IMEU Institute for Middle East Understanding
News Roundup
Sometimes the way to really figure out who you are, what you’re supposed to be, where you go next, is to drop everything and find your way back home. With apologies to Mr. Wolfe: You can and should go home again—back to the beginning, to the place that made you and set you on your course. If you’re lucky, like Bay Area chef Reem Assil, it’s a journey that might even touch a place inside you that you couldn’t have reached on your own.
on January 2, 2018
News Roundup
Reem Assil on her Muhammara dip: “Muhammara is my homecoming. I discovered this addicting dip as an adult and fell in love with it when I went back to Syria in 2010. At the time, I was soul-searching in my father’s homeland and started to open my eyes to all the richness of my Syrian identity, particularly through the food and hospitality."
on December 18, 2017
Videos
A Palestinian-owned bakery with a social justice edge. Loved by the community and widely celebrated. Attacked by Breitbart and right-wing Israel supporters. Reem's California is standing strong to provide locally-sourced food that brings freedom seekers of all stripes together.
on November 24, 2017
News Roundup
In 2016 alone, about 1,300 Palestinians fled their homeland amid the country's long and violent territory dispute with neighboring Israel. Their fate couldn't seem further removed from an American celebrity cooking competition, but when one actor...
on January 5, 2017
News Roundup
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) got a gift from Kal Penn this past week, as the actor — best known for his role in the Harold and Kumar films and for serving in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2011...
on January 5, 2017
News Roundup
According to NBC News, Penn, an actor and former staff member of the Obama administration as an associate director for the White House Office of Public Engagement, beat Curb Your Enthusiasm actress Cheryl Hines with his beer-braised fish tacos.
on January 5, 2017
News Roundup
In the “Harold & Kumar” movies, Freehold’s Kal Penn was always looking to get baked. On the Monday, Jan 2 episode of Fox’s “MasterChef Celebrity Showdown,” he cooked up beer-braised fish tacos to defeat “Curb Your Enthusiasm” actress...
on January 4, 2017
News Roundup
Competition was fierce during Monday night’s two-hour MasterChef Celebrity Showdown special in which celebrities competed in the kitchen to win money for charity. Kal Penn, actor and public servant, triumphed in the competition and donated...
on January 4, 2017
News Roundup
Kumar Patel is moving beyond the White Castle munchies and instead making something a little more gourmet for charity. On Monday's episode of MasterChef Celebrity Showdown, Kal Penn, one of the actors known for those stoner classic "Harold and Kumar" films...
on January 4, 2017