Welcome to Coming Home, a series that explores the relationship between food and home. This week we spoke with Jad, from Hazmieh-Mar Takla, Beirut.
This conversation occurred during a service (shared taxi) ride between Verdun and Mar Mikhail in Beirut on a Saturday night.
“Any left overs. Anything,” Jad said.
“That’s the thing you crave the most when you come home?” I asked.
“Basically,” he said. “There’s not really anything waiting for me. Just anything, leftovers.”
“What kind of leftovers do you have?”
“I have pizza, spaghetti, pizza – did I say that already? I love pizza. But sometimes my brother steals it from me so I have to hide it.”
“Where do you hide it?” his friend asked.
“In the fridge, behind the pickles.”
“I heard about this,” another friend said, laughing.
“My brother hates pickles – and so do I – but I’m willing to hide the leftovers behind the pickles so that no one touches it. And I get the leftovers for breakfast. It’s the best.”
“Okay here’s my issue,” I interjected. “When you come home and have pizza as a leftover, is it not someone else’s pizza?”
“No, I order it. No one orders other than I.”
“So really, that’s not what you eat when you come home from a long stay. It’s not leftover pizza, it’s fresh pizza.”
Pause.
“Ok, when I come back home, I’d usually order an escalope from Zaatar w Zeit ’cause it’s 24/7. Other than that I’d have a zaatar or something like that from a furn.”
“Why escalope?”
“I feel like I need a big meaty meal before I go to sleep.”
“Do you like pickles on your escalope?”
” No. No pickles.”
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