food – Anthrow Circus

“I Was Raised Under the Trees”: Olive Harvest in Jordan

STORY BY HEATHER M. SURLS
PHOTOS BY ISABELLE BERNARD & HEATHER M. SURLS

Outside the northern Jordanian city of Ajloun, I sat cross-legged in Wael Rabadi’s olive grove, stripping ripe olives from just-pruned branches. Looking up from the work in my hands, I could see olive trees and oaks, grapevines and stone walls blanketing the hills in all directions. Eighteen hundred years ago, Rabadi’s ancestors owned this whole area, including the prominent hilltop behind me crowned by the centuries-old Ajloun Castle.

Teurgoule: Rice Pudding the Norman Way

A VIDEO REPORT BY BILL DIEM

This happens when I have been alone too long—the words start to leak out of everything and they will not stop. I cannot look around, I cannot take a single step, without it becoming prose, and it is not welcome. It thrusts me into a place where language imposes this acute separation between me and everything else—leaks its ink out of the bark, the pavement, the sky, flowing directly from itself to me in the form of a stream of words, and it will not let me rest.

For the Love of Oysters

VIDEO REPORT BY BILL DIEM

That the French love oysters is clear. Why they love them is a result of geography and culture.

Bon Appétit: Discover France’s Gratin Dauphinois

A VIDEO REPORT BY BILL DIEM

In a Culture Keeper first, at least in recent memory, we bring you a recipe! In a video report narrated in French (never fear, non-French speaker, we’ve included some English text for you), Bill Diem takes us from the market to the kitchen to a dinner table surrounded by friends ready to enjoy the evening’s star dish. Along the way he sheds some light on the history of this representative of France’s reputed culinary traditions.