Blanca is a 2-Michelin star restaurant for 12 guests only, hiding behind a pizzeria in Brooklyn, NY, surrounded by auto repair shops and really scary parking lots. If you’re one of the lucky ones that got in the door and tasted the 19-course menu of this tiny “dinner theater” – it’s like flying off to another planet.
So, we were blessed and got in, and as we were surfing away between out-of-this-world fusion dishes, the chef at @eatblanca tells us suddenly, “You know, my sous chef is half Palestinian.” Then, this amazing guy comes over and shares that his grandparents are Palestinian refugees from Jaffa and Nablus, and that he’s still searching for his roots and grandfather’s recipes. He was so touched by our book “On the Hummus Route” that brings some of these traditional culinary gems out to the world.
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We told him all about Jaffa, opened the Jaffa chapter in our book, and dipped into a conversation over hummus and other Palestinian dishes, laughing together at how we traveled halfway across the globe only to come to Blanca and now talk with him about the Palestinian kitchen, and all the amazing stories we’ve heard on this journey of ours between Jaffa and Brooklyn, people and dreams, touching lives everywhere, even in Blanca, a hidden jewel just behind this pizzeria in Brooklyn, NY.
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@eatblanca @thehummusroute @ Brooklyn, New York City
