September 05, 2013

Hoarding

I bet you are wondering what you are looking at. This is a cabinet in my kitchen, stocked with preserved grape leaves. Why would anyone would want to store that amount of grape leaves?
 
Kitchen Cabinet
 
In my household, we have a teenager. Actually, this is his last year as a teenager. And for those not familiar with teenagers, they can consume massive amounts of food. Especially around midnight. The old aunt living in our house sometimes cooks for two days, and prepares an entire dish – and we’re talking  those family size Pyrex dishes - for the next day. He’s been known to come home at night, raid the fridge, eat the entire family meal for the next day, on his own, and then place the empty dish back in the fridge. 
This is more like an assembly line than a kitchen

 ‘Warra arij’ is his favorite. It is stuffed grape leaves.  Now that the political situation is not too bright - Obama is still intend on striking Syria (even though Senator McCain prefers playing Poker ) - there’s always the risk that suddenly the situation turns for the worse, and shops close for a while.
 
The old aunt believes the apocalypse is upon us, and she has started ‘hamstering’, as we say in Holland; she started hoarding food items that she’s afraid she might run out of in case of a prolonged conflict. 
 
Final product
 


And one of them is of course the  famous ‘warra arij’  (which I don't know how to cook). My daughter discovered her stash. “You’ve got to come in the kitchen and look at this,” she said, “This is just plain ridiculous.” I admit, it does look a little ridiculous. But hey, if trouble hits the fan, and you have a teenager that wants ‘warra arij’, I guess this will do the job.
But by jove, how are we going to gnaw our way through this massive amount? If Obama won't kills us, the grape leaves will.  
How to fold 'warra arij'.
I am not sure whose picture this is. I copies it once, but do not know its original owner.
Don’t know how to make them? Here’s a recipe

2 comments:

Fadi said...

I do believe it's wara' arish, not arij.. "arish" being the arabic word for "Vine".. Just a friendly correction :)

Anonymous said...

Wow, ziet er wel lekker uit. Wij zijn in Eindhoven ook aan de "wek": rabarber, chutneys, vruchten. Gewoon, omdat het lekker is.