The Food Between Places
Growing up between countries and don't you dare call my food fusion!
Marhaba! Hello……
When people ask me what kind of restaurant Harvest is, I usually pause for a second. Not because I don’t know, but because there isn’t a shortcut answer (and I often wonder if they REALLY want to know).
It’s tempting to say we’re Levantine. Or seasonal. Or farm to table. Or a café. All of those are true in some way, but none of them quite explain why a bagel with labneh feels perfectly at home beside muhammara, or why smoked local goat’s labneh belongs in a salad with makdous and marinated artichokes. After some hmmming and hawwwwing, I blurt out that Harvest is a third-culture kitchen, and more often than not that earns me a very blank look.
The phrase “third culture” originally described children who grow up between countries. Home isn’t one place but several. You borrow traditions from everywhere you’ve lived until eventually you stop thinking about where one culture ends and another begins. That was my childhood. My family moved often. Every couple of years there was another country, another school, another language floating around the playground, new grocery stores, new smells, different vegetables, different ways of sharing around the table, different skies. My family’s food became the thing that travelled with us, picking up dishes, flavors, ingredients, and carrying them with us to the next home.
Our kitchen was never trying to recreate one country’s cuisine perfectly, my mom was simply trying to make dinner. Sometimes that meant Russian smetana in our pasta or American pancakes with Moscow’s birch forests’ honey, or fried bologna sandwiches when other cold cuts were scarce. It meant experiencing the joys of fish fresh from the Mediterranean on Turkey’s vast coast, and drinking salted yogurt with our hamburgers (or were they kofta?) instead of coke. Sometimes it was a recipe from somewhere we’d just left, and then adapted because one ingredient or another couldn’t be found. New family recipes haphazardly created, culinary memories deeply embedded only to be jolted to the surface by the most subtle cues.
None of it felt unusual. It was just how we ate. I think that’s why I struggle a little with the word “fusion.” Fusion often suggests combining cuisines because the contrast is interesting, but a third-culture kitchen is different. You’re not inventing combinations. You’re remembering them. Which is why when a customer approaches my workspace and tells me that the food evoked a memory, especially a childhood memory, it’s a victory (and I think perhaps that person and I should be friends, or at least acquaintances). My dishes and flavor combinations come from lived experience rather than novelty, which is why I often like to describe my food as “comfort food” because the memories my food evokes is comforting…to me at least.
Right now I find this especially evident in the pastry case at Harvest. I’ve been working with danishes sweet and savory, bringing a true Midwestern pastry treat (that immigrated from Northern Europe) with it’s many flaky layers to our counter. We’ve got a barely sweet corn custard layered with a hint of our tomato basil jam, grated Circassian cheese, cherry tomatoes, and za’atar olive oil. Similarly layered are the memories of Sumer this pastry draws from in me (Illinois corn fields, my Dad’s tomato vines, basil plant on my kitchen windowsill in Brooklyn, my husband’s Circassian heritage, and za’atar forever and always) while always returning to my mantra that Local Tastes Better.
You don’t have to manipulate ingredients like these. You just have to notice them. That’s become one of the quiet lessons Harvest keeps teaching me, that cooking isn’t always about adding. I often return to a memory I have from the Summer I was 13. I was spending a month with my Italian friend Syliva between her family’s homes in Rome and Porto Ercole on the coast. We’d come home sun kissed and exhausted after a day spent by the sea or on the back of boys’ vespas and Sylvia’s mother offered us a platter of beautiful wedges of seasoned tomatoes next to a bowl filled with ice water and baseball sized fresh mozzarella balls bobbing in it. She taught me to eat the mozzarella, bracingly cold, with my hands like an apple, and alternate with the warm, sweet tomatoes. It was one of those Proust’s madeleines moments for me, tomato seeds and ice water running down my arms. Sometimes it’s about removing everything unnecessary, allowing the ingredient to speak for itself. And now, 40 years later, I find myself returning to those kinds of astounding moments with less to prove and more listening to the small details in the world around us.
I’d love to know: What food tastes most like home to you—and has “home” always been the same place?
Continuing Obsessions
Figs just starting to appear in markets! Fig Lavender jam hitting Harvest’s fridge soon.
Fresh za’atar before it flowers.
My growing collection of bandanas mostly from Clare V.
Discovering the almost decrepit and delightfully beautiful MMag Foundation in old Amman (tile floor above from there).
Harvest’s jasmine fence starting to bloom and share its beautiful scent.
Who needs a butter board when you can have a whipped Circassian cheese board (see below)?
New Harvest branding! It’s so pretty and layered and soft. Thank you Layan.
Cold coffee after a busy morning service.
Vacationing vicariously through Sunday Kitchen Australia’s Lebanese homecoming visit on Instagram.
Modeling our new small layer cakes with local flavors à la From Lucie
Cookbooks filled with handwritten notations and lots of stains.
Harvest happenings
As I write this, the terrace has been open for a few weeks. Every evening, around five o’clock, the light changes and we pull in our mustard and white striped awnings. The tables slowly (very slowly) fill. I know that asking people in Amman to pop by for a snack between 4-7PM isn’t perhaps a habit they’re accustomed to, but extending our hours has encouraged customers to get some things from the dukkaneh on their way out for the evening, try a cup of our delicious homemade ice cream, or pick up their catering order. Plus I really really LOVE the menu and hope you’ll come on by to try the items that are a little fussier and lighter but just as delicious as our daytime offerings.
This week we hosted the delightful Doggy Bites for an ice cream social featuring Mona’s homemade sweet potato and melon ice creams for our four legged furry friends. Having them fill the space with their joyful energy fills my heart. Dogs are a bit of a taboo here (although that’s changing) and there aren’t many spaces (including parks) where they are welcome to frolic and be themselves, so I’m thrilled we’re able to occasionally be a space for dogs and their owners to meet up.
Our Chef Qamar’s supperclub dinner scheduled for Sunday night, the 26th, has been postponed by one week to August 2 since many of her hoped-for guests weren’t available on the original date. It’s been a joy to mentor her through the process of menu planning, recipe testing, and conceptualization. The one thing I keep coming back to is that she needs to create dishes that reflect her story in one way or another. Like most everything in this world, the more personal it can be, the better the outcome. I can’t wait to witness the final result.
Next month promises to be a realization of what I’d hoped we’d do in Harvest all along with some special evening events featuring chefs from Lebanon and Dubai and a pop up or two. The Summer season will be winding down as our regular customers return from their escapades abroad, the light shifts, and routines are revisited once again. I’ll be back with another newsletter before that all gets underway with more information soon!
WHAT TO COOK NOW
The recipe box over on my Chef Sally Jane website has all kinds of seasonal menu inspiration. Check it out and while you’re there my many years of food and culture writing are there too.
I hope you’re enjoying reading because I’m really loving taking the time to write and share once more! More culinary conversations coming your way soon…..
xx CSJ
Borscht! Moscow was the home I chose when I could choose my home. It must have dill for freshness. It replenishes and comforts and is just the perfect food.