21. Waiting Room
غرفة الانتظار
Sam(a) ate great, big mouthfuls of bread-crusted fish kofta in a tomato and cumin broth. One only feels their mouth full and actively tastes a morsel of food for seconds at a time; that’s science. But Sam(a) was resolved to change this — to feel herself to be completely immersed in a state of taste — of culinary rapture for the whole duration of her Shabbat meal.
In New York, Sam(a) had used Japanese パン* - panko -breadcrumbs to bread the Shabbat fish kofta dinners that she prepared for herself and her grandfather. She gave the otherwise light-flavoured tomato-cumin broth a kick with sriracha. The Egyptian version of fish kofta — which is a bit like saying the Italian version of pizza or the Arab version of hummus — was not at all spicy, but beyond that, th
