Not a Fish (provincially speaking)

Skip this if you don�t want to make pita
(I personally find reading recipes dead boring. If you feel the same way, just skip this).

Don Lovelady (isn't that a romantic name?) wants me to elaborate on how to make pita. Wants me to put my money were my mouth is, as it were, or should I say my pita were my�OK, OK, I�m getting lost here. Never mind. Anyway, you have to understand it's not your regular bread here. You need some tasty stuff to mop up with it. Like, hummous, tehina, labane, you know. We often eat it with red lentil soup. It�s pretty dry on its own.

So we�ve got those two cups of flour, � cup warm water, and some salt. I can�t remember how much salt I put in. About a third of a teaspoon, I think. Put all that in a bowl and mix it up with your fingers until it�s dough (taste it to make sure it�s salty enough). Then cover the bowl with a damp cloth and let it stand for half an hour. By the way, you can use self-raising flour, if you like. I don�t think it�s as nice, but then you get that pita that opens up in the middles and you can put things in. What we�re making here is more like Bedouin pita, completely flat.

So after it�s rested you cut off little bits and make little balls. The smaller the balls, the smaller the pita, obviously. The Bedouin make these enormous ones. In Israel it�s called Iraqi pita. I can�t do that because my upside-down frying pan isn�t big enough. The Bedouin have these big rounded� I�m not sure what to call them. They�re like really big upside-down woks. Anyway, you have to flatten the balls, really flat. Really thin. The Bedouin women do this in their hands by sort of throwing from one hand to the other. I can�t do that, either. We just flatten them with a rolling pin. That�s the girls� job.

I now heat up the upside down frying pan on the stovetop and when it�s hot I put on the first pita. I turn it over, occasionally, and finally take it off when it�s gets sort of light brown-yellowish. It often has brown spots. I play with the heat of the cooker so it doesn�t burn. The baking takes some practice. It mightn�t be marvelous the first time. You just have to keep trying till you get the hang of it. You don�t want it too dark, because it�ll be like a rock.

Now to keep the finished pita warm while I do the others, I put them inside kitchen paper, inside a sheet of aluminum, folded up like a sort of envelope.

The most important thing is to eat it immediately. It doesn�t keep for very long. It has to be very fresh. I usually start the baking when all the rest of the meal is ready.

I�ll give you my mother-in-law�s recipe for red lentil soup, sometime. It�s really simple and good.

There, now, you�ve got me. If you try to make the pita and you don�t like it you probably won�t come into my blog anymore.

By the way, don�t expect any more recipes. I can only cook about three things. Are those sighs of relief I hear?