Falafel with Nahla

Steve Wirthlin, Hannah Tempest, and myself went out wandering in the city to see if we could play soccer with kids and maybe meet some people in the Palestinian neighborhood around the Jerusalem Center. After playing soccer with some kids for 30 minutes or so we met a woman named Nahla.

She was joking about how we need to get the kids playing in the park instead of just the road where there are a lot of cars. She offered us a drink of juice. Steve asked if we could help her make it and she invited us in. We made a new friend squeezing lemon juice in her kitchen. It was amazing how sweet and kind she was. The Palestinians have such an amazing culture when it comes to hospitality. They don’t have much as a people but they are incredible givers. Short story short she kindly invited us back to teach us how to make falafel.

This form just can't be taught.. Nahla's favorite apprentice! and for good reason!

We went back a week or so later and we, Paris included this time, and learned to make falafel. Nahla guided us through the process and had us help at each part. Nahla was incredibly kind and loved having us there.

"I just model with the food.. I don't actually prepare it." - Phillip Varner,  second generation male supermodel.

People really do love the Jerusalem Center and it has an awesome reputation in the area. After we ate we sat and talked to Nahla about her faith. She shared a few things that were really insightful for us to hear. It gave me a much better perspective to understand the Islamic faith. She talked about how she doesn’t hurt even ants because all things are here to bear witness of God so she doesn’t want to destroy a witness of God, no matter how small the animal or bug.

King Steven the XXIII preparing falafel for his subjects! 

She stressed her belief that if what someone is doing is good or the religion in which they place their faith leads them to do good then it is of God and that we should let them stay in that path. The last thing she said that was really cool was that religion does something really strange to men in that they become prideful in their beliefs and it ends up hurting them if they don’t have balance in their lives.

In short it was refreshing to see her perspective on what they believe instead of what I saw and learned in school back in Utah. I saw them as super radical and unreasonable before I came. Now I am beginning to see how they look to God in almost every part of their lives/days. This same attitude can be seen in almost everyone we meet here in the City. I’m so blessed to be here in this city meeting such amazing people! There is definitely a lot for me to learn from many people who are just like Nahla. Nahla didn’t feel comfortable taking any pictures because she was not wearing her head covering. Maybe in the future when we go back we can get one of her with her head cover on. Below is the recipe/ingredients for falafel that we used(I took this from Paris’s blog!)


Ingredients:
-       2 cups dry chickpeas (soak overnight)

-       1 small onion, chopped
-       3 cloves garlic (or you could do less… we went a bit crazy with the garlic)
-      1 head of cayenne pepper
-      1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley (Nahla says pick leaves that feel soft/limp)
-       2 tsp. cumin
-       ¼ tsp. black pepper
-       Almost two tsp. salt
-       2 tsp. of baking soda
-       1 tbsp. of water
-       Optional: 1 ¼ cup flour
-       Grapeseed oil for frying