Radio 4, The food programme

This Sunday's Food Programme on Radio 4 was a corker. Penjamin and myself were listening and as the guests, Henry Dimbleby and Anissa Helou, talked about mezze we just sat drooling and getting hungrier and hungrier by the minute. Henry Dimbleby, of the Leon restaurant chain was visiting a mezze festival in Lebanon. It sounded to me like he was visiting a place I've heard of before, somewhere up in the mountains where over the years a collection of mezze restaurants has grown up, centred around the Bardouni river in the Bekaa or Beqaa valley as it is variously known.

The other guest was a cookery writer who I'd vaguely heard of but not followed up on her writing until know. Anissa Helou is a writer and broadcasting regular on Radio 4 (Woman's hour, Veg talk, Food programme) originally from Beiruit but now based in London. Some of the recipes from her books are on the Radio 4 Food Programme website.

We weren't alone in the rumbling of our stomachs threatening to drown out the radio as when we visited friends that evening, they didn't require much effort to force us to join them in a dish of tabbuleh, the creation of which had been inspired by the same programme.