Suzanne Zeidy & Rawah Badrawi

I’m joined today by Suzanne Zeidy and Rawah Badrawi, the co-authors of a new book Egypt: Recipes and Stories from an Ancient Land, which is part travelogue and part culinary journey. They also happen to be two of my closest friends!

SPONSORED BY

EFG Hermes One is your one app for investing in more than 35 stock markets worldwide.

Start Investing Today

On Part 1 of our conversation, Suzanne and Rawah tell me how they came together to write this incredible book, and how they peeled away the fears and uncertainties of local communities to reveal a vibrant and rich culture not seen before by the outside world.

ALSO SPONSORED BY

On the episode, Malak is wearing Azza Fahmy’s Fallahy Kaf Earrings, the Mamluki Kaf Bangle and the Gold Roman Chain Ring.

Suzanne Zeidy is wearing Azza Fahmy’s T-Lock Necklace and Gold Rosette Necklace, the Joyful Ring and the Endearment Gold Ring

Rawah Badrawi is wearing Azza Fahmy’s Mabrouka Earrings and Filigree Kaf Ring.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, I’d love to hear from you. You can also leave us a comment on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or on Instagram.

We’ll continue the conversation in Part 2, where Suzanne and Rawah tell me about their life’s trajectories and take on our signature lightning round. That’ll be out next week.

0:00 On this episode...
3:08 Suzanne’s first book: Cairo Kitchen
5:12 Rawah’s first book: Siwa
6:56 Coming together for ‘Egypt’
16:36 The magic of Sinai
20:57 The book’s audience
24:59 AI and the Future of Books

WEBVTT

00:00:00.020 --> 00:00:01.850
<v Malak Fouad>What did you leave out that you would have liked to put in?

00:00:01.850 --> 00:00:03.530
<v Rawah Badrawi>I don't know. This is a very controversial subject.

00:00:03.820 --> 00:00:04.260
<v Malak Fouad>That's an interesting thing.

00:00:04.800 --> 00:00:07.760
<v Suzanne Zeidy>Usually food books, at least, are, you know, appetizers,

00:00:07.760 --> 00:00:11.660
<v Malak Fouad>Salads, main, boring. Right, right, right. Is there a photograph of her in the book?

00:00:11.660 --> 00:00:15.740
<v Suzanne Zeidy>Yes. There is. And she said to me, which I was so touched by,

00:00:15.740 --> 00:00:19.360
<v Suzanne Zeidy>because of you, I'm really proud of my heritage. Wow. Yeah.

00:00:22.710 --> 00:00:27.140
<v Malak Fouad>This episode is brought to you by EFG Hermes One, your one app for investing

00:00:27.140 --> 00:00:29.570
<v Malak Fouad>in more than 35 stock markets worldwide.

00:00:42.520 --> 00:00:44.110
<v Malak Fouad>This episode is also brought to you by Azza Fahmy Jewellery. This is exciting, girls. It's fun.

00:00:44.320 --> 00:00:45.760
<v Rawah Badrawi>Well, you're taking our virginity.

00:00:47.360 --> 00:00:53.390
<v Malak Fouad>in terms of public appearances. The three of us have just come back from a three-day weekend,

00:00:56.340 --> 00:00:59.550
<v Malak Fouad>which was really fun. And it was a precursor to the interview.

00:00:59.550 --> 00:01:03.790
<v Malak Fouad>For the audience who don't know this, we've been friends. I've been friends

00:01:03.790 --> 00:01:08.300
<v Malak Fouad>with Suzanne from our teenage years, which is around the corner, of course.

00:01:08.880 --> 00:01:13.940
<v Malak Fouad>Not too long ago. Long time ago. Rawah and I met through Rawah's husband,

00:01:14.620 --> 00:01:19.620
<v Malak Fouad>attended their engagement, their wedding, and we raised our children together.

00:01:19.620 --> 00:01:21.780
<v Malak Fouad>So we are very, very connected.

00:01:22.200 --> 00:01:24.060
<v Malak Fouad>We are completely intertwined.

00:01:25.240 --> 00:01:28.920
<v Malak Fouad>I consider you my family. I want to set the scene again on another issue,

00:01:28.920 --> 00:01:34.440
<v Malak Fouad>which is, of course, you are on the show because this month in September,

00:01:34.880 --> 00:01:38.060
<v Malak Fouad>you are publishing a book called Egypt.

00:01:38.640 --> 00:01:44.700
<v Malak Fouad>part travelogue, part cookbook, part immersive experience in what Egypt is.

00:01:45.680 --> 00:01:50.870
<v Malak Fouad>It's a glorious book. It's a stunning book to look at. It really does us proud

00:01:50.870 --> 00:01:55.440
<v Malak Fouad>as Egyptians. It does the country proud, and it's going to put us on the map, I know.

00:01:55.830 --> 00:02:01.430
<v Malak Fouad>So I'm really proud to have you as my guests. But you each independently had

00:02:01.430 --> 00:02:02.620
<v Malak Fouad>published your own books.

00:02:03.110 --> 00:02:06.660
<v Malak Fouad>So you knew what that world was.

00:02:07.180 --> 00:02:12.470
<v Malak Fouad>And for you, Suzanne, that came on the back of your culinary interests,

00:02:12.470 --> 00:02:16.730
<v Malak Fouad>and it was an offshoot of your restaurant brands.

00:02:16.730 --> 00:02:21.380
<v Suzanne Zeidy>So, yeah. So Cairo Kitchen, with that, we had the idea of...

00:02:23.030 --> 00:02:28.580
<v Suzanne Zeidy>well, it started with koshari. Yeah. So serve koshari, but not just that.

00:02:28.580 --> 00:02:34.540
<v Suzanne Zeidy>It was also serve the foods that you'd have at your grandmother's house or these

00:02:34.540 --> 00:02:36.560
<v Suzanne Zeidy>stews that take a long time to make.

00:02:36.560 --> 00:02:40.370
<v Suzanne Zeidy>And not everyone does it, especially the younger generation.

00:02:40.370 --> 00:02:45.720
<v Suzanne Zeidy>They don't cook these things. So the idea was to serve the home-cooked style

00:02:45.720 --> 00:02:51.640
<v Suzanne Zeidy>food in a canteen type of place. So someone walks in, looks at the pots.

00:02:51.640 --> 00:02:53.090
<v Suzanne Zeidy>What's simmering today? Okay, I'll have this.

00:02:53.760 --> 00:02:56.660
<v Malak Fouad>And it was a great lunch place for people working in the area,

00:02:56.660 --> 00:02:58.560
<v Malak Fouad>I remember. So it was real food,

00:02:58.560 --> 00:03:00.300
<v Suzanne Zeidy>kind of. It wasn't fast food. It was...

00:03:01.190 --> 00:03:04.120
<v Suzanne Zeidy>served quickly, but it was slow-cooked food. That was the idea.

00:03:04.610 --> 00:03:08.580
<v Suzanne Zeidy>And so it was a community kind of place.

00:03:08.580 --> 00:03:14.380
<v Suzanne Zeidy>And the first idea, which didn't work out really, was to make a cookbook of

00:03:14.380 --> 00:03:19.000
<v Suzanne Zeidy>community recipes so people would supply their recipes. We went down that path

00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:21.660
<v Suzanne Zeidy>a little bit, and then that did not work at all.

00:03:22.970 --> 00:03:28.910
<v Suzanne Zeidy>And we went a different path of basically getting the recipes from the restaurant, writing it down.

00:03:30.190 --> 00:03:33.310
<v Malak Fouad>But this was very much your baby. You were doing this on your own, right?

00:03:33.610 --> 00:03:33.750
<v Suzanne Zeidy>Yeah.

00:03:33.890 --> 00:03:37.740
<v Malak Fouad>You didn't have a partner in the book with you. You were alone on that. Yes.

00:03:37.890 --> 00:03:43.990
<v Suzanne Zeidy>Yes. And so I got a team out of the UK, actually, and it was my first time to

00:03:43.990 --> 00:03:48.090
<v Suzanne Zeidy>actually see what it takes to put together a cookbook.

00:03:48.410 --> 00:03:50.610
<v Malak Fouad>And this was the first project you did on your own,

00:03:51.050 --> 00:03:54.840
<v Suzanne Zeidy>right? Well, yes. I mean, it was within Cairo Kitchen, yes. Yes, yes. But it was...

00:03:55.040 --> 00:03:55.410
<v Malak Fouad>Your baby.

00:03:55.770 --> 00:03:57.320
<v Suzanne Zeidy>Yes. It was your baby. It was.

00:03:57.320 --> 00:04:00.290
<v Malak Fouad>I remember that book had such a distinct aesthetic.

00:04:00.290 --> 00:04:00.550
<v Suzanne Zeidy>Yeah.

00:04:01.010 --> 00:04:04.250
<v Malak Fouad>And I remember you were so immersed

00:04:04.250 --> 00:04:08.930
<v Malak Fouad>in the book and you were so particular about the photography. Yeah.

00:04:09.220 --> 00:04:12.150
<v Malak Fouad>And the photography was really unusual at the time.

00:04:12.150 --> 00:04:18.000
<v Malak Fouad>Maybe not so much in Europe and in the U.S., but for Middle Eastern cookbooks

00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:22.790
<v Malak Fouad>were literally recipes like you'd inherit from your grandmother written on a

00:04:22.790 --> 00:04:26.800
<v Malak Fouad>paper. Exactly. No photography on a spirally bound, you know.

00:04:27.630 --> 00:04:30.350
<v Malak Fouad>This is what set it apart.

00:04:30.930 --> 00:04:37.680
<v Suzanne Zeidy>People really noticed it. They liked the aesthetic of it. It was for the first

00:04:37.680 --> 00:04:40.400
<v Suzanne Zeidy>time you saw a plate with a spoon with

00:04:41.090 --> 00:04:43.720
<v Suzanne Zeidy>food dripping off it, you know, it wasn't like..

00:04:44.940 --> 00:04:47.150
<v Malak Fouad>No, it looked really inviting. Yeah. It was

00:04:47.150 --> 00:04:50.930
<v Suzanne Zeidy>very inviting. So, you know, it resonated with people. Yes, yes. It really did

00:04:51.190 --> 00:04:53.940
<v Malak Fouad>And what of that process did you enjoy? The actual making of the

00:04:53.940 --> 00:04:58.020
<v Suzanne Zeidy>book. I loved it. I mean, I love the aesthetic. I love the photography

00:04:58.020 --> 00:05:05.430
<v Suzanne Zeidy>part of it. I loved, you know, a little bit telling stories but not as much

00:05:05.430 --> 00:05:07.040
<v Suzanne Zeidy>as the book we'll talk about. The next one, yeah.

00:05:08.580 --> 00:05:13.170
<v Suzanne Zeidy>But I loved giving my perspective, my view of it.

00:05:13.170 --> 00:05:18.880
<v Malak Fouad>So, Rawah, you jumped into a book. You had two collaborators who were photographers

00:05:18.880 --> 00:05:20.280
<v Malak Fouad>on the book. This is a book called Siwa.

00:05:21.020 --> 00:05:25.380
<v Rawah Badrawi>So I had gone to Siwa for a private occasion for my husband's 40th.

00:05:25.820 --> 00:05:29.320
<v Rawah Badrawi>And I came back to Cairo and went to Diwan Bookstore. And I said,

00:05:29.860 --> 00:05:32.420
<v Rawah Badrawi>do you have any books on Siwa? And there was nothing.

00:05:33.210 --> 00:05:36.700
<v Rawah Badrawi>And I thought, how could it be that one of the most beautiful places in Egypt,

00:05:37.360 --> 00:05:39.460
<v Rawah Badrawi>has nothing on it? It's so photographic.

00:05:39.820 --> 00:05:41.980
<v Rawah Badrawi>So I approached my friends.

00:05:42.420 --> 00:05:46.400
<v Rawah Badrawi>They're not professional photographers in the sense that this is not their main career.

00:05:46.880 --> 00:05:51.240
<v Rawah Badrawi>They do other things in life. But I said to them, can you believe that this,

00:05:51.980 --> 00:05:57.000
<v Rawah Badrawi>beautiful place, which looks so good in photography, has nothing on it?

00:05:57.000 --> 00:05:58.460
<v Rawah Badrawi>What do you think? Shall we do a book?

00:05:58.940 --> 00:06:03.260
<v Rawah Badrawi>And they said yes right away. So I had to kind of create a structure for how

00:06:03.260 --> 00:06:06.310
<v Rawah Badrawi>this book would look. I got a corporate sponsor.

00:06:07.300 --> 00:06:08.380
<v Rawah Badrawi>And that's how we did it.

00:06:09.920 --> 00:06:12.910
<v Malak Fouad>What was it about the process of writing that book that you loved?

00:06:13.860 --> 00:06:17.040
<v Rawah Badrawi>Look, I mean, I love history and culture. Yeah. It's my jam. Yeah.

00:06:17.330 --> 00:06:22.910
<v Rawah Badrawi>So I loved learning about what had happened in Siwa, and it does have a very interesting history.

00:06:22.950 --> 00:06:23.890
<v Malak Fouad>It's a very unique history in Egypt.

00:06:23.910 --> 00:06:28.410
<v Rawah Badrawi>Going back to antiquity. Yeah, for sure. And I thought it's crazy that some

00:06:28.410 --> 00:06:32.930
<v Rawah Badrawi>people may not know that Alexander the Great made this huge detour to go to

00:06:32.930 --> 00:06:37.130
<v Rawah Badrawi>Siwa to consult what was basically like a fortune teller and be like, am I going to be great?

00:06:37.670 --> 00:06:41.270
<v Rawah Badrawi>Yes, you're going to be great. Off you go. Off you go. His army nearly died

00:06:41.570 --> 00:06:43.590
<v Rawah Badrawi>for him to go consult a fortune teller.

00:06:43.950 --> 00:06:48.960
<v Rawah Badrawi>But when I found out about its history, and the Siwens being probably one of

00:06:48.960 --> 00:06:52.110
<v Rawah Badrawi>the most unique, insular, introverted people you will ever meet,

00:06:52.570 --> 00:06:54.750
<v Rawah Badrawi>they're very mysterious, very secretive.

00:06:55.210 --> 00:06:56.740
<v Rawah Badrawi>I thought this makes a good story.

00:06:57.330 --> 00:07:03.390
<v Malak Fouad>You've each got in the bag an experience of doing a book individually, which you both loved.

00:07:03.730 --> 00:07:10.070
<v Malak Fouad>And it kind of unleashed, in a way, a creative gene or juice that maybe was

00:07:10.070 --> 00:07:14.800
<v Malak Fouad>always there, but you kind of found your grooves independently doing that.

00:07:16.780 --> 00:07:23.170
<v Malak Fouad>Fast forward several years, and you get the idea together of a new book,

00:07:24.420 --> 00:07:26.360
<v Malak Fouad>part travelogue, part cookbook.

00:07:26.360 --> 00:07:36.490
<v Suzanne Zeidy>Well, before that, I mean, Rawah will tell you about her, but I had an idea of doing another book but

00:07:37.690 --> 00:07:41.880
<v Suzanne Zeidy>on the coast, about the coast of Egypt, the seafood dishes and all that.

00:07:42.360 --> 00:07:46.940
<v Suzanne Zeidy>But at the time, you know, I still had two kids at home. And it takes a lot

00:07:46.940 --> 00:07:54.550
<v Suzanne Zeidy>out of you. And I couldn't quite take that step yet because I had my hands full still.

00:07:54.550 --> 00:07:58.290
<v Malak Fouad>Yeah. And you knew what a commitment doing a book was. It's a huge commitment.

00:07:58.290 --> 00:08:02.090
<v Suzanne Zeidy>Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is. I mean, if you're going to do it with an idea that

00:08:02.090 --> 00:08:04.450
<v Suzanne Zeidy>you're going to finish it within a certain period of time. Sure.

00:08:04.750 --> 00:08:08.160
<v Suzanne Zeidy>You know, you have to commit to it and put a lot of work into it.

00:08:08.160 --> 00:08:10.460
<v Suzanne Zeidy>So the idea was there, but I wasn't ready.

00:08:12.390 --> 00:08:16.330
<v Suzanne Zeidy>Then after my oldest child went off to college, then we had our conversation.

00:08:16.330 --> 00:08:17.140
<v Malak Fouad>The idea came back.

00:08:17.140 --> 00:08:18.210
<v Suzanne Zeidy>The idea came back.

00:08:18.990 --> 00:08:22.790
<v Malak Fouad>And you're currently living in Germany. Rawah, you're in the UK.

00:08:24.450 --> 00:08:27.970
<v Malak Fouad>So you kind of saw an opening to be able to work together.

00:08:28.190 --> 00:08:28.470
<v Suzanne Zeidy>Yeah.

00:08:28.470 --> 00:08:28.830
<v Malak Fouad>Right?

00:08:29.680 --> 00:08:33.160
<v Suzanne Zeidy>We did. And, you know, we wanted to combine forces. And, you know,

00:08:33.160 --> 00:08:37.190
<v Suzanne Zeidy>my focus is more food. Her is more culture and history.

00:08:37.500 --> 00:08:41.260
<v Suzanne Zeidy>And so we thought, you know, together we could do something bigger than just

00:08:41.610 --> 00:08:46.040
<v Suzanne Zeidy>the part I wanted to do or the part she wanted to do. And you'll talk about that.

00:08:46.040 --> 00:08:48.060
<v Rawah Badrawi>I mean, I just wanted to do Nubia. Yeah.

00:08:48.180 --> 00:08:48.980
<v Malak Fouad>Oh, you did? I did.

00:08:49.020 --> 00:08:49.990
<v Suzanne Zeidy>So I went to the coast.

00:08:50.120 --> 00:08:52.440
<v Malak Fouad>That's all you were interested in. She was interested in the coast.

00:08:52.440 --> 00:08:56.720
<v Rawah Badrawi>It wasn't all I was interested in. But it was what I thought I could do by myself.

00:08:56.840 --> 00:08:59.270
<v Rawah Badrawi>And just like she thought she could do the coast by herself.

00:08:59.300 --> 00:09:01.420
<v Malak Fouad>So had you already been thinking of something on your own?

00:09:01.420 --> 00:09:04.310
<v Rawah Badrawi>I had been thinking about something on my own. But don't forget,

00:09:04.310 --> 00:09:07.460
<v Rawah Badrawi>Malak, that what happened between the publication of our first books,

00:09:07.460 --> 00:09:11.430
<v Rawah Badrawi>which were, I think, a year apart, maybe just a year apart, the publication

00:09:11.430 --> 00:09:14.800
<v Rawah Badrawi>of our first books, what happened after that was revolution,

00:09:15.680 --> 00:09:20.290
<v Rawah Badrawi>moving countries, raising kids in new environments, putting them through high

00:09:20.290 --> 00:09:25.100
<v Rawah Badrawi>school and into college, COVID, in my case, a parent passing away,

00:09:25.100 --> 00:09:26.230
<v Rawah Badrawi>being sick and passing away.

00:09:26.230 --> 00:09:27.000
<v Malak Fouad>And in Suzanne's case.

00:09:27.000 --> 00:09:32.230
<v Rawah Badrawi>And in Suzanne's case. Now, if you were to compress all of these big life-changing

00:09:32.230 --> 00:09:37.500
<v Rawah Badrawi>things, life sort of events where you need to be all hands on deck,

00:09:37.860 --> 00:09:41.370
<v Rawah Badrawi>there's no time to be writing the book on the coast and the book on Nubia.

00:09:41.370 --> 00:09:42.520
<v Suzanne Zeidy>It's not a part-time job.

00:09:42.520 --> 00:09:47.800
<v Rawah Badrawi>It's not a part-time job. And so we accepted that this was a moment where our

00:09:47.800 --> 00:09:52.800
<v Rawah Badrawi>families and life needed us to do other things and put our careers on hold.

00:09:52.800 --> 00:09:55.160
<v Malak Fouad>You know, I mean, I know we're going to try and get to this later,

00:09:55.160 --> 00:09:56.970
<v Malak Fouad>but a man would never think this way.

00:09:56.970 --> 00:09:57.140
<v Rawah Badrawi>No.

00:09:57.920 --> 00:10:01.080
<v Malak Fouad>I mean, let's be honest. A man would never say, sorry, can't take the job.

00:10:01.290 --> 00:10:04.750
<v Malak Fouad>Sorry, can't move there because I have my family to look after. No.

00:10:05.340 --> 00:10:10.120
<v Malak Fouad>We are the ones that do that. I'm not complaining. I'm just saying that's the fact of life.

00:10:10.120 --> 00:10:13.770
<v Rawah Badrawi>And I'm sure, Malak, you've seen this a lot. Your fingers on the pulse.

00:10:13.770 --> 00:10:17.990
<v Rawah Badrawi>You've seen a lot of these sort of essays about us being the generation that's

00:10:17.990 --> 00:10:19.860
<v Rawah Badrawi>between parents and children.

00:10:20.360 --> 00:10:21.220
<v Malak Fouad>The sandwich generation.

00:10:21.220 --> 00:10:27.260
<v Rawah Badrawi>Where you're trying to take care of everybody at once. And so add COVID to that, add

00:10:27.260 --> 00:10:32.120
<v Rawah Badrawi>political turmoil, changing countries, there is nothing left on the table. Sure, sure.

00:10:32.800 --> 00:10:38.150
<v Malak Fouad>I feel like I walked the path with you girls every step of the way.

00:10:38.970 --> 00:10:42.700
<v Malak Fouad>I know what was going on. I was really interested in what was going on.

00:10:43.240 --> 00:10:47.260
<v Malak Fouad>And one of the things I absolutely kind of fell on when you kind of said to

00:10:47.260 --> 00:10:50.930
<v Malak Fouad>me, we figured out the concept.

00:10:51.730 --> 00:11:00.530
<v Malak Fouad>And you guys said it's divided into four. So, coast, river, desert, and sea.

00:11:00.530 --> 00:11:02.470
<v Suzanne Zeidy>I have to tell you how that happens. Yeah, do.

00:11:03.370 --> 00:11:05.510
<v Malak Fouad>I love this. And it's so brilliant.

00:11:05.510 --> 00:11:07.730
<v Rawah Badrawi>It was a light bulb Eureka moment.

00:11:07.730 --> 00:11:11.910
<v Suzanne Zeidy>It's a light bulb moment. It was. So, you know, we had the whole country to

00:11:11.910 --> 00:11:16.480
<v Suzanne Zeidy>cover, right? And usually food books at least are, you know, appetizers, salads,

00:11:16.480 --> 00:11:18.820
<v Malak Fouad>main... boring. Right, right, right, right.

00:11:19.520 --> 00:11:23.330
<v Suzanne Zeidy>And then, so I'm meeting up with Rawah one day and then she goes, this is what we're going

00:11:23.330 --> 00:11:26.590
<v Suzanne Zeidy>to do. We're dividing it according to these categories.

00:11:26.590 --> 00:11:27.130
<v Malak Fouad>So remind me.

00:11:27.430 --> 00:11:28.240
<v Suzanne Zeidy>And I hit my forehead.

00:11:28.240 --> 00:11:30.860
<v Malak Fouad>I'm like, what? Coast, river. Sea. River.

00:11:31.450 --> 00:11:33.430
<v Suzanne Zeidy>Sea. River. Desert. Desert. Mountain.

00:11:33.430 --> 00:11:34.030
<v Malak Fouad>Mountain, yeah.

00:11:34.410 --> 00:11:38.780
<v Rawah Badrawi>I said to her, I go, think about it, Suzanne. This is one of the few countries

00:11:38.780 --> 00:11:42.510
<v Rawah Badrawi>in the Middle East, if not the world, that has all these last games.

00:11:42.630 --> 00:11:46.680
<v Malak Fouad>And distinct culture, distinct food, distinct people.

00:11:46.680 --> 00:11:47.500
<v Suzanne Zeidy>That was the point.

00:11:47.500 --> 00:11:50.060
<v Rawah Badrawi>We have to, like, show it off. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:11:50.060 --> 00:11:50.180
<v Malak Fouad>Yeah.

00:11:50.180 --> 00:11:51.960
<v Suzanne Zeidy>And so that changed everything.

00:11:51.960 --> 00:11:54.530
<v Rawah Badrawi>It changed everything. It actually made our work much easier.

00:11:55.230 --> 00:11:55.910
<v Malak Fouad>I'm sure it did.

00:11:55.910 --> 00:11:58.630
<v Rawah Badrawi>Because we were structured in our thing. I'm sure it did.

00:11:58.630 --> 00:12:04.600
<v Malak Fouad>So I was trying to remember something yesterday. So you guys went and did reconnaissance

00:12:04.600 --> 00:12:07.970
<v Malak Fouad>missions for each of these distinct areas.

00:12:08.200 --> 00:12:12.230
<v Malak Fouad>And then you came back with the photographer and actually did the shoot.

00:12:12.230 --> 00:12:19.080
<v Suzanne Zeidy>We visited each place two or three times. And then came back in the very end with our photographer.

00:12:19.270 --> 00:12:22.550
<v Malak Fouad>And in each of those visits, you said, ok, this is worth it.

00:12:22.550 --> 00:12:25.280
<v Malak Fouad>This is not. This is what we want. This is not what we want. Right.

00:12:25.280 --> 00:12:30.590
<v Suzanne Zeidy>We nurtured relationships with people. Yes. So we had to make people comfortable,

00:12:31.050 --> 00:12:35.180
<v Suzanne Zeidy>get these recipes, cook them, test them, get the story out there,

00:12:35.180 --> 00:12:37.150
<v Suzanne Zeidy>do all of that. And that takes a lot of time. Yeah.

00:12:37.560 --> 00:12:40.900
<v Malak Fouad>And in Egypt, like a lot of places in the Middle East, it takes time to gain trust.

00:12:40.900 --> 00:12:41.500
<v Rawah Badrawi>Exactly.

00:12:42.160 --> 00:12:45.140
<v Malak Fouad>And I know, Suzanne, that your experience writing the first book,

00:12:45.140 --> 00:12:47.700
<v Malak Fouad>the Cairo Kitchen book, you loved working with that photographer.

00:12:48.180 --> 00:12:53.170
<v Malak Fouad>So you brought him back in. And there is a lot of similarities in the look and

00:12:53.170 --> 00:12:56.680
<v Malak Fouad>feel of those images. They're really strong images.

00:12:57.440 --> 00:13:01.500
<v Malak Fouad>And so I always think of the aesthetic as being very driven by you.

00:13:01.920 --> 00:13:03.860
<v Malak Fouad>Am I right in that? Yes. Right.

00:13:04.280 --> 00:13:13.240
<v Malak Fouad>It's your eye on not just the food images, but the scenes in the cities as well, and the towns.

00:13:13.240 --> 00:13:15.940
<v Suzanne Zeidy>Location is as important as the food. Exactly.

00:13:15.940 --> 00:13:21.840
<v Rawah Badrawi>Suzanne is highly visual. Very. And so, again, this goes back to how we divide

00:13:21.840 --> 00:13:23.120
<v Rawah Badrawi>beautifully with the work. Yes.

00:13:23.300 --> 00:13:30.040
<v Rawah Badrawi>is that she has no problems going over photographs over and over and over again

00:13:30.040 --> 00:13:31.780
<v Rawah Badrawi>until she feels the visual is right.

00:13:32.400 --> 00:13:35.560
<v Rawah Badrawi>I don't mind looking at them a few times. I know a good photograph when I see

00:13:35.560 --> 00:13:37.360
<v Rawah Badrawi>one, but I'm not going to fuss about it.

00:13:37.920 --> 00:13:40.540
<v Rawah Badrawi>She will find things. She will move things around.

00:13:41.360 --> 00:13:45.700
<v Rawah Badrawi>Whilst I will sit there and just agonize over a paragraph or a sentence or

00:13:45.700 --> 00:13:46.820
<v Malak Fouad>a piece of information

00:13:47.120 --> 00:13:50.760
<v Rawah Badrawi>Or a historical fact or a cultural treasure or a little secret.

00:13:50.760 --> 00:13:51.000
<v Suzanne Zeidy>Yeah.

00:13:51.480 --> 00:13:57.720
<v Rawah Badrawi>And so between us, we were able to like create that division of labor that was so perfect.

00:13:57.720 --> 00:14:00.490
<v Malak Fouad>You know, one of the things I loved about your book is obviously I got a

00:14:01.080 --> 00:14:06.110
<v Malak Fouad>pre sale copy. I got the PDF and I read through it. I loved your introduction.

00:14:06.310 --> 00:14:06.650
<v Suzanne Zeidy>Oh, yeah.

00:14:06.650 --> 00:14:09.800
<v Malak Fouad>How you each brought to the table

00:14:10.990 --> 00:14:16.910
<v Malak Fouad>your own image of what this book is and how you each brought your

00:14:16.910 --> 00:14:21.500
<v Malak Fouad>family into it. Yeah. And how you, Rawah, would talk about your dad always,

00:14:21.970 --> 00:14:25.270
<v Malak Fouad>you know, the sitting at the table with the family was so important when you

00:14:25.270 --> 00:14:29.530
<v Malak Fouad>were growing up. Yeah. And for you Suzanne, you know, bringing your mother into

00:14:29.530 --> 00:14:32.450
<v Malak Fouad>the book. I thought was really very strong,

00:14:33.850 --> 00:14:37.600
<v Malak Fouad>you know, she was the baker. She brought all the American

00:14:39.190 --> 00:14:43.080
<v Malak Fouad>comfort of being with your daughter in the kitchen and cooking. I could just see it.

00:14:43.080 --> 00:14:45.490
<v Suzanne Zeidy>The concept of a recipe is not from Egypt.

00:14:46.350 --> 00:14:49.620
<v Malak Fouad>But then, of course, me knowing you so well, I know how close you are to your

00:14:49.620 --> 00:14:54.770
<v Malak Fouad>father and how important he is for you as a grounding.

00:14:55.130 --> 00:14:58.100
<v Malak Fouad>But his love of food, it seeps through the book. And of course,

00:14:58.100 --> 00:14:59.580
<v Malak Fouad>he's got that wonderful photo in the book.

00:15:00.070 --> 00:15:05.090
<v Suzanne Zeidy>There's another thing about that. So my father married an American woman,

00:15:05.090 --> 00:15:09.510
<v Suzanne Zeidy>right? So the foods of his childhood weren't on the table automatically, right?

00:15:10.410 --> 00:15:14.710
<v Suzanne Zeidy>To eat the foods of his childhood, he had to do it himself. You know,

00:15:14.710 --> 00:15:17.110
<v Suzanne Zeidy>we didn't have a cook who just happened to.. because she

00:15:17.110 --> 00:15:18.910
<v Malak Fouad>wouldn't have known to make them. No.

00:15:18.910 --> 00:15:23.120
<v Suzanne Zeidy>So he, you know, started cooking on his own out of memory.

00:15:23.420 --> 00:15:29.090
<v Suzanne Zeidy>So for me, food got this connection to memory and meaning and emotion.

00:15:29.270 --> 00:15:30.120
<v Malak Fouad>I like that. That's really nice.

00:15:30.130 --> 00:15:32.130
<v Suzanne Zeidy>And so I think that also seeps through.

00:15:32.700 --> 00:15:36.330
<v Malak Fouad>And one of the things I love about your dad and your relationship is that in

00:15:36.330 --> 00:15:40.590
<v Malak Fouad>summer, you and I are neighbors, he comes to stay, you guys go to the food market

00:15:40.590 --> 00:15:45.230
<v Malak Fouad>together, you buy the fish, you buy the crabs, he picks them and it's really, it's a really,

00:15:46.290 --> 00:15:50.070
<v Malak Fouad>it's a really nice bonding thing and it comes through in the book.

00:15:51.370 --> 00:15:55.590
<v Malak Fouad>So these are the kinds of things I like that you brought in, your own personal

00:15:55.590 --> 00:15:58.770
<v Malak Fouad>memories and connecting food to memory, place to memory.

00:15:59.310 --> 00:16:00.950
<v Malak Fouad>It comes through in the book very strongly.

00:16:02.710 --> 00:16:07.050
<v Malak Fouad>This episode is brought to you by EFG Hermes One, your one app for investment

00:16:07.050 --> 00:16:11.410
<v Malak Fouad>across more than 35 stock markets worldwide. With EFG Hermes One,

00:16:11.410 --> 00:16:17.220
<v Malak Fouad>you can buy and sell orders in real time for immediate execution across multiple global markets.

00:16:17.420 --> 00:16:21.070
<v Malak Fouad>You can keep track of your favorite stocks by creating and customizing multiple

00:16:21.070 --> 00:16:25.170
<v Malak Fouad>watch lists and make informed investment decisions with their advanced technical

00:16:25.170 --> 00:16:28.690
<v Malak Fouad>analysis tools to study market trends and investor behavior.

00:16:28.690 --> 00:16:33.320
<v Malak Fouad>So supercharge your financial journey and download the EFG Hermes One app on

00:16:33.320 --> 00:16:37.140
<v Malak Fouad>the Apple App Store and on Google Play and start investing today.

00:16:37.480 --> 00:16:43.440
<v Malak Fouad>What was your favorite part while you were doing your reconnaissance,

00:16:43.440 --> 00:16:47.060
<v Malak Fouad>while you went back to film or record or go back with the photographer?

00:16:47.390 --> 00:16:51.960
<v Malak Fouad>Which was your favorite part of the country that you cataloged?

00:16:51.960 --> 00:16:52.950
<v Rawah Badrawi>That's a very hard question.

00:16:53.030 --> 00:16:54.070
<v Malak Fouad>It's a hard question, yeah.

00:16:54.410 --> 00:16:59.590
<v Rawah Badrawi>I'm going to tell you that it's probably the places that I know the least and

00:16:59.590 --> 00:17:04.260
<v Rawah Badrawi>that are so sort of atmospheric. And so for me personally, it was the Sinai,

00:17:05.320 --> 00:17:10.030
<v Rawah Badrawi>because I had been to a lot of the other places. Of course, there were places

00:17:10.030 --> 00:17:14.650
<v Rawah Badrawi>I'd never been to, but they were still towns. They were towns on the Nile Delta

00:17:14.650 --> 00:17:16.300
<v Rawah Badrawi>or the Nile Valley or, you know.

00:17:17.080 --> 00:17:21.180
<v Rawah Badrawi>Dakhla, for example, I had never been to. But it's small considering when you

00:17:21.180 --> 00:17:24.450
<v Rawah Badrawi>go to the Sinai, this is a massive peninsula.

00:17:24.450 --> 00:17:28.780
<v Malak Fouad>And the historical element of the Sinai. I mean, it's got every religion is in the Sinai.

00:17:29.080 --> 00:17:31.330
<v Rawah Badrawi>Very biblical. And I thought, oh,

00:17:31.330 --> 00:17:34.130
<v Rawah Badrawi>I'm going to go there. And that whole spiritual thing is probably

00:17:34.800 --> 00:17:38.420
<v Rawah Badrawi>overrated. It's not really happening. But it actually hangs in the air.

00:17:39.220 --> 00:17:42.950
<v Rawah Badrawi>And when you're there and when you're in the monastery and when you're talking

00:17:42.950 --> 00:17:46.380
<v Rawah Badrawi>to, whether you're talking to the Bedouins or you're talking to the monks,

00:17:47.100 --> 00:17:52.770
<v Rawah Badrawi>there is a gravitas. There is a spiritual gravitas in Sinai which cannot be denied.

00:17:52.980 --> 00:17:56.040
<v Malak Fouad>You know what it is about the Sinai, I think? It's suspended in time.

00:17:56.660 --> 00:18:02.400
<v Malak Fouad>You're not in any decade, century place. It's just floating above everything.

00:18:02.400 --> 00:18:06.110
<v Rawah Badrawi>That moment where you're on the top of the mountain or you're just kind of between

00:18:06.110 --> 00:18:11.580
<v Rawah Badrawi>the beautiful trees. There are ancient trees there and fruits and pathways and

00:18:11.580 --> 00:18:13.860
<v Rawah Badrawi>Sinai trails. It's very atmospheric.

00:18:14.280 --> 00:18:15.160
<v Malak Fouad>What about for you, Sue?

00:18:15.280 --> 00:18:19.160
<v Suzanne Zeidy>Look, it's the same place. But, I mean, of course, being in the monastery and

00:18:19.160 --> 00:18:22.360
<v Suzanne Zeidy>speaking to Father Justin in the library. Oh, my God, that's just nuts.

00:18:23.890 --> 00:18:29.050
<v Suzanne Zeidy>But there's this Bedouin girl that it took us two years to get her comfortable.

00:18:29.050 --> 00:18:29.540
<v Malak Fouad>Really?

00:18:29.540 --> 00:18:33.780
<v Suzanne Zeidy>Yeah. So we met her. How old was she? 30s. Yeah.

00:18:34.330 --> 00:18:40.510
<v Suzanne Zeidy>So at the very beginning, very conservative, of course. So I went first and

00:18:40.510 --> 00:18:45.940
<v Suzanne Zeidy>I chatted with her. I mean, I got introduced to her by someone who knew someone who knew someone.

00:18:46.120 --> 00:18:49.160
<v Suzanne Zeidy>And I showed up in her house and drank rose tea.

00:18:49.160 --> 00:18:52.840
<v Suzanne Zeidy>And, you know, she was fine to have me, a woman, visiting no problem.

00:18:52.840 --> 00:18:55.390
<v Suzanne Zeidy>And I told her we're writing a book and, you know, we're going to come back

00:18:55.390 --> 00:18:57.640
<v Suzanne Zeidy>and we want some recipes and all that stuff. And she was like,

00:18:58.020 --> 00:19:02.080
<v Suzanne Zeidy>ok, I'm not sure. And I said, and our British photographer is going to come.

00:19:02.080 --> 00:19:03.740
<v Suzanne Zeidy>And she's like, no, no, no, no, no.

00:19:04.640 --> 00:19:09.470
<v Suzanne Zeidy>What are you thinking? Absolutely not. In the end, we went back after many visits

00:19:09.760 --> 00:19:12.470
<v Suzanne Zeidy>with Jonathan, with our photographer, and she was like,

00:19:12.900 --> 00:19:14.060
<v Rawah Badrawi>come, sure.

00:19:14.900 --> 00:19:16.310
<v Suzanne Zeidy>What do you want me dressed in? Of course.

00:19:16.310 --> 00:19:17.180
<v Malak Fouad>That's amazing.

00:19:17.180 --> 00:19:19.820
<v Suzanne Zeidy>And it took time. Yeah. But she...

00:19:20.280 --> 00:19:23.310
<v Suzanne Zeidy>completely trusted us. She completely opened up. Is there

00:19:23.310 --> 00:19:24.970
<v Malak Fouad>a photograph of her in the book? Yes. There

00:19:24.970 --> 00:19:31.270
<v Suzanne Zeidy>is. And she said to to me which I was so touched by. She said, because of you

00:19:31.270 --> 00:19:36.230
<v Suzanne Zeidy>I'm really proud of my heritage. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And that was really really

00:19:36.230 --> 00:19:37.550
<v Suzanne Zeidy>really because no one had

00:19:37.870 --> 00:19:39.150
<v Malak Fouad>highlighted it to her before

00:19:39.150 --> 00:19:42.450
<v Suzanne Zeidy>right? Yeah, I don't know but I was, you know...

00:19:43.930 --> 00:19:45.350
<v Rawah Badrawi>Malak, don't underestimate the extent

00:19:45.350 --> 00:19:48.790
<v Rawah Badrawi>to which women in Egypt from all kinds of cultures feel very unseen.

00:19:49.990 --> 00:19:53.970
<v Rawah Badrawi>And it's hard. Life is hard. They're spending most of their time taking care of their kids.

00:19:53.970 --> 00:19:55.970
<v Malak Fouad>And they're indoors. They have no interaction.

00:19:55.970 --> 00:19:59.780
<v Rawah Badrawi>They're indoors. And so when they meet someone who says, I want to see what

00:19:59.780 --> 00:20:03.630
<v Rawah Badrawi>your grandmother wore and what she cooked, show me so I can take a photo.

00:20:04.010 --> 00:20:08.550
<v Rawah Badrawi>This is a very touching, moving moment for them. And we've seen women like this all over the country.

00:20:08.990 --> 00:20:11.550
<v Rawah Badrawi>They're usually hidden in their homes, taking care of their kids.

00:20:11.830 --> 00:20:13.840
<v Rawah Badrawi>They're, you know, struggling. Yeah.

00:20:14.630 --> 00:20:17.980
<v Rawah Badrawi>And this is just this little moment, this moment of light and connection.

00:20:17.980 --> 00:20:21.600
<v Malak Fouad>Did you find that the women were the backbone of all the areas you visited?

00:20:21.600 --> 00:20:22.390
<v Rawah Badrawi>Not all the areas.

00:20:22.390 --> 00:20:23.360
<v Malak Fouad>No. No.

00:20:23.610 --> 00:20:27.730
<v Rawah Badrawi>There are some areas which are very male-dominated in terms of they go out,

00:20:27.730 --> 00:20:31.270
<v Rawah Badrawi>they get the food, they bring back the food. Oh, really? Yeah.

00:20:31.270 --> 00:20:35.070
<v Rawah Badrawi>The Arabs in Marsa Matroh, for example, they do everything.

00:20:35.070 --> 00:20:37.890
<v Suzanne Zeidy>Yeah. In Siwa, we didn't meet one woman. In Siwa,

00:20:37.890 --> 00:20:40.750
<v Rawah Badrawi>the woman almost never leaves the home.

00:20:41.270 --> 00:20:46.050
<v Rawah Badrawi>Famously, they will leave the home on two days, whether there's a wedding

00:20:46.870 --> 00:20:52.290
<v Rawah Badrawi>or a funeral. And if they do leave for that, they are in a blue shroud,

00:20:52.420 --> 00:20:54.930
<v Rawah Badrawi>not dissimilar to what you see in Afghanistan.

00:20:55.290 --> 00:20:58.350
<v Rawah Badrawi>This wasn't the way they were, by the way, but this is how they are now.

00:20:58.350 --> 00:21:02.770
<v Malak Fouad>When you were doing this book or as it developed and as it progressed,

00:21:03.260 --> 00:21:05.150
<v Malak Fouad>did you have an audience in mind?

00:21:05.150 --> 00:21:07.140
<v Suzanne Zeidy>I didn't. I don't know if you did. I didn't.

00:21:07.140 --> 00:21:12.550
<v Rawah Badrawi>No, but let's not forget this book is in English. It will be hopefully translated

00:21:12.550 --> 00:21:14.510
<v Rawah Badrawi>in other languages, including Arabic.

00:21:14.900 --> 00:21:19.340
<v Rawah Badrawi>I will say that the Western reader may be the first..

00:21:19.340 --> 00:21:20.680
<v Suzanne Zeidy>the primary target.

00:21:20.680 --> 00:21:21.290
<v Malak Fouad>Yeah.

00:21:21.290 --> 00:21:25.560
<v Rawah Badrawi>We weren't thinking in terms of distribution in Egypt, even though we knew the book would get there.

00:21:25.980 --> 00:21:29.770
<v Rawah Badrawi>But we were thinking more about educating the global reader about Egypt because

00:21:29.980 --> 00:21:33.480
<v Rawah Badrawi>our cuisine is or the Egyptian cuisine is a mystery for them.

00:21:33.480 --> 00:21:36.100
<v Malak Fouad>Sure. You know, we talked about this over the weekend when we were together

00:21:36.100 --> 00:21:39.300
<v Malak Fouad>and we've talked about it many times. Egypt is having a moment.

00:21:39.770 --> 00:21:42.810
<v Malak Fouad>Egypt is with the opening of Gem (Grand Egyptian Museum).

00:21:44.070 --> 00:21:48.950
<v Malak Fouad>There is attention on the country. I think the timing of your book is fantastic.

00:21:48.950 --> 00:21:53.080
<v Malak Fouad>I know that these things are serendipitous. This is not something you planned. It just came that way.

00:21:53.080 --> 00:21:56.720
<v Suzanne Zeidy>There's one thing, though, that we wanted to take the focus off of Cairo.

00:21:56.720 --> 00:22:00.360
<v Suzanne Zeidy>When anyone thinks of Egypt, it's like the Red Sea or Cairo.

00:22:00.390 --> 00:22:01.130
<v Malak Fouad>Or pharaohs.

00:22:01.310 --> 00:22:05.470
<v Suzanne Zeidy>Yeah. Pyramids. We kind of wanted to say there's so much more,

00:22:06.070 --> 00:22:09.950
<v Suzanne Zeidy>so many more places to go and see. And so Cairo is...

00:22:10.690 --> 00:22:12.400
<v Suzanne Zeidy>part of the book, but a very small part.

00:22:12.400 --> 00:22:16.190
<v Malak Fouad>Did you guys, when you settled on your concept and you had decided,

00:22:16.190 --> 00:22:19.370
<v Malak Fouad>okay, we're dividing up the country, we're going to talk culture,

00:22:19.370 --> 00:22:24.260
<v Malak Fouad>we're going to talk food, were there books that you had had in mind as role

00:22:24.260 --> 00:22:27.360
<v Malak Fouad>models, for want of a better word, or like you didn't?

00:22:27.430 --> 00:22:28.210
<v Rawah Badrawi>It doesn't exist.

00:22:28.670 --> 00:22:29.520
<v Malak Fouad>It doesn't exist.

00:22:29.520 --> 00:22:34.090
<v Rawah Badrawi>I mean, the only person that did this in terms of like seminal work is Claudia

00:22:34.090 --> 00:22:36.570
<v Rawah Badrawi>Rodin. She was the first person back in the day.

00:22:36.570 --> 00:22:37.850
<v Malak Fouad>But there wasn't culture with her.

00:22:38.170 --> 00:22:38.810
<v Rawah Badrawi>No, there was.

00:22:39.370 --> 00:22:39.860
<v Malak Fouad>It was food. It was pure recipes.

00:22:40.300 --> 00:22:45.690
<v Rawah Badrawi>But through the introduction to her recipes, there would be that reference to

00:22:45.690 --> 00:22:48.530
<v Rawah Badrawi>how this dish came about and where it may have came from.

00:22:48.530 --> 00:22:48.920
<v Malak Fouad>Right.

00:22:48.920 --> 00:22:53.020
<v Rawah Badrawi>So she started the concept. That's why a lot of people think of her as a kind

00:22:53.020 --> 00:22:57.360
<v Rawah Badrawi>of cultural anthropologist. Yeah. And in fact, we met with her and sat with

00:22:57.360 --> 00:22:59.490
<v Rawah Badrawi>her and talked through our entire model with her.

00:22:59.490 --> 00:23:02.050
<v Malak Fouad>Oh, you did? Yeah. I know that she's endorsed your book.

00:23:02.430 --> 00:23:03.450
<v Rawah Badrawi>She endorsed our book.

00:23:03.510 --> 00:23:05.030
<v Malak Fouad>That's a massive, massive advantage. She read the book

00:23:05.490 --> 00:23:06.690
<v Rawah Badrawi>the earliest manuscript.

00:23:06.690 --> 00:23:07.190
<v Malak Fouad>Right, right.

00:23:07.510 --> 00:23:10.520
<v Rawah Badrawi>And she saw the earliest work and she loved it.

00:23:10.780 --> 00:23:15.580
<v Malak Fouad>She's an icon. She is. You know, absolutely. My mother was using Claudia Roden books.

00:23:15.580 --> 00:23:20.840
<v Rawah Badrawi>Her excitement for this book was very touching because she said it hadn't been

00:23:20.840 --> 00:23:21.950
<v Rawah Badrawi>done yet. Where's the book?

00:23:22.310 --> 00:23:25.530
<v Rawah Badrawi>So to answer your initial question, this book hadn't been done yet.

00:23:25.870 --> 00:23:28.610
<v Rawah Badrawi>And there is no book that does it in this way.

00:23:29.130 --> 00:23:33.110
<v Rawah Badrawi>First of all, there's no regional Egypt book. There are some books about food

00:23:33.110 --> 00:23:35.750
<v Rawah Badrawi>in Egypt, maybe some recipes.

00:23:36.060 --> 00:23:38.040
<v Rawah Badrawi>I know there's a Cairo book by Assouline,

00:23:39.730 --> 00:23:40.820
<v Rawah Badrawi>There's no book that kind of

00:23:40.820 --> 00:23:44.300
<v Rawah Badrawi>gets into the kind of region and here's this part and that part and this.

00:23:44.300 --> 00:23:48.600
<v Malak Fouad>You know, my father was from Alexandria and Alexandria, like your father from

00:23:48.600 --> 00:23:50.910
<v Malak Fouad>Port Said. It was a melting pot.

00:23:50.910 --> 00:23:51.160
<v Suzanne Zeidy>Yeah.

00:23:51.160 --> 00:23:55.550
<v Malak Fouad>So you had Jewish families next to Greek families, next to Italian families.

00:23:55.550 --> 00:23:58.310
<v Malak Fouad>Every iteration of Mediterranean.

00:23:58.310 --> 00:23:59.500
<v Suzanne Zeidy>Which influenced the food.

00:23:59.500 --> 00:24:03.250
<v Malak Fouad>Which influenced all the food, influenced the architecture that you beautifully

00:24:03.250 --> 00:24:05.030
<v Malak Fouad>describe in the book in various cities.

00:24:06.140 --> 00:24:09.180
<v Malak Fouad>And that's why a book like that, it can be so rich.

00:24:09.680 --> 00:24:14.120
<v Malak Fouad>Because you have all this, you know, and I wonder maybe in a way we're very

00:24:14.120 --> 00:24:17.300
<v Malak Fouad>blessed in Egypt because we have such a rich history.

00:24:17.620 --> 00:24:17.760
<v Suzanne Zeidy>Yeah.

00:24:18.640 --> 00:24:23.470
<v Malak Fouad>That it made your research endless almost, right? Oh, yeah. You could just keep

00:24:23.470 --> 00:24:24.510
<v Malak Fouad>going and going and going.

00:24:24.510 --> 00:24:28.820
<v Rawah Badrawi>Listen, this book could have 100 volumes. If we were to take each place that

00:24:28.820 --> 00:24:33.120
<v Rawah Badrawi>we covered and go through it again, but cover it not properly,

00:24:33.120 --> 00:24:34.120
<v Rawah Badrawi>but cover it in more detail.

00:24:34.120 --> 00:24:34.760
<v Malak Fouad>In more detail.

00:24:35.300 --> 00:24:39.140
<v Rawah Badrawi>Also, there were a lot of cities that we had to not cover in order to prioritize

00:24:39.140 --> 00:24:42.400
<v Rawah Badrawi>others. There was a kind of like screening process.

00:24:42.400 --> 00:24:43.790
<v Malak Fouad>You had to make a choice. We had to make a choice.

00:24:43.920 --> 00:24:46.240
<v Suzanne Zeidy>It's not comprehensive, right? It's a journey through. And so what

00:24:46.240 --> 00:24:47.910
<v Malak Fouad>Did you leave out that you would have liked to put in?

00:24:47.910 --> 00:24:50.340
<v Rawah Badrawi>I don't know. This is a very controversial subject. That's an interesting thing.

00:24:50.840 --> 00:24:54.720
<v Rawah Badrawi>Because I'm scared if we tell you the people that come from there who hear this

00:24:54.720 --> 00:24:56.240
<v Rawah Badrawi>show are going to be, really?

00:24:56.560 --> 00:25:00.120
<v Rawah Badrawi>You didn't do my hometown? Interesting. But you know which ones.

00:25:00.120 --> 00:25:00.370
<v Suzanne Zeidy>Yes.

00:25:00.370 --> 00:25:03.000
<v Malak Fouad>I want to ask you something else, which is something I've written down here,

00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:06.940
<v Malak Fouad>because I'm spending a lot of time in the last year thinking of AI.

00:25:08.040 --> 00:25:13.420
<v Malak Fouad>I've been doing a lot of self-learning about it. I'm just really interested

00:25:13.420 --> 00:25:15.050
<v Malak Fouad>in it, and it's affecting everything.

00:25:15.410 --> 00:25:22.180
<v Malak Fouad>And I wonder what you think about that technology on the publishing industry as a whole.

00:25:22.880 --> 00:25:27.920
<v Malak Fouad>Would we see a book like this in five years' time? Or would it be a different

00:25:27.920 --> 00:25:29.710
<v Malak Fouad>iteration? Would we have physical books?

00:25:30.080 --> 00:25:32.840
<v Malak Fouad>Will we still be publishing in this way?

00:25:33.040 --> 00:25:36.780
<v Suzanne Zeidy>I think we will always have the physical books because I see something special

00:25:36.780 --> 00:25:40.340
<v Suzanne Zeidy>in that. But this book is very much about a journey.

00:25:40.460 --> 00:25:40.990
<v Malak Fouad>Yeah.

00:25:41.510 --> 00:25:47.610
<v Suzanne Zeidy>And so, no, you're not going to find something like this because the journey aspect is it takes time.

00:25:48.070 --> 00:25:51.290
<v Suzanne Zeidy>And not just time to drive through it once. It takes a lot of time to go back

00:25:51.290 --> 00:25:57.250
<v Suzanne Zeidy>and forth. And so this format, no, I think it's going to be very difficult.