Tagine

This is my tagine. I bought it at Sur La Table for under thirty dollars. There were other tagines that were far more expensive, but I wanted one that was ceramic and perhaps closer to what you might find in North Africa.

Badal

Badal, 2005

Badal is a 2005 documentary that was filmed in Israel by the director Ibtisam Mara’ana. Badal marriages are a cultural tradition where a brother and sister of one family are married to a brother and sister in another family. It should be stressed that badal marriages are of cultural rather than religious nature.

In Badal, the matchmaker attempts to arrange a badal marriage that includes a young woman who is considered too thin and undesirable for a normal match.

Cafés: Arkhangelskoe, Russian Federation

Olga and Pavel, Arkhangelskoe, Russian Federation, 2008

Outdoor cafés are wonderful places. In itself, an outdoor café requires only some tables, chairs, and perhaps an umbrella to block the sun and rain, but nothing more is necessary. What makes an outdoor café so special is that it takes on the culture and characteristics of it’s location, whether it is on a street, in a park, on a city square, or along a seacoast. There is no need to create an atmosphere because the atmosphere is already authentic. When food is a cultural experience, there can be no better place to enjoy it than amongst the culture and geography from which it was created.