Day of Honey

Disclosure: In any review for a product or service, products or compensation may have been provided to me to help facilitate my review. All opinions are my own and honest. I am disclosing this in accordance with FTC Guidelines. Please see “Disclose” and "Terms of Use" tabs for more information.

A luminous portrait of life in the Middle East, Day of Honey weaves history, cuisine, and firsthand reporting into a fearless, intimate exploration of everyday survival.
In the fall of 2003, Annia Ciezadlo spent her honeymoon in Baghdad. Over the next six years, while living in Baghdad and Beirut, she broke bread with Shiites and Sunnis, warlords and refugees, matriarchs and mullahs. Day of Honey is her memoir of the hunger for food and friendship—a communion that feeds the soul as much as the body in times of war.

I loved, loved, loved this book. The book opens up in the USA, NY to be exact, right after 9/11. The author and her Muslim Arabic boyfriend were not all that popular with everyone at that time. But they marry and move to the Middle East, where the two report on war, peace, and food.
You can tell the author is passionate about food- she writes about it like it is her lover. Like they have a secret, and she is trying to explain their torrid affair. I’m not kidding about this at all. She goes into detail about the origins of recipes, of words, of techniques. It’s wild how deeply involved this woman becomes in untangling the web of food she finds herself in.
Of course, all cultures revolve around food. We all think our culture is the one that does this. But EVERY culture thinks they are the one that revolves around food. The truth is- we all do, and Annia is kind enough to point that out. Every culture has their own cuisine and their own culinary traditions.

The author goes on a culinary journey and learns the importance of “eating the meal” to learn about how people live life. She does this while learning to cook and create the recipes herself, all while bombs are flying and people are being kidnapped. Her husband, a picky eater and for sure the yin to her yang, does not seem to enthuse much in this area. But his mother is a HUGE part of the book- the relationship between Annia and her mother in law takes over at times, but the food is always number one.

I have only begun to cover the book- war, protests, murder, assassinations, Saddam Hussein, dining with sheiks, her many friends and their lives- what ISN’T in there?
This is a must read if you love food, politics, history, culture, religion, …..etc
Loved this book. Hope you will, too!
Happy Reading!