Cairo Kitchen

I've been spending a lot of time in the kitchen the past few months. Its not the nicest place to be in the summer, given the lack of air conditioning, but I'm finding an incredible amount of comfort in the time spent preparing things from scratch - slowly, carefully, deliberately. A dearth of ready-made ingrediants and an abundance of produce lends itself to fresher, healthier dishes. I've been making crazy noodle salads, pastas with fresh tomato sauce, fruit juices, and the occasional curry, of which two of three came out too spicy for human consumption.

I rarely have to set foot in a supermarket if I plan it right. I can get most of my fresh ingrediants on my block. Within 100 meters of my apartment building, I have an egg man, a fruit and vegetable stand, two "mini mart" type stores with dry goods and some dairy, and a kitchen supply shop for trash bags and such. My favorite place in all of Cairo might be the produce shop on my street - not the cleanest, not the nicest, but stepping inside smells like September back home, when we harvested the last of the root vegetables from my father's garden - earthy, dirty, and sweet from the concentrated sunshine of a long, hot summer. 

The vegetables get a thorough rinsing under running water and get put up to dry on my dish rack. 

I'm not as careful as I was advised to be about disinfecting fruits and vegetables (which could explain the repeated bouts of Giardia...) but I can't bring myself to put bleach, even a drop, on anything I intend to ingest. Ick.


As you can see, I've done a good job amassing spices and seasonings - some inherited from co-workers who have moved on, some purchased, some smuggled back in my suitcase from trips home.

I do have a microwave, but I only use it maybe twice a week. It was an impulse buy from my neighbors when they moved back to the States - I thought I might regret not buying it, but of course, it just takes up too much space on my counter. The toaster, however, was a worthwhile purchase.

I have a filter so I can drink the tap water, and a water heater for the sink.

My stove/oven is gas, which is a bit terrifying (turning on the oven is a whole other post).

Today I'm having folks over for brunch, and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to try and make my mother's Bloody Mary mix - from scratch.
My mother loved her Bloody Marys. Bloody Mary brunch was a Sunday institution in our house, on the mornings Mom skipped church. She loved the good Lord and tried to attend church somewhat regularly, but she also recognized that He wouldn't have made vodka, tomato, and horseradish such a delicious combination for no good reason - and surely He wouldn't want her to drive to services with a buzz.
She and my father got serious about their quest for the perfect Bloody Mary mix a few years after I left home. This recipe was their preferred mix until they came to Austin and discovered Zing Zang (used by my favorite hangover recovery room, Rio Rita). They started ordering that shit by the case and having it shipped to the house. I came home for Christmas and found two cases (12 bottles per case) in the cellar.

Since Egypt doesn't exactly have a huge market for Bloody Mary mix, I figured this brunch was the perfect opportunity to try the homemade route.

In short, this was nowhere near as easy a project as I imagined it would be. By the end of it, my arms were sore, my kitchen looked like a crime scene, and I was fairly drunk.

Here's how you can replicate the experience:

1. Mince 1-2 green peppers.

2. Slice 20 (yes, 20 - I had to say it in Arabic for the vegetable stand guy to believe me) tomatoes.

3. Add some chopped onion and celery.

4. Juice enough limes/lemons to equal about a third of a cup 

5. Add a tablespoon of salt, crushed garlic to taste, and 1/4 cup of sugar to take the bite out of the tomatoes.

 6.  Add about 1/4 cup of horseradish sauce.

7.  Finally add crushed red pepper, Sriracha, or Tabasco to taste and simmer until the tomatoes turn to mush (about an hour).

At this point, the kitchen was pretty hot, and I needed a beer to cool down.

After I finished the beer, it was time to deal with the cooked tomato mush. My mom's recipe specifies either pressing the tomatoes through a food mill or a "fine sieve". I don't have a food mill (I'm not actually sure I know what that is) but I did have a small sieve and thought that would work just swell. 

Note the size of the sieve in comparison to the volume of tomato mush. I had severely underestimated the task in front of me. The size of the sieve necessitated pushing only a few tablespoons at a time of the mush through at once, and squeezing out all the liquid required a fair amount of muscle. After 15 minutes, I started to get sweaty and thirsty. A second beer started to sound like a good idea. This did not, however, do any favors for my motor skills.

At the end of an hour of squeezing, I was left with less than a quart of Bloody Mary mix, sore arms, all visible kitchen surfaces covered with tomato gore, and a pretty good buzz.

BUT - I have to say - this stuff is delicious. I'm not convinced it would be worth the effort back home given the wide availability of pre-made mix, but I'm pretty excited to serve it....in small doses....cause I might want to save some for later...'cause I did work so hard in making it and all....are you sure you don't just want some orange juice with that vodka?

Weekend in Beirut

Whoa! Busy few weeks there. With political turmoil, the pre-Ramadan work crunch, and the departure of several dear colleagues, I've been a busy girl. On top of it all, I can't seem to shake an unusually long stretch of insomnia, which has taken taken quite a toll on my productivity these last few days. Tonight I've got an early date with my bed and some complex survey analysis methods reading (to help me fall asleep), but before that I wanted to post some pictures from my recent trip to Lebanon last month. 

My dear friend H. (of the Pink House Girls) moved to Beirut shortly before I landed in Cairo and we have been trying to get together for about a year now. We finally had a matching free weekend in May and I booked a ticket for a mini reunion and a chance to see the city that had been described to me as the "Miami of the Middle East". 

The weekend before my trip, I had a minor aesthetic disaster at a salon here, and a friend who occasionally works in Beirut told me I could certainly get it fixed there. Lebanese women take their looks seriously. I saw more signage for plastic surgery centers and salons than traffic directionals. Apparently, its somewhat of a status symbol for girls (and guys!) to walk around post nose-job or face lift with bandages on display. Its such a prominent part of the culture that H. has a friend in Beirut who is actually doing her anthropology dissertation on plastic surgery in Lebanon. While I didn't get any new facial features, I did leave with a much more natural hair color. 

We hadn't seen each other in over a year (in which time a lot had happened), so we had quite a bit of catching up to do! We spent the entire weekend eating, talking, drinking, and sightseeing. We took a day to see Byblos, a town with Phoenician ruins on the sea and had an amazing lunch and conversation over a glass of perfectly chilled white wine. 

Moules frites - the perfect lunch :)

The ruins at Byblos reminded me a lot of the ruins in Tulum, Mexico. Is it just me?

Byblos

Tulum

Byblos

Tulum

 I also got to spend time with the sister of a very dear Austin friend, who is studying at AUB. She and H. have gotten to be buddies over the last year - I love how the world is such a small place!

Also, just needed to include this evidence that AUB is trying to one-up UT's tower. This is the main gate of the campus.

H. has promised to visit me in the land of not quite right if things stay stable. We currently have no parliament, no constitution and a shameless military council rewriting the rules in their favor as fast as they can. By tomorrow we should have an unofficial declaration of the winner. The official count shouldn't take much longer than Tuesday seeing as how initial reports cited turnouts of 5-7% in most districts. 

I don't have the energy to delve in politics tonight, and I'm afraid most of Egypt is in the same, slowly sinking boat. 

Actually, the revolution WILL be televised

Tomorrow, one of the main components of the Egyptian revolution - the trial of former president Hosny Mubarak - will (supposedly) come to an end as a verdict is delivered live on state TV. I wasn't able to find a time, but regardless I'm willing to bet a majority of Egyptians will be glued to their televisions tomorrow waiting for the announcement. Of course, the trial has been delayed so many times at this point that nothing is for certain - but this time I have a feeling they'll stick to schedule.

The timing of the verdict hardly coincidental. A week ago, Egypt's first ever free and democratic elections were held, and the outcome was disheartening. The runoff election, scheduled for mid-June, will pit Ahmed Shafiq, a holdover from the Mubarak era and a proponent of the current military regime (SCAF), against Mohammed Morsi, a conservative Islamist from the Muslim Brotherhood. Mind you, at the outset of elections the Brotherhood had promised not to put field a candidate. In the end, they put forth not one, but two candidates - Khairat el-Shater, who was disqualified due to a recent prison term, and Morsi, who was only supposed to be a backup.

Most Egyptians I know with feel backed into a corner. Its come down to a choice between the old regime and an experiment in Islamist democracy. Those afraid of change, Egpyt's Christian Copts, and secularists may feel that Shafiq is the lesser of the two evils; revolutionaries and hardline Islamic Salafis (whose candidate was disqualified in an ironic birther controversy) may decide it's better to swallow their contempt for the Brotherhood and vote Morsi.

Interestingly, Alexandria went to a socialist candidate - Hamdeen Sabahi - and in Cairo, the very moderate ex-Brotherhood Aboul Fotouh prevailed. However, 60% of Egypt's population lives outside these two major metropolitan areas, and tend to be more conservative than their urban compatriots. See this fantastic map (linked from Arabist.net - a great site for Middle East politicking and commentary) as a visual representation - click on the governorates for a breakdown of votes.

I'm placing my money on  SCAF offering up Mubarak as the sacrificial lamb and ensuring that a guilty verdict is delivered, with a sentence of life in "prison" (don't delude yourself - he won't actually be wasting away with the rest of Egypt's political prisoners). This may soften the people's attitudes toward Shafiq for the upcoming election. SCAF knows that an majority-Islamist parliament (which already exists after this years elections), coupled with a Brotherhood president, is likely a formula for the end of their unchecked power and influence.

As an aside: On the way to work every morning, I pass by the burned-out shell of the National Democratic Party's headquarters. (NDP was Mubarak's political party). It was torched during the revolution in January 2011, and now stands as an eyesore on the Nile.

Unfortunately, the headquarters stands right next to the Egyptian Museum, which houses priceless Pharaonic artifacts which are no doubt susceptible to, say, a controlled demolition of a neighboring building. I'm wondering if thats why it has yet to be torn down..any engineers have a clue about how this could be accomplished with minimal impact on the mummies next door?

"Till by turning and turning we come 'round right"

Those who have not realized God will wander,

homeless in this world, destitute in the next.

But watch the lovers dance with ecstasy,

as they merge into the oneness of God. - Sultan Bahu

I just returned from seeing the Al-Tannoura whirling dervishes in Islamic Cairo. It almost didn't happen, because my friend E. and I arrived just in time to see the wooden doors of the Caravanserai, hung with a sign reading "Completed" (meaning full capacity), close in our face. We were bemoaning our luck to a group of Egyptian guys sitting outside the door - and one of them just happened to be in charge of the lighting for the performance. Like most Egyptian men, he was easily sweet talked, and we were being snuck in through a side door in no time 

The Whirling Dervish performance in Cairo is now largely for entertainment and demonstration of cultural heritage rather than a religious rite. The whirling is associated with Sufism and originally developed as a contemplative practice. The repetitive spinning, along with highly symbolic positioning of the head, hands, and feet, are intended to bring the adherent into closer union with God.

The performers spin continuously for 25-30 minutes at a time to the accompaniment of tablas, tambourines, and other local instruments I cannot name correctly. A lot of dramatic flourishes are thrown in for the audience - but deviation from pure practice doesn't diminish the hypnotic effect. 

The rhythmic music and movements are a spiritual, joyful centrifuge. The base and disconsolate elements of the self are spun down and separated out, allowing the ecstatic and the divine to rise to the top - and eventually overflow. 

Things I am not especially qualified to pontificate on..

I started this post last night but fell asleep - I had a belly full of delicious food and not even Turkish coffee could snap me out of the ensuing coma. I joined co-workers for impromptu visit to an Iraqi restaurant after work, so I didn't have my camera (I like posting pictures of food adventures!) but you're not missing much because the dishes weren't too far off typical Egyptian cuisine. A bit heavier on the rice, and with flatter bread, but the same grilled meats and salads and vegetables. Sudanese and Yemeni restaurants are next on the list - hopefully sometime this weekend.

This week has had me thinking a lot about the current situation of women in the Middle East, sparked by publication of a piece by Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy in Foreign Policy. (You can read the full article here - its worth your 15 minutes). The article, titled "Why Do They Hate Us?", sparked a firestorm of extremely polarized debate in the blogosphere, picked up by everyone from NPR to Al Jazeera.

Eltahawy's basic premise is that the root of oppression of women in the Middle East is men's hatred for the opposite sex. She highlights the most horrific examples of gender discrimination and violence in Arab and Central Asian countries - FGM, lack of voting rights, child brides, sexual harassment, etc and laments the Arab Spring's return on the investments made by female revolutionaries and protestors. Its incendiary, its damning, and it made a lot of people (including many Arab women) very, very angry.

I applaud the Eltahawy's willingness to bring the skeletons out of the Arab world's closet. I am also in favor of shock value for waking people up to issues that are taboo. On top of that, she's just a damn good writer. But I have one major bone to pick with this piece - I don't buy it.

Distilling several thousand years of social, economic, and religious factors affecting women's status in the Arab world into a single element, "hatred", is so overly simplistic that it places all gender relations in a vacuum, governed solely by (an implication of all) Arab men's feelings toward women. No one can deny the deplorable women's rights records in the Middle East - but is this due to a collective societal hatred (whatever that word even means), or multiple elements that have contributed to a self-perpetuating system of oppression?

In my limited experience in Egypt, I see two bigger factors at play - power and wealth. The two are often inseparable. Those who have power and wealth hold on for dear life, and those who don't live with a palpable lack that affects almost every facet of their lives - what schools their children can attend, what jobs they can hold, where they can live, whether they can pay the bribes necessary to navigate the mundane bureaucracies of life. There are too many people clamoring for a piece of an ever-shrinking pie. In a system where women have long had less power and influence due to historical religious and cultural factors, it is in men's favor to perpetuate the current system and hold on to the superiority and power they currently have - whether through religion, politics, or unquestionable social norms.

Eltahawy ironically does a disservice to the empowerment of women in her argument. By painting women's situation as a result of a collective "hatred" on the part of men, she disempowers them to address the situation. Its a basic human tenet that you can't change anyone but yourself. You can reason, you can explain, you can try and convince - but in the end, it is the other person (or people) who have to decide to change their attitude and feelings. Institutions, policies, and cultural practices on the other hand, CAN be addressed, as they are external things.

This begs the question of how to change those external things. It seems there is no formula. My thought is that when women have the power to make their own decisions, these collective decisions will generate enough influence to tip the economic and power balance of the system. Of course, how do you even get to a point where women are able to make those decisions? Its a chicken and egg dilemma.

I have hope - Egyptian women are strong, opinionated, and have the advantage of having tasted several decades of work outside the home. I do not think a return to women's place in the home, as the Salafis would desire, will be accepted by either men or women - the household economic consequences are too dire.

Of course, change is slow, and the more powerful sectors of society will likely have their turn before women. Eltahawy ends her piece with the dramatic assessment that the Arab Spring was started by a Tunisian man, but will only be finished by a woman. Unfortunately, she is probably right.

"A bearded Tahrir"

This was supposed to be a post about food. Yesterday I had plans to eat out with friends at one of the handful of Uighur restaurants in Abbasiya, near al-Azhar university (in the northeast corner of the city).  Students who came to study at the university missed their regional cooking and opened these holes in the wall. The secret's out, and now they're just as popular with western expats as the Uighur community. Everything is cheap ($1.75-$2.50 per humongous dish) and amazing. I have been there before with my old roommate and a friend of his.

Beef and noodle soup (closest thing to pho in Cairo!) and stir fry noodles

Garlic green beans

Hand-pulled noodle soup and stir-fried red cabbage

Unfortunately, our plans were thwarted by the protests in Tahrir, which have become a weekly occurrence. Some weeks the gatherings are barely a blip on the radar, and some weeks, like in November, they flare up into violent clashes. This week there were no reports of violence, but several hundred thousand people gathered in the square to protest a variety of things. My friends live in Garden City, and for me to get to them to meet up or for us to eventually get out of downtown and head towards Abbasiya would have been tough to impossible with the traffic diversions and crowds.

It was a crazy week for politics in Egypt. The three main front-runners for president (elections are supposed to take place in a little less than a month) were all disqualified for various reasons.

 The ultra-Conservative Islamist candidate Hazem Abu Ismail was disqualified in what is basically a birther controversy - no candidate or their family members can hold citizenship of any other country, and it was discovered his mother obtained American citizenship before she passed away in California.

Omar Suleiman, Mubarak's former boogeyman/head torturer (actual title - "Intelligence Chief") was disqualified on a technicality of gathering just a few dozen signatures shy of the 30,000 necessary to qualify for candidacy.

And the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate, multi-millionaire businessman Khairat al-Shater was disqualified because he was a political prisoner under Mubarak, and there is a rule on the books that must have been free from prison for at least 6 years before declaring candidacy.

Supporters of all three candidates converged in Tahrir to protest these disqualifications. Because 2 of 3 were from Islamist parties, the protestors were overwhelmingly of the conservative, Salafist flavor. The article covering the protests in this morning's paper ran with the title "A bearded Tahrir promises less unity than hoped" (in general, many conservative Muslims in Egypt keep a beard as a sign of piety).

The article describes general chaos as divergent political and social groups all shouted at simultaneous rallies in the Square. The rallies from Islamist parties took on a decidedly anti-Western, anti-American tone. This is nothing new - Mubarak had long been seen as selling out Egypt to the West throughout his dictatorship (er, presidency), and the Islamist parties he suppressed gained a sizable underground following by promising to reverse the foreign policy course and stand up to the West and in particular America. This is all coming to fruition now that these parties have the legal right to organize and possibly control Egypt's future. Whether the SCAF, which is currently running the show, will ever cede enough power to allow this to happen is debatable depending on where you fall on the conspiracy theory spectrum.

Regardless, this is an interesting time to be here. I noticed a blip in one of the Cairo papers last week (but now can't find it) noting that Egyptian officials visited France to observe presidential election proceedings this week - presumably to learn how to properly conduct a national election. This is the first time many Egyptians will have ever voted in a legitimate presidential election - several of my colleagues in their 40s and 50s had never voted in their lives.

Of course this is all going to go badly at first - when has democracy ever been a smooth transition? And in all honesty, this is all going to be complicated by the fact that we (America) have our meddling fingers (i.e. military funds) in the pot. But then again, when is politics not a circus? Anytime someone complains about the shenanigans going on in US politics currently, I direct them to this video Egyptian Parliament:

I could really go for some noodles.
Maybe next week, inshallah...

Ras Sudr, or how the British Empire collapsed..

"I caught the happy virus last night

When I was out singing beneath the stars

It is remarkably contagious -

So kiss me!" - Hafiz

I'm sitting balanced precariously on the edge of my couch. The air conditioner is on 22 C, and I'm slathered in aloe vera and trying very, very hard to ensure the minimum area of skin possible is in contact with the upholstery. When I forget and lean back, I'm quickly reminded that next time I decide to spend 2 days in the sun, I need to apply sunscreen more than once.

A good number of my co-workers are leaving in the next few months. As a sort of last group outing, we spent the weekend at Ras Sudr, a windy stretch of coast on the Sinai Peninsula. Technically, we were not supposed to be there since there is currently a travel ban on all road travel to Sinai for US Govt Personnel - but since we're contractors, we're technically not beholden to the same set of rules. We hired a driver, packed the six of us (plus one toddler) into a minivan, and headed out early Friday morning.

Just three hours out from Cairo, you find yourself in the middle of nowhere.

Blurry, but you get the idea

The eye can rest on miles and miles of unbroken sandy, rocky terrain. Its not the most interesting or colorful desert, but the expanse and sheer emptiness have an austere beauty of their own. The beaches on the Red Sea are simply where this emptiness meets the water. In some other places (I've heard Dahab especially) the desert rock and mountains make for a spectacular backdrop to the beach. In Ras Sudr, its pretty, but not especially so.

 We spent the day lounging on the beach, reading, drinking (you can BYOB and we came prepared with a case of Stella - no, not that Stella). This particular area is very windy and a big draw for windsurfers and kite surfers. The wind was pretty low this weekend, but it was great for us beginners. I have no pictures of me windsurfing (my camera isn't all that waterproof), but it was really amazing! The bay was very shallow and turquoise blue, and you could see reefs and sea urchins beneath the surface as you skimmed over the water.

 Most of the resorts in Ras Sudr are run by Egyptians, but have a kite/windsurfing operation run (and frequented mainly) by expats. Ours was run by a group of sunburned, hard-drinking Brits. In fact, this particular week they were hosting a large group of British students who were part of their university's windsurfing club. They were planning to be there for 10 (!) days, and from what I can tell, this was the daily schedule:
1) Roll out of bed, extremely hungover, at 9:45 and make it to breakfast just before it stops being served at 10
2) Fall asleep for an hour on the beach
3) Surf for 2 hours, or until dehydration overtakes you
4) Get another drink, and catch a nap and maybe some lunch
5) Surf some more
6) Dinner
7) Drink until 6am or passing out, whichever comes first
8) Repeat

Friday night, they were having some theme party based on a UK advert for some type of 411 service. They were all dressed like the runners, down to Magic Marker mustaches and wigs. I guess its turned into a pub crawl game in England, but since the average distance between bars in Egypt is about 100km, they just had to stay put and drink their faces off.

These kids did not screw around. Their drinking games were spectator sports. I have never before, and hopefully never will again, seen anyone play flip cup with full gin and tonics. How these people ever managed to subjugate half of the world's population is a mystery to me. I've heard several theories about why the British Empire failed, but clearly, Tanqueray was involved.

 It was strange to see this all play out in a country where 90% of the population eschews this sort of debauchery entirely. I have mixed feelings about this, but so does Egypt. They rely heavily on tourist dollars, and their current economic state is due in no small part to a huge decrease in tourism post-revolution. They realize that the vast majority of tourists want some booze and bikini time with their ancient antiquities - at the same time, they know that this aberrant behavior (in the eyes of the increasingly conservative Muslim population) is something that many Egyptians would rather not have in their country.

Its not that conservative Egyptians dont spend time at the beach. In Alexandria, where I overnight during my fieldwork in Damanhour, there are numerous beaches catering mostly to Egyptians on holiday. I was surprised to look out my window one morning and see a group of women swimming in the sea, fully clothed in long skirts and sleeves and headscarf. Woman who wear Niqab also wear it while swimming - its quite a sight when they emerge soaking wet in head to toe black from the water. The other option is the Burquini, which are actually kind of adorable, but are quite pricey (upwards of $80) and not a feasible option for poorer families (hence swimming in your clothes).

 Sinai's greatest attraction - which I hope no tourist development plan ever destroys - is the the quiet, clear air, something Cairo is severely lacking. I took some time to walk down the beach at night, away from the gin and the music and the Christmas lights strung around the bar, and sat down by the water. If you lay your head back on the sand and look up, you can see stars you never knew existed, so close they seem to be sitting on the end of your nose.