Launching Tata’s Kitchen

A new section for those who know that cooking is an act of resistance.

In my house, we don’t say “Grandmother.” We say Tata.

In Arabic, Tata can mean many things depending on where you’re from. For us, it was the woman who held the keys to the house before we lost the house. It was the woman who knew how to make a single loaf of bread stretch for three days when the siege tightened.

Americans like to think of cookbooks as collections of hobbies. Things you do on Sundays when you have time and a clean countertop. This is not that. :)

This is an archive. My Tata didn’t write these recipes down, and she definitely didn’t intend for them to be published. She taught them to my mother because she was afraid they would disappear. (They never do, but Palestinian Tatas are dramatic. It’s a survival mechanism.)

Today, I realized she was right to be afraid. They are trying to erase everything else. They haven’t figured out how to erase the taste of za’atar yet.

So here it is. Tata’s Kitchen, where our Palestinian food recipes live. Not for your dinner party but for your memory from ours.