Food at last

I have now been here for a month and I haven't shared my food situation yet. Astonishing, I know. Mady and I have all three meals provided with the exception of breakfast and lunch on Friday and Saturday (the weekend). We have fool and gibna almost every day for breakfast with government subsidized flat bread. Fool reminds me a little of refried beans but with more spices and gibna is the Arabic word for cheese. The gibna we are served is a spreadable cheese which also has herbs, green bell peppers and tomatoes. There is also Halawa, which is a really sweet pasty substance. I don't exactly know what it is but many of the kids don't like it and apparently foreigners have trouble getting used to the sweetness but I liked it from the start. I think its because I have a sweet tooth that is larger than the average person’s. Very rarely but always welcomed are very thin pancakes served with jam. On these days we inevitably hear one of the Bedouin boys repeat, “Put me much, put me very much!”

Lunch varies but normally includes rice and a salad of green bell pepper, onion and tomatoes. We have a vegetable stew a lot of the time. Macaroni and cheese and chicken are both served once a week generally.

Dinner is eaten with all of the guests at the hostel. Because lunch and breakfast tend to be pretty heavy and because we are not always in the mood to socialize or tell the story of what we are doing here again and again, we don't have dinner often. Dinner is generally a feast though and very good. Dinner switches between a vegetarian meal or fish which the Bedouins in the area catch and sell to Basata. Bedouins are the only people allowed to fish in the waters here and do a lot of fishing with big nets. We eat a lot of eggplant and zucchini but the fried cauliflower might just be my favorite. And of course most meals are served with tahini.
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Two weeks ago Mady's friends Hythem and Salem joined us from Cairo for the weekend.



[Side note: Egypt is called Masr in Arabic which means . Sometimes people will also call Cairo is also called Masr.] Anyway, there is a castle up the road from Basata that is known for its delicious meals and the fact that they serve alcohol. They prepare food the traditional way so the preparation takes a few hours. You must place your order by phone earlier in the day so when you arrive it will be ready. We called too late in the day for meat but ordered two fish plates and two seafood plates though we really had no idea what we were getting into.

The castle is about a 3 minute drive and is located on a hill overlooking the sea. It was build by a man by the name of Henny (at least this is how it is pronounced). The food was amazing and a nice change from the typical fare we usually eat. We had a white fish though I can't remember the name along with prawns, crab and octopus that was cut like a pineapple. .

We also had salad and rice that were amazing.

I obviously had a little trouble with the crab...

and Mady with the octopus.

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Our next adventure in food was attempting to make Becky's delicious Eggplant Parmesean. After receiving the recipe from Becky, we decided to go shopping for the more difficult ingredients to find, Mozzerella and Parmesean cheese, in Taba Heights, a resort town nearby with a store containing many imports. To our dismay, they didn't have either cheese nor a good substitute for them but we had already promised our friends Hussein and Reem that we would make dinner. We ended up making quite a delicious casserole with eggplant and zucchini with homemade tomato sauce and Egyptian cheese (the stuff the baker uses for the Basata pizzas that are baked daily). It turned out incredibly greasy and delicious.

Hussein and Reem gave it their approval too!