of those times was yesterday. I went because staples didn't have any Fiskar scissors and I figured that since I can't get my favorite underwear anywhere else here in town, I would buck up and enter the American ideal of hell. Oh god. The atmosphere in there is suffocating and brawling and scrappy and fat and cheap and crappy and depressing and loud and poor and represents the lowest point of our culture and our national personality.

No other store has quite so many crying babies, whining children, unhappy adults, nagging voices, or so many isles of candy and other forms of the worst kind of "food" available to mankind. Why is it I never see confident stylish people there? And at what point in my life did I start looking exactly like a person who's favorite place to shop is Walmart? That is a major crime. I realize, (and this never ceases to surprise me), that many of my favorite people shop there. People I love, respect, think are beautiful, kind, conscientious, and politically savvy. I never see them there when I'm there, though. I see low America. I see mostly desperately depressed and stressed moms trailing children behind them like loud shackles. They all look tired and look like they're losing hope through their pores.

It is way worse than JoAnne's Fabric.

I would be willing to argue that Walmart is an American cult bigger than Mormonism. I would not be at all surprised if the "elders" got together to buy out all Walmarts. What could be better than to join together the two hugest cults in our country? Then the Mormon plan to take over the world would be within their reach. What a coup that would be because Walmart is owned by the religious right wing of this country. It would be a battle of dogmas.

I just got the strange visual of Tammy Faye bitch slapping some Mormon lady in Jesus jammies.*


You know what alarms me more than any other aspect of Walmart? That some of the stores sell produce. My brother in law and his wife were telling me that they buy produce there and it just made me infinitely sad and scared that the food people eat has gone so far down the road to perdition that people can buy "fresh" produce in a place that puts all it's value in the word "cheap". My in-laws are good people and deserve to eat food that is good quality and comes from Virginia, where they live. They deserve to have produce that actually tastes good. They deserve to eat produce that actually nourishes them.

Every time I shop at Walmart I feel dirty afterwards. I feel that I have betrayed the potential of my country to be something so much better than it is. I feel that I have betrayed myself, which is much worse. So, that's it. I am renewing my vows to not buy from them again. I will shop online for the few things they carry that no other local store carries. I will not be party to the Walmart degradation of my fellow countrymen. We are worth so much more than what they have to offer.

But don't worry, I will not spout out lectures to all of you who find needs being filled by them. We each have our own journey, we each have our own choices to make and perhaps you have made other healthy choices that I have not yet made. So I'm not going to judge you. But if anyone wants to join me in my resolve, I welcome you!



*A term I only learned last night from our friend Erica who grew up as a Buddist child in Utah, surrounded by Mormons. I'm getting the dirt from the inside now!!