Food & Family
(click photo to enlarge, click again to reduce)
 Me and my brother Sami (right). Sami is saluting. Lucky for us he didn’t join any army. |
 The four of us |
 The goat outfit. I am told it was very difficult to get me to pose for this photo, and that payment (candy) had to be provided in advance |
 Birthday at school. Between the 4 of us my mom must have baked every kind of cake imaginable. This pussycat was one of my favorites. The other one was a cake in the shape of a house with the roof covered in Smarties! |
 It was interesting when Jimmy Carter accepted a dinner invitation to our house. The only other head of state I would meet is Jean Chretien, but that was only a brief photo op in Parliment. |
 Calm and well behaved, before the storm! |
 In love with Coca Cola. I apparently drank more coke than water back then  Happily devouring a goat |
 All it took to produce this big smile was a nice meal and a large glass of coke. Ahhh if only it was this simple now. |
 Every cute kid has to pay the kissing toll. I love you khalto |
 This special photo was taken on the day of my parent’s engagement. You can tell my mom is ecstatic as is my grandmother standing beside her. It is impossible to find a picture of my dad without a perfect smile unless you catch him while he’s eating! |
 These two handsome gentlemen are my maternal grandfather of Nablus (left) and paternal grandfather of Hebron (right) in what is probably their only picture together. I can look forward to appearing like some combination of the two 30 years from now. Rest in peace my ancestors. |
 Don Corleone? |
The Turnip War of 2007:
Turnips (Lifet) (لفت) are cored, stuffed with a mixture of rice and ground beef, and then cooked in one of 3 sauces:
1. Tahini (طحينية) (Sesame Paste): This in my opinion is the best and most delicious method.
2. Sumaq (سماق) (a.k.a. Rh. glabra): This purple spice is too sour and salty for my taste.
3. Tamarind (تمر هندي): Never tried this one.
Knowing that 3 of us prefer Tahini and the other 3 prefer Sumaq, my mom was nice enough to prepare both varieties over the Eid weekend. However we had a guest for lunch that day who preferred Sumaq.
 This Armenian Sfiha (meat on dough) was made by our butcher (Wahbeh). It’s ok although a bit too expensive |
 These are the remaining noble Tahini Turnips after we were done. On the top left you can see the cannon preserving the balance of power |
 The evil Sumaq Turnips plotting revenge |
 Bird’s Eye View |
Candle Mania
 These are my favorite candles selected by mom. They lie on a bed of pebbles. All that’s missing is a mini fountain! |
 Our 21st century LCD TV surrounded by an ancient ensemble of 5 scent candles and umm 6 balls of yarn? We don’t even have a cat! |
 This display of wax superiority is the pride and joy of my sister Samar. Seemingly the only family member with any artistic tendencies. |
 The same living room table, or I should say fireplace all lit up. As a bonus it keeps the living room warm! |
 More candles (left and right) in the sitting room, but I love the Roman columns which are almost never lit unless my parents are in town! |
More Food
 Where is the food? We are hungry! |
 Center Stage Goat Necks on a bed of rice and ground beef. For some reason the neck is the part with the tastiest meat. They say that if the man is the head of the family then the woman is the neck (which directs the head) Did I just compare women to meat? |
 Stuffed Vine Leaves. (Warak Lsan) Lsan means tongue, and I’m not sure, but I think it’s supposed to imply that they are rougher than normal vine leaves (and also less sour). They’re quite good although my favorite warak are the white ones made from cabbage (Malfoof) (ملفوف) |
 Tea and Coffee. I can’t stand coffee and would only drink tea if I’m cold. They are served besides brown sugar and honey to kill the horrible taste (sort of like oysters get served with garlic) |
 This shrine of sugar was prepared by my wonderful sister Mona to meet and greet our guests during Eid. My favorite are the chocolate coated nuts on the right. I could just eat the whole plate! |
 This is the Carvel Bannana Barge. A sliced bannana hugging 2 mouth-watering scoops of cherry-vanilla and peach ice cream drenched in chocolate and strawberry syrop, then lovingly sprinkled with even more chocolate all for only 30 calories. Not! |
 This colorful tribute to carnivorous (meat eating) species tastes as good as it looks. Why even think about vegetarianism. Meat Meat Meat! |
 My dad inissted on putting this plate of pomegranate way up there. I think it’s beautiful. All that glass, and clay needed something alive and red for contrast. |
 This car with Saudi plates had an email on the windshield. Apparently the driver Reeno15(at) hotmail.com isn’t getting enough correspondence. So I thought I’d help. My colleague Abdullah was nice enough to chase him long enough to take this photo. |
 This is City Mall’s Christmas tree and Santa. The photo was taken at around 3AM after watching National Treasure Book of Secrets at the mall theatre. Good movie although it seems to imply that the American president can be a nice guy. The last nice president was Clinton, and he cheated on his wife with an intern! |
I had to write this post twice since I hit a nice wordpress bug where if you set the style on an entire table row (as opposed to one cell at a time) this can cause all rows other than the first one to be erased.
10 Users Commented In This Post
Posted from
12-26-2007 at 01:28:41
omg! sfee7! *drooooools*!!! Candles are lovely! I love that… btw, groovy goat outfit *maa2*
Posted from
12-26-2007 at 09:40:45
The goat outfit! That’s just my nickname for it. I had much stranger outfits as a kid. I figure since parents took so much trouble to raise their kids they can at least dress them up funny for entertainment :)
Posted from
12-27-2007 at 05:23:27
Wow!
I enjoyed this post.
I need you to elaborate on the whole Carter thing. How , why , when and where :D
Posted from
12-27-2007 at 11:22:15
7aki, our house, Ramallah. Why ? It wasn’t planned. He was in town, my dad sent him an invitation. He accepted. I didn’t really ask. I remember that autograph book he is signing was bought especially for the occasion, although I lost it. Did I mention the food was great. Now I really do remember the food :)
Posted from
12-27-2007 at 15:41:42
And I thought you were on a diet!!! The food looks great, I love sfi7a and warak 3inab,stuffed beets that is news to me..I think carvel banana boat is fat free loool
The best picture of all is of your mom and dad in their engagement..It is priceless..I have two pics of my parents on their wedding day,they are precious..
It seems you had a good eid and I wish you an even better New year :)
Posted from
12-27-2007 at 16:55:36
Food, glorious food…
Posted from
12-28-2007 at 00:15:22
Noura, yeah I was, and I lost 8Kg on my Spartan diet, it’s the post-diet phase that I have to work on! Until then, the return of the spartan diet is at hand! Bannana split/barge/boat/dingy/battlehsip rocks, but I just wish I could get Ben&Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream here.
Yes, that picture is lovely, the best thing is that they still love each other so much even nearly 50 years later.
Khaled, yes foooooooooooooood. Just watch the circumference of your waiiiiiiiiiiiiiiist :)
Posted from
12-28-2007 at 05:20:53
It’s amazing that Carter accepted your invitation! This man never seizes to surprise me. Too bad you lost the book :( .
LOL @ you can only remember the food. Maybe if you were a bit older you would have remembered Carter more than the food
Posted from
12-28-2007 at 09:35:32
Well it wasn’t just age, my English wasn’t so great back then. I had just joined an all English school. I spent most of the time with one of Carter’s aides and his son who shared my fondness for computers, but beyond that, the conversation in the photo went something like this:
Hello Mr. President. May I have your autograph.
I do remember he seemed like a genuinely nice guy. He managed to bring Sadat and Rabin together in camp david whereas Bill Clinton failed to help Barak and Arafat reach an agreement. Too bad he only did one term as president, but so far I think he’s been the best ex-president.
Posted from
12-28-2007 at 18:04:26
Yeah he lost because of the Iranian hostage situation. And then now you get Bush who was losing a war and was still re-elected. Sometimes I wonder how the American people think when they elect someone!
Sharing Is Caring.....