Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
Locals call it "watermelon salad." But this delicacy popular in the southern Gaza Strip at this time of year is far from the sweet, refreshing taste the name evokes.
"Lasima," "Ajar," or "Qursa" are different names for the hot, savoury meal that takes hours to prepare. There's watermelon inside, but one can hardly taste it.
In a territory that prides itself on its culinary traditions, Lasima is surprisingly divisive. Residents in southern Gaza love the dish. Just a few kilometres (miles) to the north, people shun it as unclean, due to its hands-on preparation.
Lasima is available just two months a year. It is made with melons that are picked when they are small and not yet ripe. They are roasted on a fire and peeled, and the soft flesh is mixed with roasted eggplants and thinly sliced tomatoes, lemon, garlic, onion and olive oil. Then it is eaten with a special dough baked in the ashes of the fire.
The name "Ajar," or "unripe" in Arabic, refers to the baby melons. "Qursa" is the word for the thick dough. "Lasima," which means "messy," refers to the sloppy meal served in a large clay bowl.
Many say the dish originated more than 100 years ago with Bedouin Arab tribes in the neighbouring Sinai desert in Egypt.
Others claim it's a traditional Palestinian food. There is little evidence to support this claim, however. The food is popular only in southern Gaza, near the Sinai border. Farther north, the meal is barely known.
Amona Abu Rjila, 70, of Khuzaa, says it's a little of each. She says she remembers her parents and grandfathers making it outdoors in the watermelon season. "It's a traditional Palestinian dish with Bedouin roots," she said.
Farther north, few would agree with her. Those familiar with the dish object to its preparation, with the ingredients typically mushed together with bare hands, as unclean.
On a recent day, a group of friends gathered in a yard adjacent to Israel's frontier with Gaza. They diced the vegetables and roasted the ingredients in a fire. When the flames faded and the vegetables were charred, the thick dough was buried in the ash.
Abdelkarim al-Satari, 33, a jobless accountant, started mixing the Lasima. He shredded the dough and put all the ingredients in the large bowl, squeezing everything with his fist. Wary of the onlookers, he put on black cooking gloves.
"In every season, people call me to make Lasima for them about 20 times," he said.
To challenge the dish's negative image, social media content creator Mohammed Aborjela brought the meal in smaller clay pots and offered samples to random passers-by in Gaza City.
Most of the respondents in a nearly two-minute video said they'd never heard of it, but all who tried it liked it.
The video attracted over 1,000 comments -- many of them baffled northerners who were intrigued about the taste but turned off by the preparation methods.
"The way it's made, especially by some men, is not appealing for the eyes," said Nada Azzam, a Gaza City woman.
She said she has never tried Lasima. But after watching a video of women making it with "clean cooking means," she vowed to give it a taste.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.