Beirutista

For more than a decade, I wrote zealously and defiantly about the beauty of Lebanon. In fact, the primary objective behind my blog Beirutista.co, launched in 2012, was to paint a picture of truth about what life is like in this tiny Mediterranean bastion. I had recently relocated to Beirut, Lebanon, and found myself composing long letters to friends overseas who knew nothing but the biased image of Lebanon that the media rehashes time and again. Questions like “You have trees there?” and “Do people get around on camels?” pained me not only for their reductive and uninformed nature, but for how poorly this country has been portrayed throughout the years. Lebanon has been around for thousands of years. In fact, the word “Lebanon” is mentioned over 70 times in the Bible and is thought to derive from the Phoenician root lbn meaning “white,” in reference to Lebanon’s snow-capped peaks. This country seemingly has it all, bordered on the west by the moderate Mediterranean Sea, and replete wit...

A little over three months ago, on October 1, 2022, I met with video creator Malini Angelica at L’Appartement terrace in Beirut. Malini, visiting from London to film a YouTube travel documentary with her partner, had come across my blog Beirutista and wished to meet in person. We agreed to a casual rendezvous at a venue of her choosing, and conversation flowed naturally as we sipped on Qanafar rosé from the Bekaa region. Among a number of things, we spoke about my Lebanese-American upbringing in southern California, the transition to Lebanon over one decade ago, the birth of Beirutista, whether or not there is a real Lebanese identity, and the current state of affairs inside these borders. The videotaped exchange lasted an hour or so and would be incorporated in a travel doc destined for Malini’s eponymous YouTube channel. Three months later, exactly on New Year’s Day, the video was released, and you can see it here (jump to 21:30 to catch my segment). Only a few short minutes of ...

This article has been adapted from the original version, which is published on the  Al Wadi Al Akhdar website  under the  "Visit Lebanon" tab . The delectable Lebanese (and Levantine!) dessert konafa ( photo source ) Lebanese people naturally gravitate toward good food. This is no mere generalization or exaggeration. The reality is that we lay claim to an aesthetically- and tummy-pleasing cuisine that demands only the finest, freshest produce and meat. That kind of pickiness at the table forges a very discriminating palate, which is why wherever we wander in the world, you can immediately single us out. We happily lap up at the table of good and plenty, and we make it known. So how do you spot a fellow Lebanese gourmet? Here are five food-related behaviors that quickly betray our identities!   As sure as the sun rises, your day invariably begins with labneh and zaatar. Admittedly, a vast number of Lebanese are lactose-intolerant, but that’s never prevented us...

Saint Augustine once said, “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” But during this unusual era of the Covid-19 pandemic, our collective mobility as a society has been severely impaired. Face it. When was the last time you traveled carefree? When was the last time you were able to board a train, or hop on a plane, or embark on a ship, to transcend country borders? Can you remember when you last ambled about freely and explored an exquisitely different culture and cuisine? Acting upon this realization, the savvy gourmands behind Key 16 – a Belgium-based enterprise that organizes culinary trips, events and tastings – launched Seven Shelves . The idea is rather simple. If you can’t roam the world for new tastes and flavors, why not bring the world into your kitchen? No need to sail the seven seas. Just tap into a treasure trove of high-quality products sourced from farmers and producers in adherence with fair-trade practices. And thus were born the Seven S...

Every morning, my Google Photos app depicts a memory from the archive. Today, it was this capture from August 4, 2017: on the left, St. Georges Maronite Cathedral neighboring Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque, nestled in the heart of downtown Beirut. We often say that the beauty of Lebanon is in the peaceful coexistence of so many faiths, creeds, and sects, and this is one symbol-laden image. St. Georges Maronite Cathedral (left) and Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque, downtown Beirut. Three years to the day after this photo was snapped, one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions in the history of the world detonated in the port of Beirut. Annihilation doesn't begin to describe the aftermath: hundreds of lives were obliterated; thousands more, injured; hundreds of thousands, displaced; and large sections of the city and neighboring regions, completely leveled. Beirut was gutted, and its soul cast into an abyss of tribulation and mourning that continues to scale deeper and deeper fathoms as the days tran...

As a child who earnestly anticipated her summers in Lebanon, I remember distinctly praying each night for weeks leading up to trip departure that our two-leg journey from Los Angeles would go smoothly and safely. Should a crash befall us, may it be on the return from Beirut, I pleaded with my Creator. I wanted so desperately to spend a fun-filled vacation in the Land of the Cedars. Reflecting on that memory now as an adult, I’m baffled at how willing I was to embrace the worst, so long as it presented itself aptly in the sequence of events. Yes, folks. That’s a gauge of how enamored I was with my ancestral homeland. Chilling? Or just plain foolish? As many of my readers already know, I made Lebanon home in 2011, a full decade ago. I was a fresh MBA graduate and in between jobs and world regions. I found myself in the Levant on an ambassadorial mission for my alma mater MIT. When it ended, I decided to linger and look for work. I was fed up with hearing that as a summer tourist in L...

“Why are you in Lebanon? What are you doing here?” Almost exactly one decade ago – on January 2, 2011 – I boarded a flight from Los Angeles to Amman via Paris. Amman was not my final destination. It was the first stop in a circuit of three Levantine countries – Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon – where I would be leading an ambassadorial mission on behalf of my alma mater, MIT in Boston. At the end of the month, after my tour ended, I decided to linger in Beirut and look for a job. I’d forever dreamt of planting roots in the land of my heritage. Growing up, my brothers and I had spent paradise-like summers in Lebanon that exposed us to the warmth and unique hospitality of our culture. We spoke the language fluently, so I certainly never felt like a foreigner. And most importantly, I’d recently bagged my second graduate degree and was ready to launch a career. Somehow, the consulting gigs I’d held in Paris and Abu Dhabi felt lacking. Sure, I was challenged intellectually. But I was in search o...

You haven’t heard from me for some time. Five months, to be exact. Well, the truth is, juggling two children, namely an infant and a toddler, is pretty darn time-consuming. Add to that the highly novel, highly unusual circumstances gripping our world, and the inspiration to write from a positive vantage point quickly vanishes. I’ve never navigated bleaker times. Quite often, I find myself mentally dictating a blog post, gathering all my distraught thoughts into some form of comprehensible prose as I keep a wary eye on the kids. But by the time they’re both sound asleep and the household tasks completed, the magnetic pull from my bed invariably wins out over the appeal of my reticent laptop. And I succumb to slumber. But tonight is different. There are a myriad of sentiments coursing through my veins as the entire world – because this is much greater than merely one nation – wrestles with notions of racism.  The name George Floyd has gained overnight fame. Floyd was a 46-year...

Nearly one week ago, just a few days into the protests animating Lebanon, a Lebanese-American friend residing abroad texted me to see how we were faring. “Still hell-bent on that dump of a country?” he inquired. Maybe if he’d asked me that same question a week before, before the catastrophic fires tore through the Chouf, Metn and Akkar regions, ravaging the lush greenery of the Lebanese mountain ranges; before we learned of the three Sikorsky helicopters, each equipped to carry 4,000 liters of water to douse fires, that had been grounded for years on account of neglect; before heads of state despicably proposed a fee of USD 6 per month for WhatsApp VoIP calls, a technology that is entirely proprietary and free to the public worldwide…maybe I would have conceded ashamedly to his logic. “You’re right,” I’d have concurred. “This country is a veritable dump, and we’re idiots to be wiling away our livelihoods here.” But something has happened in the wake of those fires and t...

What’s happening to you, dear Lebanon? Why do you allow yourself to continue plummeting into the abysmal darkness rather than pull yourself into the light where you once basked? Why aren’t you fighting for what you could be, nay,  should be, permitting everyone instead to trample all over you? I hardly recognize you from the beautiful Lebanon on which Lebanese-American writer Gibran Khalil Gibran once waxed poetic: “I have my Lebanon and its beauty,” Gibran declared. Now fires run ablaze through your green frontiers, fires which the state struggles to subdue and douse because it willfully neglected to maintain its infrastructure. Where is your natural beauty now? Sullied and squandered. Lebanon's cedars are mentioned numerously in the Bible “My Lebanon is a flock of birds fluttering in the early morning as shepherds lead their sheep into the meadow, and rising in the evening as farmers return from their fields and vineyards,” Gibran went on to write. Your pas...