Cooking for the community

Exotic dishes prepared with savory spices like curry, ginger, mint and cilantro, as well as baklava and other sweet desserts are part of the specialties found every day in the kitchens of the area's Muslim families.

But for Muslim families living in tents in disaster-stricken areas of Asia, there are few gourmet dinners and endless hours of worry and grief.

The thread that binds together the communities of foreign nationals living abroad snapped Dec. 26 when a tsunami destroyed communities in 11 countries and killed more than 150,000 people.

Two months later, the Muslim community in Southeast Missouri intends to share a meal with its neighbors in hopes of weaving together a fabric of compassion and good will.

On Feb. 26, the Muslim community will share its gourmet-tasting treats with the community at a fund-raising dinner. The meal will feature Far Eastern and Middle Eastern cuisine and will raise money for tsunami relief efforts in Asia.

"We wanted to include the Far East, India and Middle East, so you have a taste of everything," said Iffat Khan, one of the dinner's organizers.

Most of the menu items also are favorites among the area's American palates: tabbouleh salad, hummus, curry chicken, kabobs and baklava.

Because food is something that brings people together, the Muslim women saw the fund-raising dinner as an opportunity for their community to get involved.

Much of their inspiration for helping comes from a verse in the Quran that reads "If you save a life, it would be as if you saved the life of all people."

As Muslims, "it is our duty to help people in distress," Khan said.

All money collected will be sent to Asia Relief, a not-for-profit organization based in Baltimore and founded by a native of Sri Lanka.

The countries affected by the tsunami have lost entire villages and scores of citizens. Although 12 different nationalities are represented at the Islamic Center, none of the members are from the Asian countries devastated by the tsunami. Yet the Muslim community wanted to help anyway.

"Everything of nature can affect so many countries and religions and ethnic cultures," Khan said. "We want to be more compassionate and understanding in all the world."

So the women are doing something at which they excel: cooking.

For a planning meeting Wednesday afternoon, they gathered in a fellowship room at the Islamic Center to talk about the final details. They shared information about where to buy the chicken, who was making a trip to St. Louis for supplies at the global market and how many people to expect for the meal.

For a while the conversation turned to world events and politics but eventually came back to matters of the kitchen and family. Suggestions were made for the final menu, recipes shared for variations on a standard tabbouleh and advice given on child-rearing. Two of the women at the meeting are expecting, and nearly all are mothers.

Around the globe, the Muslim and Christian women affected by the tsunami have lost all these bright moments in the day. They spend time in tent cities because their houses are destroyed and, in some cases, their children lost. Thousands more children lost parents and extended families in the tsunamis now and live as orphans.

"I feel like a mother for them," said El Karmi-Wadi, who has four young children. "I want to adopt them, but I cannot."

But the Asia Relief organization is making great strides to provide fingerprinting and other documentation to the children so proper identification can be made and they can receive an education.

Another aspect of the work is to build permanent housing for families, a two-bedroom home with a kitchen, bath, and living and dining areas that would seem simple by American standards. The houses cost $5,000 each to construct.

"This is a decent home," she said. "And a permanent solution in rebuilding."

Asia Relief works with local groups and "tries to make a solution for their life," El Karmi-Wadi said.

ljohnston@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126