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HERE’S a hot diary ‘date’ for literary lovers and fine food connoisseurs … involving a milkshake, yummy nibbles and a photographic presentation of an author’s sticky selection of stories.
Celebrated chef and cookbook celebrity Sarah Al Hamad will be flying in to Bahrain from the UK to launch her new book at the Words BookstoreCafé on Budaiya Highway in Saar on Saturday evening.
The Kuwaiti-born writer went on a trail of the Arab world’s most famous fruit to collect recipes for her second published work entitled Sun Bread and Sticky Toffee: Date Desserts from Everywhere.
She told GulfWeekly: “This is a global cookbook about a very local fruit, which we all love and revere. I am very excited about launching my new book in Bahrain. It’s a place I know and love well from countless visits over the years. It’s very special.
“I travelled to the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, California, Spain and the North of England to trace the story of the date fruit. Living in the UK, I was inspired to investigate the root of the quintessentially English ‘sticky toffee pudding’ recipe, and why and how it came to contain dates as a key ingredient – that was the beginning of my date trail around the world!”
Sarah has been based in London for the last 16 years. She landed in the UK to do an MA in Middle Eastern Studies in 1997 and then took a job working for a publishing company which is how she became interested in books and the world of writing.
She has also hosted the West London Mosaic Room’s Cardamom and Lime Supper Club dinner introducing the flavours of the Gulf and Arabian High Chai afternoons, featuring freshly-baked date scones, saffron and cardamom cake, rice pudding and other sweet delights.
She explained: “I wanted to produce beautifully-photographed and well-researched cookbooks on Gulf cookery. My first book Cardamom and Lime: Recipes from the Arabian Gulf contained many recipes from Bahrain, where I did a big chunk of my research with the help of my foodie friend, Razan Al Saleh, who introduced me to her family home’s delicious cooking.”
Sun Bread and Sticky Toffee: Date Desserts from Everywhere, however, is the story of a three-year journey in search of date palms and dates everywhere including Bahrain, Kuwait, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, taking in the date festival in the UAE’s Liwa and on to Elche in Spain, Cumbria in England – the home of the sticky toffee pudding – and, finally, the Coachella Valley, in the US state of California.
Sarah added: “The book is fully illustrated with my own location images I do for all of my work, and 40 date dessert recipes from around the world photographed by Kate Whitaker. Recipes range from the ancient to the modern.
“In the Gulf it is said there are ‘360 uses’ for the date palm and its fruit has been part of our culinary and hospitality culture for centuries.
“However, dates make an appearance in other sunny locales too, like Andalucía, where the Moors cultivated the tree very successfully and the legacy remains in Elche, a UNESCO world heritage site, similarly, California’s date industry – the newest date production centre.
“The date is versatile and nourishing. Purists will stick to the fruit itself, savoured with a cup of bitter qahwa; other uses include blending it into cake batters as a sugar substitute, drizzling date syrup over morning porridge, roast vegetables and meats or to cut through tartness in stews and tomato sauces. It is believed to have many medicinal properties, too.”
Excitement is growing at the café which has hosted a number of successful book launches and celebrity visits.
“We are very excited that Sarah is coming to Words BookstoreCafé to launch her new book. She will be giving a slide presentation and cooking demonstration, as well as signing her book, so we would urge people to join us as it will be a fun evening,” said co-owner, Eileen Abuhamad.
The Sun Bread and Sticky Toffee event starts at 7pm on October 5 at the venue which is located in the Palm Square development close to Alosra.
Sarah has shared her date and polenta cake recipe from the book with GulfWeekly readers to cut out and keep.
