Lugaimat

Hey everyone! Hope you are enjoying your Ramadan so far. If there is one food most people in Saudi eat in Ramadan, it is lugaimat. It seems like every dinner I attend in Ramadan is accompanied by a dessert of lugaimat. Sure, you can find it here and there all year long, but it seems…

Food Lust

It’s Ramadan, which means there is one major thing  on everyone’s mind these days… FOOD!   I know most of us, including myself, have been cooking at home a lot more since the COVID outbreak. And, while I am pretty good at cooking, sometimes I really just want to go out and eat something different….

Quarantine Baking

Since we are all practicing social distancing and self-isolation, many people are cooking more and more at home. Sure,  restaurants are still open for delivery, but often they are SO busy it is hard to place an order. I personally am using this time to practice my cooking skills. One of my favorite things to…

chocoffee

One thing I learned about living in Saudi is that food plays a central role in everyone’s life here. Every week I collect so many chocolates and candies from students as sweet as the goodies they give me. It is common for my colleagues to knock on my office door with fresh baked goods. Saudis…

Choklava

The other day while walking around the mall with my husband, he got a craving for something sweet. While standing in line and waiting for him to buy some desserts, I happened to spy something I’ve never seen before- chocolate baklava. I’m usually not a huge fan of sweet foods like baklava, but I do…

My Obsession

When I lived in Qassim, it was just one giant food fest all the time. While I got to try lots of new, interesting snacks, one stood out to me more than the others: Rollanti Ronce Rocky Road. I’ll admit, it’s a bit ugly to look at, (so much so that when I took it…

Bella Roma, Qassim

Qassim, Saudi Arabia isn’t the most exciting place on Earth… In fact, many people would argue that it’s quite boring. I’m not disagreeing with that, but in my time living there I did discover a few nice things. My coworkers and I would sometimes head away from the compound and treat ourselves to a nice…

Presentation day

I always love it when my students have a presentation. It’s so amazing to watch them progress in their language abilities and come out of their shell. Their progression is made better by their visual aids- FOOD! That’s right, every presentation yields enough food to feed us for a week. No matter what their topic is,…

Home spicy Home

Eating habits really are a weird thing sometimes. When I am home all I want is to try something new and interesting. Give me any ethnic food! I would love to eat Indian cuisine one day, Lebanese the next, followed by Chinese.  Now that I live in Riyadh it is totally different and my friend…

Not their cup of tea…

While I do enjoy the occasional cup of tea, I have to admit that I am not an avid tea drinker while I am in my own country. But that’s only in my country. When I come back to the Middle East, it seems I am drinking tea on a regular basis. If someone isn’t making it…

It’s the weekend 

It seems every weekend Mamdouh and I find ourselves at his family’s house. Not complaining, because I’m one of the few people on earth that actually likes her in-laws it seems… but I am still a newlywed and still relatively new in the family (although not the newest as my brother-in-law got married in July…

That’s cheesy

Getting around in this country is rather difficult, especially for women. I mean it’s hard for men because most of them are scared to drive, but women aren’t even afforded the choice of driving or not. It’s straight up illegal for a woman to operate a car here.  Yeah, it’s a stupid rule, and demeaning…