Recipes from my mother's kitchen: The Last Sweet Coal™

Johannesburg heat met the oven’s breath, thick with the promise of Malva pudding – South Africa’s golden embrace. Mama moved, a Beirut rhythm in her bones, samneh’s nutty breath warming the batter. We crowded, her constellation of boys, my father’s hum, my watchful silence. Then, the clatter. The sentinel bottle of jallab – dark as Phoenician night, smelling of date molasses, rosewater, and sacred smoke – tipped, pouring its liquid shadow over the steaming pudding. Not into the cup. Onto the sunlit cake.

A gasp. Silence. Ruin pooled.

But Mama? She gazed at the inky-soaked gold. A stillness. Then, a smile like dawn breaking. "Ah," she breathed, "it’s listening."

She saw no ruin, only a bridge. That smoky jallab wasn't drowning the Malva; it was whispering an old song – of Sharbat el Toot, mulberry syrup thick with Lebanese summer longing. She warmed more, blended it with the mulberry’s ache, baptized the cake anew. It drank deep, transformed: South African comfort woven with Levantine soul.

But plain cream? Never. Instead, labneh-and-vanilla ice cream – cool, tangy grace against the molten dark. A blush of rose jam, scattering pomegranate seeds like Astarte’s ruby tears (the goddess who wept roses where winter fled). Fresh berries, petals like sighs.

She called it The Last Sweet Coal. The warm heart drawn from waiting’s embers. The smoke of jallab, the mulberry’s memory, the labneh’s resilience, the rose’s scent, the pomegranate’s promise. Her offering: a fragrant, sticky fusion born from a spill and the unwavering belief that accidents can taste like homecoming. Like starlight in the dark.

(Find the full recipe in Once Upon a Spice.)