A Tabbouleh recipe brings out cherished childhood memories

WNYC News

'Tis the season for food, family, friends and fun, too. WNYC's Community Partnerships Desk is asking New Yorkers to share stories behind their favorite family recipes and the memories they conjure up. Today we hear from Jeanette Chawki, a Staten Island resident and a cooking instructor with The League of Kitchens

The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

I am from Lebanon. I came to U.S. in 2006 with my family, husband and three kids, and I love to cook. My favorite dish to prepare is tabbouleh. Tabbouleh is Lebanese salad. The main ingredients are parsley, tomato, onion, olive oil, lemon, and mint, and some spices, like allspice, Aleppo pepper, my favorite spice. The dressing is made from salt, lemon juice and olive oil.

The best thing to eat the tabbouleh with is lettuce or cabbage. Make it like a boat with the tabbouleh and start eating, and now my mouth is watering. It comes to my head. You know, it's taking me back to my childhood, my friends, my family, when they are gathering. All this beautiful thing it's like sharp over my head.

Everyone chopping tomato, chopping onion, doing this and this, you know, gossiping and people laughing. You hear all these voices. Like food, it's another language between people, it brings the people to each other. We miss those nowadays, this gathering, family, friends, people more involved with all that, studying, working, game playing. So, they have no more for this beautiful, a communication between each other, like, you know, to meet and to eat. They, they do everything fast.

So, that's why always I try to create something. I go back for the old-fashioned recipe to bring my kids together, to bring my mom and dad and family together because I want this new generation to live what we had before, mixed love between each other, you know, this is really missing.