The Chronicles of Desperation: A Cookbook

Recipes for the study abroad student who only has access to a microwave, a stovetop, one skillet, and a very limited selection of groceries:

Saudi bread pizza:

1 panatha bread, frozen

½ cup mozzarella cheese

1 medium tomato, sliced

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

2  tsp garlic powder

2 tsp Italian spices (basil, oregano)

Steps:
1) take frozen panatha bread and heat it in warm skillet for two to three minutes (turning it over when appropriate)
2) when properly cooked, place on a plate and brush olive oil onto bread
3) top with mozzarella and tomato slices
4) sprinkle Italian spices and garlic powder
5) place in microwave for 30-40 seconds until cheese is melted.

Grilled Eggplant Sandwich

1 medium eggplant, sliced   

2 tbsp olive oil (to fry in pan) + Italian spices (garlic, oregano, basil)

1-1/2 tbsp mayonnaise (to spread on sandwich)

1 small Italian bread

Side of chips

Steps:
1) In pan, fry eggplant in olive oil (meanwhile adding Italian spices while it cooks) for 4-5 minutes
2) When tender, place eggplant slices in Italian bread slices (either put mayo in before eggplant or after, it's up to you)
3) add side of chips

 Italian Egg sandwich:

3 eggs

1 tsp pepper

2 tsp Italian spices (basil, oregano, garlic) 

1 Italian bread

Steps:
1) Stir eggs in a small bowl
2) Add pepper and Italian spices in bowl
3) Pour bowl of eggs into a frying pan (heat stove on medium)
4) Scramble eggs and add more pepper and garlic
5) When cooked, place in Italian bread

            Side dish:

Breaded and lightly fried eggplant

Ingredients:

1 medium eggplant cut into ¼ inch slices

1 egg (stirred in a bowl)

½ cup breadcrumbs (if possible, Italian breadcrumbs . . . if not add a generous helping of basil, oregano, garlic) on a plate

Steps:
1) Dip eggplant slices in egg
2) Place "egged" eggplant slices in bread crumbs
3) Heat olive oil in a skillet, and proceed to place breaded eggplant slices into skillet
4) Cook for 4-5 minutes, turning over slices every minute or so

What else do I eat?: 

A little bit of this

A little bit of that

                                          It's better than Nutella

And a lot of this: 

Life @ AUC- New Cairo

I just thought I would compose a few brief thoughts about my temporary academic home, The American University in Cairo. Overall, the atmosphere is a lot less stressful than Lawrence, though I have more domestic responsibilities so the time commitment evens out. As for the student body, the university is filled with the sons and daughters of the Egyptian elite, for which reason the school and its students are heralded as the cream of the Egyptian crop. So why am I not impressed? I will proceed to answer this question with a haiku. No, not really, but that would be impressive. However, I will demonstrate my feelings to you through photos and selections from the AUC publication "The Independent":


Reason number 1: The intellect

This article chronicles how the art majors feel pitied/ looked down upon by the rest of the student body.
Fail.

Reason number 2: The talent
There are no words.



Reason number 3: The food
You're probably wondering what this picture captures. I will enlighten you. It is the chlorine stains on a girl's shirt after she spit out portions of her toxic salad from the AUC salad bar. In an ironic twist, the chlorine solution that the cafeteria uses to make sure Nile bacteria on vegetables does not make students sick, actually made students sick.

Reason number 4: The dress code

According to the general guidelines in the AUC handbook, "students are expected to wear attire that is appropriate to the academic setting and the Egyptian culture."
Thus . . . .
Mennonite chic.

Yet, AUC has one redeeming quality. . . It's so damn pretty.

A Turkish Delight on a Moonlit Night

Let me say up front, that Istanbul is one of the most amazing places that I have ever been in my entire life. I will qualify this statement later, but first I must relay the story of my journey. It is long, it is mostly unpleasant, but it provides great material.
Time- 5:30 am. I wake up to catch an early taxi to the airport. The ride is uneventful for a Cairo taxi (the cab has seatbelts and there are no "near" collisions). However the cab driver charges me not only for time he stopped to get gas, but also the gas itself. It was only $1 approx, but it's the principle of the thing.
Next, I get to the Cairo airport and experience great confusion over where to check-in, and am passed around from ticket booth to ticket booth until someone figures out that the check-in counter I want is not open. So much for getting to the airport early. In true Egyptian fashion, the ticket booth employees arrive only an hour before boarding time.
A side note: I spent about two hours waiting for the check-in counter to open, and was wowed by the cleverness of the flight announcements. Before announcing a flight to France, they would play Edith Piaf, for Italy, Andrea Boccelli, for Spain, matador music, and so on and so forth.

When I get to the gate, I sit down and wait some more and then the power goes out in the airport. Again, typically Egypt.
The seating area is filled with a group of Japanese who amusedly watch overdramatic Egyptian soap operas, and again I think about the strange situations that globalization creates.
When I finally get on the plane, I am seated next to a most temperamental Australian, who rudely yells at the woman behind him for pushing his seat when she is settling her bags underneath. For the rest of the flight, he continues to be unpleasant.
But it doesn't really matter, because I get to see amazing views of the Mediterranean and Turkey. After being deprived of natural beauty for so long, I almost cry when we pass over the blue sea sparkling with the reflection of the sun, and the Anatolian mountains reaching up into the clouds.

I also get to eat one of the most amazing meals (Turkish airplane food) that I have had in the last two months. That's not saying very much for Egyptian cuisine, by the way.
When I arrive in Turkey, I obtain my visa in thirty seconds flat, but have to wait for almost an hour to go through a passport check. Then when I leave customs, I see dozens of people waving signs for passenger pick-up, but I do not see my name. After half an hour I almost give up hope, and ask a tourist information desk worker about alternate routes to my hotel. He suggests the subway, and I politely decline, and decide to wait a little longer for my hotel shuttle. Fortunately, my persistance pays off.

(now I'm going to switch to past tense, because I'm tipsy, and I'm not sure I can handle present tense any longer . . . too confusing!)
Good thing I waited, because I was able to enjoy the company of a Swiss woman and her teenage son who are vacationing at my hotel and had just arrived from Zurich for their week long getaway.
The ride was a long one despite the fifteen kilometer distance, and I was able to see Istanbul in the way only a long car ride can give. The city is very modern, very European, and (with Egypt as my reference point) very very clean. As for the people, we passed school girls, men in business suits, Aeropostle-clad teenagers, light-skinned mothers wearing hijab hurrying their blond children down the street, and women wearing short skirts and tight shirts. At the risk of sounding like an Orientalist, it really seems like a place where East meets West. Fitting for a city that straddles two continents and was once the focal point of an empire that stretched across three.
How do I describe Istanbul? Or, specifically the area around my hotel, that encompasses the "old city?" I would have to say, for those of you who have been to Georgetown, or another quaint cobblestone colonial (i.e. 17th, 18th century) neighborhood or city on a body of water; just imagine it with some Islamic architecture, and you pretty much have the general picture. In other words, it is adorable.

To end my day, I decided to treat myself to a celebratory dinner at a ethnic fusion restaurant right down the street from my hotel. The place was as nice as one of the trendiest restaurants in Manhattan, and the decor was very contemporary.

I ordered myself a nice glass of white wine, and a kebab platter with rice which was amazing, making it the second meal today that ranks on the top four meals I have eaten in the last two months.
For those of you interested, here's the list:
1) Marriot Hotel-Zamalek, Cairo
2) Mrs. Keshk's house- Maadi, Cairo
3) Dubb ethnic cuisine- Istanbul
4) Turkish airlines food- 40,000 feet above sea level.

Afterward, emboldened by a little bit of alcohol, I decided to walk the area around my hotel and found a Turkish bazaar. It was just what I would expect from a bazaar: oriental rugs, lanterns, scarves, statuettes, and plates. Though, it wasn't tacky . . .
It was truly enjoyable despite the fact that I got catcalls from Turkish men, who are not quite as hostile or aggressive in their pursuit of women ( a generalization, I know) as Egyptian men seem to be, but still a bit annoying. I got calls of "sweetheart, are you lost?" or just men calling from cafes saying "hello, hello, salud" or any other greeting in as many languages as they knew in order to get my attention. This, I find, is the unavoidable experience of being a single woman traveler.
Anyway, I can sum up my day as "exhausting", and my brief time in Istanbul as "amazing".

The Weirdest Thing I've Ever Eaten

Well, the title is not entirely true, but I had to get your attention somehow. Today I ventured into the realm of Egyptian cuisine at the AUC foodcourt. The dish that I tried, khoushary, has been on my radar since I heard it was a staple in the Egyptian kitchen. What is it, you ask? Well, its a hodgepodge of starches including rice, macaroni, spaghetti, lentils, crispy onions, and chickpeas in a tomato/olive oil sauce. To be honest, it looked really weird, and I thought, "here we go . . . " since I heard Egypt is the Middle Eastern culinary equivalent of England.
After trying khoushary, I actually enjoyed it. I'm not saying it's as good as Italian, Indian, Lebanese, Japanese, French, Moroccan, American, Mexican, Greek, or Chinese food, but it wasn't bad.
The best part is that it's completely vegetarian.
Other items on the menu at the Egyptian restaurant, el Omda, were similar to other ethnic foods that I have eaten. Fried eggplant, a recipe from my grandmother's Italian family, was available, as well as falafel, and rice pudding.
The weirdest thing I have ever eaten (and this was unknowingly) was when I was eleven and I ate foie gras in France. But this is a close second.
I guess I'm lucky that foie gras is the weirdest thing I've ever eaten, because Anthony Bourdain, my favorite culinary travel show host, ate a boar's anus cooked in dirt in the African bush. I will count my blessings that there are no boars in Egypt.