Finding Place Through Food

Overview

Identity doesn't fit neatly into a single category. Food is where I've always made sense of that.

In 2018, I designed and drove an 8,000-mile research trip through eastern Canada, visiting home kitchens, markets, fishing villages, restaurants, and tea shops to understand how Arab diaspora communities integrate their culinary traditions into new places. The project took me through Ontario, Quebec, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, connecting with Arab restaurateurs, vendors, and home cooks whose stories reflected my own family's experience of existing between cultures.

The trip became the basis for an in-progress cookbook and, later, a popup restaurant called "The Patio" that I ran with my friend Anamay Viswanathan during our senior year at UNC.

Sometimes, understanding where you come from requires going somewhere new to see it clearly.