at-Ta'aam wal-Meshrubaat (Food and Drinks)

(Edited for flow and typos)

Dear readers,

It's so hard for me to write short, themed posts, because I always want to bring other subjects into it, and maybe wax philosophical for a couple of paragraphs, but here I am trying again -- mostly because my mom has been telling me to do so via email. So, here is a post about food, because it's really, really good here!

This is the standard hotel breakfast, which may or may not be representative of how the average Egyptian breakfasts on a daily basis:

This was only one day, and the selection varies, but we are guaranteed to be served these things every morning:

- One hard-boiled egg
- Two or three types of cheese: usually one crumbly/hard, and two soft, and all of them mild to slightly blue)
- Four slices of some kind of bread -- never wheat, because no one seems to eat wheat bread in this country -- with butter and jam on the side. Pictured are two slices of very white bread, one slice of something like fruitcake, and a slice of chocolate(?) pound cake.
- Several slices of fresh tomato
- One of two caffeinated drink options:
  -- Coffee, either Turkish (which is brewed with loads upon loads of cardamom at our hotel), or Nescafe (which this town is obsessed with, as it is on literally every drink menu I've seen here), or
  -- Tea, which is guaranteed to be Lipton's Yellow Label, as Alexandrians are obsessed with that brand too. The way you drink it here is dark-ish and bitter, with a full package of white sugar stirred in, and some sprigs of mint if you feel like it. (It reminds me a lot of the "special" iced tea recipe that has been handed down on the Texas/Louisiana side of my family, except that it's served hot, and without orange juice. How bizarre to be reminded of the American South when living in Egypt!)

We almost always get olives and cucumber, too. Occasionally, we get fruity yogurt, or orange juice, or a banana. Because I never even put a dent in my breakfast, I've started taking some of it (usually the jam and one of the slices of bread) with me at school to snack on.

At the university, there's a guy whose job is to sell us food and make us drinks, which are always good and very inexpensive. Every morning, I buy a cup of Turkish coffee from him for two (or 2.5?) Egyptian pounds, or roughly 35 cents USD.

Look at that delicious sludge. Just look at it! Makes you thirsty, right?? In the words of Agent Cooper, of the TV show "Twin Peaks": "Every day, once a day, give yourself a present... Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee." My Turkish Coffee Time is my gift to myself every morning, a break from the stresses of nonstop Arabic work to relax with a beverage that I can have here all the time, and can rarely obtain in the US.
(I'm considering remedying this by buying a Turkish coffee pot and taking it home with me, but I digress!)

For lunch, we always go to the same nearby restaurant: Al-Tibawy.

They have all the standard Alexandrian cheap food, which we absolutely love, and which is sold almost everywhere:
- Falafel sandwiches (pita stuffed with falafel, cucumbers, and all the fixins)
- Ful sandwiches (pita stuffed with some kind of bean paste, sometimes with tomato or bell pepper too)
- Shawarma (thin bread or hot dog bun stuffed with meat, veggies, and surprisingly tasty pickles)
- Crepes(!) (filled with either nutella, fruit/honey, or shawarma fixins)
And, last but not least...
- KOSHARY.

Koshary is my absolute favorite Egyptian food -- even better because I tried to make it at home and it turned out being pretty bad, so my expectations were extremely low to begin with. It consists of: Rice, macaroni/spaghetti cut into small bits, chickpeas, lentils, fried onions (best part), and various types of spicy, probably tomato-based sauce. God, it's making me hungry just thinking about it! Inshallah (God willing), I'll have it for dinner tonight. <3

But I digress (again). In short, our lunch and dinner options are pretty limited, and not the most healthy. As wonderful as they are, we need to make grocery store runs every once and a while to stock up on fruits and vegetables etc.

Speaking of which... Local fruit in this town is AMAZING. The best bananas and yellow apples I've ever had, I ate here. (Needless to say, the dried dates are wonderful too, but I always love those, so it hardly counts.)

Fruit juice here is like none I've ever tasted in my life.

Pictured: Strawberry, mango, pomegranate, and coconut. Mango juice is especially good here, but all kinds of fresh juice are filling, sugary, syrupy, and have huge pieces of fruit in them. You have to drink them with a spoon!

I've heard that seafood is really good here, too, but I haven't quite partaken yet. I mean, I had this fried fish and fried calamari at a Western-style restaurant over the weekend:

But it was only pretty good, not mind-blowing, and I couldn't enjoy it that much because I was sick.

More food updates, and further small themed updates, to come later!

Ma' as-Salaama,

Beth C-C