FEBRUARY 2024

CHALDEAN KITCHEN
Lord Elia in her kitchen
with ingredients to
bake a cake.
Growing Up in Baghdad
Lord Elia was born and raised in Baghdad.
She lived in the Iraqi capital until
1996 when she immigrated to America
with her family at the age of 16.
Lord grew up in a traditional home,
where her mother, Bernadette, kept the
home and her father, Ameer, earned a
living. Lord has many fond memories of
her mother’s excellent cooking. “Mom
could make any dish you can imagine,”
she said proudly. However, Lord also
recalls that, “Mother was a perfectionist
and had one rule: My brother and I
were to stay out of the kitchen while
she cooked. As a result, she cooked and
prepared all the meals by herself.” The
kitchen was Bernadette’s domain.
While Bernadette kept busy preparing
traditional dishes, desserts,
yogurt and cheeses for her family,
she tasked her children with just one
responsibility: School work. Lord
recalls her mother asking that she
and her brother, Bashar, do well in
school and use their time for studying,
so they can earn top grades.
Because Bernadette did not involve
her children in the cooking process,
Lord never had the opportunity to work
side by side with her mother in the
kitchen or to cook together. This was
the norm for Lord during her formative
years and she did not object to the rules
set forth by her mother. Instead, Lord
focused on her schoolwork and is now
a pharmacist, married with two children,
with a home of her own to keep.
Iraqi Traditional Wedding Cake
A recipe for romance, just in time for Valentine’s Day
BY Z.Z. DAWOD
If you have ever attended a wedding
in Baghdad, chances are you were
served a particular cake which has
been popular at Chaldean weddings
since at least the 1950s. If you’re old
enough to remember those days, you
may even recall Baghdad Tower Bakery
(
), a specialty
shop that became well-known for
making this cake.
These days, alcohol is included in
many recipes — both with main dishes
and desserts — but this was not the
case back then: This cake recipe was
considered “fancy” by many because
it contained liquor. Adding red wine,
brandy or whiskey to a cake recipe was
reserved only for the most special of occasions.
With its rich taste and dense
texture, it’s possible that this cake became
a popular choice because dinner
was generally not a part of wedding
celebrations in those times.
For couples who lived in a big city
such as Baghdad, this would have been
the cake of choice for a major event.
This may partially have been the case
thanks to the availability of modern ovens
in densely populated areas. Village
life was different: Most homes in places
like Alqosh or Dohuk, were equipped
with a tanoor, the traditional clay oven
used for baking cookies and breads.
Hana and Sulaiman Yaqo at their
wedding in 1978. Every layer of the
wedding cake was real.
This “wedding cake” recipe is
unique because raisins and walnuts
are marinated in alcohol prior to baking.
This is done a day or two before
any baking takes place and it is the liquor-infused
raisins and walnuts that
give this cake its unique flavor.
The recipe presented here is a
“family-friendly” version developed
by Lord Elia, a West Bloomfieldbased
entrepreneur and Instagram
personality. The liquor is substituted
with date syrup and orange juice, a
variation on the original recipe. If you
PHOTO COURTESY HANA YAQO
are planning an adult-only event, feel
free to add your choice of liquor for
an even more intense aroma. On the
day I visited Lord’s home kitchen, she
prepared the alcohol-free version and
it was absolutely divine.
PHOTOS BY ALEX LUMELSKY
Necessity Breeds Entrepreneurship
While Lord worked long 14-hour shifts
as a pharmacist, her mother continued
to command the kitchen, assisting
with meal preparation for her
daughter’s family. As the years passed
by, Bernadette became a critical part
of the family, preparing a wide range
of traditional dishes, just as she had
done in previous decades.
When Bernadette passed away unexpectedly,
she left a great void and
Lord’s father, Ameer, stepped in help
out as much as he could. However,
it was clear that, if Lord wanted her
children to gr0w up eating traditional
Chaldean cuisine as she did, she
would need to learn how to prepare
these dishes herself.
That’s when Lord remembered
that her mother, ever the perfectionist,
kept meticulously organized notes for
an array of recipes all those years ago.
Browsing through her mother’s collection,
Lord found a gold mine of sources
to start from, including a nice collection
of special recipes that were given to her
mom by friends and family members.
As Lord fine-tuned her new craft,
she turned to Instagram to share what
she made and to connect with other
like-minded people also learning to
prepare traditional Chaldean meals.
This turned out to be a brilliant move
as she began to receive feedback on her
questions, lots of good ideas, and inspiration
to get creative with her baking
and decorating efforts.
As Lord’s Instagram channel grew
in popularity, people began to ask
for recipes, instructions and advice.
Eventually, the many requests sparked
an idea to start a business, preparing
premium sweets for special occasions.
A Date with Destiny
Determined to put her modern twist
on a dessert with deep traditional ties,
20 CHALDEAN NEWS FEBRUARY 2024