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.

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. 

Feather Dusters

Palms are a member of the grass family and not real trees as such. Whatever they are they have so many wonderful aspects: entirely edible, producing wonderful food, and easy to grow. They also can look like a tidal pool of grey-green sea creatures from a hilltop or a plantation of enormous feather dusters.

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.

Hanging Out In The Trees

It's mulberry season in Egypt and everywhere you go (unless you are trapped in grey concrete urban hell) there are lush green trees with black or white mulberries hanging off every branch and children of all ages climbing the trees to pick them. In our garden we have a huge Omani white mulberry tree with fruit the length of a finger that tastes like pears. But there is no way in heaven that I can even begin to eat all the fruit so every couple of days the staff get together to shake the ripe fruit out of the tree.

Sweet Prickliness of Summer

The prickly pear cactus bears its fruit in the summer, flowers giving way to bulbs that ripen to a red yellow on the oval leaves. Farmers harvest them and bring them into the city where they sell them one by one to passersby who want some of the sweet, sticky fruit. The seller peals them for the buyer so that thorns aren't an issue. Interestingly, no one seems to use the leaves in salads as the Mexicans do. One of these days I will collect some leaves to make nopalitos.

Fruit and Vegetables

It's a little thing but close to my heart. We used to come here in winter from Canada to visit my in-laws before we moved here and there were these amazing strawberries. There are no fresh strawberries in Toronto in the winter unless you want to pay a small fortune for them. But the strawberries in Egypt.... I was caught by the colour of the strawberries and brussels sprouts.

Fruit Of The Winter

Friends of mine from outside of Egypt usually look at these things and simply wonder what on earth they are. The English name for them is Cape Gooseberry, although I don't believe that they are actually related to gooseberries at all. Locally they are called "harankash". They remind me of the tomatillo that is used to make chile verde in Mexico, sort of a small green tomato that has a similar covering. They have a sweet tart taste and are very refreshing. With the police still not really in evidence in the streets, the vendors have been busy.

The Souq After The Feast

A couple of weeks ago I posted a photo of the Maadi souq on the last day of the feast. We needed a few vegetables, but mostly we wanted to get out and wander around, so it was off to the market....which we found almost totally empty. This is much more normal.

The Wet Look

You are driving along a country road and parked on the side of the road are the reddest peaches and the most golden apricots you've ever seen. They don't just speak to you...they shout. Unfortunately, the fruit may not be the only thing shouting at some point since you can't guarantee what they've been washed in. That's when a nice clorox rinse comes in handy.

Mango Time

It might not look like a tough mango season from this photo, but the warm temperatures during the winter didn't really help things much. For some reason mangoes from a roadside stand are always more appealing.

Green on Green: Grapes

The PE was photographing our Girl Scout visitors and got distracted in the back garden by the bunches of young grapes.

Early Toot Harvest

For the uninitiated, "toot" is the local name for mulberries and the mulberries are beginning to ripen now. So when a couple of friends wanted to go riding this morning, I suggested that we go on a toot ride. This was their first toot ride, but I doubt the last. The horses like it too. They love the berries and the leaves are snatched out of the trees with delight.

Full Service

I suppose it's pretty obvious that I love cooking and eating, and I love the fruit and vegetable stands in Egypt. This one carries all the usual seasonal fruits and vegetables (you have to go to expat heavy areas like Maadi for broccoli) and also has a small stand at the end that sells hummous el sham, a cross between soup and a refreshing drink that is a light tomato broth with chickpeas.

On a quiet day the men who run the stands find it more comfortable to sit across the little road to watch their shop and chat about the events of the village and world.

Nuts To You

Seems a good topic to begin the new year. I love the healthy snacks that Egyptians are so fond of. There are shops all over the city that sell nuts and dried fruits and this is one of the best, the nut shop in Maadi next to the post office on Road 9. Every so often I go and buy raw almonds, walnuts, peanuts, dried apricots and prunes.

Selling Grapes

An old man has parked his donkey cart, as he does every day, in the middle of a relatively busy village intersection where he sells his seedless grapes. The police at the checkpoint just beyond the intersection obviously have no problem with this.

Sincere apologies for not posting lately but the gerbils running my internet seem to be on strike again and I have to borrow bandwidth from friends whenever possible.

They Are Coming Along

Mango season this year wasn't so great. We had a very warm winter that confused the trees causing them to bloom early and then had a chill that did in a lot of the young fruit. The dates are ripening now and date season will start around the end of Ramadan, I imagine. My trees are still young so taking a close up of ripening dates is easy. These are Zaghloul dates. They will ripen to a deep burgundy red and be crisp, sweet, tart, and crunchy...not at all what most people imagine dates to be. Leave them on a plate for a few days and they ferment, turning all the crunchiness to sugars and turning into the sticky brown treats that are more familiar to the world outside of the date growing regions.

The View From Here

Friends of mine stopped in Amsterdam on their way to Egypt and visited the wonderful hammock store near the flower market. They brought me a colourful Guatemalan hammock that has been strung under our Omani mulberry tree in the garden outside my bedroom. The tree is now large enough to give shade in the summer and the summer winds blow through that section of the garden to cool any hammock-enjoyer. I tried it out yesterday afternoon and took this shot of sunlight on the green leaves against the blue sky. There are still mulberries in the branches but it was too hard to get up and pick them.

Royal Toot

Egypt's roads and pathways are lined with mulberry trees (known locally as toot), both white and black. All summer long they shade the paths of passersby, but in April they do more. The mulberries are ripening and soon every tree will have bands of children hanging from every branch to pick the sweet berries. I have the normal "baladi" mulberries growing on the farm, but I also have a wonderful Omani mulberry that shades the hammock. These are Omani mulberries, about seven or eight cm long rather than the short, stubby local berries. And the flavour......

Strawberries in Winter

A friend of mine from Toronto came for a month's break from the winter chill in February. Leaving six foot drifts of snow against her front porch she came to sit in the sun, eat fresh local oranges and bananas...and strawberries. Now that is winter break. Photo courtesy of Elaine Jaques