Everywhere in Arab lands from Jordan to the Saudi-Arabian ports along the Red Sea and the lavish Gulf Emirates, food is very highly spiced — but it is a quite different gamut of spices to those of India — or so it has always seemed to me. In each town, or village souk, the spice booths are fascinating and magnetic — my first port of call. Mysterious powdered substances overflow big sacks and are scooped out by the pound, unlike the midget-stoppered jars of this and that to which we are accustomed. Nor do these great open landslides of spices, dusty brown, violet, yellow, green or orange, seem to lose their potency, thus exposed. In Oman, along the enchanting waterfront of Muscat, the lacy white-fretted balconies of the old houses and all the alleyways swim in heady odours wafted from the nearby spice bazaar. In the blue bay, sheltered by a sharp-cragged coastline, amongst all the turmoil of a modern port there are still some of those curiously formed high-pooped wooden craft such as the baghala or gangha, age-old pride of the Omani shipbuilders at Sohar. Such craft will have returned from Zanzibar — the spice island o f legend — with an entire cargo of cloves. Such is the demand, hereabouts. Continue reading Lesley Blanch Archive | Arabian Aromas (1989)
Tag: middle east history
BookBlasts® | Top 10 Reads for Independent Minds | December 2017
December: a time of merry abandon, or seasonal reflection? Our round up of eclectic reads to delight and inspire you takes in both . . . Happy Christmas! Georgia @bookblast
Black swans, white cygnets
Behind the Scenes at the Ballets Russes: Stories from a Silver Age by Michael Meylac (Ed.) translated by Rosanna Kelly (I. B. Tauris) illustrated with over 70 B/W photographs buy here
The Ballets Russes remains the most iconic ballet company of the twentieth century. Its dancers Nijinksy, Karsavina and Pavlova have become the stuff of legend. Inspired by the unique vision of the touring company’s founder, Sergei Diaghilev; the artistry of stage designer Alexandre Benois; and the spectacular costumes created by Bakst, the company gained a large international following. The list of Diaghilev’s artistic collaborators are a roll-call of some of the 20th-century’s greatest composers and artists: Stravinsky, Ravel, Satie, Poulenc, de Falla, Picasso, Matisse, Miró, de Chirico – to name but a few. Continue reading BookBlasts® | Top 10 Reads for Independent Minds | December 2017
Media Release | Lesley Blanch & the 1950s Woman | Waterstones, Gower Street, London W1
Georgia de Chamberet & Elisa Segrave celebrate the 1950s Woman
Wednesday 5th July, 6.30 pm Waterstones, Gower Street, London W1 @gowerst_books @quartetbooks
Join us for a glass of wine to toast the publication of Far To Go and Many To Love: People and Places by Lesley Blanch — the sequel to her posthumous memoirs, On the Wilder Shores of Love: A Bohemian Life, published by Virago (2015).
Tickets include wine and are redeemable against books purchased.
SPECTATOR Lesley Blanch was incapable of writing boringly or badly
Continue reading Media Release | Lesley Blanch & the 1950s Woman | Waterstones, Gower Street, London W1
Review | Aleppo: The Rise and Fall of Syria’s Great Merchant City, Philip Mansel | I. B. Tauris
After four years of war, Aleppo is a city in ruins, bombed by the Syrian air force, threatened by ISIL, its population decimated. Bread queues, electricity and water cuts, rationing and road-blocks are part of daily life. “Rubble and rubbish fill the streets. Looting, hunger and sleepless nights are normal. Medical services have collapsed.” One of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world, a thousand years of civilization have been reduced to wreckage.
Philip Mansel writes in his introduction, “Aleppo was a city with a rhythm of its own, challenging categories and generalisations. Lying between the desert and the sea, the mountains of Anatolia and the banks of the Euphrates, it was Arab and Turkish; Kurdish and Armenian; Christian, Muslim and Jewish. An Arabic-speaking city with a Muslim majority, under the Ottoman Empire Aleppo also became a centre of French culture and Catholic missions. Like many other cities in the region, it mixed East and West, Islam and Christianity. Until 2012 Aleppo was distinguished by its peaceful character. For 500 years, whatever their origin, its inhabitants had lived together relatively harmoniously. The reasons for this harmony, and for the current cataclysm, are the subject of this book.” Continue reading Review | Aleppo: The Rise and Fall of Syria’s Great Merchant City, Philip Mansel | I. B. Tauris
