Refugee chefs offer a taste of home

SAN FRANCISCO - At the city's Tawla restaurant, Muna Anaee powdered her hands with flour and gently broke off a piece of golden dough to prepare a type of bread eaten in Iraq, the country she fled with her family.

Anaee was preparing more than 100 loaves for diners on Wednesday night as part of a program that lets refugees aspiring to be chefs work in professional kitchens.

The Refugee Food Festival - a joint initiative of the UN's Refugee Agency and the French nonprofit organization Food Sweet Food - started in Paris in 2016 and came to the United States for the first time this year, with restaurants in New York participating as well. The establishments' owners turn over their kitchens to refugee chefs for an evening, allowing them to prepare sampling platters of their country's cuisine and share a taste of their home.