The smell of sizzling lamb brings Hiyam Makarios right back to her childhood in Montreal, growing up the daughter of Lebanese immigrants. They were poor, she said, but every Christmas, they’d buy lamb and her mother would cook it up for a special holiday meal.
“The whole neighborhood would smell it,” Makarios said, “and just come and say ‘Can we have some? Can we have some?’”
Now, Makarios, owner of the recently launched food truck Yalla, cooks traditional Lebanese meals for the neighborhood four days a week.
“My mother cooked all this food my whole life,” Makarios said, in between cooking up shawarma in the little red trailer she hauls between Rindge and Peterborough. “They’re years-old recipes … I just want to bring some culture and something different around here.”
Yalla parks for the lunch rush at 462 Route 202 in Rindge on Mondays and Wednesdays, and sets up shop at in Peterborough at Belletetes on Tuesdays and the Peterboro Basket Company on Thursdays. The menu ranges from around $4 for tabbouleh or hummus to $6-$8 for a falafel or shawarma wrap, made with local meat and pita bread imported from Montreal – just down the street from Makarios’ parents’ home.
“It’s all garlic and delicious and we just want to share that with people,” Makarios said.