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A Palestinian, a Lebanese, and an Israeli walk into a bar... this is not the beginning of a joke; this is the story of how Ariel and I met Hind, a Palestinian chef, and Karim, a French chef originally from Lebanon, in a Parisian bar that is a renowned institution overlooking the Louvre Museum. We were excited and tense, each of us burdened with a baggage of sorts mostly made up of prejudice. It was a blind date between cultures and, as blind dates go, the initial chatter, broken language, insecurities, and all other patterns of reality were but simple attempts to break the ice between us, right there and then around our table at 39 rue de l’Amiral de Coligny, not far from the Mona Lisa and all that stands for French elegance and restraint.