Mizura, Mon. — Ghalia Ahmad Fayez AlMasri instructed the kitchen team in a crisp gray chef’s coat over a pink sweater, with Egyptian and Lebanese dance music ringing through cell phone speakers. This Tuesday night in March, Mrs. Al Masry’s eight crew prepared 150 meals to prepare. This is a total sold out.
Around Misura, a university city of 75,000 people, Mrs. Al Masry, 33, has become a little famous chef. Customers in jeans and her expensive boots lined up outside freezing temperatures to sample the semolina pudding Harawa Bismead with Baba ghanoush and pistachios.
“People know me,” said Mrs. Al Masry. “When I cook, my meal goes very fast — this time 15 minutes.”
The kitchen where she works is one of the city’s most popular and is located in the easy-to-understand basement of the First United Methodist Church on East Main Street.Dinner is part of a weekly program called United We Eat @HomeRefugees and other migrants living in Missoura prepare takeaway meals to supplement their income.
Started during a pandemic Soft landing MizuraTakeaway meals, a non-profit organization that supports refugees and migrants from around the world, are very popular. Over 2,200 people receive their menu by email every Thursday at 9am. When these notifications arrive in your inbox, Clock: Meals are sold out weekly, often within 30 minutes.
Their success led United We Eat to hire their first refugee staff, Rozan Shbib, as a kitchen assistant last year. The program also helps refugees apply for farmer’s market permits, MasalaAt a curry restaurant in downtown Missoura, almost all of us hire staff made up of refugees.
Fleeing the conflict in Damascus, Syria, Mrs. Al Masry arrived in Missura in 2017 with her husband and two sons, 6 and 8 years old. She is one of 431 refugees and International Rescue Committee One of the 18 home cooks who have participated in the UnitedWeEat program since 2016.
Cooks from Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iraq, Pakistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo face many of the same challenges as restaurant chefs. They plan their menu a month in advance to ensure they have enough time to order certain ingredients such as halal meat, teff flour, and arhubara branded bass mati rice. They wonder how spicy the sauce is, without offending sensitive tastes. They are worried if their food still looks appetizing when the eater goes home.
Faced with a gathering of customers, Mrs. Al Masry cheekyly embraced her meal in the canvas tote bag they brought. She placed a box of vermicelli pilaf topped with shakuriya, a tender chicken dish sprinkled with rich yogurt sauce. And Zafra, a very tasty cauliflower stew.She piled up 8 ounces of deli containers Baba ghanoush, Explain that this phrase means “spoiled daddy” in Arabic. Meat dishes are her bestseller — after all, this is Montana.
Several customers thanked her for the Arabic word “shukran”. The translation was written on a whiteboard near the serving table, along with some other phrases in English and Arabic, so that the Mizurians could communicate in Mrs. Armasli’s native language and drive them out of the comfortable zone. I urged you. “Bindura” means tomato. Chicken is “Dajaji”.
“It’s about shifting the dynamics of those forces and making sure in this space that this is the realm of refugee chefs,” said Beth Baker, program manager.
Each cook makes an average of $ 850 for each meal service. By selling beef coffret, potato pakra and rohto meals, 51-year-old Farida Abdulaziz was able to send money to Afghanistan’s son Sohil. According to her, her cooking makes “a lot of money” and supplements the wages of working in the local Wal-Mart deli department.
“But money isn’t the only thing,” Adbul Aziz said. “I enjoy people.”
Abdul Aziz sought asylum in the United States in 2014, leaving five children in Afghanistan, including Sohil, the youngest of 12 years old. In early March, Sohil was admitted under the US Citizenship and Immigration Services Program to reunite the families of refugees and asylum seekers. Eight years away, her mother and son embraced a long hug at Missoula Montana Airport. United We Eat shared this news in a subsequent newsletter. This is an effort to increase customer familiarity with Abdul Aziz and his family.
Most customers recognize the face of a familiar chef and look forward to a particular dish. Their only complaint: the food sells out quickly.
Jim Streeter, 72, a retired accounting and finance expert in Missoura, is waiting for an email on Thursday morning on his home computer. It didn’t work for the week of February. Mr. Streeter walked downstairs to tell his wife Sarah about his menu next week, but he was sold out by the time he returned to the computer.
Customers say their meals offer a variety of dishes that can’t be found anywhere else. The Census Bureau estimated the population of Missoula County in 2021 to be 91.7%. Without the UnitedWeEat program, there would be no place for Missourans to order food from Congo, Pakistan and Guinea.
High school counselor Tri Fam, 49, who ordered from United We Eat almost every week since last fall, said his wife and daughters are looking forward to the diversity. The pieces of paper included in each order explain the dish, its ingredients, and the chef’s background. The biography contained in Mrs. Al Masry’s diet states that she arrived at Misura during a record coldsnap, and Baba ghanoush eggplants are usually roasted over an open flame for a slightly smoky flavor. I explained how.
“We like to expose the girls to it and give them a wider view of the world,” Fam said. “It’s not just burgers and french fries.”
The Soft Landing culinary program reflects the culinary programs of other states. New supper club In Los Angeles; Welcome Neighbor STL In St. Louis; Break the bread and break the border In Dallas; Sanctuary kitchen Located in New Haven, Connecticut, Montana is especially for cultural exchanges, given that Montana was one of two states that did not accept refugees when Soft Landing Missoula began in 2015. It was an important tool.
“Culture in these countries isn’t just what people see in the news,” said Missourian staff writer Dave Ericsson, 40. “I’ve heard that there are refugees here, but when I actually meet someone in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, I find that” Oh, Misura is home to the entire community of people in that country. ” “
Mary Poole, Executive Director of Soft Landing Missoula, wants the Missourans to consider refugees and other migrants as assets. Many new entrants seek to develop businesses supported by the program through Business 101 classes at the Lifelong Learning Center in Missoura.
It is Mrs. Al Masry’s goal to run a Syrian restaurant. Encouraged by her reputation for her takeaway meal, she wants to offer a wide menu of kebab Hindi, freekeh salads and cafes.
“Some of them don’t know me, but they try my food. Next time they will know me,” said Mrs. Al Masry. “They will know my food.”