I got this recipe for Red Lentil Soup from "Dove's Eye View
An Arab-American woman sees signs of hope. (LINK}
This sounds a more to my taste onion-wise, and it doesn't even have any garlic in it. I looked around the net under "Iranian Red Lentil Soup" and none that I read had anything close to the amount of onions and garlic like the one in the book does.

Red Lentil Soup - Recipe

This recipe is a Dove favorite, not only for its flavor and simplicity, but also because it came from Claudia Roden, an Egyptian Jewish (now British) food writer born in Cairo. Her Sephardic family loved this soup, whereas I encountered it in Muslim Egyptian households as a Ramadan break fast specialty. Vegans in America love this soup made with vegetarian broth (or water). It's a true Middle East peace recipe.

1 large onion, finely chopped
1 3/4 cups (350 g) split red lentils
7 1/2 cups (1 3/4 liters) meat or chicken stock or water*
Salt and pepper
1 teaspoon cumin
juice of 1/2 to 1 lemon
Extra virgin olive oil to drizzle, to taste.

In a saucepan put the onion, lentils, liquid, a little salt and pepper, and simmer 1/2 hour, or until the lentils have disintegrated. Add water if soup needs thinning. Stir in cumin and lemon juice and adjust seasoning (Leila's note - this really needs salt and lemon in generous quantity). Let people help themselves to a trickle of olive oil.

Possibly. But what about all the garlic?? Blek!! :vomit:

LOL..... It's the same recipe as I have in an indian cookery book ( well a woman's weekly cookery book which is more like an extra thick booklet than and actual 'book' )

Maybe the two places got the recipe from each other?

Either way you're right, there's no garlic mentioned and even if there was, I'm sure it would be in much lighter and more stomachable amounts.


If I had the sapre money to buy the ingredients I'd try the Pomegranate Soup's recipe just out of devilment to see what it tastes - or indeed smells like, but I don't. Every single penny has to be counted for and made to stretch to two here in today's ecconomy
Maybe in times to come - if there ever is a surplus of onions and garlic in the world. Hehehehe....

I am confused - i didn't pay attention to meassures in receipes but when one looks at it - doesn't look delicious nymore

Jakki You tries migraine receip? Didn't work? I am planning to try it next time i will have problems

Yeah Durga, I tried the recipe and it had no effect on me what so ever. I hope it works for you though. I guess we're all different and different thinks work for different people right? Let me know if it does work for you Durga.

I also tried Feverfew the herb. Apparently chewing on feverfew leaves can help to radically minimize a migraine if taken at the very first inclings of it's onset. No luck with that either I'm afraid. Even tried it in a tincture form and as a herbal drink. Still no luck.

I will post my review of the book a little later today, the serves was down for service earlier, so now I'm catching up with news and regular posting first.

When I first picked up the book 'Pomegranate Soup' and began the first chapter, my thoughts were that of "Oooh how delightful! a book written in a completely different manner. Even some of the most normal descriptions of everyday things were given a culinary name as a descriptive.
Recipes at the beginning of each chapter, giving the idea that each chapter was centrered around happenings in people's lives whils the recipe was concocted started off that way, but as the book progressed I found the authors mind wandering along with my own.

Every neighbourhood has a 'Dervla Quigley' who pers through curtains, knows everything about everybody else and hates it enormously when things hapen beyond her control or approval.
I becaome engrossed in her and her behaviour. The where's and why's of the reasoning behind her being housebound and the life of her down trodden sister.
I got rather frustrated with the book as it reached it's middle and Dervla and her witchified muesings seemed forgotten, only to re-appear around the latter quarter of the book as an after-thought.

I first thought the book might be about the lives of the women who bought the pastry shop from the Italian Stallion's wife, their struggle to make such a rare gem of a restaurant the likes of which the local's had never seen before and the funny and normal happenings in the process.
In a way I was right and in a way I was not.

I seemed to have become bogged down with the malaise feelings of the local's towards their deceased Italian pastry shop owner and his wife, and one persons desperate attempt to buy the shop and push out all foreighners. Or so it seemed.
When that kind of thing happens in a book I become 'switched off' I read with a different kind of gusto, and instead of thoroughly enjoying the book in all it's glory, I read with it all just washing over me.

As this is not Mehran's first attempt at writing, I was kind of disappointed that she allowed my interest to remain. I didn't stop caring about the sister's but I did lose interest a bit.
A lovely change to normal reading, I'm very pleased I read and perseveared with it, and one I would probably read again.
Knowing what to expect can sometimes help me to read with a different perspective and I often enjoy a book much better second time around.

When i finished reading i was a bit dissapointed - it felt lioke the book was finished to abruptly and i needed more information about each sister - how they coped with the situation. That is one of the reasons why i didn't write what i think immediately.

But from time perspective i find the book quite good - i would definitely reach for her other novel. The structure of the book was great - receips which were connected to people psychological state and to events, showing all sisters personal problems and showing how they are influenced by the place they stay in and by other people. I enjoyed it a lot.

But the book started to be difficult when Bahar enters the pub, while looking for Layla. It always terrifies me how people are full of prejudices and how cruel thay can be toward anyone "different". In this case it was even worse - they were cruel not simply because of their believes but because of Thomas McGuire's influences in the city.

Also Bahar's past was a hard bit to read, especially the ease that dogmatic dictatorship pulled women on their side, trapping them in situation without exit. Scary, mostly because of its realism!

The parts that always made me feel better were all the fragments about Marjan. She was very stable and calm, standing firmly on the ground. I've expected her to be the one to fall in love with the guy who saved Layla on the beach. I guess in real life Bahar wouldn't be ready so fast for new relation - but that is only my impression.

I too was disappointed in the way it ended, mind you, as I've already said, I felt a little bogged down with events rather than what I really wanted to know about and that was the sisters themselves.

I agree Durga, when it comes to Bahar entering the pub, the prejudice's she faced were cringe worthy to say the least. I felt ashamed to be human on reading of their cruelty towards her simple because she is 'different' from themselves. Do I feel the book needed that? No. Not really.
I think the book could well have managed without that to add extra drama.
I know it's reality, but we see enough of that in the real world. We read books mainly as a form of escapism from all that's nasty and horrible in the real world.
We don't necessarily need it in books we choose for entertainment unless we knew about it's content beforehand, and it's not what we expect in a culinary orientated book.

However, having said that, I knid of got the feeling this is what they were all up against and that's the real issue of the book.
Not just the struggle to open such a restaurant but the fighting of people's prejudice's before you even begin.

The dictatorship is soemthing we all feel uncomfortable with. Possibly because to a degree or another we live with it ourselves.
I know it only dawned on Marc the other day when we were discussing being 'self-supporting' how impossible that is to actually do in today's society at least here in the UK.
Sure you can grow your own food, make your own dung-fuelled generators, use horses for transport etc., but you still have Council Tax to pay. How could anyone wishing to just live off the land and put back what they use ever be given the chance to?
So, to a degree he agrees that it is impossible toa void dictatorship no matter where you are.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I did find myself skimming through some pages simply because I'd become a little bored by it's contents and because I found some of it a little 'uncomfortable'. That's not becuase of it's content in general, I read worse than that on a daily basis, I think it was down to the way it was written - possibly?

As I said, I am glad I read the book, and I probably will read it again. Sometimes books you find uncomfortable or boring first time round are much better on their second attempt. I'm not one for putting books on shelf just to sit there unread. this book IS on my shelf.

At the moment i am agiang "going" through the book - i want to copy some of the recipes and i am looking for quotes that described the meaning of particular dishes - i guess there was something like that (like connecting them with moods and events?)

do we have a July book in mind?

A new thread for July's book club options will be open later today for people to add their suggested book titles

So pleased you're joining us! Welcome indeed

I've never been to Ireland, never really wanted to go to Ireland in particular and this book has done nothing to persuade me to visit it. I liked the subject matter and I thought it would be a good read, I also liked the idea of having a recipe for each chapter, that is very original but could you actually make any of the recipes in this book, and how many people are they meant to serve?!?! Seven onions and seven cloves of garlic for just seven cups of stock?!?! No one would come near you for weeks after that. You would smell that restuarant in dublin!
A very wasted opportunity as this book could have been a lot better than it was and much more interesting. It just really didn't grab me, as I got half way through it did lose my interest and it was a struggle to finish. A shame really.

The book left me luke warm. I enjoyed reading it at some parts, but I got bored at others. I found the prejudice aainst the sisters overdone. Maybe it's becasue here in he USA that level of prejucice would not be expressed so blatetantly. Is it really like that in Ireland? I don't know. At any rate I found the book enjoyable, but not one I would re-visit. The book reminded me in many ways of a Maeve Binchey book.

the prejudice part i could easily imagine in my country in closed neighborhoods in bigger cities or in small towns - these were the parts that make me feel uneasy and i actually felt sorry for any foreign people who are put in this kind of situation...
But i have no idea if it happens in Ireland too