[HMR]∎ [PDF] Jasmine and Fire A Bittersweet Year in Beirut eBook Salma Abdelnour

Jasmine and Fire A Bittersweet Year in Beirut eBook Salma Abdelnour

Download As PDF : Jasmine and Fire A Bittersweet Year in Beirut eBook Salma Abdelnour

Jasmine and Fire A Bittersweet Year in Beirut eBook Salma Abdelnour

For anyone who's uprooted themselves and moved to another city or another country, this book will resonate because it handles the primary issue we'd all face about where we consider 'Home'. How long does one need to live in a place before we feel at home in it and not an outsider? Does one need to be born in a place? Does one need to have family around before it's considered home?

This is a memoir of the year the author spent in Beirut, the city in which she was born and from which she and her family fled when she was a child. Now a successful journalist and food critic living in New York, she nonetheless doesn't feel she belongs anywhere. Yearning to capture the feeling she had living in Beirut as a child, she makes a decision to sublet her Manhattan apartment, maintain a long distance relationship with her boyfriend and move into her parents' apartment in Ras Beirut.

As she rekindles her relationship with family members and old friends in Beirut, she also rekindles her love affair with Lebanese food. Her food descriptions are lush and so detailed you can almost smell and taste the food she describes. Bakery specialties, old childhood favorites cooked by her aunts or mother's friends, festive food served during holidays and parties are all lovingly describe. We're treated to a avalanche of textures, color, flavors and aroma. Thankfully at the end of the book, she kindly shares some recipes of her favorite Lebanese dishes.

In addition to her own soul searching, she also shares Lebanese political history, the rich and colorful culture built on Christians, Shiite and Suni Muslims and others living shoulder to shoulder in Beirut, the at times indifference of the Lebanese government towards improving the country's infrastructure, the multi-cultural edge on which the Lebanese live, the Palestinian support and Israeli contempt from some quarters, and the strength of the Lebanese not to allow political unrest to stop them from enjoying life. Or perhaps it's the uncertainty of another war that motivates them to defiantly and boisterously celebrate life and each other.

The one thing that stood out though, was her rather frequent trips back to the US during her supposed year in Beirut. I wondered how her feelings for the city may have been different if she had to actually spend an entire year there without any opportunity to leave.


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Jasmine and Fire A Bittersweet Year in Beirut eBook Salma Abdelnour Reviews

A great current insight into Lebanon/Beirut both culturally and politically. Salma did a wonderful job of telling her story while giving readers a taste (pun intended) a feel for her environment. I loved her explorations into the countryside and the history of the sites she visited as well. It made me want to visit!
Read the library copy then had to buy my own. I was visiting Beirut in 2014. Much of what the author was reacting to, I was experiencing as well. A very accurate description of people and place.
Salma is an excellent writer, so much so that I was almost sad when I would be finished reading her memoir soon. I wanted her year to go on for a much longer time.
Jasmine and Fire , is a charming, and very well written food/ travel / memoir which I just adored. In addition , as an added bonus it has some wonderful recipes in the back of the book.
Good, interesting but not riveting. I learned a lot about the current situation in Beirut and Lebanon. the recipes all looked wonderful. I plan on trying them.
Having been to Beirut many years ago, I shared the author's longing to return. I enjoyed reading her descriptions of places that I had been and enjoyed; even though she was not even born when I was there. Her personal knowledge and then vs now experience of Beirut was fascinating to read. I didn't get to see many of the places that she describes, and thus it was wonderful to read about them through her eyes. This is a book that I will read again.
Abdelnour deftly describes her therapeutic year exploring the possibility of permanent residency in the country of her birth and childhood. With love and great respect, she relates both the beauty and frustrations of living in Lebanon, giving the reader a glimpse of Beiruti social habits, nightlife, and the food. Her musings on belonging are thoughtful, and her self-realization in the end describes the sentiment of so many people who have emigrated from that region.

Both new readers to Middle East culture or jaded armchair experts will enjoy this travelogue and will perhaps gain insight into those who have been displaced - whether by choice or force - from homeland.
For anyone who's uprooted themselves and moved to another city or another country, this book will resonate because it handles the primary issue we'd all face about where we consider 'Home'. How long does one need to live in a place before we feel at home in it and not an outsider? Does one need to be born in a place? Does one need to have family around before it's considered home?

This is a memoir of the year the author spent in Beirut, the city in which she was born and from which she and her family fled when she was a child. Now a successful journalist and food critic living in New York, she nonetheless doesn't feel she belongs anywhere. Yearning to capture the feeling she had living in Beirut as a child, she makes a decision to sublet her Manhattan apartment, maintain a long distance relationship with her boyfriend and move into her parents' apartment in Ras Beirut.

As she rekindles her relationship with family members and old friends in Beirut, she also rekindles her love affair with Lebanese food. Her food descriptions are lush and so detailed you can almost smell and taste the food she describes. Bakery specialties, old childhood favorites cooked by her aunts or mother's friends, festive food served during holidays and parties are all lovingly describe. We're treated to a avalanche of textures, color, flavors and aroma. Thankfully at the end of the book, she kindly shares some recipes of her favorite Lebanese dishes.

In addition to her own soul searching, she also shares Lebanese political history, the rich and colorful culture built on Christians, Shiite and Suni Muslims and others living shoulder to shoulder in Beirut, the at times indifference of the Lebanese government towards improving the country's infrastructure, the multi-cultural edge on which the Lebanese live, the Palestinian support and Israeli contempt from some quarters, and the strength of the Lebanese not to allow political unrest to stop them from enjoying life. Or perhaps it's the uncertainty of another war that motivates them to defiantly and boisterously celebrate life and each other.

The one thing that stood out though, was her rather frequent trips back to the US during her supposed year in Beirut. I wondered how her feelings for the city may have been different if she had to actually spend an entire year there without any opportunity to leave.