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Quote by Diana Abu-Jaber

“She is stirring a pot of leben yogurt, which is heated slowly, carefully, tenderly, and hopefully, layered with butter and onions and heady and rich as a high summer night. She cannot stop stirring because it is a fragile, temperamental sauce, given to breaking and curdling if given its way. So she must wait and stand and stir and stir and stir and look and look.”

Quote by Diana Abu-Jaber

Book:Crescent
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Crescent

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Author

Diana Abu-Jaber
Diana Abu-Jaber

Diana Abu-Jaber is an American author known for her profound insights into Middle Eastern culture and her rich literary works. Her writing often focuses on family, identity, and community, exploring the lives of Middle Eastern immigrants in the United States. more

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“I can smell fennel, lemongrass and cinnamon. But there's something more... something that ties those three spices together. What is this powerful aroma underneath it all? "'Holy basil'! And he used fresh leaves!" Holy... ... basil? "It's a spice native to Southeast Asia and sacred to the Hindu religion. Just one whiff of it... ... sends a refreshing sensation throughout the entire body. In Ayurvedic medicine, it's even considered an elixir of life!" *Ayurveda is the name of Hindu traditional medicine in which proper diet plays a large role.* "Really? What an amazing spice!" "However... ... holy basil rarely makes it to Japan while still fresh! It should be nearly impossible to procure! How on earth did you get it?!" "Oh, that? We raise it year-round for our seminar. And how do we cultivate it? Well... that's a trade secret." "What?! He raises his own uber-rare spices?!" "That's the Shiomi seminar for you." ""Shiomi"? They must mean Professor Jun Shiomi, the academic expert on spices!" "Man, this scent is not just powerful, it's addictive! But that's not the only thing going on in this dish. There's something else, something that spurs you on to the next bite... tartness? Yogurt!" "Good guess, Yukihira. Holy basil is so strong it can easily overpower all other spices if you aren't careful. But adding in yogurt mellows it out." Not only that, the spices he used have the curcumin compound, which is known to aid the liver in detoxifying the blood. That together with the lactic acids in yogurt increases how well the body absorbs it!”

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Book:食戟のソーマ 8 [Shokugeki no Souma 8]
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“At work, Sirine announces that this year will be an Arabic Thanksgiving with rice and pine nuts and ground lamb in the turkey instead of cornbread, and yogurt sauce instead of cranberries. Mireille sulks and says she doesn't like yogurt and Sirine says, annoyed, why can't we ever do things differently? And Um-Nadia says, girls, never mind already, we can have the for-crying-out-loud rice stuffing and I'll bring the can of the red berries sauce.”

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“Signs of Hokkaido's muscular dairy industry tattoo the terrain everywhere: packs of Holsteins chew cud unblinkingly in the sunlight, ice cream shops proffer hyperseason flavors to hungry leaf gazers, and giant silos offer advice to the calcium deficient: "Drink Hokkaido Milk!" Even better than drinking the island's milk is drinking its yogurt, which you can do at Milk Kobo, a converted red barn with cows and tractors and generous views of Mount Yotei, which locals call Ezo Fuji. Kobo sells all manner of dairy products, but you're here for the drinkable yogurt, which has a light current of sweetness and a deep lactic tang, a product so good that the second it hits my lips, I give up water for the week.”

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Book:Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture
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“And before I knew it, the tip of his finger was against the side of my mouth, the mousse cooling my skin. I turned my head to get a full taste, but he moved his finger away so I only got a tiny wisp of the mousse, not enough to know it. "Hey, come on," I said. "Let me taste it." He took another step forward, and I took the tiniest of steps back, pressing us both against the wall, Helen's write-up just over my left shoulder. "Oh? You think this is what's missing?" I chased his finger with my lips. He had only grabbed one of my hands, so I could have brought his hand to my mouth, but I stayed there, transfixed, like a bug pinned down for inspection. Finally, the flat of my tongue and the tip of his finger met. He gently pushed it inside my mouth, and I tasted the yogurt at last. It was surprising in every way- airy yet hearty, sunny yet earthy. The final piece. He kept his finger in my mouth even after I finished tasting it, my tongue against the ridges on the underside of his finger, coarse from cooking, I suppose, but more likely from being a man. Pascal was a man. He pulled his finger out and my lips made a suctioned pop sound. Maybe Pascal was the oxygen. Maybe he was what I should have been breathing.”

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“Her dish's secret ingredient is an impromptu Greek yogurt. It's a unique type of yogurt that's thickened and concentrated via a straining process." Strained yogurt? Straining yogurt with a cheesecloth, or even paper towels, removes some of its moisture, condensing the yogurt while giving its flavor a gentle body, reminiscent of cheese. Miss Nakiri mixed some strained yogurt into the meringue she used for her batter. That gave her pancakes a deeper, more complex flavor that, in turn, made the simple sweetness of her brown sugar bean paste stand out even more!”

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Book:食戟のソーマ 29 [Shokugeki no Souma 29]
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“The crystalline currents of the river Karkheh flowed to the west of Susa, irrigating the thirsty city. It was said to have the purest water in the world. For that reason, no one was allowed to drink from its waters but the king. Roxannah's favorite place was the river's fertile banks, which provided endless treasures for anyone patient enough to search for them. Here, she foraged for wild ingredients that had the advantage of being free as well as delicious resources for the new recipes she loved to create. Walking by the river's banks at sunrise, Roxannah came across a cluster of wild, twisty fig trees. It was early for the first harvest. But a few handfuls of precocious fruit had ripened enough to be picked. At home, she snipped the stems and washed the figs before letting them simmer with honey, adding a touch of her special blend of spices. They would taste delicious with the creamy yogurt she had made the day before.”

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“Finally, we would have been offered either a spring takiawase, meaning "foods boiled or stewed together," or a wanmori (the apex of a tea kaiseki meal) featuring seasonal ingredients, such as a cherry blossom-pink dumpling of shrimp and egg white served in a dashi base accented with udo, a plant with a white stalk and leaves that tastes like asparagus and celery, and a sprig of fresh sansho, the aromatic young leaves from the same plant that bears the seedpods the Japanese grind into the tongue-numbing spice always served with fatty eel.”

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Book:Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto
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