The Cynical Dairy Farmer's Guide to the New Middle East

Here's a great article that I found through friends from study abroad!

Click the cow

Walk like an Egyptian... or a Jordanian... in DC

There have been a few Arab cultural holdovers for me since getting back to the States (including calling the US "the States"). I tend to shut off the water immediately after using it (thank you, Jordan, and your lack of water), put lots of sugar in my tea, and if I'm feeling particularly Arab, sometimes I'll have to remind myself not to throw toilet paper in the trash. (Septic systems in the Middle East are not the sturdiest.)

While this is all well and good, since I am the only one who has to deal with these slight cultural anachronisms (of a sort), there is one habit I haven't yet broken that affects others more than myself: the way I cross streets.

While I was in Cairo, I wrote a post about several cultural differences between Egypt and the US including road crossings. Traffic fatalities are 44% higher in Egypt than the US. There really is no way to describe it, but this youtube video should give you some idea of how ridiculous it is.

**Please note that one of the scariest moments of my life was crossing Tahrir Street on my way back from class... I was sandwiched between two trucks in the middle of the road. Terrifying!

Just when I was starting to get the hang of it, aka, crossing streets by myself, we were evacuated to Jordan. In Jordan, the same rules applied. Meaning, there were no rules. However, less people in Amman means less traffic, which means cars went faster. Much faster. Within the first two days in Jordan, I saw three accidents, whereas I saw none in Cairo. Yikes!

Despite the faster moving cars, I eventually got used to crossing streets in Amman as well. You just kind of had to assume they would stop for you, which they did, at the last minute.

Now that I'm in DC, I do the same thing walking streets here... why should I wait for a cross signal if there's no cars? Or if they're far away or moving slowly? I don't know how many cars I've freaked out since living here! Sorry, DC drivers. I am that terrible pedestrian now.

And just for funsies:

Kabobs in DC

After being in the same city for the past two weeks, my friend from Jordan, Justin, and I finally got together to catch up post-study abroad. We wandered Dupont a little bit before winding up at Moby Dick's House of Kabob, a local Persian chain, on Connecticut Ave.

They had REALLY GOOD falafel. I hesitate to say the best because this is only my second falafel in DC post-Jordan, but it really hit the spot. 

Weird bread? Other than leaking the yogurt sauce, it was new and yum!

And even though it wasn't the Arab-type falafel and food I was used to, it was really cool to see Persian food and kabob, because to my untrained eyes it seems like a mix of Middle Eastern and South Asian food.  For dessert I got zoolbia and bamiyeh, which looks an awful lot like (read: is) jalebi (a dessert that my Indian roommate, Gina, gets from her family and shares with us a lot), and awwamat (or honey balls, a popular Middle Eastern/Central Asian dessert I had a lot in Jordan/Egypt). 

Bamiyeh (honey balls) top, and Zoolbia (pretzel-looking thing) bottom

There were several other items on the menu I didn't get to try, so I'll have to come back here in the near future, one of which is doogh.  According to Wikipedia, doogh is some kind of Persian yogurt-based beverage.  Never heard of it before in my life, but I'm going to try it!

On a completely separate note, in my wanderings, I found another kabob place named "FRIENDS"...

That was reminiscent of a certain bar in Aqaba, Jordan...

This travel blog photo's source is TravelPod page: Goodbye Egypt, Hello Jordan

I wonder if they're related at all or if it's a total coincidence?

My Middle Eastern Night

A few weeks ago after getting home from Jordan, I hosted a "Middle Eastern Night" at our house so that some family and friends could come over, see my slideshow of pictures from my semester abroad, and eat some authentic Arab food.  It was great fun, I was so excited to see everyone again and tell my stories.

But let's be honest, it was really about the food.

In Jordan, a small group of us study abroad students went to Dr. Wafaa's apartment where she taught us how to make hummus, yogurt sauce, maklouba, shatta (hot sauce), and lemonade with mint.

So, using those recipes, I replicated that meal at home, to great success! The hummus was delicious (and a huge hit - the huge bowl of it was gone by noon the next day), the tzatziki-esque yogurt sauce was yum, and everyone liked the maklouba (which means "upside down" in Arabic because of how it's made), even if the rice was a bit mushy.  I didn't make the shatta, but I did make the 'aseer limon ma nana ("lemon juice with mint"), which exploded all over me because I apparently don't know how to use a blender. Oh well. Gina finished it when I went to try to get the sticky Sprite off my clothes.

Appetizers: pita bread, pita chips, hummus, tzatziki, and pistachios

Getting the ingredients itself was interesting. Most were available at regular grocery stores, but I couldn't find the short grain Egyptian rice anywhere. I didn't have time to search out a Middle-Eastern market in the area (there are several Indian groceries, but I don't know of many Arab ones), so I went to Montgomery Market instead, which usually has a good supply of ethnic foods. No Egyptian rice, but I used Valenciano Spanish paella rice instead. I also picked up some Zaatar and I think a couple other random Arab foods there. (They also had kunafa mix! I didn't buy it, but I might try it in the future.)

I got to be chef to mother's sous chef for once! She made the tzatziki according to my recipe and got all the mint that we needed from her herb garden. 

Here are the recipes (courtesy of my roommate from Jordan, Lauren), which we used more like guidelines: (what we actually did in parenthesis)

Hummus

Ingredients:

¼ kilo of raw chickpeas (3 cans of chickpeas, rinsed)

2-4 heaping spoonfuls of Tahina, sesame seed paste

½ of a lemon, juiced (3 lemons)

2-3 large spoonfuls of plain yogurt

Salt

1-2 cloves of fresh garlic

Olive Oil

(cumin and tumeric)

Preparation:

1. Overnight, soak chickpeas in lukewarm water. (Or not, if you're using cans)

2. Fill large pot with soaked chickpeas and water until ~1 inch above the level of chickpeas. Boil for an

hour, uncovered. (Again, unnecessary with cans)

3. Taste chickpeas to see if soft. Put in blender or food processor and add several spoonfuls of Tahina.

Blend until chickpeas are broken up.

4. Add lemon juice, garlic cloves, and salt (and cumin). Blend.

5. Add water and yogurt until it’s the consistency desired.

6. Serve in a bowl with olive oil drizzled on top. (And some stripes of cumin and tumeric, with some whole chickpeas in the middle.)

I can't eat store-bought hummus anymore!

Al-Khierib Leban (Yogurt with cucumber sauce)

Ingredients:

9 small cucumbers

1 kilo of plain yogurt

2-3 cloves of garlic

(1 lemon, juiced)

Salt to taste

Handful of fresh mint leaves

Preparation:

1. Cut the ends off of the cucumbers. With a cheese-grater, grate the cucumbers into a large bowl.

2. Peel the skin off the garlic, grate the cloves into the same bowl as the cucumbers.

3. Cut the mint leaves into very fine pieces. Set aside.

4. Mix the yogurt (and lemon juice) into the cucumbers and garlic in the large bowl. Salt to taste.

5. Sprinkle the mint leaves over top.

6. Serve immediately or refrigerate.

Thanks to Mom for the pretty presentation

‘Asir limon m’a na’na – Lemon juice with mint

Ingredients:

- 3 lemons

- A handful of mint leaves

- 1 liter of 7up/Sprite

Preparation:

1. Juice the 3 lemons. Put into blender.

2. Put handful of mint leaves into blender.

3. Blend until mint leaves are fairly chopped.

4. Add the 7up into the blender gradually

5. Blend until half liter is used. Add the rest of the 7up at the end of blending.

6. Serve over crushed ice.

The maklouba was a bit harder to make since I wasn't sure if the recipe was for one pot or the four pots we made as a group in Jordan.... so that one I made up as I went along. I would have to make it again to see what I actually put in it in order to give any kind of accurate recipe. 

In short though, it is peppers, onions, fried eggplant, tomatoes, and marinated chicken, all mushed up together, covered with rice, and boiled in a pot. Once the rice is cooked, it's done! And you flip the pot over onto a serving tray and eat it. (Hence why it's called "upside-down.")

And that's it!

Our maklouba pots in Jordan

The finished product

Waacking!

After watching So You Think You Can Dance (dance, dance, dance...) last night with my mom (taped from Wednesday night), she has since become obsessed with waacking. I find this hilarious and really want her to try to do it. I've never heard of this style of dance before (but then again, I'm not terribly knowledgable about a lot of things hip hop), but it's awesome!