Where in the World is Candace Hatchett?

Cooking our own F'tour

I have found that cooking is a great way to relieve stress and save money while living in the city! Upon arrival we found many cheap meals close to our apartment, but with Ramadan many of the restaurants are closed until about 8:30pm except for McDonald's which is expensive and not very appetizing. We go to the market about every two days or so and buy fresh fruits and vegetables. We use our Arabic the best we can and sometimes we mispronounce words, but many of the shop owners are very patient and forgiving.

Last week we wanted peaches and the shopowner pointed to nectarines. All we knew to say was 'la' which means no and we pointed at the peaches. He then proceeded to say the name of the peach and hold out his hand saying "khoh" and he said it until we repeated. Then he pointed to the nectarines and said "shehdiyah" and repeated the word until we did. It was just like being at school. He smiled and told us to write a list for the next time we came so he could serve us more quickly the next time we needed fruits and vegetables.

After shopping we wash all of our vegetables and fruits and then we prepare delicious cuisine. The following meals have been made in our kitchen: pasta with meat sauce, stirfry, chicken salad, guacamole, (a novice) couscous, pita pockets, omelets, pizza, Harira (soup) etc. The only meal that we haven't made successfully is hummus which turned out to be chunky! LOL We didn't realize that the blender wasn't strong enough to mash up our garbonzo beans. Someday I will post recipies, but really all of the meals we have made have really been made up on the spot in the kitchen. We cook our meats with green and red peppers, onion, garlic, etc and then we add a sauce or noodles and rice. I will admit that I really miss seasonings like Lawry's Seasoning Salt or good old Mrs. Dash! We bought a wonderful greenish mixture of spices called 'hannout spice' or lazy cook spice. The lazy cook's spice is a mixture of forty some spices and tastes pretty good on just about anything!