For a delicious Lebanese Tabbouleh...

...You need:

• 3 bunches of fresh parsley
• ½ bunch of fresh mint
• 2 onions
• 5 medium tomatoes
• 100g of bulgur or cracked wheat
• 3 lemons
• 3 tablespoons of olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• 1 roman lettuce

Preparation time: 40 minutes
Portions: for 6 people

Begin by soaking the raw bulgur in cold water for 20 minutes.

Wash and rinse fresh mint as well as parsley. Chop them up as finely as possible on a board discarding the stems.

Cut tomatoes in dices and chop the onions.

Now squeeze out water from the bulgur using hands and put in a salad bowl.
Add chopped parsley, mint and diced tomatoes.
Rub chopped onions with salt and pepper and add it to the salad. Add lemon juice and olive oil. Mix the whole ingredients.

Put it in the refrigerator for 20 minutes and serve chilled.

You can eat Tabbouleh with lettuce, with pita bread or simply with a fork!
You will have a taste of Lebanon with each bite...that's a guarantee! Alf Sahtein!

*Mom's tabbouleh in the pic ; ) yummy.

Who benefits from Fair Trade?

The Farmer

• Fair trade increases annual incomes of small farmers

• Fair trade helps put in place tools for self-sufficiency

• Fair trade assists small farmers to stay out of high interest debt

• Fair Trade helps build infrastructure in farmers community
  

The Consumer

• Fair trade lets consumers have a clear conscience about their purchases

• Fair trade lets consumers assist and empower others with their buying power

• Fair trade lets consumers be part of a social justice movement through a simple action

• Fair trade allows consumers to initiate a chain of responses that will positively impact the lives of poor coffee farmers and their families.

The Environment

• Small farmers aim to use organic methods, which are more environmentally friendly and sustainable

• Small farmers disperse their plants throughout a region, a more environmentally friendly method

More facts about Fair Trade, here.

It's the apricot season!

Rediscover the apricot taste with the Terroirs du Liban Apricot Jam...Try it with croissants, cookies or white cheese!

About Apricots, here and there on the internet...read on:

The Chinese associate the apricot with education and medicine.

The fact that apricot season is very short has given rise to the very common Egyptian Arabic expression "filmishmish" ("in apricot [season]"), generally uttered as a riposte to an unlikely prediction, or as a rash promise to fulfill a request.

Dreaming of apricots, in English folklore, is said to be good luck!

The Turkish idiom "bundan iyisi Şam'da kayısı" (literally, the only thing better than this is an apricot in Damascus) means "it doesn't get any better than this" and used when something is the very best it can be; like a delicious apricot from Damascus.

...I'm falling for this fruit, oh yes.

FTL in L'Officiel Magazine

Le Savoir "Fair" is a listing about Fair Trade Lebanon published in the French Magazine, L'Officiel (Middle-East Edition) on May 2010.

The product range Terroirs du Liban has been available in Lebanese points of sales since March 2010. It's aim is to promote fair trade values and ancestral recipes through the work of small-scale producers.

More information about us on Facebook, Twitter and http://www.fairtradelebanon.org/

To be savoured with all conscience and respect !

Those small little things...

...take the time to look for them and the time to experience them.

Fair Trade Lebanon has spent yesterday 3 hours in a classroom with 28 graduate students in Advertising and Marketing at the USJ University. The discussion was about Responsible Marketing (Benoit and myself participated from FTL) and Eco-Tourism (explained by M.Pascal Abdallah, a pioneer & consultant in Eco-Tourism in Lebanon).

We had set forward the importance of marketing...marketing not only a product, but a story, a reality, a person. Our approach is to quench the thirst of a consumer with a deeper experience, a social impact. And the small thing in this is the satisfaction that comes from a state of mind, that of choosing to support long-term sustainability. Our society has imposed on us a very fast rhythm of life...we consume, work and live so fast that we forget and often refuse to take the time to Stop. and See the small things.

Eco-Tourism is about contributing financially, physically and scientifically to the well being of our protected natural sites. It's about hearing the story behind the smallest elements defining our ecosystem. Believe it or not, if we don't react to the incompetence reigning in our country, we will head right into the wall. Our children and grandchildren will hold us responsible for our passiveness. And we will live with the guilt.

The society as a whole must take action; M. Everyone will not save Lebanon alone and we know that, but Universities and Students, Governments and Researchers, Specialized NGOs and Careful citizens WILL. I want to thank Professor Zeina Adaime for having chosen to point out the small things and for proposing new solutions and ideas to her students. It is about capacity building and about completely assuming the role of education for a greener and more responsible future.

Sometimes it takes one leap to create a thousand others, just like a ricochet on water. Isn't that simple?

Thank you for having taken the time to read…