"northern africa" news and stories

Los Angeles gourmet chocolatier Compartes has created the perfect combination of style, charity, and deliciousness.

Chocolates for a Cause (5 piece box for $20, 10 piece box for $30) brings you five explosive chocolate flavors decorated with little colored Africas in a box with a Relief Beads bracelet, all to benefit Darfur.

Funds raised from this collaboration [with RELIEF INTERNATIONAL] go directly to funding the only women's center in Darfur!

The five flavors are made with the finest African ingredients - some of them hard to find, like carmelized plantains and grains of paradise.

You can order the packages here (in plenty of time for the holidays!) or click here for more info on the Relief Beads bracelets.

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What Tabasco is to Avery Island, harissa is to Tunisia. This brick red tomato, garlic and spice paste is stirred into stews, served as a condiment for elaborate couscous dishes, and used as a rub for meat. Though originally Tunisian, it's ubiquitous in Moroccan and Algerian cooking as well, and tends to show up wherever North African food is served, whether at a Parisian kebab joint or a Manhattan merguez sandwich stand. I like to use it to spice up bean dishes, mix it with a little mayo for a sandwich spread, and stir it into yogurt as a dressing for cold lamb.

You can find harissa in cans or bottles at many North African and Middle Eastern markets, or you can make your own. Mediterranean food expert Clifford A. Wright has a good recipe on his website, using guajillo chiles easily found in Hispanic markets.

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I have a love/hate relationship with the city in which I live -- Los Angeles. You can't beat the balmy weather (did I mention that I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt all day today?), but you also can't beat traffic, no matter how carefully you listen to the traffic report, time your driving with "rush hour" or opt for surface streets.

But in the end, I love Los Angeles, which is why I love these dinner plates from notNeutral. The dishwasher-safe porcelain plates are 12" in diameter, feature the downtown core printed on a black background, highlight key buildings in red, and indicate rivers and public spaces. While I favor Los Angeles, the plates also come printed with Shanghai, Cairo, Berlin (part of Collection 1) and New Orleans, Washington, D.C., Las Vegas and Dubai (part of Collection 2).

Each plate is $50.

The idea of worms is not something I'd normally want to bring up on a food blog, but in the case of mega-ginormous food conglomerate Kraft, worms are driving the development of a new food line.

Wait...what?!?!

Yes, worms, but don't worry about finding the creepy crawly things in your next blue box of macaroni and cheese. Kraft is developing a new food that is supposed to taste good, and also kill intestinal worms, which is a major problem in in rural Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The food is still in the early stages of development, so there's no word on what the food will be, but one of the ingredients in it will be a de-worming pesticide. It sounds horrible to put something called a "pesticide" in food, but let's just think of it as a chemical that will help millions of children get rid of those nasty intestinal worms.

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Somehow I don't feel quite right posting this sumptuous array of sweets from La Bague de Kenza, a famous Algerian pastry shop in Paris, in the lurid back alley we at Slashfood call Food Porn. But since there's no category for Food Romance, I have no choice. C'est dommage.

These towers of goodies filled with honey, nuts, rosewater and all manner of other indulgences were captured by food writer Rachel Finn. The photo graced a recent Gastronomica article titled "Gâteaux Algériens: A Love Story." Finn wanted to find a gift for a man who owned her "heart for seven years," and chose some exquisite pastries.

From the excerpt I'm led to believe that because of the depth of her relationship, and what I imagine to be one huge sweet tooth, she sampled all of the shop's wares. Romantic as that thought, is I'm not sure I buy it. Ah, who am I to say, I'm always eager to "test" gifts before giving them to a lover who's as passionate about food as I am. Of course one always runs the risk of consuming the present before giving it to one's significant gourmand.
[via: Algerian Cuisine]