Recipe: 1 kilo flour, 1 tablespoon active dry yeast, 1 heaping teaspoon salt, 1 heaping teaspoon sugar, 1 cup olive oil and lukewarm water. Mix the dry ingredients and then add the wet ingredients. Allow the dough to rise for as long as possible, even overnight. Then roll, cut into squares and fill with meat or chickpeas. Deep fry, and you have sambusak.

I learned to make sambusak on Facebook. Maisa Usama Bishara, a lawyer from Baka al-Gharbia, posted a picture of sambusak and I immediately asked for the recipe. She sent me a link to a community called Mtbkhnaa [kitchen], predominantly made up of Arab women from around Israel and is dedicated solely to cooking. The community’s page has earned more than 14,000 Likes, and the group grows from day to day just through Facebook connections and word of mouth.

Mtbkhnaa is but one of many food communities on Facebook. Arab women, many of whom are housewives whose lives have revolved around family and their immediate environment, have discovered Facebook and learned that food is a subject that brings people closer together. Through food, they talk to one another, express themselves and their creativity, which until now had only been seen in their private space. Through cakes, baked goods and cooked food, these women enter the public arena, revealing a bit of their lives and homes, establishing relationships that would never have otherwise been possible, creating a world for themselves that is theirs and theirs alone, but still is in line with the global culture that's given legitimacy by the environment. This is a world that bypasses prohibitions and restrictions. There are no religious or social strictures against a woman presenting her handiwork, regardless of how religious she may be. They cook and bake for their families and environment, not for profit or fame, and that is why their cooking becomes legitimate. At the same time, food becomes a culture that facilitates empowerment and self-expression.

There are many, many groups dedicated to food in all around the entire world. The Internet and social networks make it possible for everybody to give full expression to what up to now has been kept within the confines of the home. The global food culture, chefs who are celebrities, availability of a wide variety of food and accessible advanced technology have made food something far greater than a means of subsistence. But the discussion that is conducted about this subject relates to questions such as quality, originality, sophistication and trends. It sets standards for cooking and challenges people who cook. Nobody is judgmental in the Arab food communities. The food presented can be simple, basic and unsophisticated. You can use pasta from a bag or pastry dough that comes ready to be filled, even to serve on paper plates. The sense is that it’s not a competition. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone, just to share.