Quiet

I haven't been posting much. I've been working on a essay on the first battle between Rome and the Sassainian Empire. We bought a huge French stick from Sugardough, and I've been dipping it in Lebanese extra-virgin olive oil, tahini, and za'atar. Sensational. Here's a great photo of the Miramar Nut Shop from the State Library of Victoria archives...

Ali Farka Toure

R.I.P. Ali Farka Toure

Burgal

I can’t remember what this dish is called, but it’s burgal with onion, chilli, pine nuts, turmeric, and cinnamon. After dinner, a couple of hours reading “Rome, Syria, Parthians and Persians”; chapter two of Kevin Butcher’s Roman Syria and the Near East. So far, it’s been discussing Parthian politics and culture, and the early Roman relations, which seems to have consisted of diplomacy peppered with occasional battles. It’s a nice read; tight, smooth writing which evokes the imagination with ease. And then more West Wing on DVD.

nuoc mam

I made last night: cambodian chicken & sweet potato curry, using the nuoc mam and galangal I bought on Smith Street yesterday.

We made hummus

I love the Miramar Nut Shop. I love that they treat me with the kind of suspicion reserved for 'outsiders'. I love being treated like a Western tourist in my own neighbourhood; it's somehow cleansing, washing away the confidence we carry around this city, as though it belongs to us and others are merely cultural fringedwellers. Yesterday I bought bulgur wheat, pine nuts, olive oil, and tahini. Then the missus made hummus.

Rome's Desert Frontier

Chapter 2 of Kennedy & Riley's Rome's Desert Frontier proved to be more time consuming than anticipated. I finished it on Friday afternoon. It's a broad overview of Rome's military presence in the Near East, from the arrival of Pompey in 65 BC to the first Muslim attacks at Yarmuk in 636 AD. It covers the wars against the Parthians and the Persians, and the alliances with the Arabs. I started reading George Tate's "The Syrian Countryside During the Roman Era", from Susan E. Alcock (ed.) The Early Roman Empire in the East. I made a fair dent in it before being summoned away for a Friday afternoon drink. So far, it's covered the sedentarization of the Arab tribes around Syria, up to 400 AD. I'm intrigued by the bandits of Trachonitis (from page 57);

Throughout the first century BC, the region was marked by poverty and banditry. By bandits, ancient writers meant rebels to the established order and to the peasants' sedentary way of life. These bandits lived in Trachonitis, modern Ledja, a vast basaltic plateau filled with grottoes that were used as places of refuge.

I also had on hand Lemprière's Classical Dictionary, and found this passage from the entry on Palmyra quite, erm, charming.

It is now in ruins, and the splendid and magnificent remains of its portices, temples, and palaces, are visited with astonishment and rapture by the curious and the learned.