This afternoon I was invited over to my landlords for a Saturday afternoon lunch. He has been asking me numbers of times to come over, and now that I am in between semesters, I have some time to break and enjoy a bit of Lebanese hospitality. I was lucky enough to meet Mr. Ghanoum or Captain, as everyone refers to him , just after my arrival here in Beirut. A colleague at the university had been apartment hunting and was kind enough to pass his number to me. It turns out that the apartment was perfect and him and his family even greater. I have been over a number of times already in the past three months. They live only two blocks over in a 150 year old home overlooking the sea. The Captain is a retired pilot and tells many a story of living in New York City making once a week flights to Anchorage Alaska and/or Amsterdam. But now he and his family are back in Beirut, where he watches sports on his big flat screen tv and plays tennis on the AUB courts.
This Saturday I was asked to come over to lunch as his daughter and family would be there. Lunch was at two. I had to actually call my local Lebanese friend to find out if that meant 2:30? In surprise he said it actually meant a little before 2. I grabbed some nice little chocolates from a local bakery on my way over and arrived about 10 minutes before 2.
Though the Ghanoum’s do live in a 150 year old home, several stories have been added about 30 years ago. They live on what was the top floor, the third. Their home is a classic Lebanese layout with a central living room that stretches front to back with three arches as the windows. The main living room and dining room are there filled with many a gilded item, an elephant tusk and an incredible hookah pipe collection. The bedrooms are off to one side of this space and the other side houses the kitchen and what I will refer to as the “parlor.”
I arrive with the captain in his “parlor” with his hookah pipe at his feet. He doesn’t smoke those flavored kinds, but the real deal, plain ol’ tobacco. The room is lined with couches on both sides with one end in book shelves crowded with family photos and a tv. The other end is walled with full glass French doors with amazing views of the sea. We walk out to the balcony to take a look at the sea and enjoy the incredibly warm and clear day for January. Across the street a 30 story luxury condo is going up, now with only the underground parking slabs in rebar exposed…the yellow construction crane makes its way across the site, the extent of its steel arm within only one meter of the Captains home.
I am early and we sit on the couches. I am served some fresh squeezed orange juice (one cannot imagine drinking cartoned juice after living here) and watch as the Ethiopian and Filipino maids make their way around the place, preparing the lunch. We talk of subjects like “do you like politics?” without getting into detail. “Do you play any sports” gets nowhere with me, so we talk about hiking and the recent plane crash and the missing black box. Around 2:30 the family arrives, the daughter and brother in law and their two cute little curly topped girls. We make our way over to the dining room, the table set before the hookah pipe collection lit up from behind.
The spread is a homemade Lebanese smorgasbord with pita bread, a lintel soup concoction that isn’t soup, green beans with white beans, eggplant, meat patties with garlic, a chicken and veggie dish, lebanah and a huge bowl of taboullah.
I am instantly in all smiles as Mrs. Ghannoum serves up an enormous portion of taboullah for her son in law. We are talking a dinner sized plate piled high with the green parsley mix. I haven’t seen such a large portion since watching my brother eat the stuff last summer – my brother is more Lebanese than he ever thought. I decline such a large portion and begin eating. But, alas, my family has had it all wrong! When the great grand parents came over, they adopted the spoon and fork for the taboullah, and traditionally they eat it with lettuce leaves and their fingers, pinching a bit and eating. So, I dive into the stuff with leaves carefully cupped, making note to tell the Americanized family to correct themselves.
I feared that my inability to eat the wheat based products would be an issue, but as English isn’t a problem (they all spoke three or more languages, the 3 year old included) my issue of gluten intolerance was met with familiarity, as other family members and friends having similar issues. I felt free to decline the other sure to be tasty dishes and indulge on the others.
A plate of fruit and “ka-nef-feh” (spelling?) came out after the lunch, and peeled oranges began to fly around my plate and then a large portion of the cheesy, gooey, sweet dessert was before me. They were kind enough to scrape off the breaded topping and I made my way with a couple of bites. It’s yummy, but heavy. The oranges cleanse the pallet. And we make our way back to the “parlor” with tv on and Turkish coffees served.
I was told that this was a special lunch and a great offer for me as their guest. As every weekend they have the family over for lunch, but every other weekend they have the barber over for haircuts for the men. So it was a buy two get one free for the Capitan and the rug was rolled up, a chair provided and a sweet little old man, (that has cut hair for over 50 years) opens his travel hair cutting kit. And one by one he delicately cuts our hair…”with scissors, the old fashioned way, not with a razor!”
Some ski jump finals were on the tv, the sea behind us was stirring up some waves and the skies where beginning to darken. The kids were getting ready for naps and the cell phones started to buzz, phone calls were taken, stories of local events were discuss – rattled off in a jovial mix of Arabic and English.
We sat back, enjoyed another coffee and soon more guests arrived. The sun was setting, my hair was newly coiffed and the conversation was switching to Arabic. The hookah pipes flared up again and I politely excused myself.
I was invited back anytime. My extended family in Lebanon.
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