photo credit: avlxyz
WSJ:
Denise Hazime, a Muslim woman, contacted food services officials here last July with what she thought might sound like a preposterous proposal: She wanted to open an Arabic food stand on the largest Marine base on the West Coast.
It turned out to be an appetizing idea. Marines returning from Iraq and the Persian Gulf were pining for pita, according to focus-group surveys conducted on the base.
Last month, Ms. Hazime and her husband, a Marine veteran, opened “Dede Med’s Shawarma House”–the first Arabic food stand on a base with a daytime population of 60,000 hungry Marines and civilians.
Minutes after the place opened, Travis Post, a Marine captain from Oklahoma who had been stationed in Iraq for seven months, pulled up in his car. “So you’ve really got shawarma back there?” Mr. Post asked, referring to the spicy grilled meat sandwich popular throughout the Middle East.
“You want one?” asked Ms. Hazime’s husband, Crisantos Hajibrahim, who was working the cash register.
“Heck, yeah!” Mr. Post responded. While training Iraqi police, he had shared meals with locals daily. “There was a lot of lamb in my life,” he says.