silent no more

Kristen’s comment on the below post made me feel a tad guilty. There have been important things going on this summer, and I have been silent. To be honest, I also feel guilty because I sometimes think maybe it took so long to reach a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah because I was worried the conflict would end before I’d weighed in. They were waiting for me, you know?

No, I’m not quite that egocentric, and it’s a terrible thing to joke about.

And I am glad that the bombings have stopped. I was amazed that they continued as long as they did — and over two kidnapped soldiers! I know it’s more complicated than that, and I do believe that Lebanon has some responsibility to keep its citizens from violently engaging other countries, but I also believe that Israel’s response was way over the top.

I’m not anti-Israel — I support their right to exist, etc., etc. — and as a result I’m tired of the attitude that anyone who criticizes Israel must be against the country as a whole. Lame.

What I am against is the extent to which the US is entangled in the Middle East, and our “special relationship” with Israel. For more on this, see this Daily Star article, forwarded by Kristin, about that relationship. To be fair, I think the article is a little over the top, and the author a little more hysterical than is good for his credibility, but nonetheless, the article made me think.

Completely unrelated (well, almost), I’ve eaten in Harrisburg more in the last two weeks than maybe in my entire life to this point. Okay, probably not quite that much. Here’s the rundown: Fisaga is overpriced and mediocre (I’m guessing most of you knew this already), Jackie Blue is pricey but yummy, Scott’s is decent on both counts, Sammy’s is about the same (in quality, not style) but offers truly Central Pennsylvania-sized portions (which I believe to be too big), and Skewers, the new Middle Eastern kabob place next to the Irish place whose name I can never remember, is very good.

Because Skewers is newer, and I’ve been there more recently, I’ll elaborate a little bit. I’ll preface it by saying I don’t really know anything about Middle Eastern food, or kabobs, so my opinions are only my opinions. On the plus side, this means that I’m not judging it on “authenticity” or any other lame criteria like that. (Authenticity, by the way, is a lame criterion because I don’t care if the recipe has remain unchanged for a thousand generations or if your little brother made it up yesterday by accident — I care about how it tastes.) On the down side, I don’t feel qualified to complain about the rice, which seemed fine to me, but my dining partner, who knows way more about Middle Eastern food than I do, felt that it could have been better. Whatever.

Back to Skewers. It’s all about meat on a stick. Really flavorful, tender meat on a stick. With excellent dipping sauces. We had samosas (not meat on a stick, but still good), a lamb appetizer (which my companion was surprised to enjoy, as he doesn’t usually like lamb), a house salad with ginger dressing (eaten at the close of the meal due to timing and mutual personal preference, a perfect way to close, much lighter than dessert), and a chicken entree. The lamb came with some kind of spicy cilantro sauce. Bread was a Romanian flat thing that came with a delicious sauce that looked like maybe it was colored with beets but tasted way better than I’d expect if that were the case. I’m feeling too lazy to try to describe it in any detail; you should just go try it for yourself. Especially because we should all be supportive of new and interesting cuisines becoming available. Entrees, I believe, are in the $15-20 range, but you could probably assemble a smaller meal of an appetizer and salad for $10. Also, it’s BYOB and the downtown liquor store closes at 6 pm, so unless you want to grab a six-pack from a neighboring bar, it might be good to think ahead.