FEMALE _1: The following program was produced in the Dr. Keiko Miwa Ross WPSU Production Studio in University Park, Pennsylvania.

Tamra Fatemi-Badi: Food, a basic necessity.

We all need nutrients to survive and thrive, whether your meals come from the field, the fridge, the treasured family recipe, or the takeout menu.

Something special happens when we come together and share a meal and a common bond.

Culinary Connections is where we celebrate the people and places that use food to connect with the world around them.

Today we'll introduce you to Hitham Hiyajneh, owner and operator of Pita Cabana, Yallah Taco, and more.

His passion for Middle Eastern cuisine mixes cultures from around the world for delicious results.

Hitham Hiyajneh, welcome to the Culinary Connections' kitchen.

Hitham Hiyajneh: Thank you so much.

Tamra Fatemi-Badi: He'll show you how to make a Lebanese staple, tabbouleh.

I'm Tamra Fatemi-Badi and welcome to Culinary Connections.

FEMALE _1: Support for Culinary Connections is provided in part by Bobby Rahal Honda of State College, Tom and Sarah Songer of the Torron Group in State College, a proud supporter of programming on WPSU, more information at torrongroup.com, and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Hitham Hiyajneh: My name is Hitham Hiyajneh, I'm a father, I'm a food entrepreneur.

I'm originally from Jordan.

Actually, I'm a mixed with Jordanian-Lebanese.

My mom is Lebanese, my dad is Jordanian.

I've been in this country technically since 1989.

I lived here more than I lived in my original country.

Food is my passion and making a difference, that's why I'm creating new products and creating new food and always, like, evolving as you go.

Tamra Fatemi-Badi: Hitham arrived in the US in 1989 at the age of 20.

Hitham Hiyajneh: They told me an idea when you come to America you have- money is everywhere.

You get a girlfriend, she spend money on you.

And so this is not- and that's not what the American dream says, I mean, there's truth to that in some way in Hollywood but not a technically in reality.

When I came to America, I have $400 on my pocket, I went to University of New Hampshire, Manchester, and so I wanna go to start school it's like, oh, great we need $20,000- $20,000.

I don't have $20,000.

I have 400 bucks and they told me, okay, you can delay it try and save the money and come back.

I never went back because I don't have that $20,000.

And then I started working a job, working in a bakery, worked as a waiter.

I did very well, I made very good money because I was good at it.

I even learned how to bartend.

I did all these different, the odd jobs trying to always like to be, how- how can I make my life better?

Tamra Fatemi-Badi: Taking a break from the restaurant industry, Hitham later discovered another strength.

Hitham Hiyajneh: Sales, actually I sold a- a water purification system for a company called RainSoft.

They taught me how to learn how to sales and I- I got into the personal development thing, like a Zig Ziglar books and Tony Robbins, I mean, the Secret of Success by Earl Nightingale and I- I mean, I read so many books.

Think and Grow Rich was one of the best books I read.

You know I mean?

My number 1 book is the Qur'an of course, and the Prophet Muhammad like life, uh, as Muslim.

But these books that teaches, give- give you the shortcut to success.

Whatever you think about, you become about.

Tamra Fatemi-Badi: Hitham's path towards success ran through a life-changing but short stint working at a furniture store.

Hitham Hiyajneh: I'm cost learned, when people come into furniture place, I remember, oh, we have this furniture, we can customize it for you.

I was like, no, we have blue, green, yellow, which one you want?

Because I need to make my 5% commission.

You know what I mean?

And I got fired actually, after three months working there.

I was the top salesman and they- they fired me and I was like, why are you firing me?

And I remember this guy said, uh, you're too aggressive as salesman.

Aggressive as- I was like, really?

I sold so much furniture.

I went to the unemployment office and I said like, I got fired.

He's like, why they fire you?

You can't qualify [inaudible] why I- I'm- I get fired, not my fault.

He was like, really?

Let me call the guy.

So yeah he sells too much furniture [inaudible] And the guy said to me, you know what, I'm not gonna give you six months unemployment, I'm gonna give you one year.

In that journey, actually, I started my own business.

That was the horrible- the worst feeling ever to be fired from something is not your fault.

I got laid off before from jobs because I never showed up, I was lazy, whatever.

I'm not saying I was perfect in some way.

But that was a horrible feeling to work.

And since then I never worked for anybody else.

Tamra Fatemi-Badi: Combining his skills in sales in food, Hitham started his first restaurant in State College, Pennsylvania.

Hitham Hiyajneh: Pita Cabana is- is my vision of a Middle Eastern food accessible to American palate.

Pita Cabana is the name, Pita is the Lebanese, Cabana is the Spanish word for like...

The cabana.

And that's a place of fun, is a place for you to enjoy the Middle Eastern food or having- and experience to.

Pita Cabana was like to me like when people come to my house and eat our Middle Eastern food, that's the kinda food I serve to them.

Like, I wrap it, uh, with tacos, like every tacos.

We don't have tacos in Middle East.

What we have is the flatbread technically, but we don't use tacos, we have pockets, we call them pita pocket.

But here we don't use pita pocket, we use pita- tacos.

But it's Americanized little bit for the American palate, like example, like, we have, um, Arabic shawarma.

Some people put cheese.

Middle East would never put cheese on the shawarma.

But in America, they put- they like cheese and we put cheese within the shawarma.

But we do- we do Arabic burritos, we call them, we put rice.

Middle East, they will never put rice into a sandwich.

You got to hold the knife all the way out to the outside.

The Arabic shawarma.

Uh, we buy bone in meats like legs and leg course and breast.

We need the flavor.

We tried it with bones, it didn't work with the bone because they need their skin.

And then we marinate it overnight for 24 hours minimum.

Sometimes it goes up to 48 hours, six hours, and then we build it into like a gyro shape.

You can mix the breast, boneless legs.

And then we import it on the roster slow roasting, cook it and slice it.

It's amazing.

When it comes first-time, first cut is like- it's a dream.

And we put it into the Arabic shawarma sandwich, because that's actually in a flatbread like a pita bread, and with garlic mayo, we make it in-house, and with side of fries and a garlic mayonnaise.

It's a- it's a- it's may- too good sandwich.

Everything is made here.

It's made by Rasha, this lady here here.

I don't do a whole lot of making anymore because these guys do better job than I do.

Liliah Kauff: I'm a very picky eater normally, um, but I really like their rice and chicken here.

I think both are so flavorful.

Rob Cooper: Yeah, I would like chicken, please.

Really liked the selection of food.

You can make it as healthy as you want.

All the flavors and all the stuff mixed together; it's really good.

And again, it's real food.

It's not just kinda, you know, fast food or anything like that.

Hitham Hiyajneh: I like Mexican food and I like to do something a little different.

Like, Yallah Taco, it's a mix, like there are some, er, influence of South American food.

Like, example, we have like a- we have a lot of people in Guatemala work for us.

Okay.

And we use it because like they like black beans or rice.

I was like, quickly, let's do that.

And we have chicken leg, black bean, rice, and salsa.

And that's one of the dishes we have.

[NOISE] This is all- technically, everybody works here is family.

This guy here and his wife.

Francisco.

The boss is here.

Alhafe, Alberto.

That's his son.

Marissa Wheeler: We loved their burritos.

[LAUGHTER] Traci Thompson: Yeah.

They're really big for not a lot of money.

So you get a lot of food.

Hitham Hiyajneh: We're famous for monster burritos.

Our monster burritos, we have the Godzilla, King Kong, the Kraken, Moby Dick, and the green monster.

Most burrito come with ra- rice.

Okay.

And in California, I lived in California, they used to make burritos with fries, with a half- weight about 2.5-3 pound.

We make it the combination.

It's like a fun place.

Yallah Taco is a standard, like, it's easily accessible food, is cheap enough for people to eat, you know, but it's a fun place.

It's an icon at State College right now I think.

The Yallah is Arabic word for let's go.

God speed, actually.

Technically, that's the best way to do it.

And actually, that what- that's how we put us on the map in Yallah.

Now, you say Yallah Taco, people know Yallah Taco more than Pita Cabana, even Pita Cabana bu- business twice as much as Yallah Taco.

We used to have a chalkboard here, actually.

People behind this one is a chalkboard.

People used to draw their own things and, uh, but like, a lot of people and left it dirty and stuff like that [inaudible] wipe it.

I thought that we want to present, like show something what like State College is about and is like our culture at Pen State, where there's a lot of people from different part of the world.

This is a 10-piece, 20-foot piece, uh, which represent the world because it has every, technically, most of every culture from the- from actual elder of the mountain of Japan, all the way to the Eiffel Tower, in Egypt, and Big Ben, and Cyrus the Great, and pasta, food.

There's food presentation and cultural presentation in the whole thing in here, even India, there's Indian over there.

And I think this board present what State College is about, from- uh, with the university culture and we have to bring us altogether and Pita Cabana the place where do you want to be, to- to- uh, to feel the world.

Even our food it does not present the whole world, but we have parts of the presentation in the- in here.

The other artwork, you can see the tables was designed actually, it's kinda fun thing because we don't wanna be just like heritage and stuff.

This is a fun thing.

You can see SpongeBob SquarePants for the- for the kids because we have a lot of children here and I present my children love.

And this is was handmade by- from my cousin, Xena, and her husband.

It took them actually about 3-4 months to do this because there were COVID-19, we have a lot of time, we're not work and the place was closed, but they were doing, um, artwork.

And you can see it from here all the way through the wall here, and the presentation, like, from the wall from the [inaudible] the Sufism and- with the Mexican.

And you can see it from Fairuz, actually one our famous, uh, singer in Lebanon.

Um, it's a fun place, and that's why they call the- present the best food in State College and a fun place for people to be in.

Tamra Fatemi-Badi: Hitham has two constants in each of his restaurant ventures.

The first is family.

Hitham Hiyajneh: Family, so that's the most important thing.

Like, you know what I mean, if you took care of your family, family will take care of itself, you know that I mean?

Belal Hiyajneh: We are here, ah, five, ah, brothers here, and my mother, she's here.

Hitham Hiyajneh: Like, some of them work, they're- they're family, but some of them don't work for me because they choose like they need to make money.

And restaurant business is very tight budget, you have to control it.

Like, some of the works for delivery, like example, my brother, he's just, you saw a videotaping them for doing a shawarma I think.

He doesn't work for us, his wife- he help his wife do this.

Okay.

But he does delivery, because his delivery, he can make as twice as much as working for me.

And it's fine, I mean, that's opportunities, it's business, you know.

Business is business and family is family.

Tamra Fatemi-Badi: The second constant in Hitham's life is his faith.

[PRAYER] Hitham Hiyajneh: Faith is the foundation of everything.

Islam is not religion, is the way of life.

The way we talk, the way we treat our children, okay, we don't get it right all the time for sure, but we always strive to be better.

God loves the sinners who come back to him because that reminds existence of God to us.

Today, actually, uh, it's gonna be a Ra- we're doing- er, because of month of Ramadan, it's our fifth day today fasting, uh, we are ho- we're- we're sponsoring a day, like everybody in our community sponsors a day.

And we're cooking nationally for are a couple of our friends and we're gonna be about six or seven days we're cooking.

And today we're cooking as I me- we- we gotta be showing you probably there, when you come to the mosque with us today.

We are doing like, uh, rice, chicken, salads, and soups.

Um, that's something like for the community to give back to community.

Always double check things.

[NOISE] Oh, that was beautiful.

Berto, good job.

I don't have to worry about it but I know that's for sure.

Beautiful.

Thank you.

You know, there's a lot of rewards from giving back to the com- and that's when- in our faith, like, the more you give, them more- and fasting is the one thing like every day you learn.

Like everything you do is a good- there's a deed for it.

Just carry it from like- don't put your hand underneath because it's a little bit warm.

This is actually our prayer- like a prayer area.

And then we usually, in the summertime, when it's - used to be really summer because every year it comes like 10 days earlier.

Last year was 10 days like now it's going to be coming to the cold.

I remember like long time ago when I was in Christmas time it was Eid was- Christmas the same day and that was kind of funny.

But today's- but now what we do is we eat here.

We have- it's a community effort, everybody helps like spread the plastic thing onto what we- we sit down with that on the floor.

You share, you know, you share the- the- the- the foods to- to- together.

[RAMADAN PRAYER] [BACKGROUND] Thank you again for giving us the opportunity to show us our family, to share our- our community with us, and actually I ran out of salad, but it's really good.

I left- the food is- we have actual numbers totally almost doubled today but I think it will be no speed of governance cooking, that's a good thing.

So an endorsement for our company.

And it's a blessing to have you guys on our family here and to enjoy our food and to enjoy our community.

And thank you again for coming.

[BLESSING] Interviewer: Hitham Hiyajneh.

Welcome to the Culinary Connections Kitchen.

Hitham Hiyajneh: Thank you so much.

Interviewer: So tell me a little bit about what makes Middle Eastern food so special.

Hitham Hiyajneh: Middle Eastern food because the environment we're living in that we rely a lot on fresh food.

That's- that's like technically almost 80% of our food is fresh.

We make it on a daily basis, like- like with today we're going to be making a dish like the tabouli today.

But mostly it's home- homemade cooking.

We do a lot of like fresh fruit and vegetables.

Okay.

Meat is not only- protein is not a very, I don't want to say the word, high in percentage compared to like our diets we haven't seen in- in America.

When I came here it was like- it was kind of like fun as like you eat the whole stake by yourself?

[LAUGHTER] But yeah, it's more like, uh, fresh, uh, products, a fresh- what it's available in season.

Interviewer: So I also think that, you know, what I remember from you is that family is really, really important to you.

Did- did your family or your parents have a lot of influence over the food you make now?

Hitham Hiyajneh: It's funny like when I was at home- when I grow up home, I never really cooked anything.

But when I came to America, I- I was- I have the place where I can work.

I worked in a Middle East bakery called Pitaland in Pittsburgh.

And then I was- I got incorporated into work in a restaurant and I loved the idea because like we're always aware of food in our- our family.

Out of- I'm the oldest of 12 and my mom have to cook a lot of different foods.

But right now, uh, developing the food, my family definitely when we started the business, me and my two brothers Moussa and Marwan and my mom was we worked tech- technically 11, 12 hours a day to help us to start the business to- together.

Yeah.

My family was my whole foundation, exactly right now, my family help me in everything I do.

As we said- as I mentioned, we have eight brothers and three sisters for- with me right now.

Interviewer: So I know you have something new in the works.

Tell me about your newest endeavor.

Hitham Hiyajneh: We're developing, me and my wife, Iman, we develop a new product called Jars by Luca.

It's a gourmet jars into- in a container.

I'm really excited about this concept.

Interviewer: What's your favorite dish to make?

Hitham Hiyajneh: My favorite dish to make, I love the- salad is my favorite because I feel like when you eat salad, you're fresh like you feel like- like your whole life because life- it's a life food.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Hitham Hiyajneh: And tabouli is one of my favorite dishes.

I'll eat it any day, every day and- and, that one and soup.

That's one of my wows but favorite dish, uh, salad is tabouli.

Interviewer: All right, let's see how we make this.

Hitham Hiyajneh: Well, tabouli actually is very simple products.

Fresh Italian parsley, not the crinkled stuff because the crinkled stuff, if you cannot find the Italian parsley, crinkled staff will do.

But Italian parsley was better because it's sweeter and doesn't have the bitterness to it.

Tomatoes, bulgur wheat.

Uh, the bulgur wheat a lot of people know, it's- it's a new thing actually.

The one- 25 years ago I have to explain to people what it is, but now you see it in main- main street grocery store, extra virgin olive oil, and lemon.

The first thing what we do is when we make the tabouli is the best thing to do is just to start.

The olive oil could go over this.

We take extra virgin olive oil, we put it in here.

And then we take some lemon.

Long time ago we used to, I don't want to say the word, teeth just to do it with your hand, but now it's better to- to go like this and then.

Interviewer: So we're rehydratin the bulgur with that?

Hitham Hiyajneh: Yeah because bulgur wheat is technically, it's a- it's a cracked wheat, tech- very close to the cracked wheat but this is a whole wheat one.

Okay.

Technically, you can take this one and just like let the stuff go through.

Interviewer: How long does it take for this to kind of soak in?

Hitham Hiyajneh: It's about like 10-15 minutes.

Interviewer: Okay.

Hitham Hiyajneh: Yeah.

Some people used to do like you can do it with water.

But I find that the water is not- it doesn't like- it doesn't do it purposely.

It puffs up too much, but the lemon juice and the acid, it- it gives you a little flavor because everything you eat with- with Italian parsley, you will- you will notice it in there.

The first thing then usually when I do is I cut this, okay, and I take that.

The first one because sometimes it's like it's dry at the end.

I just take it and put it inside here.

Okay.

And then make sure you won't- don't cut your fingers.

[LAUGHTER] Okay.

Make sure your hands washed.

We wash our hands here.

And you- you here that.

You don't want to go to the knife like some people crush it.

You can go like rock the knife.

Interviewer: So we're cutting really fine.

Hitham Hiyajneh: Yeah, you need to be fine.

You can - the tabouli fine.

Or if you have hard time doing it, some people have this chopping thing.

It works sometimes, but my- you should be- I'm not sure if you can smell it.

There's no smell vision here, but- but the smell of this Italian parsley.

Interviewer: It's so fresh.

Hitham Hiyajneh: It's fresh.

It's amazing.

Today I would like to eat some of it but today is Ramadan for us.

We're Muslim, we're celebrating a mo- month of Ramadan.

Interviewer: So you're about- at the moment, you're in the middle?

Yeah.

Hitham Hiyajneh: Halfway.

We're halfway technically right now.

The 21st is actually the last day- last day we're fasting, the 20th I think.

Interviewer: And I think you talked about it a little bit in the, uh, in the piece we just saw, but, you know, Ramadan moves.

So right now we're kind of in a- in a cooler time.

Hitham Hiyajneh: Yeah, exactly.

Interviewer: So it's a little bit easier.

Hitham Hiyajneh: Yeah.

I've been in the US for 33 years.

I remember one time Ramadan was at Christmas, and actually, we celebrated- our holiday was the first day of Christmas, like a Christmas day for our brothers and Christians.

They have their Christmas while we have our Eid the same day.

It was kind of funny, but it move- it goes by the lunar calendar.

It does not go by the thing.

And you can see, see?

It's very fine.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Hitham Hiyajneh: Okay.

And then we take this- Interviewer: Beautiful.

Hitham Hiyajneh: - and we go slowly.

Yeah.

The one I- right now what I did is technically about two punches of Italian parsley, then we take the tomatoes, and trying to get the usually have a stemmer but not- not here.

The best result for the tomatoes easily if you can, Roma tomatoes is really good because they have less water, but if you don't have Roma tomatoes is fine.

Okay.

Juicy flavor you because you want the juicer the tomatoes, and then you go.

The tomatoes the best thing to do is this is to cut them small as much as you can because you don't want a big chunk tomatoes in there.

But onions, would take like about two anions.

You're don't need more- not too much onion there.

Okay.

If you can't find green onions, then you can go with the regular onions.

Red onions are really good too if you cannot find the green onion, but the green onion it's the best part because they give you their fresh.

When we have mint we add mint to it because mints gives you like a nice fresh.

Interviewer: Sure.

So you're using the entire onion, the white onion?

Hitham Hiyajneh: Yeah- yeah- yeah- yeah, exactly.

Okay.

And then some people put cucumbers in.

Interviewer: Okay.

Hitham Hiyajneh: Now that's what we do because then people like the crunch and I usually- we use like you can use the English cucumbers or you can use the pickled wifer nut with the pickled cucumbers, they're softer, and they're really nice because they don't have a lot of seeds.

So you look at this one they're seedless.

We buy a lot of the cucumbers because we use it in our- all our dishes technically.

Like a salad we go through a lot of salad to bully, and a rice bowl and all these different sandwiches, like a falafel sandwich, cucumber in it is excellent.

There's no such thing and I mean perfect way, but try the best as you can and then you- you try to mix this stuff here.

See there's nothing.

Interviewer: Looks simple.

Hitham Hiyajneh: But it's smell is amazing.

Okay.

And then you take this, you take the burger with already.

You want the- when you eat this burger wheat should not be like soft and chewy, there should be a little crunch in there.

And it's a healthy salad.

I mean, this is just talking to a lot of fiber and this thing right now.

Okay?

And we use the brown one.

There's a white one and brown, trying to get the brown one.

The brown one is way better because you- you have a lot of vertical, like all the fiber cells there, they're not taken out of there.

And here after we're doing this, you still need more wheat about another lemon.

Interviewer: Yeah, the lemon, the citrus, all of that just brings out the flavors of everything in the salad.

Hitham Hiyajneh: Yep, exactly.

That's our- okay, and one- one thing we would do at the end we salt and pepper at the end because you don't want to add it right away because you want to see the flavor.

Another like two answers, you cannot go wrong with olive oil.

Is- is you can put as much as you want, uh, what fanatic about olive oil, like we have additional pharmacy here.

In our house that's not olive oil.

There's more olive oil in the top, then we have actually work on homicide.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Hitham Hiyajneh: Okay.

Interviewer: It's beautiful.

Hitham Hiyajneh: Now, we are going to- I'm going to borrow this.

Okay?

We can add salt and pepper.

A little bit of salt, about a half a teaspoon of salt to bring it on the lowest pepper.

If- my mom, my grandmother used to do like white pepper.

They liked the white pepper in it, but this is, you make it and let us say about 10 minutes because it still had the flavor to- to be in there.

Interviewer: Kind of meld together.

Hitham Hiyajneh: Exactly, yeah, this way the- the [NOISE], and that you- you add it here.

We use lettuce, you know like we use romaine lettuce, and people use it to eat like remember I told you don't need to use a spoon to eat that you don't need spoon, you can use the lettuce as your spoon.

Okay?

Interviewer: So you're making little Tabouli boats with the Romaine?

Hitham Hiyajneh: Exactly.

Yep exactly.

Sorry yeah, we got to put this in here, and then my favorite thing, luckily take these guys here looks like- looks like the heart of lilies.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Hitham Hiyajneh: And then you can go in here and dig into it.

Interviewer: It's beautiful.

Hitham Hiyajneh: Thank you so much.

Interviewer: So typically when you serve the Tabouli, you would serve it with some hummus, some pizza?

Hitham Hiyajneh: Yeah some hummus- like the- we have a something called a Mazda flatter, like hummus Tabouli and- and grape leaves or falafel somebody with the option people are like falafel or something warm.

And because the hummus like you take the pita bread, you put this in there and you eat it or with a boat with a hummus, it actually goes very well with hummus because it's like you need the softness but that- but we serve it that way or you can eat it by itself with a spoon.

Interviewer: Well, Hitham that was just amazing.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for cooking with us.

Hitham is well-known for his innovative food and ideas, but have you ever heard of a ghost kitchen?

Hitham Hiyajneh: A ghost kitchen or virtual restaurant I started this actually five, six years ago before the term because I heard that somebody said.

My whole idea was like when to open because I'm planning to open more restaurant is to have a commissary area.

Okay?

And a commissary area for an open five restaurant, I do commisary this way I minimize labor and I can have a smaller place.

I wanna open it as much falafel.

I wanna open your live chicken.

Let me test it first.

I don't want to open a restauran maybe it doesn't work.

I tested online, guess what sales is good, then I bring it to a restaurant where I can make it.

Interviewer: The pandemic ushered in a boom of delivery and pick up app usage in the food industry.

An order on your phone could be from 12 different menus, all coming from the same restaurant kitchen.

Hitham Hiyajneh: Like example, we have a lee- the underground burrow.

We have almost like 12 restaurants.

We have Yallah Hot Chicken, Firebelly Wings we do a lot of chicken wings, Pretty Fries.

I mean, there's some days I don't even know the names anymore.

Okay?

And we- a lot of people order them because they're only align.

Like for example, the Ghost kitchen we- we work with Mr.

Beast Burger.

Mr.

Beast was like he have over 500 restaurant.

They call us like, "Hi Hitham would you be interested?"

So do you have interest, I've already solved burgers.

Mr.

Beast so all I have to buy the package of the same burger I make, a little bit different than his like he would pickles and other stuff.

Okay?

And we did very well.

We're doing actually very well, Mr.

Beast because he does the advertising for us and that exposes our Underground Burger access since our business, we went virtual, our business doubled, why because a lot of, oh, "There comes like, oh, I know Underground Burger why would I order Mr.

Beast, I can order Underground Burger."

Right now we're on working idea to have a Ghost kitchen contain 10 kitchens.

Was going to Orlando we're looking at ghost kitchen I'm going to meet with them next week, is they give you a location, a kitchen that's only for delivery and pick up.

Everything's changing.

If you're not changing with time in reading, that's why my old siz is like, "Why you possibly readings?"

Like I need to know because if I don't know somebody else is going to beat me to it.

Interviewer: From his beginnings in Jordan and Lebanon, Hitham's journey through food, faith, and family has made a tasty impression as he serves the community with open hands.

More episodes of culinary connections and a full menu of local programs are available at video.wpsu.org or on the PBS app.

And to experience a whole world of international cuisine, check out world kitchen at wpsu.org/worldkitchen.