I wouldn’t say I am an expert or even a big fan of peanuts but; I have become aware on my travels of how prevalent and varied in quality these snacks are. There are bad peanuts, average peanuts, good peanuts and damned good peanuts!

Once, I was queuing up at passport control at Beirut International Airport when a familiar female voice called out my full name. For a second I thought it was an official who wanted to question me about an alleged fraction of some obscure Lebanese law. I turned around and to my pleasant surprise it was a young woman family friend queuing up behind me with about 4 or 5 people between us. We waved and I waited for her to take her turn through passport control. We kissed, exchanged pleasantries and explained our respective reasons for being in Beirut. It turned out she was on a filming assignment as this is her professional background. We went to the duty free and I bought a few items while my temporary companion kindly looked after my luggage.

I invited her to join me in the business lounge. We went up to the mezzanine level, found the Cedar Lounge closed for renovation and we were directed to go to, I think, the Golden Lounge, which I had never visited. It was not much of a lounge, to be perfectly honest.

We picked up some water and light snacks including small packets of peanuts and sat down to while away the time. She asked about my family and I asked about hers, including her sister who is a student at American University Beirut. We spent probably 30 minutes together before her flight to Amman was called and I remained behind waiting for my flight to Cyprus.

I enjoyed our little conversation primarily because she is a very pleasant person but partly due to the fact that I stumbled across the best shelled, roasted, salted and packed peanuts I ever tasted. In fact I think I consumed at least four packets! When my flight was called I gathered my stuff and set off to my gate, which entailed a further security check, something peculiar to Beirut International Airport. As I was queuing up to push my carry on luggage through the X-Ray machine, I realised I left my duty free shopping upstairs in the Golden Lounge. I ran up and found a ground staff employee looking through my shopping suspiciously so I claimed it, to the employee and my relief, before a full security alert was triggered.

I took the opportunity of my unscheduled return to the lounge to filch four more packets of the yummy peanuts and shoved them in my briefcase before I hastily returned to the security point and my departure gate.

So, thank you to the family friend (you know who you are), for your enjoyable company and thank you Golden Lounge for those incredible peanuts.