Ramadan- days 3-5 (weekend) & Trays

It's the weekend! Yay! So, here was have Iftars from Friday and Saturday night- I forgot to take a picture on Sunday night. Friday was lentil soup, salad, sambosek, rice with chicken, pea gravy (more like a stew of just tomato sauce and peas- anything stewed like this is usually called a 'gravy'. Saturday was stuffed grape leaves, salad, lentil soup, rice, pea gravy, sambosek. Sunday was macaroni bechamel, salad with corn, sambosek.

And here is the picture of the cups we use for the Arabic coffee! They are very small cups with no handle and you will pour from the stack as you hand out the coffee (I haven't gotten the hang of this- I'm too afraid to spill on someone!). I don't know why, but I really like these cups and the whole process that goes along with it... a very small thing, but unique!

Our beautiful cups were brought in from Jordan by my mom-in-law and sister-in-law. They are white with silver on them.

On that note- you can see in the picture part of our beautiful silver tray (1 of 2). Normally, I will use wooden trays if I'm bring food upstairs or downstairs or anyplace and I don't want to make multiple trips. It's funny- and something that I had already noticed in Jordan- how much we are using the pretty silver trays now... on the main level. My mom-in-law and sister-in-law are with us through the end of Ramadan and of course they do those things like at home. (I love having them here- they are super casual and do many things like I do... and we have always stayed with them in Jordan so long periods of time together are not that unusual for us)

When I saw we are using trays on the main level, I mean we are using trays for everything. In most cases I would just bring out food or tea/coffee, but now we pretty much use the trays for these actions. So, we bring out the cute silver trays (big and small), usually put a paper towel down so the tea/coffee doesn't spill, put out the tea pot, sugar, cups, plates and perhaps a snack. And then bring them out to everyone. Which is very nice, but certainly not something I really would normally do or anyone in my family would normally do :) There is something in the way this is done that seems much more elegant than just bring out the tea in individual cups- don't you think?

Your moment of zen: (ok, not that great of a commercial, but it sure has many big-name actors! ...or at least many *I* like :P)

2nd night of Ramadan & writing scripts

2nd night of Ramadan with Lentil soup, Rice and chicken, meat pies (yum, yum!), fatoosh, and atyaif. Afterwards, coffee - I need to take a picture, you can see in the far right the cups we use- and ate more pies later on.

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Does anyone write in cursive anymore? I am missing writing in cursive today. There is something very fun about looping and connecting one letter to another.

I usually don't write in cursive (of course, how much does anyone actually WRITE these days?), but when I do, it's more of a half cursive, half print writing. I'll do in cursive my 'f', 'l', 'e' and various other letters that are looping and 'fun,' but keep in print things like my 'b', 'r', capital letters, 'p' (although 'p' is pretty much the same in both prints) and others...

Do they still teach cursive in school? They must- when I took the GRE I had to write the 'I will not lie' statement in cursive, which was probably the first time in 8 years that I had to write in cursive! I don't remember it making a difference in university how I wrote- just as long as it was eligible.

What I find is that how I physically write things is very different than how I type things. I feel like when I type, it's a more direct connection between my brain the keyboard. I type faster than I write. Of course, that can contribute to the writing being more like 'talking'- flippant, casual, incorrect, etc. When I physically write (in cursive or print), it takes more time and I feel like I have to think more. I can't just go back and fix what I write down- is that why it's different for me? Is it because it takes more time and therefore I can think the sentence and each word out in more detail?

Perhaps I should start to practice writing again- in the physical sense- and see if it's true that my thoughts are better put together. Of course, that'll take time, but I miss that part of my life; seeing a topic and talking about it in good detail. I feel like through writing I can explore something a bit more than typing sometimes...

What do you think? Do you find you think differently whether you type something or physically write it out?

And now... your moment of Zen:

1st night of Ramadan

First night of Ramadan and we had the always super yummy lentil soup, salad (fattoush), and rice & chicken (with almonds and

raisins). Yum, yum, yummy! Later on, we have some

family come over and had some Arabic coffee (not to

be confused with Turkish coffee) and Atayef/Qataieyf-

a yummy pancake with nuts/cinnamon inside (or

sweet cheese) with sugar water on top.

Otherwise, the day was pretty uneventful- I worked

from home and gave my baby sweet potatoes for

the first time (I don't think she's a fan of them). I always find it takes a few days to really get in the

'swing' of things- maybe by this weekend. But, I'm not doing much for Ramadan this year, so it's

different than normal for me anyways...

On a more fun note- I LOVE the TV shows during Ramadan. It's very much like all the special

shows during Christmas time in the U.S. In particular, I like Bab al Hara (the neighborhood door-

a reference to Damascus, Syria and the different neighborhoods which almost function like

separate administrative zones) and Tash Ma Tash - a Saudi satire show. Also, there seems to be

a "Tonight Show"-esqe show this year in Egypt with this women who gives a comedic monologue

and then has a guest on the show! Certainly something new for me!

August & Ramadan

So....

It's mid-August. And tomorrow (inshallah) is the start of Ramadan. Yay for Ramadan; blah for mid-August.

Mid-August means that I have less than 2 weeks before students return to campus and the fall semester begins. It TOTALLY doesn't feel like school is starting again soon. 1. It's too hot! 2. We just didn't do (or I don't feel like we did) as many projects this summer like we normally do in the office. (of course, that's because we got a new webpage which has pretty much taking up all of our time and bitching... lol) 3. I'm still figuring out the mess from the spring (ok, it's not THAT bad, but not where I would like it to be)

So, that is a lot of what I'm thinking of now, but because it's mid-August (ie, vacation time for most people), I have really lagging in being productive. NOT good.

On the good side, Ramadan is starting tomorrow (inshallah) and while I'm not fasting this year on account of my breastfeeding, I am excited and will still need to adjust my schedule over the next month since my husband, sister-in-law and mother-in-law will be fasting. I certainly prefer to fast during Ramadan- it bring a level of spirituality that's hard to feel otherwise. By fasting,

you really focus on what's important in life and since you change your life around so much for the month, it bring a nice peacefulness to your life... I'm going to miss that.

But, I still need to change things a bit- mostly since my family will be fasting and I need to eat with them!! :) I think what I'm going to do is eat breakfast and drink water during the day, but not eat after - breakfast, so around 10:30/11 am. Of course, if I feel my blood sugar get so low (like this past weekend when I pretty much didn't eat until 6 pm!!!), I will eat again, but at least keep things small...

LOL! I always see people write about ill-positioned ads and thought this one was HILARIOUS!!! "How big is your weight loss goal?" ad on a page about fasting?! Ummm- FAIL! lol

Oh- so a big difference between Islamic fasting and (for example) Catholic fasting is that Catholic fasting lowers the total amount of food consumed (unlimited water and other items), while Islamic fasting is more time-based to eating/drinking/etc NOTHING during certain times of the day. I was brought up Catholic (to which I must note that I really do think Catholicism is fun) and it's kinda' funny looking at the 'official' rules for fasting because it's different from what my church taught and I remember traveling and basically having people in other countries not think I was Catholic because we didn't fast like they did. But, overall Catholic fasting is intended to make you suffer- like Jesus- and Islam fasting is more about spiritual focus (and empathy for the poor).

Of course, once nightfall hits, there is lots of eating and drinking and so I always say Ramadan is like a mix between Lent and Easter- each day! My husband thinks it's like Thanksgiving every day.

Ramadan Kareem!!! :)

Ramadan & Soccer

I was very pleased today to hear on the Kojo Nnamdi Show today a section on Ifars and Ramadan. I need to go back and listen to it (I AM at work...), but it was just nice to hear people talking about their traditions and food and the season. It means a lot to me to hear about this because (for the most part) you don't get ANY recognition of the holidays in the U.S. (of course, there's not a majority population in most locations of the U.S.) and since it changes your life for such a good period of time, any discussion is certainly appreciated from me.

So, it reminds me a lot of the dramatic increase in soccer highlights in the U.S.! ;) I mean- about 10 years ago, we barley got ANY soccer coverage on tv; now we have MLS games, British Premiership games and even World Cup games - not JUST on ESPN and ESPN2, but also on ABC!!!! WOW!

I know that many people may feel threatened by this increase in coverage on main stream channels- of Ramadan and Muslim holidays, that is, not soccer- but I think it's a very good thing for 2 reasons:

1. Awareness is always a good thing. You don't have to change anything about your life (thank you U.S. for our religious freedoms!), but you know that some other people are celebrating a holiday in their religion and it's ok to say "Happy Ramadan!"

2. It brings Islam more and more into a part of mainstream U.S. culture. Again- this may be something people don't want, but it's not like Muslims have NOT been in the U.S. I think the 1840s was the first Muslim I know of in the U.S., although that was a while convert and so there might (probably) have been someone before him... I mean, Morocco was the first country to recognize the U.S. so we must have had some diplomats at least here, right?

Anyways- Muslims have pretty much always been part of the U.S. and our culture, but most people just didn't know much about the religion. Which seems to more or less to have be ok (except when they didn't know why we were fasting at random months! lol), but with the added pressure on the community to have more of a unified identity since 9/11, I get worried about young Muslims feeling like an outside or not being accepted as an American, when they really are. I think this small recognitions are nice and really help Muslims proudly say, "I am American and I am Muslim and this is my holiday where we fast and celebrate with our family... And it's good and ok and not a bad thing for anyone else."

So, Ramadan Kareem and enjoy the month, starting next week! (August 11th) I will try to upload pictures from our Ifars again this year- it'll probably be more exciting than last year because my mom-in-law and sister-in-law are in town and they are GREAT cooks! :)

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.

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!