Category: food

I learned to love pomegranates when I was over in Yemen. I bought a few, but they were kind of a pain to eat. I ate them over the sink by cutting them in half and then just spreading the seeds out and gobbling them down. The problem was that method was messy and they stain like crazy. I ended up getting the fresh juice at the juice stands and loving it. I also combined it with fresh orange juice for an especially wonderful beverage…

When I went to someone’s house to eat, they had pomegranates out of the fruit and we ate them with spoon. Much more civilized, and a hell of a lot easier…

So how do you eat pomegranates? Well, you could try the sink method above, but I don’t recommend it unless you’re wearing dark clothes… Here’s a good way to do it. Quarter them in a sink. There’s a lot of juice, and it stains, so the sink is your friend… Then, you can spread open the quarters underwater and simply brush the fruit off of the pith with your fingers. The fruit sinks to the bottom of the bowl and the peel and pith floats! After you have done that, you can drain the water and munch away! You can also add them to salads, ice cream, or even put them in the blender for a great juice… I eat the seeds. They’re good fiber and I honestly don’t taste them really, they have a very weak nut/seed taste that is totally overwhelmed by the juice.

The fruit inside should be anywhere from a pink to a deep red and be sweet. There is a significant amount of tannin in there, so sometimes you may not be up to eating an entire pomegranate. I keep my fruit in an old cool whip container. I got about 10 oz. from two fruits! Eat them while they’re here! Enjoy!

Warning, old joke ahead…

Two guys go into a deli. They go up to the counter and they see a sign.

OUR SPECIALTY TONGUE SANDWICH

They have very different reactions. One of them says, “Ugg, tongue? That’s repulsive!”
“I dunno, I’ve never had it before, give me a double tongue sandwich!”
“Oh God, that’s disgusting!”
“What, you don’t have to have it, you can have something else.”
“I can’t help it, I can’t believe that you’d eat something that came out of an animal’s mouth…
The deli worker asks the guy who hasn’t ordered what he wants. “I’ll have an egg sandwich…”

I’ve been eating eggs recently. They’re a Godsend in a place where the meat is usually questionable and/or tasteless. I can’t bring myself to buy a live chicken, so eggs are a good source of protein. I usually like my yolks a little runny, but without toast, it just isn’t the same. Most of the bread here doesn’t lend itself to making toast out of it. There’s the health issues too. I have always heard awful warnings about possibly getting salmonella from undercooked eggs, but I’ve never taken them very seriously. Not only have I never heard of someone getting sick from undercooked eggs, I don’t know anyone that knows of that happening. Plus, health standards are good enough that I don’t think it’s much of an issue.

Things are a little different here. Judging by how they keep chickens here, and the resulting smell, I have zero confidence that the “proper” health procedures are being followed. That, in addition to the state of the eggs leaves no doubts as to where the egg came from makes me think that cooking them fully is the smart thing to do. I wash my eggs with soap and water before cooking. I don’t know if that will actually help me, but it makes me feel better…

So some sweet peppers, maybe some onion, and perhaps a little Italian sausage and I’ve got a decent omelet-like concoction. Like I said, it’s great when you need a protein infusion, and like everywhere else, they’re cheap. I do like eggs, I just hope my cholesterol doesn’t suffer too much…

My teacher, some other students and I went to lunch today. We ate at a local’s place, which meant it was pretty dirty. The guy was “cleaning” the table when we sat down. Cleaning involved running a sponge over the metal table. I’m sure that that restaurant was soaking the sponge in a 3% bleach solution to keep the bacteria down… Anyway, the bread was put directly on the table, I wouldn’t recommend eating that unless your immune system was up to snuff. At least we weren’t on the floor. I find eating with my hands unappealing, but when I eat with my hands and I’m on the floor, I can’t help but feel like a dog…

Anyway, this was one of the Salta places. Salta is a Yemeni dish, and it’s pretty good. It’s essentially a lamb stew, but with a Yemeni (as opposed to an Irish) flavor. The one thing I really don’t like is the fenugreek (hulba in Arabic) that they put on top. I find it repulsive. It’s added at the last minute and it’s usually only a dollop on the top. The salta that was closest to me was totally covered in it and my teacher immediately stirred it all together. I couldn’t eat it, it really tasted that bad to me. So Adel ordered Fasah, another lamb stewish type of thing, but they don’t (at that restaurant) use fenugreek on it. Much earlier in my stay I had gone to a cooking lesson and they showed me how to make both Salta and Fasah. They started from the same lamb stock, but they differed significantly after that. Most places seem to only differentiate between the two by whether or not there is fenugreek on it… Anyway, it was good enough once we got the new dish, we all ate quite a bit.

My problem was that Adel had told me to come at noon instead of my usual 4pm so that we could have lunch. We had lunch, but he didn’t show up for the lesson at 4. I’m not about to be charged a 2 hour lesson for a 1 hour lunch, one that I had to pay for incidentally. I’ll have to talk to him tomorrow…

It was an unqualified success! Tami managed to season the meat well and we had Mexican food, oh God how I missed that… Amin had his first taco ever, he mentioned that it was similar to Yemeni food. It is really, the spices aren’t that far off. I’m not sure why there isn’t a single Mexican place here. It wouldn’t be difficult to make tortillas, there’s enough chicken and ground beef to make what one would need. There’s not even a taco bell here despite the fact that there is a KFc and a Pizza Hut here. I’m pretty sure one company owns all three chains. I bet if someone were to try a Mexican place here, it would do well…

Tami and I went to Al-Houda supermarket tonight and found a few surprises. First up for me was a line of soft drinks based around ginseng. They had ginseng grenadine, ginseng ginger, and ginseng cranberry sodas. I have no idea what they will taste like, but they do sound interesting… The big surprise of the night was we found taco shells!! This is huge, we have been craving Mexican food for so long, this will be sweet. The only potential issue is that we will have to mix our own seasoning for the meat. If that goes well, it’s taco time!

Luchiano called up and invited me to his place for dinner. I went of course:-) He told me to get there at 8. I’ve always given by Italian friends (Luchiano and Luca) a hard time about how late they eat. Well, I got there at 8 and the only person there was Lauri. The rest of the guys showed up half hour later. We didn’t sit down to eat until 9:15 or so and I was famished. The food was, as usual, great. Had some homemade salami, an aged beef thing, with the necessary cheeses of course, some ham, and that was just the first course…. Between the courses, they were all engaged in very Italian conversation. I couldn’t understand a word, but that’s OK. I think that Italian is a rather lovely language and I could listen to it all night. I was reminded of the old joke, “How do you keep an Italian from talking? Make him put his hands in his pockets.” There was much gesticulating and I joked with Luchiano that I was afraid of getting hit:-) They then brought out the pasta, bookatoni I think it’s called. It looks like really thick spaghetti, but it’s actually got a small hole in the middle of it, much like a straw. It was great, but the thickness made it difficult to eat since we couldn’t swirl it on our forks like usual. Salad was next, it had an unexpected dressing made up of lemon juice and oil. Then there was an interesting fruit salad made up of cantaloupe, pineapple, and pomegranates. Pomegranates are in season right now but I hadn’t tried any yet. The ones here are a bit different than what I was used to getting in the States. First, they are much sweeter here, and the things you eat look different. Here they are red on one end and it fades into being clear on the other side. In any case, they are delicious. The last thing was the chocolate cake. One other thing I noticed was that whenever food is placed in front of an Italian, no matter how full they said they were, they would instinctively pick up their fork and start eating. THey wouldn’t always finish what they started, but they would always, sometimes absentmindedly, start eating. Despite my history of not drinking, I am beginning to appreciate an after dinner liquor. Luchiano introduced me to something called Limonchello, a lemon liquor that just seems right after one of his meals. He keeps it in the freezer, and just a little bit to sip is wonderful. Anyway, another great night and meal, what would I do without him?

I have never liked fish. Actual fish that is, the kind you get in restaurants or is prepared by people that like fish. It’s not that I think it’s disgusting, I just don’t like it. I have also drifted away from seafood in general. As recently as college I would eat shrimp and fried clams. No more, it just doesn’t appeal. One of the more popular places to eat here is the fish souk. You go to a shop and pick out the fish you want, they clean it for you and then you take it over to a nearby restaurant and they cook it for you. Everyone raves about it and when I tell them that I don’t like fish they always say the same thing, “You just haven’t had FRESH fish before..” Actually I have, multiple times, I don’t like it. Tonight I gave in and decided to try again. We got some sort of shark and a bunch of shrimp. Everyone raved about the shark, I thought it tasted like… fish. Seriously, I have no idea what people see in fish, I can’t really imagine it as anything that I would want to eat, let alone crave. It’s so, bleah with a hint of that special “fish” flavor that I dislike so much. Predictably, whenever I’ve tried fish that others were eating, the favorite around the table was always the fish that tasted the least fishy. Go figure… So anyway, I’m done. I have made up my mind, I do not like fish, I have tried at least 6 or 7 different types (and yes, they were all fresh) and I have found nothing to recommend it. If you are going to stay here for a while, and you like fish, you should definitely check this place out. For those of you like me, don’t bother, it’s same as any other fish…

I priced saffron the other day. It’s about $60 for over 2 POUNDS!! One Kilo to be exact. That’s one hell of a price, much much cheaper than back home. If anyone wants some, drop me a line and we’ll work out the details…