Big, corn-fed freckled country boy, biscuit and gravy belly flopping over his jeans, tongue waggin’-just can’t wait to dig in to that buffet –‘GET OUTTA MY WAY’ focus. Cracker Barrel? No. Bob Evans? No. Texas Roadhouse? No. The Oasis Mediterranean “cuisine”? Dang right!
Bubba meets Baba as he digs into the best tabouli, hummus and baba ghanouj this side of Mesopotamia. Does the heart good to see southern boys and swarthy, olive-skinned fer’ners cheek to cheek at the trough.
Fact is that our joys in general—and this Middle Eastern restaurant in particular—cut through our fears and prejudice to bring us together and show us that there is more that we have in common, than what divides us.
The really, really amazing thing is that the Oasis’s cook, a Lebanese immigrant, started with Aladdin’s, a Middle Eastern restaurant that opened right after 9/11. You can’t believe how successful and accepted Aladdin’s was, despite the supposed paranoia following that tragedy. It, like the Oasis now, was popular with Wasps, Southerners, Jews, Arabs, Asians---everybody. It bolstered my faith in the human spirit, as did the 2002 mayoral election of Teresa Isaac who is of Arabic descent.
Maybe the Bubba/Baba phenomenon points the way to harmony between combative cultures. Peace through the palate makes much more sense than peace through war. And it’s wholesome, healthy and delicious, too (Gee mom, can we go there?)
Like my Uncle Willy used to tell me, “you get more with sugar than you do with salt.”
Respectfully, Richard F. Dawahare 1/16/05
Moo on!
No comments:
Post a Comment