Weekend Iftars: Aug 28-30

Sorry - I'm not around much online during the weekend.

This weekend was very nice and Saturday we went out and walked around DC to the National Gallery of Art (to see their exhibit on The Art of Power: Royal Armor and Portraits from Imperial Spain) and then over to the Botanical Gardens, which is always a good walk through. The Art of Power was a pretty good exhibit - a bit loud and F--- and J--- didn't help with THAT at all --- there were some good tapestries and armor and a few good portraits too. I think my favorite though was a sword at the beginning that was taken during a battle with the Moors :) It had a very intricate design with Arabic in between the designs... I don't think anyone was noticing the writing so that was fun to point out :) I would recommend going to see it if you are in the Washington, DC area or if you ever go to Spain (I think you can see this stuff there too in one of the palaces). lol - on that note - see the Palace in Pamplona if you can; it's pretty amusing their take on the Moors!

So, here is our iftar from Friday:

Pretty easy - fried beefsteak and fries :)

To fry beefsteak - put beefsteak in flour, then dip in eggs, then dip in breadcrumbs (I use tempura crumbs), then put in pan with oil to fry :)

Saturday, after walking in DC, we went to a restaurant called Mama Ayesha to have breakfast. If you live in the area and have not gone - GO!!! This place is FANTASTIC!!! Mama 'Ayesha' is Palestinian from Jerusalem, who came to the US first with the Syrian Embassy I believe as their chef. She has since pasted away, but most of the staff (well, when I go most of the staff) is Palestinian and they have great food and great service. There are not so many Arabs anymore that we find there, but I still love this because they have so many dishes that are what F----'s mom does :) I particularly like their stuffed things - I had stuffed cabbage this last time and it was soooo yummy! A bit overpriced, but worth it! And for desert, the owner was making 'atyif which is seriously the best I have had. (almost like a donut with cheese inside- soooo gooood!) Sadly, I didn't take pictures :(

Sunday, we were going to cook, but I really wanted sushi. (no, I didn't eat fish - just veggie since I'm pregnant) :)

Iftar: Aug 26

lol - we are still on a left over kick... we make too much food!!! And I don't want to make anything new because we won't get rid of the other food!!!

Our addition of the day was lentil soup. Yummy! And I have enough for tonight too!! I may cook fish tonight as well with a new batch of rice... that should be good.

And for desert we had 'atyif again... yummy!

Iftar: Aug 25

Yesterday I was pretty wiped out for staying up late the night before and only getting 5 hours of sleep. Normally 5 hours is, well, normal, but being pregnant and all - I was EXHAUSTED and felt pretty sick. :( I didn't feel like eating and tried to keep things light. (same thing today, the 26th, but I feel better with more sleep)

So, F---- was great and make our meal. F---- is a WONDERFUL cook and has a great eye for making food yummy :) He made rice (with macaroni - did you know that Rice a Ronni actually came from an Armenian recipe?) and Malukhiyah (also known as Jews Mallow) with salad and quail and left over samboosik. It was very good, but I still wasn't feeling so good so I had soup. (I should have had the Malukhiyah)

A note on Malukhiyah - it's pretty much THE comfort food of the Middle East... or at least the Levant area. I have yet to meet someone from that area who doesn't LOVE Malukhiyah and pretty much think of it as a main comfort food. I like it, but I actually pretty much only like it how F---- and his family does it. They put in the rice amount of garlic and they also BLEND the entire thing once cooked - something I think that makes it nicer to eat. I also (being American and all) prefer to eat it with khobez (Arabic bread) over rice. I like my rice alone :)

Tonight, F---- said he went out and bought me MY comfort food: Lentil soup. :) It's actually pretty easy to make the soup, but I have yet to do it and there is a Lebanese place in Vienna that makes it like I like it (ie: blend the lentils). I'm thinking that I may either just have left overs from yesterday or make fish (haddock) that we got from Whole Foods this weekend. They had free samples and it was SOOOOO good!!! :) I NEVER cook fish, but it seemed easy enough...

Iftar: Aug 24 (leftovers)

lol - we still had food from Sunday, so it was mostly a left-over day:

Then, we went for a drive into DC (I love 2nd trimester - so much more energy!!) and went to Adam's Morgan for falafels at Amsterdam Falafel. It's the only place where I have seen them served with a salad bar! Yay! It was pretty good - the bread was very good, as were the salad selection and fries... the falafels itself was a bit undercooked and they put too many falafels in the sandwich, but overall, pretty good.

Trip to CA

Yay!!! I finally bought my plane tickets to go home for Thanksgiving/Eid in November!!!! :) We are going home for 9 days total, but that's good because 1. I only need to take off 4 days since it's over Thanksgiving break 2. We aren't flying on 'busy' days 3. It gives us time to see my family, F---'s family and do a baby shower :)

Now, I just need to see what I'm getting as hand-me-downs and what we need to register for. I figure at the least we would register for stuff like bedding and diapers (my mom suggested that - good idea!) and people I know usually give you onesies. :) Yea!!! By then we should also know the sex of the baby... unless they keep their legs crossed ;)

Aug 23 - Iftar

Ramadan Kareem!!!

I'm going to try this month to put in everything that I cook. Of course, I didn't get off to a good start, even with taking off Friday to do prep work and clean house. :) We ended up being out too late on Saturday to do a good cooking job and so got Thai ;) Yummy, Thai, but certainly not the traditional Ramadan cuisine - lol.

So, yesterday, we made sure to give enough time to making food and we got a few dishes all done. I still haven't made my big pot of lentil soup (and froze for other days), but in the end, soup doesn't take too long so I can do that one of these days before Iftar.

We are breaking fast (well, I'm not fasting because I'm pregnant... It's fine if you fast while pregnant, but I would either need to sleep a WHOLE lot more or drink/eat. I didn't even eat that much this weekend because it's so hard to eat when F--'s not, but that was not good. I can tell that my blood sugar was getting pretty low/I was cranky) around 7:55 pm in Fairfax, VA. Yes, it changes each day - so Sat: 7:58, Sun: 7:57; Mon: 7:54; Tues: 7:53, etc. You break fast when the sun sets. :) The good thing about it being later is that it gives me time to get home from work and cook. It was SOOOO bad in winter when we were breaking fast in the office - you could only have snacks basically and then you have to drive home and THEN cook...?! :( Very not cool. So, summer gives us more time. The BAD thing is that because you eat so late, you can't really go out afterwards and walk around too many places because they are already closed :( And, again because I'm pregnant, I'm tried. Although thank GOODNESS I'm in the 2nd trimester because I have more energy to cook, clean and even stay up through Bab al Hara! :) (= until 10:30 pm at least)

So, yesterday we had salad, macaroni bachemel, sambosik, figs/dates, 'Ataiyef, and mango's. Yummy! The bachemel, sambosik and 'ataiyef took the most time, but really is not that hard to do. The bachemel sauce is still tricky for me... I need to get it right - it's F---'s favorite (or, one of) food! The sambosik is pretty easy - mix ground beef with freshly chopped parsley (flat-leaf/Italian) and VERY well chopped onion; saute until brown, then put a bit in the sambosik pastry rolls (it's just long pastry sheets- rectangle, and maybe 2 inches by 5 inches?, like you would use for egg rolls or something like that). When you are ready to heat it up (we freeze a bunch), you heat up oil in a deep pan and fry them. Supper easy and very good!

For the 'ataiyef I usually just get the pancakes pre-made from the bakery, but you can make your own - it's pretty much pancake that you don't flip, but just cook through until it's done on both sides (you'll see bubbles on the top). If you make your own, try to make the pancake thin and I usually add flower water to the basic mix. The insides can have a bunch of things, we usually fill it with sweet cheese (get from the Mediterranean stores) or walnut/cinnamon/powdered sugar mix. Once the pancakes are done, you scope or place a bit of the mix inside and pinch the pancake close. Be sure that you pinch the sides VERY well. When you are ready to cook (again, you can freeze this until ready to use), just take out, grease a tray and put in the oven until brownish. Then, take out and dip in sugar water (1 cup water = 2 cups sugar, heat over oven until very sticky, add a bit of flower water) and serve with additional sugar water available on the side.

So, here was our table for Iftar (minus desert). PS- I don't know why it won't let me load the pictures length-wise, I just spend about 10 minutes on that!

Summer Heat & Start of the School Year

We have hit the hot days of DC summer...

Actually, overall it has been a VERY temperate summer this year. It really didn't get that hot and humid until about 2 weeks ago. Before that, it was pretty nice and even good air quality.

Once it starts getting hot and humid, the air quality goes down. So, now I'm pregnant - hot because I'm pregnant - and can't even walk outside because it's hard to breathe... Ok, it's probably not that bad, but I have a hard time breathing in the humidity anyways. I go walk in the mall... :)

I really do wish that I lived closer to the ocean (hmmm, this is becoming a gripe posting, isn't' it). It takes about 3-4 hours to get to the ocean from here and there can be traffic because EVERYONE does that. So, we haven't gone to the beach all summer, which is actually ok. I think that we may try to go in Sept, after Ramadan, but I'm not sure. It would be easier to find hotels I bet! :) We also may go down to S. Carolina in Oct which could be nice... I think the hurricanes stop by then, right?

So, it's hot and I'm pretty much staying in doors. *sigh* Another reason why I would like to move from this area... I don't like the cold and when it's hot, you can't go outside. Take me back to CA and dry heat!!!!!! Of course, I'm complaining and I REALLY want to move to probably the Gulf or something... I figure I can deal with the summer in exchange for the nice winter ;)

The good thing about August is that we are starting with the school year again. I always like starting up and it helps with work because things get busier and I work better when busy. Of course, I'm also freaking out about what I'm now late on. :) I have a list of things I need to do NOW!!!

We got in our exchange student from the UK and my students are starting to leave for their study abroad programs outside the U.S. We will start events and marketing for spring and summer study abroad and it's GREAT to meet all the new international students. They are a great group and my university is very small for the DC area, but that just means that I really get to know the students - a good thing! I love to see how much has changed since I went to school here; there are so many changes and it looks great now!

So, it's hot and humid, but school is starting which is always exciting. I also need to get my butt on track and go shopping and cook for Ramadan. I didn't do that this weekend, but will do that today. I want to make soup and small dishes before Friday so that they are set for at least 2 weeks :) Yay!

Public Discussions

I'm listening to WAMU/NPR right now (Tell Me More) and they are talking about the local 'outbursts' at town hall meetings regarding health care. It's a very interesting program and I'm glad to hear them talking from both sides in a pretty calm manner.

I'm quite shocked at the yelling and lies that are coming out (on both sides) regarding this issue. People are getting SOOOO mad and it's shocking mostly because - WHAT IS GOING ON? Why does it seem (particularly since 2003-04) that we can't talk to each other about issues and have a discussion about things of public concern? Instead, we see people form their opinions VERY quickly and sticking to those opinions- no matter what! That is a horrible stance to take! Especially for something like a piece of legislation that is STILL being formed and will go through several drafts before it gets CLOSE to being voted into law or anything.

I first became concerned about this with the '04 elections. Again, I live in the DC area so things are a bit different than other places, but BECAUSE I live in the DC area people are often pretty ok with other's opinions. I mean, we all need to work together, right? But, during that election people were AFRAID to bring up their opinion. There are these nuts out there (a growing group) who will yell, insult and physically threaten you if you don't share their opinion! What kind of stance is that? It certainly won't get me over to your side... and it's a dangerous slide for our society as a whole.

It seemed to be getting better for a bit after Obama was elected (to be fair, I actually think it would have felt better even with McClain - I think people were getting sick of the fighting), but now it's back. I'm amazing how MAD people are getting! I mean - disagree, put forward your points, but I'm very worried some people are PHYSICALLY making themselves sick with this anger!! Anger is not good and certainly not helpful for coming up with helpful compromises and solutions...

Please, PLEASE:

1. Calm down

2. Identify what you like and don't like about XX issue, person, etc.

3. Do some research (use multiple sources)

4. Talk with someone about the issue (ideally, someone for the other side)

5. Listen to what they say

6. Identify where you disagree and why (application, personal/moral belief, money, etc)

7. Think of possible way for compromise!!!!! (at the worst, agree to disagree but try to see where they are coming from)