Ramadan Kareem!

[DubaiSis]

Allionna, being a bit closer to the equater, sunrise and sunset at this time of year are both about 7, and doesn't change too much through the year. My understanding is the "rules" say you should follow the hours the the University of Cairo follows if you are far off of similar to Mecca. It is really quite unrealist for a Muslim in Norway, for instance, to follow actual sunrise and sunset where they are. But apparently they still do sometimes!

I went to Iftar tonight with my husband and some of his work buddies. Countries represented at our table, US, England, Australia, India, Pakistan, Italy, Sudan, and Iraq. Usually there's a Lybian and an Iranian there as well, but I guess they were at another party. There were a couple dishes I'm going to have to go in search of recipes for. They were awesome! One guy's wife, who doesn't speak English, was trying to help me with what the dishes were, while her husband translated. I told her about one of my favorite dishes, madrouba, which is a quintessentially Emirati dish. They'd never heard of it and assumed I was pronouncing it wrong because what I was saying was "beaten" in Arabic. And that's what it's called. I won't go into the recipe here, but let me tell you it is the ugliest food that is just a little bite of heaven. Or more likely lots and lots of bites.