Every night, those you live near are cooking — probably at the same time you are. What if you did something out of the ordinary during this daily routine? What if you cooked with your neighbor?
I recently did just that, and now I’m motivated to broaden my kitchen to include the knowledge, rituals and food memories of my neighbors.
I did what was outside the suburban Dallas norm. I asked my Plano neighbor, Tamara Abuomar, if I could cook with her. This did not seem out of the ordinary to her.
“[In Jordan] we always share food with neighbors,” she says. “It is a way of showing care and love to them, to welcome any new ones as well. We share new recipes or favorite meals for other family members, too. It’s something most of us grow up seeing our moms do.”
Abuomar says malfouf (cabbage rolls) was her favorite meal as a child. “All our neighbors knew that, and they made sure that they shared a plate with me whenever they cooked it, and I loved it!”
Cooking with neighbors opens the door to what humans have done for millennia, working side by side and sharing what we have with those around us.
“It makes me feel so good to share the love of food with my neighbors,” Abuomar says. “Cooking is a wonderful experience to get to know others and to build a good relationship with them.”
My time in the kitchen with Tamara was pure fun — two friends talking about life and making a meal together. We made ouzi, malfouf and yogurt sauce, and then shared it with our husbands and children. It felt like family.
“Ouzi is a traditional food to serve in my country when we invite family and friends to our house,” Abuomar says. “It is a celebration meal. It gathers everyone around and it’s a symbol of a welcome to our home.”
Our cooking experience on a recent Sunday morning revolved not only around traditional Jordanian food, but also the Instant Pot. Tamara shared Middle Eastern food and culture with me and I was able to share with her my knowledge of electric pressure cooking.
“[In Jordan], lamb meat normally is cooked in a [stovetop] pressure cooker,” she says. “For the malfouf and rice, not all families do them in the pressure cooker because these recipes don’t need a lot of time on the stove anyways. We used the cooktop pressure cooker, but the electric one is amazing and it translated the recipes very easily.”
Through this experience I was also able to help her adapt spoken family recipes into a written form, which included the use of the Instant Pot.
“The malfouf recipe is from my mom’s and my mother-in-law’s combined! It’s a legacy,” Abuomar says. “My mother used to cook it around this time of the year when the weather starts to get cooler. She always said that malfouf season starts in fall through spring. I believe it has something to do with welcoming the winter and being cozy around the table.”
Abuomar moved to Plano from Amman, Jordan a few years ago with her husband Feras Abumuwis and her three young children. “I knew it was a challenge for me but a good opportunity for the kids to experience this change and have more choices of life growing up,” she says.
She says the move has made her stronger and more confident, but it was difficult to leave her family and friends and start all over again.
“My grandmother loved to have all the family over at her house always. I still picture the big table of at least two large plates of ouzi with my aunts uncles and cousins around,” Abuomar says. “Some of us did not even have place to sit at the table. We were around 20 people sometimes. It was a great time with lots of joy and laughter.”
Rebecca White of Plano blogs at apleasantlittlekitchen.com.
Get the recipes:
Recipe: Lamb Ouzi with Saffron Rice and Yogurt and Cucumber Sauce
Recipe: Malfouf (Cabbage Rolls) in the Pressure Cooker
