Photo taken in Gaza by Laila El-Haddad, October 2019.
For the 2025 keynote presentation, we are thrilled to welcome award-winning author of The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey Laila El-Haddad for a very special culinary storytelling event, which leads audience members through the history of Gaza by way of its recipes, exploring ingredient trade routes since Al Nakba [the catastrophe], as well as the complexities of microregional traditions and adaptations that have developed over the last 75 years. To accompany her sharing of the recipes, Laila will also prepare small food dishes that audience members are invited to sample as they listen.
As a leading voice in food sovereignty rights, Laila regularly gives testimony and consults on policy plans, asserting food as something that is, on the one hand, weaponised by the Occupation and, on the other hand, something taken up as a tool of survival and of resistance for Palestinians in Gaza, providing agency and dignity for everyday life.
Day:
Sat, 11 Oct
Time:
14:30–16:00
Venue:
Lab111
Location:
Kapel
Biography:
Laila El-Haddad is a James Beard Award–winning Palestinian writer, author, and lecturer from Gaza whose work blends journalism, storytelling, and political analysis to provide nuanced insight into Palestinian life. She is the co-author of the critically acclaimed ethnographic cookbook The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey, which weaves together traditional recipes, personal narratives, and political commentary. She also co-edited Gaza Unsilenced, a compelling anthology compiled with the late Refaat Alareer. In 2013, she appeared on CNN’s Parts Unknown with Anthony Bourdain, offering audiences a rare, humanizing glimpse into daily life in Gaza. She currently resides in Clarksville, Maryland, with her husband and their four children.
