Eating in Egypt #1

Eating is one of the greatest pleasures of life.  At least it is for me.  Recent events continue to spark memories of Egypt including memories of food and places where we ate the food.

Double click to see the full effect of
the embroidery

One meal I'll never forget was served to my husband and me as part of a bus trip for ex-pats in the Sinai Desert at a place called Ain Musa (Moses' Spring).  Many springs in the Sinai were called Ain Musa.  If a tribe lived near a spring, I guess that tribe like to think that it was the spring Moses was said to have created by striking a rock.  The Bedouin tribe near this spring was our host.  They were dressed in their best...at least the women were:  long black dresses and scarves lavishly embroidered in varieties of red.  Most of the men wore bright white galabeas or robes. 

I took a close up photo of the needle work on my Bedouin
dress ( bought in Al-Arish) as an example of how beautifully embroidered these dresses are.  . 

Fava beans, called foul in Egypt, served with a generous amount of olive oil and lemon juice, are a favorite breakfast.  These men were heating up their foul over an outdoor fire.

We were invited into their homes.  You can see how proud this father is of his daughters.  Once on a Sinai trip with the Egypt Exploration Society, a woman remarked to me that our Bedouin Land Rover driver was quite good looking. I thought to myself that I'd never seen a Bedouin who wasn't good looking.

This Bedouin woman is kneading flat bread that looks like  pizza dough.  It is baked in a cavity in the ground, lined with stones.  I can't remember how the stones were heated to bake the bread.  They may have been set over hot charcoal at the bottom of the hole.  Our baker is working in an outdoor lean-to made of corn or sugar cane stalks.  Her children (also dressed for company) are eating warm bread. The spots of light in this photo may have been caused by sunbeams coming through the cracks in the wall or roof.




For our afternoon meal our hosts served a dish called 'fet ta.' This is not cheese, as what we call 'feta' is called 'white cheese' or 'gibna ba dah' in Arabic.  Fetta in Egypt is prepared with white flat bread ( shami) cut into little bite-sized pieces, then mixed with rice.  A greasy, but savory broth made from beef neck bones and neck bone meat is poured over the bread pieces.  The meat from neck bones is considered premium beef.  The visitors gathered under a large white tent with the flaps raised.  We were seated on rugs and served on metal plates.  The fetta was warm and satisfying. However, swarms of flies thought it was warm and satisfying, too.  It was the job of one man to fan the flies away as we were given our food.  Of course as we ate, we had to continue to discourage the flies that seemed to feel we should share our meal with them.  At the time of this tour, I had lived in Egypt long enough to be undeterred by thoughts of germs - even though the flies shocked even me.  I noticed that the other ex-pats were good-naturedly waving the flies away, too.  Maybe like me, they had lived in Egypt awhile.  Maybe it was because the food was good, and in the middle of the desert it was eat or go hungry!

Click on any picture for a better view.

If you want the recipe for fetta, which you probably don't, just ask me and I'll email it to you.

Egyptian Spring

This spring with Egypt in the news, I remembered the ten springs we lived in Egypt in the 1990's.  Spring in Egypt can begin as early as February, but often comes later.  Sometimes it is accompanied by the Comseens which are winds that can blow clouds of black and/or pink dust in from the Sinai.

  My husband and I lived in an apartment in Heliopolis, a suburb of Cairo near the airport. My husband grew up in Heliopolis which has many apartment buildings, old and new, and many old villas, some built by King Farouk,  his family, or movie stars of the Egyptian cinema.  We often walked through the streets particularly in the spring, because I liked to take pictures of the exotic flowering trees and gardens.  (Any of the following pictures can be enlarged with a click.)

 One of my favorite trees was the Jacaranda with purplish-blue flowers. It looked by pieces of sky fell and caught in the branches of the tree.

Some of the most spectacular of the

trees were the Royal Poincianas.  I don't have a close up of their blossoms, but each blossom was very complex, with a tiny white flower forming in the center of each red flower as it matured. If you double click on the picture you can actually see the little white center.
 Remember the song,

"Poinciana, your branches speak to me of love. Pale moon..."? *
 Oooo, too romantic!





Once when we were ambling through suburban streets snapping photos, a guard at one of the villas told us we couldn't take pictures.  "Why not?" my husband demanded.  We ambled on.  Very few of the older villas appeared to be occupied.

The front gates were generally locked. This one is chained.  It didn't appear that anyone ever used the front entrance.  They still had a gardener, however.

These Red Silk-Cotton Tree blossoms are bright red with a fleshy, rubbery texture.  Some times the weight of the flowers would cause the branches to break and fall to the ground.

I thought the overgrown, neglected

atmosphere of this garden was very nostalgic and mysterious.  I think the red flowering arbor is Bougainvillea.

The Bougainvillea comes in several colors:  orange, yellow and white.  But I only see red in all the pictures I took.
Bougainvellia is called Gohenamia (go hen a may a) in Arabic which translates as 'of hell,' I guess because of its fiery color and thorns. 

I think this tree on the left is Pink and White Shower.

The Golden Shower was quite common, too.  Its bright yellow petals fell like snow and form drifts of gold in the streets' gutters along with the ubiquitous litter.  As common as they were, I can't find one picture of them.

One February we visited my husband's cousin in his villa in Fayoum.   These are almond blossoms in the almond grove.

This picture shows a Poinciana on the villa patio.  And isn't it romantic?  Now where's that 'pale moon'?  That night the the power went off (no surprise), and I sat on the balcony in intense darkness and looked at the stars.  My husband was downstairs visiting with relatives in the kitchen.  The cousin's teen-aged son (attended an English school in Cairo)  came upstairs to bring a flashlight and kept me company telling me about the areas of Fayoum he avoided because of the 'religious fundamentalists' living there.

*YouTube - Poinciana (Johnny Mathis, Four Freshman, and more)

Fulton of Kings Row Fame

Fulton is a short drive from Columbia.  In 1940, Henry Bellamann published his novel Kings Row, which was purportedly an expose of the snobbish socially closed society of small town America just before the turn of the century.  Stalwart citizens of Bellamann's home town thought they recognized  themselves or other townsmen in the book.  Some say that the  book was banned from public library.  Later Hollywood made a movie based on the book starring (as you well know) Ronald Reagan. After Reagan became president, Fulton changed its attitude toward the movie and the book.  Now book clubs and other groups can schedule tours of the town and houses of leading citizens who might have been included  in Kings Row are identified.

However that is not why the Columbia docents took a trip to Fulton.  After World War II, Winston Churchill was voted out of office, and was somewhat depressed (so the story goes).  Our Missouri president, Harry Truman invited Churchill to share the podium with him at Westminster's College's Commencement service.  Churchill accepted and delivered his famous 'Iron Curtain' speech at this time.  Since then the college has established a Churchill Memorial Museum, was awarded a church designed by Christopher Wren, and a block from the Berlin Wall.  Subsequently, Westminster College's commencements have been graced with speeches by Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher. 

The curator gave us  a tour of the Churchill Museum.  Churchill had a long public career, as you know.

Here is a photo of a reconstructed WWI trench.  Our education director, Cathy poses to illustrate the height of the trench wall.

The museum archives are chuck full of Churchill memorabilia, not only about Churchill, but items from his time.  By law very little can be turn away.  Here is a photo of a donated Churchill lamp and a doll representing Queen Elizabeth at her coronation.  The dress was loving sewn by hand by a Missouri resident.

Flags are carefully rolled
up and stored on ranks.

This stained glass work of art shows a Phoenix rising from the fire, as the Wren church has risen from the ashes of WWII.

Enlarge by clicking on the photo.

 Christopher Wren designed the church given to Westminster. It  was bombed during WWII, and the wooden roof as well as everything inside it was incinerated.  A private charity, wanting to save an historic church, had the stones numbered and shipped to the college.

A sketch of what the church might have looked like before the fire, appeared to be nothing like the church built on campus next to the museum.  In the sketch, the walls were crenelated around the roof and the church tower was square. Here is a photograph of  Westminster's Wren church. It is a favorite place for weddings and choral concerts.  

The docent group ate at a great little restaurant downtown called Beks.  Afterwards we went to Cathy's house, pictured above, for dessert.  It was built in 1905, about the time of Bellamann's novel.  I complain too often about Missouri weather, but this was a lovely spring day to cherish. 

The Games Kids Play





The happy relief of their arrival.

 My son, Sharif, and his family living in Japan visited us again, this time for just two weeks, in February.

Right after they arrived his two sons (Liam who turned 7 in January and Chris who will turn 4 in March) seemed to feel at home in our house.  Liam improvised a game right away wherein Chris would 'hide' his eyes and Liam would hide some stamps around the house.

Here Liam shows off the grid.  Chris
is shy and refused to pose with Liam.

Then Chris would look for the stamps and when he found one he would stamp a grid that Liam had drawn.

Liam loves to build things, and I gave him these snap together blocks that he used to create these magical creatures.

I let them set up a electrical 19th Century skating rink from Christmas.  Chris was fascinated with the skaters that floated around this little Christmas tree on a  magnetic track.

 We visited the Art Museum
for a program

on Black History and then made colleges in the Cast Gallery.

We made pom-pom Easter eggs, rushing the season a bit. 



Later the boys hunted plastic Easter eggs with small amounts of candy inside them.



Liam asked if he could eat a piece of candy.  I said, "OK.  One piece."  The next thing I knew Liam's mouth was so full of candy he was unable to speak.  All candy in his eggs was gone, gone, gone.

The weather improved until we could enjoy the outdoors despite the overcast skies.  Chris helped his mom rack leaves up in the front yard. It hasn't looked so good since the last time we mowed it.

Here Chris is letting his dad know that he does NOT want to ride the bike nor wear the helmet that Sharif is preparing to fit on him.

Then they bounced on the trampoline with the neighborhood children.

They had plenty of drawing and painting experience.  Here are our ROCKETMEN!!

Time to leave.  Off to see cousins in California and enjoy Disneyland.  Now they are back in Japan, and we miss them still.

Blizzard! February 1, 2011

Since this blizzard (snow and wind) is the biggest snow Columbia has had in a generation, I feel the need to write about it, although the Upper Midwest and the Northeast might hardly take notice of our 20 inches.

  The snow began Tuesday morning like a sheer curtain blowing in the wind outside of our windows.  The birds seemed determined to eat the seeds on our deck even as the wind blew the birds about, particularly the little juncos. 
My husband went out in the afternoon to spread more seed and to position a kitty litter top with a round opening in such a way that the seeds inside wouldn't be covered by snow.  Even though the juncos were leery about going into the protected kitty litter top.  Once inside a couple of them tried to stake their claim and drive other birds away. 

The Carolina wren came around eating the suet cake and looking for the meal worms in the bluebird feeder, but it was filled with snow.

The snow continued all night, and tapered off early the next morning. 

Wednesday saw clearing skies without the dangerous wind predicted. I took my camera outside to snap some snow pictures and was surprised to find our neighbor already clearing our driveway with his snow blower.   He estimated the accumulation at about 20 inches.

The front gate leadiig the the backyard

While Bill ran his snow blower for an appreciative audience of two (my husband and me), I also snapped several snow pictures.

This is neither our house nor our spruce, but they are both beautiful in the snow.



The birds are a continual fascination, at least to me. The cardinals are the kings and queens of the deck.  Sometimes I count a dozen cardinals either feeding on the deck or waiting a turn in the nearest redbud tree.

However, the starlings also gather in the redbud and wait for an auspicious time to conduct a raid.

My favorite wren finally got to finish off the mealworms I had bought last summer for a bluebird who never materialized. 

I kept them in the refrigerator, until my husband finally set them out, but they still showed sign of life. I had put some out for a mockingbird several weeks ago, that came to drink in our heated birdbath.  Perhaps the feeder was too small for him to alight on, but he ignored the mealworms to the wren's delight.

Mother of Millions

It's January now, and I am still looking longingly at the Christmas decorations, hating to put them away for a year, yet not wanting casual visitors to think I am just lazy! Therefore, as a antidote to post-holiday blues, I am thinking about the metamorphosis of one of my houseplants from a benign little sprout to a monster!

Two summers ago a friend had her regular house/lawn party where she gives her guests a small plant as a departing favor.  Last summer this plant grew to be a rather large specimen and developed little plantlets at the tips of its leaves.   (Click on the pictures to enlarge.) Each one of the little plantlets was like a seed or a spore, and several took root voluntarily when falling into pots of soil beneath the 'mother.'

The philodendron shares its pot with a plantlet.

The plantlet stakes its claim over a another volunteer growth.

I called my hostess, and asked her to identify the plant.  She had to consult with her daughter, and then gave me the basic name of Bryophyllum.  I did some research on the Internet, and came up with the Latin name of Daigremontianum.

Common names for this plant include Mother of Thousands, Mother of Millions, Devil's Backbone, and Flopper. Any of these names would be descriptive of the plant, but I chose Mother of Millions, because it has a nice alliteration and no religious connotation. 

 I gave my sister one of the 'babies' growing volunteer. 

It continues to prosper, but it won't produce any plantlets until next summer, if it follows the example of my plant.

This fall I brought the plant indoors and marveled at the size of it.  In the three or so months it has been sitting on a table by the east downstairs family room window, it has grown to gigantic proportions.  Some of this growth may be due to its attempt to take advantage of the eastern sun that comes into the room over the outside hedge. 

The poor thing has roots exploding

from the pot, as you can see on the right.  Maybe this is why one of its common names is Flopper!  I wonder if I should, or even could,  move it to a more commodious container.  It's not complaining now,

except that it is rather spindly.  Perhaps it craves more light.  Otherwise, though, it seems to be making do.  What do you think?

In this photograph the morning sun is highlighting the blossoms.

Hey! Surprise.  This morning, a day after I posted this blog, I examined the leaves at the end of those spindly branches only to discover that they weren't leaves at all, but FLOWERS!  This plant reproduces by plantlets and flowers.  What next?  Maybe I will soon hear it say, "FEED ME!"

Company and Carrot Pudding

 I told myself while I was decorating the house that I was doing it for my own pleasure.  But once it was done I wanted to share the house with friends and family.  Therefore, I invited my family and two of my friends for my mother's recipe of carrot pudding.  Most hostesses would think nothing of inviting 7 people over for a meal, but not me.  I went easy on myself, and asked this intimate group over for dessert.

 I complained while making the pudding two days in advance, that I had forgotten how labor intensive it was.  Both the cup of raw carrots and the cup of raw potato must be grated.  This took forever. I also found time from the preparation to fix supper and clean up, so I didn't finish the carrot pudding (which also has a cup of dates and could be called carrot date pudding) until 11:00 PM.  I put the two cans of pudding on to steam in the canning steamer because it's big, and set the alarm for 3:00 AM.  I slept on the living room couch, but woke about 10 minutes before the alarm, turned off the heat and let the cans cool the rest of the night.

Table setting:  I do this only a few times a year so I
feel inclined to keep a visual record of the occasion.

When I was younger...about 30 years ago...I ground the carrots and potato in a food grinder, thinking that the carrots would be fine enough to cook to soft during the 4 hours of steaming.  However, I could feel the tiny bits of carrot when I ate it, so I returned to the laborious task of grating.  You also have to be careful not to scrape your knuckles!



One of the best things about the pudding is the sauce made with 2 teaspoons of butter, a cup of powdered sugar and a raw egg. I was reluctant to use a raw egg in the recipe, but finally mixed the three ingredients together, zapped them in the microwave for 30 seconds, mixed in 2 tablespoons of rum and set it in the refrigerator for a day.  Before serving I whipped cream and added a cup to the sauce (yummy!) as it was served.  Delicious!

Friends and family:  my husband's back, my sister - Mary Sue, Carol,
Marjory (hmmm, what IS she thinking about?), Trudie and my brother - Whitney.

 I noticed, however, my sister and brother asked for second helpings, while my friends did not.  It is one of those desserts that brings back memories of our mother and of home.  My husband also ate a second piece, but that may have been because our supper was pretty skimpy. I ate a second piece after company had gone, because I wanted to make sure everyone had had enough, and I could relax with a last cup of coffee.

Recipe for Carrot Pudding

1 cup flour                                         1 cup sugar

1 cup grated raw carrot                      1 tsp soda

1 cup grated raw potato                      1/2 tsp each of

1 cup (8 oz.) dates                              cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg

(Cut up dates into flour                        1/2 cup butter creamed with sugar 

so they don't stick together.)                

Mix thoroughly and steam four hours.  (I use 'tin' coffee cans or cans of similar size. If you can't find a 'tin' coffee can, use smaller vegetable 'tin' cans. 

Cover the top(s) with aluminum foil and a plastic cover if that is to be had.)  Serve hot with the sauce described in the blog.  Use 1 tsp vanilla for flavoring if you don't care for alcohol.