Cloudy with a chance of rain

While you are living in Lebanon many things can go unnoticed because they become part of our routine; things that any foreigner would consider as strange but in our point of you they represent a habit that we got used to, we are like a lion that has been tamed and taught to live by the rules that are imposed on him.  But the subject that I will talk about is in contradiction with the name of this blog since it is not typically Lebanese because it has only manifested itself this year. What I am going to talk about is the weather that has been cast on us this year.  Unable to predict the weather, TV stations left us no choice but to believe the exact opposite of what they are broadcasting. Usually the Lebanese reaction to the typical weather is very predictable:

1-Octobre: in this month, the regular Lebanese hangs his t-shirts in the closet and starts unpacking his winter kit and his ski equipment (the Lebanese are very passionate about skiing and start preparing 3 month in advance).  Also in this month he starts complaining about the lack of early showers that usually open up the rain season. And based on this keen observation, this Lebanese practices one of the sports he is the master of which is jumping to conclusions, and postulates that this year will be dry and that we will have some water troubles in the upcoming summer.

2-November: at this point we start experiencing some rain, but the Lebanese that was complaining in October is still not satisfied and worried that we haven’t reached the yearly amount of water dropped on our territory (noting that we are still in November, and it is called a YEARLY amount)

3-December-January-February:  in these three months every Lebanese will regret every complain he said during the previous months since the sky will open up and empty a bottomless bucket of water onto Lebanon thus drowning us under several meters of snow. It is at that moment that the Lebanese will take out their mitts and boots, jump in a car and go have a snow trip. For the skiers this will be a tremendous opportunity to show off their class skipping skills and enjoy themselves in faraya or the cedars or any other ski station. As for the rest of us, we will go to a mountain, make a barbeque on the snow, build a snow man, and then to practice another Lebanese tradition which is show off, we will put some snow on the car just to show to the rest of the world that we did it, we played with some snow, and now we are going to rub it in your nose, and to push the knife further into the wound, we will post all of the trip photos on Facebook. This period is also marked by the incredibly high amount off cold and flu which attack everyone and leave none at the mercy of their nose blowing, loud coughing and incessant sneezing symptoms.

4-March: usually the wrath of the winter is taken down and the flowers start blooming, the Lebanese is happy to see the sun again and put back the heavy coats in the closet, which he was wearing for 3 months. But there is always something to complain about in this country and this time it is the end of the ski season that is turning some smiles upside down and causing uninterrupted nagging for the whole month. However this year March was not merciful and he hammered us with some heavy rain and snow thus preventing us from healing from our flu or cold and leading us into an infinite punishing circle of nose blowing.  But the skiers are incredibly happy since for the first time they will be able to ski in April while other people might be a t the beach.

In conclusion we can say that this year the weather is more schizophrenic than John Nash, changing from sun to rain in a window of 15 minutes. But this is the beauty of Lebanon, the ability of enjoying opposites in a short term of time, take for example the fact that we can go from the sea to the snow in the matter of an hour, which is the Lebanese fun fact that we brag about the most even if no one does it.

Table for six

The subject that I will to talk about in this post is the food in Lebanon. Since eating is the Lebanese national sport I feel I must treat this subject with the utmost care and attention. There is a variety of food in Lebanon but the most striking and most popular cuisine are; Lebanese, American, French, Chinese, Japanese, Italian … here is the most eaten food and the significance of each:

1-American food: two restaurants describe the fast food in Lebanon; burger king and McDonald, or as it is referred to in Lebanon; Macdo. These two multinational enterprises are in a constant battle regarding the number of peers each one has. There is this group of people who state that McDonald is better than burger king and the other group says otherwise. But what we can all agree on is that none of those two restaurants serve us anything that is even close to meat. But still, they have a large popularity in Lebanon.

2- Burger joints:  the first burger joint that I know of is “let’s burger” near Sassine square, and that lead to an uncontrolled chain reaction and an untamable spread of this very profitable business. This restaurant was later followed by: “classic burger”, “brgr & co”, “the burger bar”… in this category there is also a division among us Lebanese. There is the group that asserts that “classic burger” is by far the best burger in Beirut, and there is the other half who says that “brgr & co” is better than “classic burger” yet the prices of the last one are more reasonable. The difference between these restaurants and McDonald and burger king is that these restaurants actually serve us something that can be considered as eatable, you do not get a wasteburger instead of a hamburger.

3-French restaurants: the French restaurant that is the most known is without a doubt “le relais de l’entrecote” at monot street. This restaurant is synonym to the words valentine’s day and girlfriend’s birthday. It is the hot spot for a romantic date as well as the most cliché restaurant to which you can ask a girl out. There are other French restaurants throughout the city but none of them has the charisma of “le relais de l’entrecote”. This other restaurant is immerging it goes by the name of “rare” but it didn’t quite make a reputation for itself.

4-Lebanese restaurants: it is without a doubt the most spread cuisine in the country and yet I find it surprising how not all the Lebanese have a weight problem; considering the amount of food we eat when we go to one of these restaurants it stuns me that not every one of us weighs more than 120 kilos. When one goes to a Lebanese restaurant, it means that he made a full day commitment, supposing you arrive at one, and then if you eat as fast as you can you will leave at four o’clock, since the Lebanese are relatively slow eaters when it comes to their own cuisine then you have just linked lunch and dinner. This is how a lunch at a Lebanese restaurant usually goes; before you are even seated you must order the arguileh (chicha), then you take your time asking everyone on the table what they want as” mezza” and you order it, for the next 2 hours platters of food will be landing on the table, more than the eye can see, more than the brain can count and more than the Lebanese belly can carry. You would think that this is the end of it, that what you had is lunch, but it is merely the appetizers since a sea of grilled chicken and meat is about to take over, and the irony is that every time everyone gets stuffed of appetizers and leaves absolutely no room for the main course, leaving the barbeque as feast to the bees that are roaming around you. You would say that it is over, that you can leave in peace, but then comes the dessert which is a set of fruits and suddenly everybody finds their appetite again. The saying:”to have the eyes bigger than the belly” can be applied to perfection when one goes to a Lebanese restaurant.

5-Japanese restaurants: in Lebanon Japanese restaurants can only mean one thing; sushi, and that only means one thing; an opportunity to show off my chopsticks handling skills. It is undoubtedly the most expensive cuisine one can find and yet we find a sushi place at the corner of every street and there we come across the homeless man that sits around the curve begging us for money, we can ask ourselves what a man that can barely clothe himself is doing at a sushi restaurant but then we remember that this is Lebanon and that even beggars have to show off. I still recall a time when we cared where we ate sushi because it is raw fish and can get us seriously sick, but now we swallow this food at every place that serves them.

6- Chinese restaurants: there is nothing to specific about Chinese restaurants in Lebanon, the most known is chopsticks and has nothing that jumps of the page. But I brought up this topic in order to express my jealousy towards the American people. In every sitcom everyone always gets Chinese food delivered to their place and they come in these cardboard boxes that can be assimilated to a cube or something of that sort. So I raise the question: why don’t we have these boxes?

7-after party: the after party is what I like to call these restaurants that stay open 24h per day, the most known of them is “Zaatar w Zeit”. If you go to the sodeco branch of this restaurant you will come across a minimum of 5 friends who will be most probably hazy and hungry as hell. The second after party that is quite popular is “domino’s pizza”. However his delivery service is much more active than his actual restaurant, he remains the king of pizza after a long night, since at that time it is the only pizza restaurant that will be open and you would have drank enough at the bar to be able swallow it.

If you walk the streets of Beirut, you will see an assemblage of delivery motorcycles breaking every law in order to fill up the bellies of the hungry Lebanese. Some people work out their jaw muscles 12 hours a day and still it is too much to ask from them to stand up once In a while and actually go to a restaurant.