But Don't Sit Down

A banana seller has a mobile stand but the seat for the bicycle is long gone. 

Eating My Garden

Today was Sham el Nessim, one of my favorite holidays because it is utterly unrelated to any religion or military victory.  On this day Egyptian families head out to some green spot for a picnic, which for some families today was my farm. I spent the day supervising children and puppies, winnowing our quinoa crop, and chatting with old and new friends. By the time everyone left, I was starving and really wanted some greens. After my post about khobeyza, I decided to try out its cousin hollyhock leaves. I cut some off my many hollyhock plants, washed and chopped them and then a autéed them in olive oil with onions, garlic, fresh coriander and dill, and a chopped peeled tomato. I layered a bit of rice, some chopped roast chicken and then the hollyhock greens. Delicious. 

Bounty In The Trees

In April we are surrounded by red/black and white mulberry trees full of ripe fruit. In the old days, the cities were also filled with mulberry trees along the streets, but as the ripe fruit does gather flies, people are cutting down the trees. It's heaven to go for a leisurely ride on horseback and stop to pick a few every few meters.

Egyptian Superfood For Free

This plant (weed actually) is known in Egypt as Khobeyza or in English as Mallow. It's a relation to Molokheya, another mallow plant, and hollyhocks which are yet another one. Egyptians eat it as a soup either with meat or without. The recipe from My Egyptian Grandmother's Kitchen calls for 1 kg mallow, 2 large bunches swiss chard, 1 onion, 2 Tbsp ghee, 2 cups of tomato juice (or tomato pureed in a blender...fresh is always better), 1/2 kg cubed meat (we usually skip the meat but it's good), 1 bunch each fresh dill and fresh coriander, 1/2 cup of rice, 4 cloves of garlic minced.

Boil the picked, washed chard and mallow leaves in a small amount of salted water and then run it through a blender or processor. Chop the onion and saute in 1 Tbsp ghee until golden and then add meat. Add the tomato juice and half the chopped dill and coriander and all of the mallow/chard to the pot with salt and pepper to taste, cover and simmer until the meat is almost done. Add the rice to the pot and finish cooking. This should take about 30 minutes. Saute the garlic and remaining dill and coriander in 1 Tbsp ghee and toss into the pot of mallow. Serve.

I personally like a lot of garlic so the amount of garlic is definitely expandable and this is a recipe that will put anyone with anemia right in no time. Mallow can be found growing all sorts of places as a weed. This particular patch was photographed at Blue Star Equiculture, a draft horse rescue in Palmer, Massachusetts. Free nutrition is always good.

The Cotton Candy Man

During protests, the activists used to tweet that it wasn't real until the cotton candy man showed up. That's how ubiquitous these men carrying a big plastic bouquets of bright pink sweetness are. You may see them in any neighbourhood, walking down the center of a busy street or winding through coffee shops. This man was walking the dusty roads near Abu Sir. I have never seen a cotton candy machine to make the sticky sweet inside the bags, but there must be one.

Turnip seller Abu Sir

 In the fall when they plant the berseem for the winter the villagers plant turnips as well. Sometimes they are planted in with the berseem crop and harvested with the second or third cutting of the berseem. Other times they plant them along the borders of the beds and harvested as needed. Turnips in Egypt are generally eaten raw like the radishes that are closely related. I like to cook the greens but this isn't a common dish. Generally they are cut and pickled in a simple brine solution and eaten as an accompaniment to almost anything.  She was enjoying  the winter sun in Abu Sir and snacking on some of her wares.

Yes, We Have Bananas!

Believe it or not, people do import bananas to Egypt although I can't imagine why. Maybe some shoppers like fruit that will sit unchanged on your countertop, but my preference is for the tang and flavor of the local fruit. 

Move Over, Nutella

Meet Datella, an invention of some chocolate lovers living in Egypt. Wanting a natural product without additional sugar so they mixed date syrup, dates, cocoa powder and a bit of oil.

Staff if Life

We are having the first anniversary party of our veterinary charity, Rural Wellness Initiative Egypt, and did our grocery shopping in Abu Sir. The baker there makes some of the beat pita bread I've ever eaten. We knew we'd be waiting for a big order so Um Ali bought a couple of lia es from the oven directly to give her kids a treat while waiting in my car. 

Mystery Sticks

You see piles of them around town in any Egyptian city. It looks like bamboo and is closely related. Sugar cane has been grown in Egypt for thousands of years. Egypt was exporting cane sugar during Europe's dark ages. Now it is often crushed in the mother if all juicers to make sugar cane juice, a green juice that oddly enough isn't that sweet. The pulp retrieved from the crushing is dried and chopped to use as cattle feed. 

Not Quite Pretzels

You see them along the streets in Cairo generally at a corner to serve a quick snack to a motorist of a boiled egg and one of the pretzel shaped pieces of bread. The cart owner here was finishing up for the day and taking his bread down from the rack that would ordinarily be covered. But this is more a morning treat and by 2 pm he was ready to move on. 

Ice Cream Break

I went into Maadi today with a friend who needed a ride in and some moral support. On the way back we stopped at a locally famous shop that sells honey and products made with buffalo milk. The sign's spelling is amusing, but the ice cream is simply wonderful. It's the only place in the world that has a soft chocolate ice cream that I really like. 

Pink Cloud

Cotton candy seller

The youth market never fails. In this case a man has filled plastic bags with wads of pink cotton candy (candy floss for the Brits) and is bicycling around the villages selling it to children for probably something like 25 piastres, which is a healthy markup on his materials, although not so healthy for the teeth.

Neighbourly Behaviour

This arrived this afternoon, a box with about eight to nine kilos (about 20 lbs) of fresh mangoes from a neighbour's orchard. Guess what I'm having about 2 meals a day of.

Truth In Advertising

I bought a case of white vinegar a few days ago to use in cleaning my lawn sprinklers. We have a lot of calcium in our water and it gums up the valves and outlets. But I love the carton. The brand name is Ganna (heaven, I believe) and it is almost 5% degree vinegar, whatever that is. But even more important it must be new, as it warns us to "Beware tradition"...... or maybe that just means it won't clean my sprinklers?

Life with Islamic Government

This sign was in the window of a pharmacy in Maadi. I don't find it terribly repressed...much less subtle.

Smiles For The Camera

I never ride without a camera and in this case I was riding with a friend who also had one. Some of the village boys were climbing up into a huge mulberry tree to get the last of the spring fruit with the aid of a highly dubious stack of bricks. I got a shot of them, which was nice, and my friend Kelly got this one of me showing the boys their picture on my camera, which was much better.

Egyptian UFOs

Visitors often find the open air butcher shops a bit surprising. Walking down the street in Toronto, one isn't that likely to literally bump into animal parts. You get used to it.

Tilted

Life in Cairo these days goes on in many normal ways but at the same time seems sort of out of balance, much like the lines in this photo.  Two young men chat beside an empty refreshment stand along the Nile overlooking the Cairo Tower. I'm not sure what the poles attached by a line are...perhaps part of a stand by the river just beyond the railing, perhaps part of a boat.

Strange Dry Spiky Thing

While visiting Adam Henein's garden, I noticed a string of objects hanging from a tree in the sun. It's a long time since I've seen dried okra, which the Nubians and Sudanese use to make a dish known as wayka. Wayka is a stew of ground beef, tomatoes and the ground dried okra. It has a rather interesting texture and is often eaten scooped up in bread. Delicious.