Awafi Kitchen

21/04/2025

סנתכ כ'ד'רה سنتك خضرة SANTAK CHADHRA
שתהיה שנה ירוקה ומלבלבת - זוהי הברכה בפי יהודי בבל במוצאי חג שני של פסח כאשר הם טופחים אחד לשני על הכתף בשיבולים של חיטה וענפי הדס וצמחים נוספים.
A YEAR FULL OF GREEN AND BLOSSOM - THIS IS THE BLESSING THAT THE IRAQI JEWS WISH EACH OTHER ON THE LAST DAY OF PESSAH WHILE PATTING SLIGHTLY ON EACH OTHER'S SHOULDER WITH WHEAT AND MYRTEL BRANCHES.
سنتك خضرة ومزدهرة - هذا ما يتمنى يهود العراق اخر يوم من ايام عيد الفصح (عيد الفطير) وبيدهم سنابل حنطة واغصان من الياس بينما يربتون واحد للآخر على الكتف.
תעוד עליכם לסנין בלכ'ייר -שישובו השנים עליכם בטוב
تعود عليكم السنين بالخير
Wishing you many returns

19/12/2024

04/04/2024

We were honored to be interviewed for the afikra Matbakh podcast series about eating, making, appreciating and learning about the food and drink of the Arab world. Here is a clip from the interview, the full podcast can be found at: https://www.afikra.com/series/matbakh

31/10/2023

We are witnessing a genocide. This violence is the continuation of a 75-year occupation that displaces, dehumanizes, and brutalizes Palestinians. The Western & Israeli media is using every tool to justify it, in the name of “fighting terrorism” and “democracy,” the same tactics used to carry out atrocities against our people in Iraq. We cannot look away, and we beg for a world that holds Arab and Muslim lives as dear as any other.

For everyone mourning a lost loved one right now across the region, your pain is real and incomprehensible, and we mourn with you. It’s vital right now to think about our own history in how we got to this moment of escalating violence. Our Jewish Iraqi people were displaced from our homes and many were coerced to the region as agents in the ethnic cleansing of their Palestinian cousins, as well as our own histories. We will never forget the Pogroms, the Farhud, and the Holocaust. But the Israeli project was never really for us, and Israel will never make Jews safe. It will only exacerbate hatred towards our people as the state kills in our name. You will never have true safety contingent on occupation and violence.

We dream of a free Palestine where all of us have a right to return: to our homes, our languages, our roots, and our people. Our work at Awafi to untangle and uplift our Iraqi culture is inextricable from the Palestinian fight for freedom.

Do not let the nuances stop you from taking a stand when thousands of lives are at stake. Now is the time to listen to and follow Palestinians in their resistance. Demand a ceasefire now. Call on your governments, boycott and make your voice heard.

Toolkit for actions: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hpHkM9KlH5Yn3xq7nk9xfPtIkWZDblWnCKD8xt5DBx0/mobilebasic

(Photo: Watermelons for sale at a fruit market in Mosul, 1932)

19/07/2023

https://arabamericanmuseum.org/event/concert-of-colors-forum-on-community-culture-race-air-water-land-artists-climate-change/?event_date=2023-07-19

Tonight Annabel Rabiyah will be on a panel discussing preserving cultural food ways and seed saving through the Arab American National Museum's Forum on Community, Culture & Race, focused on artists and climate change. Register to attend in person if you are in the Detroit area, or live stream the event on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKo4fDqh1d4

The Concert of Colors Forum on Community, Culture & Race, one of the Arab American National Museum’s signature annual events, is a dynamic gathering of artis...

10/04/2023

March 2023 | Our Return to Iraq | رجوعنا للعراق

نحن سعداء كلش بامكاننا العودة إلى بيتنا المحبوب. نحبكم و انشاء الله نلتقي قريباً

Last month, after five decades away, members of our family finally walked the streets in Baghdad, the city they once called home. Out of hundreds of us in diaspora across the world, we were the first in our family to set foot in Baghdad since our waves of displacement between the 50s and 70s.

The trip was every feeling all at once. Pure joy, gratitude, and reconnection, inextricable from the grief and pain of facing our decades of separation, and seeing much of our family’s hometown deeply changed. Our whole lives we’ve dreamed of witnessing the beautiful Baghdad we have been painted in memories. We found beauty, but also bore witness to the impact of decades of war, the US occupation, and ongoing resource extraction, and how this has limited the place’s ability to thrive.

That being said, the people we met were incredible. We spent two weeks surrounded by an abundance of love and warmth everywhere we went. There's beautiful new realities rebuilding. Iraqis returning, Iraqis who have stayed through it all. Tender moments of mutual curiosity and excitement: younger Iraqis eager to learn about the old Baghdad of our family’s youth, the lost Jewish history of the city, and in turn our family eager to learn what it’s like to live as an Iraqi in the contemporary world. And ultimately, as friends reminded us, we accomplished our goal: it was just about touching foot to earth, and that we did.

For any Iraqis considering returning like we did, know that you can count on us for advice or perspective. Don’t hesitate to reach out. And for Iraqis with a reluctance to return, for those who still cannot, we empathize with you. Iraq, you are in our hearts.

25/02/2023

Another year with the

A year of seeds shipped across the country, some harvests, some losses, and many zoom conversations about food, diaspora, growing techniques, , butnej , rivkas magic melons, and more. Basil seed from Iraq made it into the catalog, and other varieties are soon to be offered !

Are you interested in joining us? Any Iraqi/Mesopotamian heritage people are welcome to join the community and help build. And we continue to look for experienced seed keepers (of any background) to help us save and establish endangered seed. DM or see link in bio to learn more about how to get involved. Or email [email protected]

26/01/2023

28/07/2022

Hayatis, check out our menu for our collab with .newyork, tomorrow from 6-8pm in nyc’s east village ❤️

It may be evening but we are serving you some ✨Iraqi brunch goodies ✨

19/07/2022

Come through for our nyc debut, effendis 🇮🇶🗽✨

In partnership with .newyork, Awafi invites you to join us for a night of Iraqi arts, music and food on Thursday, July 28 at Village Works in the east village. Full iraqi brunch meal catered by us 🍳

Featuring the work of Iraq-based photographers:
Tiba Sadeq🔸
Mortada Emad🔸
Mohammed al-Njjar🔸
Mohammad al-Sarraf🔸 .sarraf

27/03/2022

Spring is here! The Iraqi Seed Collective has been busy. Iraqi seeds that were saved last year are being sent out to gardens and farms across the country.
This variety, "Aswad" simply means black in Arabic, and is a colloquial name for eggplant in Iraq. Eggplant is one of the most important crops in Iraqi food, most delicious when it's fried soaked in oil. What's your favorite Iraqi dish with "aswad"?

24/02/2022

"I worry that the same dishes are being highlighted, the same stories told, for the same audiences. In some cookbooks, it takes the form of a bright, lush idyll, reminiscent of the French or Italian countryside’s markets and villas, maybe to soothe an audience whose points of reference are otherwise sand, oppressive veils, and gunpowder. But the reality of the Mashriq and Maghreb today is not an idyll, but a multitude of existences that extends beyond Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon, and holds within it different cultures, languages, religions, geographies, and terroirs — and thus, different foods....Leaving out diversity, colonialism, Israeli occupation, or any other complexity, is not just myopic, but harmful, especially when pressed into the existing patchwork of narratives about the Maghreb and Mashriq."

In the past few years, the publishing industry has embraced cookbooks and authors from the Arabic-speaking world. But the stories told and dishes served are often the same ones, repeated over and over again.