Beige, an understatedly luscious color for food, tastefully accented with brown.
Just brown, not chocolate brown, not coffee brown, not caramel brown, just brown.
Thank heaven I did not have to style this for a photo cause someone (photographer, client) would have pressed me to add something red or green. Red and green do not belong.
Whoops, that’s my camera cord swingin’. I was in a bit of a rush – eager to eat – and the screen on my camera is cracked so I cannot “review” a thing. Bear with me. I ain’t no stinkin’ photographer.
The Mediterranean Bakery and Cafe in Alexandria, VA, not the town proper, but just off the Duke Street corridor a ways west of Old Town, is a gold mine. The aisles are packed with an awe-inspiring array of preserved lemons, spices, grains, olives, sweets and on and on. I went in for lunch and came home with a full stomach and an empty wallet. I could not resist buying olive oil, cheese, fat almonds and who knows what all else. The packages performed telekinesis on my finger tips and my cart filled up magically.
There’s a fire burning in that oven and the flat bread topped with meat, herbs and spices seemed to sizzle as the cook slid it out. My shawarma went before the blaze too and then cooled its heels in styrofoam accompanied by lemony yogurt sauce, hummus, crisped pita and a big sprinkling of sparkly chopped parsley.
Look out for the tiny packets of chiclets. I thought my son would get a kick out of the miniscule box, which he did, but the hard, white lozenge inside, which I assumed would encase something sweet, chewable and forbidden mostly, actually tasted like onion to a boy who has never eaten an onion, and to me like ancient, dusty ginseng.
The Lunch Encounter 