Food therapy and war

The day I no longer enjoy food I will admit myself to a mental facility before I kill myself. Dramatic? Maybe, but I also know there will be something seriously wrong with me the day I can no longer taste food.

The first and only time I lost this ability was Baghdad, August 1991. I had experienced my first air raid and was trembling all night begging for it to stop. The next morning my grandmother – in an effort to pretend like nothing was wrong – made scrambled eggs with minced lamb cooked in allspice, salt and pepper and sprinkled with some parsley. Grandmother served it with piping-hot flat bread. She called me into the kitchen and I followed enthusiastically, as I always do. But as soon as I held up my fork and looked down at my food I realized that I could not eat. It’s not like I wasn’t hungry. I felt no desire to taste it. I couldn’t even smell it. It were as if someone was feeding me a piece of cardboard. This realization amazed me, that I could have such a reaction to food. I remember thinking then that something was seriously wrong with me. I was 12.

The war continued but I went back to my normal appetite a few weeks later once the airstrikes stopped making me shake. In 2004 I sat on the rooftop of my parents’ house in Baghdad sipping on a mug of cardamom spiced tea and eating kulecha, Iraqi bite-sized sweets made of a baked crust stuffed with crushed walnuts and sugar or chewy dark dates and black seeds. The US Blackhawks flew at low altitudes making a lot of noise, machine-guns bulging on both sides. There were two mushrooms of smoke in the horizon from either car or suicide bombs. I could also hear gunshots nearby. My mother called from the garden 3 stores down demanding that I stop my madness and come inside. But nothing beat watching the sunset with tea and sweets. The experience soothed and warmed me deep in my guts and bones.

A couple of months ago I had an ugly encounter with immigration officers at Heathrow Airport. I will not dwell on it. All I can say is after they finally let me go I felt seriously broken and angry. So I did two things, I ran until I hurt and when I did I punished myself by forcing more pain. “Do those shins hurt? Is your ankle throbbing with pain? Fuck you! Run!” The other thing I did was cook angry curry. It was disgusting. I threw an overdose of curry, cumin, coriander, too much garlic, so much tamarin that the sauce tasted sour. So I tried to fix it with coconut cream. Then I threw lentils in which didn’t agree with the coconut cream. Then for god-knows-what-reason I threw handfuls of spinach leaves into the mix on top of whatever vegetables I could find. I made rice and I burned it. I still scraped what wasn’t stuck to the bottom of the pot and threw a dollop of vomit-looking curry on top. It was sour and the lentils were undercooked. “Is your gut hurting? Are you feeling bloats and cramps? Fuck you! Eat!”

Tonight I was walking down some food aisle when something in me clicked. I put back the canned and microwave food and picked up fresh raspberries, blueberries, plums, brown sugar, walnuts, cream, butter and some pastry rolls. I went home, switched the radio to a music station and I dove right in. I had butter on my shirt. Flour on my forehead and my fingers were sticky with brown sugar and it was fun. I rolled out the dough, dipped my fingers into the butter and wiped the pan then placed the dough and threw in the berries and sliced plum. Then I crushed the walnuts with my fingers and scattered them on, then I added a sprinkle of brown sugar and I opened the oven door and shoved the pan in – with a little Elvis spin of the knee.  The fruits oozed purple and pink syrup and the dough puffed and crisped. I took a slice and dolloped some cream on top. I brew me a pot of tea and sat in my pajamas and wool socks watching trains pass through the thickly wooded area behind my house in south London and .. drumrolls .. I took my first bite. The sensation was like .. like being wrapped in the softest fluffiest blanket on a cold day with your beloved pet snuggling in your lap and some soft jazz playing in the background. It’s hard to describe.

All I can say is that the day I divorce food is a day I stop living.

Respect to Shoreditch street art!

This is a news article I posted on East London Lines under the title “#CharlieHebdo and Street Art in Shoreditch”

Political street art with the hashtag #JeSuisCharlie is appearing in Shoreditch, expressing solidarity with satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo,  which was attacked in Paris earlier this month.

Artists expressed a range of political statements attached to the hashtag, including freedom of expression, racism, and  gun control.

Among them is the artist who goes by the name Pure Evil, who frequently expresses political protests in his work. Pure Evil created a graffiti piece last week in Holywell Lane, Shoreditch with the text “Crayons are mightier than bullets” and the #JeSuisCharlie hashtag.

Pure Evil graffiti in Shoreditch

Graffiti Life, a commercial art group, expressed its anti-gun statements with the same hashtag.

https://vine.co/v/OpnLihibz9O/embed/simple

An anonymous black and white Shoreditch graffiti appeared with the phrase “Islam is not the problem.”  

Spotted yesterday in #Shoreditch. #CharieHebdo pic.twitter.com/FbZ7CBffXm

— Rachel Belward (@RBel2) January 11, 2015

The most captivating piece is on Sclater Street where passers-by are stopped by a giant “Je Suis Charlie” painted in metallic chrome with a thick black outline. Next to it is a hand holding a pencil gesturing to “freedom of speech”. It was the first to arise with the hashtag on the night of the attack in Paris.

#JuSuisCharlie graffiti Shoreditch, London

Henry Buckle, graffiti artist and director of Outside Art, said the artists who produced the large chrome piece were determined to put it up in time and worked through the night despite the heavy rain.

He went on to say: “I checked it recently on twitter and found out that it had over 60,000 shares which is just amazing”.

David Stuart is  a graffiti enthusiast and  blogger who runs Shoreditch Street Art Tours. Stuart said that he has seen up to six graffiti pieces produced with the #JeSuisCharlie hashtag within the last three days.

To Stuart, street art is an important medium of political expression because, he says, graffiti uses a local medium – such as Shoreditch walls – to reach a much wider audience who walk past it, photograph it, then disburse it on their social media channels to the wider world.

Stuart said: “Street art does give people a great opportunity to express political opinions and we do see a bit of that. There is also a lot of street art that is not about making a statement. There is a lot of street art that is non-political but politicised street art is explicitly political.”

“And it’s not just UK issues. A number of stencil arts came up last year about the political situation in Turkey against the Prime Minister and the heavy hand of the state troops oppressing the people. One issue that has crept in a number of times is Palestine. It came into the street art in the summer for a period of time as well. So the “Ju Suis Charlie” is a manifestation of that, of the artist’s sentiment to express political opinions.”

The odd Muslims and the Christmas tree

I left England 1987 when I tuned 8. I haven’t been here since I moved to London earlier this year. Back then there weren’t as many Arabs and other ‘ethnic’ people like myself where I lived. Most people were too friendly, a few were too rude and either way we didn’t fit in. My mother devised a genius plan to fit us in. Christmas.

Once a year we wore the Christmas jumpers and made cardboard cuts of the nativity scene with all the other kids at school.  We went overboard with red, green and golden tinsel, lights and paper snow flake cuttings hanging on the windows and walls of our house. Every year we had a Christmas tree gleaming with decoration and fluffed cotton balls to mimic snow. We believed santa actually existed because my mother left us gifts under the tree.

We sent photos to my grandparents in Baghdad. In them we had wide grins on our faces, in our brand new pajamas, covered in Christmas prints and standing in front of the festively decorated tree. So my grandparents started to send us bright orange wool socks knitted from scratch. They were a little confused about what constituted Christmas theme colors.

When we went back to Baghdad we kept the Christmas tradition going. It was a time to be festive and optimistic of the year ahead. Most importantly it was just plain good fun. Once again, my siblings and I, became the odd ones outs. 

Our neighbours would stare at us panting and sweating as we pulled a large log of pine tree  and ask what on earth we were doing. ‘It’s a Christmas tree’ we’d explain. ‘But you’re Muslim?!’

We were too excited about planning our Christmas party to be bothered. We were done trying to fit in.

Merry Christmas everyone!