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#jesus was a palestinian man

zoramones · 6 months

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we cannot forget about palestine this christmas, especially since there are people of all religions being killed RIGHT NOW in christ’s homeland. and to the christian zionists who are supporting isr*el or to the christians who are “staying neutral” as a shield to stay WILLFULLY IGNORANT and complicit in this colonial states listless acts of MASS GENOCIDE, do you think jesus would do this? is staying neutral and silent in the face of the slaughter thousands of people who have done nothing to deserve it , MOST OF WHOM ARE CHILDREN, what christ wants of his followers? do you think christ would support a fascist, terroist state built on colonialism? now, i’m no believer but i KNOW that christ would denounce all of the things stated above. jesus said, love thy neighbour and help one another. he preached kindness and love above all and we need to remember that when celebrating, especially this year when there are so many atrocities committed against so many marginalised communities.

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kairamuwu · 8 months

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Noticed one of my (ex)moots stands with Israel so real quick I wanted to say that if you think what is real is doing is anything other than genocide you can fuck off, you're not welcome here.

It is truely one of the easiest possible things to just not be ok with genocide and ethnic cleansing

#been meaning to say something for a hot second #cause frankly those fuck off isreal propaganda ads were driving me insane #was scrolling down tumblr for block man art only to get big ol isreal flags with text saying how they need to take down hamas #jesus christ-#seeing a moot reblog a post referring to Palestinians as terrorists was truely the last straw on that one ig

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vaugarde · 4 months

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oh my godddd last post has stupid fucking democrats going "this is why biden has to win, because trump will make it worse!!!" it's ALREADY worse. a child is fucking dead under his presidency. nex died while he was in office. and this will continue to happen while he's in office. how do you see a senator calling a dead, two spirit nonbinary child "filth" and go "BIDEN WILL SAVE US!!!"

#id come up with an extreme anecdote like ''biden could do x and you all would still slobber all over his toes''#but like. jesus christ the man could LITERALLY do anything he'd fucking like and people would do that and say its ok bc hes blue #he's a zionist who's openly for the genocide of palestinians who's allowed for roe v wade to be abolished and trans children to be killed #hes got a rape conviction against him and hes pro segregation #he does all of that and more and people still think he's done some fucking good for this country and youre a fascist if you dont like him #absolutely insane.

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aimmyarrowshigh · 2 months

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mm. was gonna reblog a meta post that made good points and was well-written, but the very next post on OP's blog was WILD conspiratorial antisemitism/historical revisionism/Holocaust denial, so never mind. if you can't be intellectually honest about X i'm not going to take you as being intellectually honest about Y.

#first off: your beloved jesus was a jew. he was very much killed... for being a jew. he was a jewish man from judea. a jewish state.#second: beit lechem is literally a real place. it's... you can go there! it's real! and it's not in gaza!#he LITERALLY was not palestinian. but even more than that: if you can only care about (muslim!!) palestinians because you can pretend jesus #was one???? you DON'T CARE ABOUT PALESTINIANS.

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brilliantseer · 6 months

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this year, there is no christmas in bethlehem

paddy_melt on twitter / “oh rascal children of gaza” by khaled juma / the evangelical lutheran christmas church's nativity scene in bethlehem (ayman oghanna)

#palestine #christianity #ma’at #adding an image description later #i dont know how else to describe the parallels between baby jesus and palestinians #regardless of religion or gender #all palestinians are innocent and what israel is doing is cruel beyond belief #and it’s because the very existence of palestinians is a threat to zionism #idk though man

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bigsnorp · 3 months

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the thing about the 'was aaron bushnell trans' discourse is that like

that's the point. we'll never know. because he gave his entire life up. he point blank refused to be complicit in genocide and he expressed that in one of the most brutal and tragic ways possible. he quite literally decided that the extreme act of protest against the actions of his government against palestine was more important than his life.

he chose to identify himself as a man in his final moments. he chose to quite literally destroy his life for the palestinian cause, and no other action expressed that enough in his mind. if you care about him at all, the least you can do is fucking listen to what he wanted to say so desperately that he set himself on fire in front of the world just to be heard.

#aaron bushnell #palestine #tw suicide #'we lost a sister :(' we lost 30000 palestinians and counting. and that's just the ones that have been accounted for.#he is still entitled to a private life even in death. he chose to express this as a man and with he/him pronouns #let him rest. jesus. listen to what he told you not what he didnt.

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themovementgeneration · 6 months

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Yesterday - The Beatles

"Silent Night" Holy Night~...

The movie "Brain on Fire" is Garbage

Gepetto v.s Mary Shelley would be an insane movie though

Los Alamos was Crazy, I think im seeing colors again smh...mhmm spam. Roses are red violets are blue. I remember like it was Yaesterday...pop-pies. July frourth was the shiet. I can almost taste the fireworks. :P like some jolly ranchers spiked

Man I love School...

toemato tomato string theory is still string theory

youtube

SHOE me what you have Puppet of Andy cheeks :}

Honey Nut Cheerios was smacking back in the day. Honecombs a close matchup but as a collector I gotta go with Wheaties. NBA is still NBA

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queer-geordie-nerd · 6 months

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"Jesus was a Palestinian - if he'd been born today, he'd be buried under rubble in Gaza" 😐

No. No, he wasn't. If he existed at all, he was a Jewish man born in Judea, land occupied by the Roman Empire, centuries before Palestine even existed. In fact, Jews are called Jews because it comes from the word Judea - a fact worth remembering when talking about the rights of indigeneity to the land.

Stop peddling ahistorical bullshit - it helps exactly no one. Jesus didn't need to have been a Palestinian for you to give a shit about them today.

And quite frankly, this bare faced and completely wrong attempt to graft an identity onto him that didn't even exist yet reads as a truly sick and heinous way of reviving the oldest libel against Jews - one that has been used as an excuse for the most vile crimes against them for centuries - that they killed Jesus.

Because of course if he was alive today, those terrible "Zionists" would just kill him again.

It's not subtle. It's despicable actually.

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zoramones · 6 months

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friendly reminder before christmas ends that is what jesus would have ACTUALLY looked like based upon forensic science and anthropology founded by a team of experts led by Dr Richard Neave, formerly of the University of Manchester. jesus christ, the christian lord and saviour, was a brown man from bethlehem who would have spent his first days in rubble in he were born today under israeli apartheid occupation.

#zo’s info #🇵🇸🍉#boost this post!!#palestine #palestine resources #education on gaza #palestine education #never stop speaking about palestine #jesus was a palestinian man #jesus would be born under rubble #jesus would stand with palestine #free palestine #this isn’t a war it’s a genocide #israel is a terrorist state #no one is free until we are all free #zo ✬#zoramones

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the-dance-of-italy · 5 months

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Please, if you care about Palestine, please boycott The Chosen and Angel Studios

🍉 Masterpost with links to help Palestine 🍉

The Chosen Boycott Twitter acc with a direct fundraiser link, to send direct aid into Palestine 🇵🇸

For those who dont know, The Chosen is a biblical series about the life of Jesus of Nazareth and his disciples. A series about palestinian jew, who grew up in constant displacement, who fought in a pacifist way, against the roman imperialism during their colonization of Palestinian and surrounding territories.

He was heavily against the abuse of authority, the inhuman mistreatment of people , helping the poor and sick, gave a hand and ate with outcasts, never turning away from people who needed aid.

Palestinians are currently, and for the past decades facing constant displacement, abuse of unrecognized authority, falling to sickness and are in much needed humanitarian aid.

A series about the life of a historical palestinian jewish man should not be created and acted out by zionists.

The confirmed list of cast memebers suporting Israel are:

Dallas Jenkins (Creator, producer and writer)

Elijah Alexander (Actor, in the role of Atticus)

Shahar Isaac (Actor in the role of Simon Peter.) He was called into the Israeli military to participate in the genocide and was spotted in recent days in London for the S4 premiere)

David Amito (Actor in the role of John the Baptiser) (He has shown support for both Israel and Gaza, but seems to be mostly neutral to the situation)

[The list will be updated until there's confirmation of other people or statements issued from other cast and production members]

*This series is being funded primarily through fan donations. They're currently have a goal of 48 Million for the future season 5. Do not give them anymore money and urge others to NOT donate!!*

Just because the episodes are free on their app, does not mean its fine to watch them there. Nothing is ever truly for free. Especially when one of the cast members potentially has blood on their hands.

While the series has its own app from which to watch the episodes for free, theyre still going to release the episodes on theatres starting on February 1st.

The less views and users they recieve on their app, the better. Do not buy from their merch store. Do not go to the theaters and urge your friends and family who happen to be fans and are interested, to not go watch it.

Please, even if you are not religious, even if you've never even heard of this show before, please share this around. We cannot allow these people to make money, praising the life of a jewish palestinian (even if they don't want to admit he was) while ignoring what is happening in Palestine.

#The Chosen #free palestine #free gaza #palestine #boycott The Chosen #bible fandom #palestine boycott

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yuyu-finale · 5 months

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local palestinian man (jesus) makes a friend 🇵🇸

The palestinian authority made the palestine sunbird its national bird in 2015 after israel campaigned to remove “palestine” from its name.

#free palestine #jesus christ #palestine sunbird

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rhaenyratheecruel · 3 months

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Already seeing posts on here about how if Jesus were alive today he’d be a Palestinian man being massacred by Israel (*cough* Jewish people), and given the historical spikes in antisemitic incidents during Easter time, I feel it necessary to point out that when you say those things not only are you erasing Jesus’s Jewishness, you are buying into and spreading the conspiracy theory of Jewish deicide which has gotten Jews murdered for centuries. What Israel is doing is reprehensible and must be condemned, but spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories is not the way to do that. Please think and educate yourself before you speak. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_deicide

#antisemitism #i’m tired #love seeing xians wield antisemitism as a weapon just as they have done for millennia #miri’s thoughts

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quasi-normalcy · 2 months

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Actually, you know what? Ever since I learned that Ira Steven Behr signed that grossly unfair letter against Jonathan Glazer, I've been forced to kind of reevaluate some of my interpretations of things in Deep Space Nine.

Like Section 31. I was willing to suppose that it was always and only intended to be villainous. But knowing as I do now that the showrunner who included it is perfectly willing to turn a blind eye to genocide, I'm forced to wonder...was it critical? Was it?

Like, let's consider canon here. In "Statistical Probabilities", Bashir and the other augments calculate, in no uncertain terms, that the Federation can't win its war with the Dominion. Their model even accurately forecasts things that happen later in the series: the Romulans declaring war on the Dominion; a full-scale revolt on Cardassia Prime. The end of the episode kind of pooh-poohs their model, like, "Well you couldn't even forecast what Serena would do in this room" but like...(1) the premise is basically lifted from Asimov's psychohistory concept, which works on populations rather than individuals, and (2) there's even a line of dialogue in the episode saying that the models become *less* uncertain the further you go in time. And indeed, the Federation ultimately wins the war not because any of their assumptions were wrong, but because there was another factor that they weren't aware of: the Changeling plague. The plague that had, of course, been engineered by Section 31 to exterminate the Changelings.

So again you have to ask: *was* this critical? Or was the real message that a black ops division willing to commit genocide is necessary to preserve a "utopian" society, no matter how squeamish it makes a naïve idealist like Bashir? And yeah, the war is ultimately won by an act of compassion, but only *after* Bashir sinks to S31's level by kidnapping Sloane and invading his mind with illicit technology. So...is this really a win for idealism?

And then we have the Jem'Hadar. They're a race of slave soldiers, genetically engineered to require a compound that only the Changelings can give them. By any reasonable standard, they're victims. And yet, the series goes out of its way, especially in "The Abandoned", to establish that they're irredeemable. You can't save them. Victims of colonialism they may be, but your only choice is to kill them, or else they--preternaturally violent almost from the moment that they're born--*will* kill you. And of course, I've long assumed that this was just a really unfortunate attempt to subvert what had become the standard "I, Borg" style Star Trek trope where your enemies become less scary once you get to know them, but like. I would say that there's pretty close to a one-to-one correspondence between this premise and the ideology excusing the mass murder of children in Gaza.

Or the Maquis. There's this line at the start of "For the Uniform" where Sisko tells Eddington that he regards the refugees in the Demilitarized Zone as being "Victims of the Maquis", because they've kept alive the forlorn hope that they would ever be allowed to return to their homes and...Jesus, when I write it out like that, Hello, Palestinian Right of Return. [The episode of course ends with Sisko bombing a Maquis colony with chemical weapons, though it is somewhat less objectionable in practice than I'm making it sound here].

And you know what...I get that DS9 is a show that's intended to have moral complexity, and to be kind of ambiguous in a lot places, and not to give you simple answers and so on. And I'm *not* trying to do the standard JK Rowling/ Joss Whedon/ Justin Roiland thing where a creator falls from grace for whatever reason and people comb through their oeuvre to show that they were always wicked and fans were stupid for not seeing it earlier or whatever. But I will say that these things hit different when you know that the series was show-run for five seasons, comprising every episode that I've just named, by a man who would go on to sign his name to a letter maliciously quoting Jonathan Glazer out of context to drag him for condemning an active genocide. And given that I've been a fan of DS9 for basically my entire life, this is deeply unsettling to me.

#long post #star trek deep space nine

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najia-cooks · 6 months

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[ID: First image is a plate of stuffed grape leaves, zucchini, tomatoes, and lamb chops next to a bowl of yoghurt, seen from the top; second image is a close-up on the grape leaves and stuffed zucchini, seen from the side. End ID]

كوسا محشي مع ورق العنب / Kusa muhashshi m'a waraq al-'anub (Stuffed zucchini with grape leaves)

"كُوسَا" ("kūsā"), meaning "zucchini" or "courgette," is from the Persian "کوسه" ("kūse"), meaning "shark" or "beardless man"; it is so called because of its smooth skin. "مُحَشّي" ("muḥashshi" or "maḥshshi") means "stuffed"; مَعَ ("ma'a") is "with"; "وَرَق" means "leaf" (or "paper"); and "عِنَب" (Levantine pronunciation: "'ineb") is "grape." (Grape leaves are also sometimes called "وَرَق الدوالي," "waraq ad-dūwāli," in Palestine). Thus: stuffed zucchini with grape leaves! Stuffed grape leaves themselves date back to Medieval times, and are popular amongst various regions throughout what was previously the Ottoman Empire; however, each cuisine has slight variations in how they are cooked, and what they are called.

To prepare Palestinian duwali, one stuffs grape leaves with one of two types of filling: a meat one, using rice, ground lamb, and a variety of aromatic spices; or a vegetarian one, including rice, herbs, tomatoes, and peppers. A large pot is then prepared, sometimes lined at the bottom with meat—usually rack of lamb, but sometimes chicken, or whatever else is to hand. The meat is topped with sliced tomatoes; sometimes, with hollowed baby zucchini or eggplant ("بَاذِنْجَان"; Levantine pronunciation: "bātinjān") stuffed with the same filling; and, finally, with the grape leaves. The whole is simmered in an aromatic broth before the finished dish is tipped out of the pot into a large platter. It is usually served with plain yoghurt, which plays beautifully against the mild sweetness of the zucchini, the slightly sour grape leaves, and the savory, tender spiced rice filling.

This dish is usually made in large batches, with the women of the family sitting in a group around the kitchen table rolling tiny grape leaves. It was traditionally made in the spring or summer, when zucchini and grape leaves were in season—but it is now often made as one of the centerpieces of a Christmas meal, with frozen grape leaves that are thawed in hot water.

Christmas (Arabic: عِيد الْمِيلَاد‎, "ʕīd al-mīlād," "feast of the Nativity," or "mīlād," "Nativity" for short) is a Christian festival and feast day commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ. The largest meal of the Christmas season is usually eaten on Christmas Eve, which is celebrated on the 24th of December (in the Gregorian Calendar) by Palestinian Catholics. Large families travel across Palestine to come together for a dinner featuring bread, several vegetable salads, meat dishes (such as stuffed lamb or chicken), grape leaves, topped flatbreads and other savory pastries, and an assortment of cookies. Chocolates are often given to children.

Christmas festivities are observed in Palestine during Advent ("مَجِيء المَسِيح," "madji' al-masīḥ": "the coming of Christ") and Christmastide, and at different times by different sects of Christians. One of the most common destinations for Christian tourists is the ancient city of Bethlehem (بَيْت لَحْم, "bayt laḥm," lit. "house of meat"; related to the Aramaic בֵּית לַחְמָא "house of bread"); pilgrims flock from around the world, and from other locations in Palestine, to attend church services and festivities and to visit holy sites. The Church of the Nativity (كَنِيسَة المَهْد, "kanīsa al-mahd"), so called because it is built on the place where Jesus was believed to have been born, is a particularly popular destination.

Bethlehem also has an ancient history as a home to many of Palestine's grape orchards; after the widespread destruction caused by the Crusades, some of the only vineyards in the area were in Bethlehem. Christians in Bethlehem have tended these grapes since Medieval times; today, farmers and companies in Bethlehem (such as Cremisan) make wine from several ancient varieties.

Despite hosting one of Christianity's most important sacred sites, Bethlehem's population of Christians has been continually shrinking for the past century. Arab Christians comprised an estimated 84% of the population in 1922, but by the end of the British Mandate years (1948) this number had dropped to 75%. By 1998, Christians made up a minority, at 33% of the population, and by 2007 this had dropped again to 28%. This dramatic decrease is a microcosm of the situation in Palestine overall, where the Christian population dropped from an estimated 20% in 1948, to just 2% in 2007, to less than 1% in 2017. Statistics from the Gaza Strip look similar. Bethlehem, however, remained a significant part of Palestine's Christian enclave: nearly half (49.4%) of all the Christians in Palestine in 2017 lived there.

As of 2004, an estimated 56% of all people with Palestinian Christian ancestry were living outside of Palestine. The trend shows no signs of slowing down: a 2020 survey found that a much higher proportion of Christians than Muslims wished to leave Palestine. Respondents cited dire economic circumstances, the dangers of military and settler violence, and religious intolerance, including job discrimination and difficulty having church marriages legally recognized.

Bethlehem is nearly completely surrounded by Israeli settlements, which hem residents in and threaten to cut off connection to other Palestinian territories. Israel has used its military codes, as well as its control of private companies, to annex nearly 2,000 acres of land in Bethlehem's immediate surroundings since 2004. Residents of Bethlehem's villages are subject to violent assaults by West Bank settlers, as well as destruction of property (such as uprootings of crops).

The economy within Bethlehem is also threatened by Israeli occupation. Income that could previously be made through tourism has dropped significantly due to settler violence, and to Israeli control of all borders and crossings into and out of occupied Palestine. In 2013, Israeli travel companies used this latter advantage to provide various services to 1.16 million pilgrims to Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity alone, starving Palestinian companies and tour guides out and leaving many in Bethlehem unemployed. Tourism to various holy sites injects billions of U.S. dollars per year into Israel's economy. Israeli winemakers, who had previously sourced grapes from Palestinian farmers in Bethlehem, have also started cutting Palestinians out, turning to growing grapes themselves on expropriated land.

The Palestinian Authority has stated an intent to try to keep Christians in the West Bank by promoting Christmas festivities. In 2022, a Nativity scene and Christmas tree were publicly displayed in مَيْدَان المَهْد ("maydān al-mahd"; Manger Square) in Bethlehem: the Catholic Church in Bethlehem lights the tree for Advent, beginning four Sundays before Christmas. A Christmas parade, with brightly lit floats carrying Christmas trees, people dressed as angels and Santa Clauses, and Nativity scenes with live actors, took place again for the first time after having been interrupted due to the Coronavirus pandemic, and was broadly attended by Muslims and Christians.

Another parade marched through streets near the Church of the Nativity for Christmas Eve in 2021: musicians beat drums, played bagpipes, and waved Palestinian flags while onlookers ululated and cheered. Bethlehem's Catholics attend a قُدّاس مُنْتَصَف اللَيْل (quddās muntaṣaf al-layl; Midnight Mass) service in St. Catherine's Church, with prayer, carol-singing, and the burning of incense; another service is held in the Church of the Nativity on January 6, where Christmas falls on the Orthodox calendar.

During the first and second اِنْتِفَاضَات‎ ("intifāḍāt"; singular اِنْتِفَاضَة "intifāḍa," "uprising" or "rebellion"), the tree in Bethlehem was no longer lit due to widespread mourning—Masses continued, but not the public festivities. Instead, private celebrations would take place within the home. Some families began buying artificial Christmas trees rather than real ones, since they were easier to tuck away from windows where they would not be seen from the outside. Even after the lights returned, Israeli military border walls, checkpoints, and curfews hampered Christmas celebrations for many: Christians from Gaza need permits from the Israeli military to take pilgrimages to, or visit family in, Bethlehem and other places in the West Bank, and the majority of those requested are not granted. كنيسة المِيلَاد الإِنْجِيلِيّة اللوثرية ("kanīsa al-mīlād al-ʔinjīliyya al-lūthri"; Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church) referenced the ongoing genocide in their Nativity scene, in which a baby Jesus wrapped in a Palestinian كُوفِيَّة (kūfiyya) lies amidst a pile of rubble.

Mayor Hana Haniyeh expressed that the local economy's "crash" was "nothing" compared to "what's happening to our people and Gaza." In 2021, the Catholic community in the Gaza Strip comprised 133 people, or 0.0056% of the population (out of 1,017 Christians of all denominations; 0.043% of the population). The sole Catholic parish in Gaza, overseen by the كَنِيسَة العَائِلَة المُقَدَّسَة ("kanīsa al-'āʔila al-muqaddasa," Holy Family Church), faced the destruction and partial destruction of several buildings by Israeli airstrike in 2014, and again in 2021.

During the 2023 genocide, parish buildings including the church, monastery, school, orphanage, and مَرْكَز تُومَا الأكُوينِي ("markaz tūmā al-ʔkoni"; Thomas Aquinas Center) have sheltered hundreds of Christians and Muslims. On the 16th of December, 2023, and amidst heavy bombing of the surrounding area, Israeli soldiers, claiming that the parish hid a missile launcher, opened fire on anyone leaving the church, killing two women.

Help Palestinian Christians evacuate Gaza

Support traditional woodworking and glass-blowing in Bethlehem

Try Cremisan Palestinian wine

Equipment

Large, thick-bottomed stockpot or Dutch oven

Vegetable corer (مأورة "maʔwara"), or thin teaspoon measure

Ingredients

For the dish:

About 300g grape leaves

2kg baby zucchini (كوسا صغير)

2 large beefsteak tomatoes

Zucchini should be about 1" in diameter and 5" in length. If you don't have access to baby zucchini, use the smallest you can find. I halved my zucchini lengthwise to get the correct size.

If you happen to have a grape vine, harvest grape leaves early in the spring for this recipe, and freeze them for use throughout the year. Otherwise, you should be able to find jarred grapeleaves in a halal grocery store. You will want the smallest, earliest-harvested (say, March-May) grape leaves that you can find.

For the filling:

600g (3 cups) Egyptian white medium-grain rice

300g (about 1 1/2 cups) ground beef substitute (to replace minced lamb)

1/4 cup good olive oil

5 tsp allspice, or Palestinian 7-spice / mixed spice (بهار مشكل)

1 Tbsp turmeric (optional)

1 1/2 tsp black pepper

1 tsp cinnamon (optional)

Large pinch ground cardamom, from 2-3 green cardamom pods (optional)

Salt, 1/4 tsp, or to taste

Spices used in this dish may be as minimal as salt and black pepper. Allspice or 7-spice are almost always included. Cinnamon and turmeric are the next most common additions; occasionally, cardamom is added. I have gone for a maximalist, aromatic approach here, because the taste of other ingredients (e.g. zucchini) is quite mild.

You will want a medium-grain white rice for this dish—the rice should become extremely tender without being fluffy or sticky. Egyptian medium-grain rice can be found at a halal grocery store from a brand such as Baraka. If you can't locate any, another kind of medium-grain white rice will do.

To cook:

Vegan lamb chops, or other meat substitute of your choosing

Juice of 1 lemon, or 1/4 tsp citric acid (if using jarred grape leaves that don't include citric acid)

1 Tbsp tomato paste

1/4 cup good olive oil

Salt, black pepper, and 7-spice

Vegetarian chicken bouillon cube or stock concentrate

Water to cover

Chicken stock from making another dish is sometimes used in place of water here; or else a chicken boullion or Maggi cube may be added. You could also use a vegetarian beef stock concentrate, or a bit of soy sauce, to mimic the stock that would result from lamb being simmered at the bottom of the pot.

Instructions:

Prep work:

1. Prepare the rice. Place a strainer in a closely-fitting bowl and add the rice into the strainer. Fill the bowl with cool water and rub the rice between your hands to remove excess starch. Lift the strainer out of the water to strain the rice, and pour the starchy water out. Repeat this process 3-4 more times, until the water comes away mostly clear.

(Starchy water from the first 2 or 3 washings can be saved and used to thicken soups and stews. If you're not sure of the cleanliness of your rice—i.e. if it came in a container that was not airtight—only use water from the second washing onwards.)

2. Return rice to bowl and pour cool water to cover. Soak for an hour.

3. Prepare the zucchini. Cut the tips off of both sides of the zucchini, only taking off as much as you need to. (If your zucchini are over 6" / 15 cm or so long, cut them in half widthwise).

4. Starting from the tip (or, if it's the 'bottom' half of the zucchini, the cut end), hollow out each squash with a vegetable corer until a ring of flesh about 1/8" (1/3 cm) wide remains around the edges. If you don't have a vegetable corer, use a small teaspoon: make a small divot in the center of the zucchini and then deepen it, constantly rotating the zucchini as you push the spoon in, to hollow the zucchini.

(Save the zucchini flesh to use in a soup or stew later!)

5. Soak the zucchini. Place zucchini in a large bowl of salted water and let soak while you prepare the grape leaves.

6. Prepare the grape leaves. If using grape leaves from a jar, pull out a group (they will probably be rolled together) and lay them flat on a plate. Go through grape leaves to find leaves of appropriate size; anything too much larger than 4" in diameter should have its outer leaves shortened with a sharp knife; anything larger than 5 or so inches should be halved down the central vein, and then flled "sideways." Lay the grape leaves out in the bottom of a large bowl or tray.

7. Soak the grape leaves. Pour just-boiled water over the grape leaves and let sit 10-15 minutes.

8. Meanwhile, remove zucchini from soaking water and place on a wire rack, hollow-side-down, to drain while you make the filling.

To make the filling:

1. Drain the rice and shake the strainer to remove excess water. Combine all spice ingredients together by kneading well with your hands. I recommend toasting the spice for a minute or two in a small, dry skillet on medium-low hest, until fragrant.

To stuff the vegetables:

1. Stuff the zucchini. Once the zucchini are drained, use your figners to push filling down into the hollowed openins. Don't fill them up all the way, or the rice will come out as it expands; leave about 3/4" (2 cm) between the top of the filling and the edge of the zucchini (about the length of a finger up to the distal knuckle).

2. Remove grape leaves onto a wire rack to drain for 4-5 minutes. They will be easiest to roll if they are still slightly damp.

3. Stuff the grape leaves. Add a very small amount of filling (a bit more than 1/4 tsp and less than 1/2 tsp) in a horizontal line towards the bottom edge of a grape leaf.

The leaves will be rolled much like burritos: fold the bottom edge up once or twice to cover the filling, fold the sides in over that, and then roll away from you, folding the tip of the leaf inward as well if needed to avoid having any spikes sticking ourt.

Roll tightly enough that the leaves will not come undone with jostling, but loosely enough to give the rice some room to expand. I did this by leaving a tiny bit of space on each side of the filling as I folded the edes in. Leaves can be stuffed by laying them flat on the counter, or by holding them in your non-dominant hand.

Keep going until you run out of grape leaves. Keep any extra filling to stuff tomatoes, eggplant, etc.

At some point during this process, taste a bit of a grape leaf and determine if it is sour enough that you will not need lemon juice later in cooking.

To cook:

1. Coat the bottom of a large stockpot with a couple tablespoons olive oil. Slice a large tomato and arrange the slices on the bottom of the pot so that they do not overlap.

2. Add stuffed zucchini, either standing up (filling-side-up) or arranged horizontally in a single layer, depending on the size of your pot.

3. Top with stuffed grape leaves; just pour them in and give the pot a good shake, or arrange them in concentric circles.

4. Mix just-boiled water with spices, stock bouillon or concentrate, tomato paste, olive oil, and lemon juice (if using). Pour water into the pot until it comes up to the bottom of the stuffed grape leaves.

5. Choose a heavy plate that fits inside your pot with an inch or so to spare (to allow steam to escape) and weigh the grape leaves down.

6. Raise heat to return water to a boil. Lower heat to medium-low and keep at a low simmer for an hour, until zucchini is very tender, rice is fully cooked and a bit mushy, and there is almost no water in the pot. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.

To serve:

1. Cover the top of the pot with a large, upside-down platter and turn over the whole to empty the contents of the pot into the platter. Lift the pot straight up.

2. Shake the platter slightly to encourage the stuffed vegetables to spread out. Remove any grape leaves that have burst or come unfolded, if you want to. Some blackening of the pieces that had come into direct contact with the bottom of the pot is not a problem.

3. Arrange seared lamb chop pieces among the stuffed vegetables.

Serve warm with lemon slices, yoghurt, pickles, and side salads.