Just a week before Easter, Hala Jahshan is putting together a baking list.
She's made these particular Easter cookies -- called k'ak, or, crown of thorns -- since she was a girl, when her family was displaced from Palestine to Lebanon, then again within Lebanon during the war.
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| Hala Jahshan |
It isn't only the taste that is sweet here.
The memories are too.
Her mother's kitchen would be packed with women neighbors, who all came together to knead the dough, add a pinch of sugar to the crushed dates, while kids from the entire apartment building were packing in to watch and to hope for bits of batter.
Although her own son is 36 now, she sure he'll find a reason to come by this week once she's started baking.
The ringed cookies are said to symbolize the crown of thorns worn by Jesus as he was tortured and crucified. It isn't odd that the treat is sticky and sweet, commemorating a sacrificial act, according to Jerusalem's Christians. Remembering the suffering is a very real part of the coming holy days.
But the final outcome, after all, is joy.
"Joy, yes, it is joy for us," Hala says, talking through Skype into a computer monitor from the Melia Shop in Jerusalem's Old City, right on the Via Dolorosa. She is there practically daily, helping to sort, categorize and mend, if needed, the pieces of embroidery brought to the shop by women artisans across the West Bank.
She listens, too, to stories of worry and loss, and to stories of hope, where women are finding ways to support their families and, in this shop, each other.
But this week, she'll be listening within.
After nearly 40 days of no cheese, no milk, no meat, she's tending to her Lenten prayers - and readying for the Easter meal.
Raised by Christian parents, Hala says that she always followed Orthodox teachings.
But it was her husband, who, after the marriage that brought her back to Jerusalem, really taught her the Bible and helped her to experience Jesus as not just a message in the mass.
"Something in your heart changes," she says. "It is just a feeling that is within you."
It tickles her to share the recipe she's carried from Palestine to Lebanon and back - and is now sharing online with readers she hasn't yet met.
K'ak - Hala's Recipe
(You may need to buy some ingredients in a Middle Eastern grocery, a health food store or a specialized spice shop.)
2.2 pounds of wheat semolina flour
2 cups of butter
¼ cup of oil
½ teaspoon of rock cherry
¼ teaspoon of Arabic gum
Mix ingredients and oil in a bowl and refrigerate two days before baking. Add the yeast mixture (1 teaspoon of active yeast and warm water) after kneading the dough. Let it rise and set oven for 350 degrees.
Filling: Mix together 7 cups of soft dates, add a pinch of oil and nutmeg, as well as sugar.
Roll out the dough and cut with a round cookie cutter. Add date mixture in the center and then roll the dough into a ball, crimping the edges. Force your finger through the center to make a hole and then bake the cookies at 350 for 12 minutes.
K'ak is a typical treat in Palestine and families have variations on the recipes.
A recipe with more accessible ingredients is used by the brothers who run the Abu-Aziz Baker in the heart of the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City.
The family recipe is:
1 pound, 2 ounces of fine wheat semolina flour
4 Tablespoons of sugar
½ teaspoon active yeast
½ Tablespoon anise
½ cup vegetable oil
7 ounces of butter
The filling includes: Five ounces of thick date paste, a little vegetable oil, a little water, if needed.
Add the oil, butter, sugar and flavoring to the flour and work it together. Knead the dough, adding yeast and only as much water as necessary to keep it pliant. Let it sit as the filling is prepared. The filling should be soft, but firm enough to be rolled into balls a bit less than an inch in diameter.
Break off biscuit-size pieces of dough, making each into a ring wrapped around a ball of date filling. Then press the filling down so the cookie is shaped like a wheel. Pinch a design into the top of the cake and bake at 250 degrees for 20 minutes.
Let it cool and sprinkle with confectioner's sugar.
The last recipe is reprinted with permission of the Presbyterian News Service.
How about old-fashioned smocking - done Palestinian-style - on a gorgeous summertime dress for little girls in springtime temperatures anywhere?
It is available in a range of sizes with embroidery in colors from orange to pink, red and baby blue. Women in the school's sewing and embroidery have a selection now for Easter-wear and all summer long.