Tag Archives: food

Aug 12 2011
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Anecdotes, Modern Life, Three minute read

Ready, Set, Feast!

Post-iftar….destruction in the wake of the swarm

I have eaten every day of Ramadan. Everyday, I wake and eat breakfast, wait a little while, then eat dinner, wait a little while more, and then eat my spoonful of peanut butter about 2 hours before bedtime. This differs from how fasting Muslims eat during Ramadan in a number of ways, mostly the part involving eating during the day and probably the peanut butter as well.

From the time of the call to prayer around 3:30 am to the sunset call to prayer around 6:45 pm, fasting Muslims are not to eat any food or drink any water. Though one is ravenous, eating is prohibited even slightly before hearing the sunset call to prayer. Feel free to twirl your fingers in a bowl of spaghetti or dunk your head in a puddle, but none of those substances may enter your body and begin journeying through the digestive tract.

Though I have eaten out in restaurants frequently during Ramadan, honoring my pledge to cook for myself no more than 3 times a month, I have only eaten twice in a restaurant right at the time of iftar, the break fast, the moment everyone has been waiting for with grumbling tummies and cottonmouth .

Tonight was one of those times twain: we arrive to the restaurant a little late, at about 6:30, and it is completely filled with patrons who are neither eating nor drinking. A buzz fills the air as people converse hungrily with one another, the waiters flit around setting food on tables, and others customers stare off into space, tiny drumsticks floating above their heads.

The hour continues to approach; the buzz reaches its height. Many tables are completely filled with delicious treats like hot bread the size of a large pizza and steaming bowls of meat and spices…oh joy! I stare at the food on everyone’s table as they gaze into space, trying to forget about their hunger during these last painful minutes.  The victuals themselves begin to speak in honeyed tongues, tempting the hungry souls:

“I’m a refreshing bottle of cool water….drink me! It’s almost time anyways, what does God care if one of his thirsty and deserving servants takes just one sip before the call to prayer? You know Auntie Fatima is going to elbow you out of the way as soon as she hears it just like she did last night…she’s always the first one to drink and no one says anything because her husband died ten years ago. As if you could blame him for wanting to escape her. Cowards! Drink me! Drink me!”

“I’m a tasty piece of roast meat….look at the color of my skin. Just look at how golden and crinkly it is! Look at it! How tender I am underneath a swift crunch! I just popped out of the oven. Can you detect the meaty scent wafting off the sides of me? I’m getting colder by the second! Auntie Fatima’s fleshy paw is going to grab me before you’ll ever sink your teeth into me. Eat me! Eat me now!”

And just when the temptation seems unbearable and even death would be preferable to this never ending hell, a waiter turns the television up. Could it be?? Yes! It is! It’s the call to prayer ( played 5 times a day on many television stations. I’m not sure which ones). Someone begins drinking water, the rest soon following in a joyous free for all in which no one is blamed for chewing too loudly, putting another mouthful of food in before finishing the last one, or knocking their little sister over while reaching for the juice. Images that come to mind when viewing the scene: my family around a plate of hot cookies, the game hungry hungry hippos, and swarms of any kind, barring swarms of koala bears or sloths.

I find myself eating with extra vigor despite the fact I was not fasting. In fact, I had just eaten my 6 o’clock snack to make sure I wasn’t insane with hunger when we got to the restaurant, in effect avoiding anything resembling a fast. I guess we all celebrate Ramadan differently.

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Aug 07 2011
3 Comments
Anecdotes, Best blog posts, Humorous, One minute read

One Day in Post-Revolutionary Cairo

Fellow revolutionaries.

WARNING: extreme content ahead. Approach with caution.

1:00 pm: Wake up! Surf the Egyptian internet! Eat natural yoghurt and granola! Brush my teeth! Whoa!

3:00 pm: Go to a friend’s crazy air-conditioned apartment…! Wile out and watch True Blood and eat insane pancakes! Clean up the kitchen! This is Cairo, baby!

8:00 pm: Politely say goodbye to the hella gracious host! Wish him a speedy recovery since he’s feeling under the weather–more pancakes to eat in the fridge, bro! Dominate the elevator all the way down to the ground floor…in Cairo! Sick!

8:30 pm: Sit in the shade to get out of the sun—-naw, just kidding, man! The sun’s long gone. This is night Cairo now! Stroll to a rooftop café! Sit for hours and discuss religion! Too extreme for you?? Too bad cupcake, you’re in Cairo!

10:00 pm: Hey, Mr. Waiter! What say you revolutionize my sheesha with more coals? You know how we roll!

12:00 am: Get home to avoid being locked out! Make a gnarly cup of Nescafe! Uh oh—the internet’s not working. Night ruined? Not a chance! Break out the Arrested Development DVDs! This night just got more extreeeeeeeeeeeeme!

3:00 am: It’s Madame Bovary time! Classical French literature is so subversive!

6:00 am: Journaling so hard right now! Tons of feelings and awesome thoughts! All you mopey teenagers ain’t got nothin’ on me! Chilla!

7:00 am: See ya later, Cairo! Get ready to rock it hard tomorrow, and by that I mean today—the sun’s already up! Yeah! I be playin’ it vampire style!

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Aug 05 2011
2 Comments
Humorous, Lists, Three minute read

Ramadominating

Saw this on the first of my many breakfast walks

The Ramadan sun sets over Cairo. A tumbleweed blows through Messaha Square. One man hurries homeward in the twilight, eager to get to his loved ones.  It appears that Cairo itself has come to a halt.

These scenes characterize the time of the break fast, when all of Cairo gathers with friends or family around food seasoned with hunger, the best of spices, and prepares to eat for the first time that day. Yet while most everyone else is otherwise occupied, this hour between 6:30 and 7:30 is my time to shine. It’s ramadominate time.

At this hour I take full advantage of the lack of traffic and prowl the streets, experiencing what life in Cairo would be like if it were pleasant, devoid of its constant din. While I walk, I also get a chance to stare at people as they break the fast together near their vegetable carts or coffee shops. Don’t mind my staring, I’m just ramadominating.

These walks I go on are only one of many ways I am currently squeezing the best juice out of my time grapes (30 rock reference), and when I say these walks I should clarify that I’ve only done this once, but have every intention of doing it again. You might be asking yourself how you can ramadominate as well. Here’s some advice that I have found helpful:

Do not go to bed before 5 am, and while you’re at it, you can forget about “morning.” True ramadomiators do not wake up before 1 pm.

Spend plenty of time on the internet looking at blogs about strangers’ “musings,” occasionally performing a half hearted craig’s list job search.

Stare at the two glasses of water that have been sitting on the table for about a week and decide they can wait until tomorrow to be put into the kitchen.

Eat Egyptian brand Ramen noodles once a week for sustenance, and peanut butter for all other meals except for dinner which you should eat in an expensive restaurant, spending more than what is reasonable for your salary, which is in peanuts.

Mooch off of people that have nicer apartments complete with un-mysterious stoves and cook things in them. In general, one should impose on others’ hospitality as much as possible in true ramadominate fashion.

Convince yourself that reading a classic novel for 30 minutes a day makes up for the fact you pay no attention to the news whatsoever and obtain most of your information in digest form from your more intelligent and well informed friends.

But expensive sample packs of Ritter chocolate and look forward to when you will be able to eat one and drink your coffee at 8 o’clock in the evening. Silently curse your friends when they make plans that interfere with this date with yourself.

This is by no means a comprehensive list of how you can ramadominate, but it contains the most important element: the creepy sleep schedule.  Eventually I plan to become completely nocturnal and sleep from 10 am to 6 pm, at which point I will be awarded the Nobel Prize in Ramadominating for figuring out the way to enjoy the best and coolest parts of the day.

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Aug 01 2011
2 Comments
Fiction, Three minute read

Twas the night before Ramadan

Some Ramadan decorations…not the most impressive, just the closest

Twas the night before Ramadan and all through the flat,

No one was stirring, not even the mat

In front of the bathtub in spite of its mold,

Not to mention the pile of laundry to fold.

Emily was curled next to her laptop with care,

Playing too much with her freshly washed hair,

As she wondered what sights the morrow would bring,

The possibilities all in her head turning.

She had seen sprucing up for the past several weeks,

Lights and lanterns appeared and people clogged up their leaks.

She saw tapestries hung all full of colours bright

Pleasant figures in Alpha Market’s window one did spy,

The buzz in the air causing life to blur,

Evidenced by families buying twenty kilos of sugar.

“But,” she wondered, “how will this affect me,

I who have not yet embraced muslimery?

When will stores be open and how should I eat

if I cannot slaughter pigs on the street?

And what about alcohol, if I may be so bold?

Where will my 8th rate beer be sold?”

Oh life without urine-like drink did sound foul,

And just when she thought of giving a howl

She remembered the wonder of Ramadan here.

The streets, they say, be they far or near

Fill up with people as the sun departs

From sidewalk to sidewalk citizens satifsying their hearts

And their stomachs with delicious iftar vittles,

Not being shy, or taking too little,

Dates being thrown into the car windows of those

rushing home from their shops after they’ve just closed.

“Oh I wish,” she thinks,  “to eat with these folk

and though I’m not fasting I will hardly croak

at being invited to such a magnificent feast

where I will chow down on all kinds of roast beast.

“Until then,” she informs, “I still do not know

at what hours for my peanut butter I may go

to Alpha Market and for that matter

I remain clueless as to types of Ramadan clatters.

So please stay tuned as I absorb more culture

and I will pass it on to all of you for sure;

less facts than feelings as is my wont

But at least you’ll know all my favorite haunts.”

No complaining.

A few notes: I’ve noticed people buying food in ridiculous quantities at all the supermarkets, which have set up special Ramadan sections with all the necessities for having a proper iftar (break fast, occurs after sundown). One of the most important foods are dates, which are traditionally the first food one eats after fasting all day. Apparently people hand out dates to those struggling to get home in traffic or on the metro before the iftars. Water is also distributed since people fast from both food and drink.

I have been told about big tents that are set up all over town where rich people will prepare huge feasts for the less fortunate, and entire streets are full of those breaking the fast together. If this is real, I will take a picture of it. I will then post the picture onto this blog.

No alcohol may be sold to Egyptians during Ramadan (I think. This might just apply to bars.) and so you have to show your passport in order to get a beer. The hours for liquor stores are especially weird, though other places of commerce also have reduced hours during the day. At night, however, things get crazy. People stay up really late and feast and then sleep during the day. Unless, of course, you’re employed, and then life is a little harder.

More Ramadan madness to come!

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Jul 28 2011
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Anecdotes, The Cairo Metro, Three minute read

Transportation: A post in three acts

As the daughter of a doctor, I would venture to say that I feel like 20 percent of our lives are spent commuting. Sometimes mortals like to enrich this transit time by reading, listening to music, or bothering other commuters with forced conversation. In Cairo, however, this is not possible since chance of death or severe injury during transit jumps from 80 percent to 100 percent should one lose focus on self-preservation. Transportation in Cairo will never, ever, be relaxing.

Today I had the pleasure of using three different kinds of transportation, most of which have already been discussed here and yet not exhausted due to the layers and layers of stress and discomfort found in all of them, layers that continue to be peeled back like the proverbial modern Egyptian woman who wears tons of…layers.

Act one: Rebirth on the Metro

Always in a class of its own, my Metro experience today was particularly moving. Switching trains at Sadat in order to head south, I felt my personal will fade away as I was sucked onto the woman’s car in a mass of bodies. While on the train, I was held firmly in place by the bubbly behinds of the ladies in front of and behind me. It was an intimate experience. Between me and the door was a group of perhaps 12 women, women I thought I would either need to squish through or shove aside in order to get out. Apparently there was a third option. As the train reached my stop, I was reborn as we, the mass of woman, formed one being and squeezed ourselves through the aperture of the metro car. To carry the metaphor further, all of us were also hot and sticky as we parted our separate ways. Too much?

Act two: If you can’t see the bones being crushed, do they still make a sound?

After partaking in the most delicious Mexican food this side of the Arab World (including Lebanon and Jordan), we were faced with the task of making it back home from Heliopolis, a faraway land filled with the richer segments of Egyptian society. We had arrived by a busy 8 lane highway and we were to leave by the same 8 lane highway, but in the opposite direction. This meant we had to cross the first 4 lanes (hell), make it to the grassy median (purgatory), and then cross the next four lanes (hell) to safety (paradise). It was nighttime, only 70 percent of the cars had their headlights on, and they were all going fast, about 70 miles an hour if my feelings are right. The speed, nighttime, and invisibility of the cars heightened the terror of the what could have been a normal highway-crossing experience. We made it to the median safely, and as we finally breached the last stretch like little black ants, I watched the lights rush towards me and imagined hearing my bones crunched against cold steel as the truck behind the headlights made contact with my unprotected, human, body. But we made it to the other side and hailed a cab, only to experience near death again all too soon.

Act three: Misfortune and self-interest

We were speeding along back to Doqqi on one of the many Cairene overpasses that look eerily similar to the skeletons of concrete giants when all of the sudden, we heard a screech, glass shattering, metal impacting, and more screeching. And then we saw the car wreck in front of us as our taxi driver skillfully slowed us down just in time to avoid hitting anyone. He stopped the car, got out to help yell at people, and then got back in and nosed his way into traffic that had been further bottlenecked into one lane, down from three. No one was hurt in the wreck, which made me feel better about the fact that my first thoughts upon seeing it were a) I’m glad that wasn’t us b) I’m glad we’re close to the wreck so we’ll be able to get through faster and c) I hope the meter wasn’t messed up when he stopped the car. Cairo does something to your priorities.

I have yet to ride any animals in Cairo, the most prevalent of which are donkeys and horses, as opposed to camels. I have also not ridden any form of bus except for the yachts rented by AUC, so there is still ground to break in the depths of Cairo transportation.

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