Pickles and Pikelets

When I was in Tokyo in July I stayed with my very smart and artistic cousin. Our fathers are brothers, from a quiet family that's a bit Jewish, a bit German, a bit English, and above all, very very proper. My cousin went for something completely different - she married into a huge, noisy, expressive and emotional Lebanese family, and she's never looked back. It was really wonderful being with her in Tokyo, where she'd lived for just a few months. But she had a grasp on the language after some intensive lessons, so we managed to find our way around without too much embarrassment.

After a day's hard gallery-ing and shopping we'd go home to the apartment she shares with her gorgeous husband and their three lively children, and she'd conjure up the most amazing Lebanese feasts (her mother and sisters in law taught her to cook when she first got married). In fact, apart from the bento boxes that I had for lunch at the conference I went to at Tokyo University, I ate mainly Lebanese food while I was in Japan. And what what food it was, so good, made with so much love, that I never once wished for sushi.

So, I have her recipe for Lebanese Lenten kib'be (kib'be a'raahib, or monk's kibbe) and in a rare cooking moment I'm going to attempt it tomorrow night. I've just been up to my local Middle Eastern deli to get some of the ingredients, the most exciting of which is a jar of mackdouce - pickled eggplant stuffed with red pepper and walnuts. This is served with the Lenten kib'be (a sort of nutty "pie" with a potato crust) along with lemon soup, green salad, and radish relish. Watch this space.

It's Ramadan, and the deli had some special things on offer:

like these mouth-watering bags of pickles - soaking in this briny liquid are cabbage, whole chillies, chunks of cauliflower, beetroot, and red capsicum...

and these, the softest of fluffy pikelets, sold with a tub of sugary rose-water syrup in which to dip.