Köstlich kochen & schlemmen mit Fady! |
"Köstlich kochen & schlemmen mit Fady" -
so lautete das Motto des Charity-Events von Blessed e.V. am 08.11.2009 in Berlin. 14 glückliche Gewinnerinnen unserer Verlosung hatten die Gelegenheit, sich einen Tag lang zusammen mit Fady der libanesischen Küche zu widmen. Somit konnten sie einen kleinen Einblick erhalten in die Kultur eines der Länder, in denen wir durch unsere Arbeit das Leben verbessern möchten. Mit Eurer Hilfe konnten insgesamt 320 Lose verkauft werden. Der Reinerlös in Höhe von 2.355,30 € fließt in unser Projekt "Truly.Help. - Tansania's children". Wir danken allen Loskäufern ganz herzlich für die Unterstützung! Alle, die leider nicht dabei sein konnten, können sich hier einen Eindruck vom Koch-Event und den Vorbereitungen machen. ![]() Bericht einer Teilnehmerin Berlin, Sunday, Nov. 8th, 2009 Of course all of us were there way too early! It felt like an eternity that we all stood outside that kitchen in the drizzling rain, reluctantly getting acquainted with one another. But in one aspect we all instantly agreed: after such a long time of waiting for this special day, every other minute of waiting was no longer anticipation but pure torture! Especially for one reason: we were freezing! At 10:00 o clock we finally got in. After a warm welcome by the Blessed Team, we got fitted with a nametag and were by chance divided into three cooking groups: one for the starters, one for the main dishes and one for the dessert. We would do original Lebanese cuisine! (It was said that this was Fady´s idea - but I didn´t ask him if it was so.) But he definitely contributed his own recipes. Since the Blessed Team had already heard the countless demands of other fans to bring these recipes, they had placed a little recipe-cook-booklet that Fady had signed on every seat on the lovingly decorated table. Before Fady came we started with the countless preparations essential in the oriental kitchen - as in: chopping tons of parsley, grinding garlic and squeezing lemon juice. And not to forget....washing spinach for hours............ ;o) ![]() ![]() When Fady appeared at about 11:30 am, vegetable chopping was interrupted for a happy meet and greet session. There was plenty of time to talk to a relaxed and good-humored Fady, to take pictures or catch an autograph or two. Afterwards he was given little presents by the group - a cookbook and the chef´s hat with that "cook mal, Fady"-pun, which he luckily got right away. To enjoy a relaxed cooking atmosphere all cameras were put aside. Heike from the team however, never got tired of taking tons of pictures and making video snitches to document this special occasion. Right away, Fady got out all the ingredients he had brought for his eggplant dip. He said he can make it by scratch only - therefore there is no recipe, only a list of ingredients. And he surely proved that he really CAN make it by scratch alright... I guess we were all quite surprised to find Fady being an exceptionally good, quite passionate cook! While he was making his eggplant dip, he regularly mingled with all other groups... assisting here, tasting there. He explained that a dish is only truly Lebanese when it contains all of the following four ingredients: parsley, garlic, lemon or lime and olive oil. ![]() ![]() Fady started roasting his pine nuts in hot olive oil - and suddenly everyone got in a hassle - telling him that this was an absolute no-go! Fady didn´t care! Lovingly, patiently, he shoved his pine nuts from one side of the pan to the other - ignoring the good advice he was being given. We were persistent: why oil? "They become sour - or how do you say in German... bitter!" he tried to explain. He bowed his head down slightly, kept shoving around his pine nuts and then risked a little wink of his eyes to see if he had convinced us. Nope! He didn´t! Well, Fady, even if you tried hard to hide it - I did see that smirking smile you had from ear to ear!!! He immediately confessed: "yeah - it´s not quite healthy using so much oil...but it tastes much better!" After that, Fady found a way to save the lentil soup we had basically ruined by using way too much water. He added rice and - woah- a whole LOAD of spices! Needless to say, he did of course eat the soup later on. On personal behalf... I was happy to have gotten Fady to tell me how to make the pumpkindish vegetarian style. Thanx for that, Fady, I appreciate it! Before we could sit down, Fady read the place cards for us, on which our names were written in Arabic. We then had a great belated lunch. All dishes were extremely tasty! Well, you can´t meet any friends after having enjoyed Fady´s eggplant dip (he used at least 9 cloves of garlic!) but it sure was delicious!! When I asked him about that huge amount of garlic, he just laughed and said that it would at least keep away vampires and that it is very healthy. He said that he had actually wondered why of all means people here take garlic pills...shaking his head all puzzled, he helped himself to another big spoon of his own crèation. All in all I did notice that everyone ate fairly little. But I guess we´ll never find out if this was due to the fact that cooking alone tends to make you feel stuffed, if of reluctance to try new exotic dishes or if it was because of Fady´s presence. While we were eating Fady gave us a short lesson on Lebanese table manners: the people WITH good table manners would roll pieces of the Arabian bread, called "moons", into little cone-sachets in order to fill them elegantly... whereas the "simple folks" merely tear the bread apart and plunge it into the dips. He emphasized how much he enjoyed working on the new album and how happy he was that Sony gave him the chance to take time to write his own songs. Several of these are supposed to be on the new album. Studiorecordings and the videoshoot for the single will be the next appointments in his calendar. And for everyone who is panicking, that he would from now on only sing uptempo numbers, he pointed out that there will of course be ballads... He also mentioned that he started taking piano lessons three times a week; got slightly philosophical on how he handles criticism (he himself definitely is his worst critic, he assured) and emphasized how devastated he is that the number of his facebook friends keeps diminishing for unknown reasons. Yeah, and even if just a piece of trivia - I got big ears (haha) when Fady said that his tomtom could talk like Mickey Mouse and that the little icons would then become hands and feet. (ohhhh, I want a tomtom like that! Fady, now where did you find THAT!!??! ;o)) Well, and then time was already up! Time flies when you´re having fun! Before Fady said goodbye he kept asking what would happen with all the leftover food. It must not be thrown away - he was really concerned about that. Well, don´t worry, Fady, we all took home some doggy bags! By the way, as a next event Fady suggested a picnic - quote: "a real one with BBQ"... We´d go for that! One can never get enough of any Fady-event! All of us really enjoyed this very special day and had a lot of fun. And so did Fady. I´m convinced of that. Truly. Thanx. Janina
Und hier berichten die Team-Mitglieder von Blessed e.V., die beim Event anwesend waren, von ihren Erlebnissen bei den Vorbeitungen:
Von einer Kürbiszucht im Keller-Oder: Was alles in einen Smart passt!
Tahini und weitere Entdeckungen! Zum Kochen benötigt man zuallererst die Zutaten, und da ich für mein Leben gerne einkaufen gehe, war dies genau mein Job. Gespannt warteten wir im Team auf Fadys Rezepte, um alles planen und organisieren zu können. Es sollte libanesische Küche werden, so viel war schon mal klar. Also bin ich voller Vorfreude und Neugierde schon mal beim libanesischen Lebensmittelhändler in eine Welt voller Gewürze und kulinarischer Entdeckungen eingetaucht, um die Lage zu checken. Sehr freundlich wurde ich dort beraten und stellte zu meiner Erleichterung fest, dass es auch das doch recht außergewöhnliche libanesische Fladenbrot in verschiedenen Varianten zu kaufen gibt. Schließlich nahm ich mir - völlig selbstlos - einen der köstlichen Weine zu Testzwecken mit nach Hause und versprach, wieder zu kommen.
Mit der Rezepteliste in der Tasche ging es dann zwei Wochen später los. Zu dritt schlenderten wir am Samstag zunächst über den Markt und kauften die frischen Zutaten ein. Zum Glück kontrollierten wir uns gegenseitig, sodass der Erwerb von 33 Zitronen noch rechtzeitig verhindert werden konnte - die Vervielfältigung der Grundrezepte auf die Teilnehmerzahl beim Kochevent hatte so seine Tücken ... Anschließend ging es zum Libanesen, der uns half, Curcuma, Camun, 7 Bahrat und Co. zu identifizieren und uns Mangosaft und libanesische Süßigkeiten kosten ließ, die wir dann spontan noch auf unserer Einkaufsliste ergänzten. Netterweise wurde uns auch noch geholfen, die Kiste mit dem Wein, dem Öl, den Kichererbsendosen und Pinienkernen etc. zum Auto zu schleppen. Jetzt durfte ich bloß am nächsten Morgen nichts vergessen ... naja, die einzige Sache, die ich dann doch vergaß (Filtertüten!), gab es dann zum Glück noch an der Tankstelle gegenüber der Mietküche. ;-)
Vor dem Eintreffen der Kochteilnehmer habe ich die vielen Zutaten zu den richtigen Rezepten hin sortiert und die Arbeitsplätze der fleißigen Köche mit dem notwendigen Werkzeug ausgestattet.
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