Participants will post a picture, story, song, poem, recipe, craft project, piece of art – anything, really – that tells us something about your city/town, state/province, or country for that week's topic. Our hope is that through this weekly meme, we’ll learn more about our countries and cultures.

This week's theme is EATING OUT, so tell us abut or show us the places where you go to eat outside of your home in your part of the world.

Here goes nothing!

Eating out has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Whether it was the Sunday gatherings with family or the dinner out Thursday nights with my parents and sisters, I have always enjoyed eating away from home. The Amazing Egyptian Dude, on the other hand, grew up with a tradition of always eating at home so when we got married, we had to strike a compromise on dining out. Over the years, he's kind of gotten used to it and although he'll complain about the cost every now and again, we eat out once or twice a week on average.

At the beginning of the week, we had dinner at a restaurant owned by one of our customers. The Karma Cafe serves delicious homestyle Moroccan cuisine. One of these days, I am going to remember to carry the camera around with me but until I do, I have to rely on our cell phones for photos when we're out and about. Sorry -- the quality isn't all that great in some of them.



Gabriel, the owner and chef at Karma Cafe, served us a cornucopia of delights. We started with za'atar and bread. Za'atar is a blend of herbs, spices, and sesame seeds mixed with olive oil.


Then we had the most amazing falafel I've ever eaten. I don't know what they do in Morocco that's different, but they definitely have an edge on the falafel there! The falafel was followed by samples of kebab and shawarma with hummous.



Next came Moroccan lentil soup. I am not much of a soup eater, but even I had to concede that this stuff was delicious!



Finally, the entrees. I had Tagine Chicken, and the AED got the Fish Pastilla. Both were heavenly!


The delicious lentil soup proved to be our downfall -- we each ate a full bowl and had no room for the entree other than a few bites. We brought the leftovers home and had a great meal the next day, though. And for me, that's the best part of eating out anyway!

To see other entries, or to play along, click here: Egypt Everlasting.

This week's theme is SHOPPING, so tell us something about how you shop, interesting things you can buy, unusual shopping places, ways to find great deals, or anything else you can think of related to shopping in your part of the world.

Next week's (8-29) theme: GATHERINGS



Ok, I have to admit that I hate, absolutely HATE shopping! I avoid it whenever possible and lucky for me, the Amazing Egyptian Dude comes from a culture where men are accustomed to doing the household shopping so that their wives don't have to deal with all the hassle. I like that a lot, LOL!

In the area where I live, there is a section called Little Gaza. It is home to a fairly large population of people from the Middle East -- basically, Arabs of all types. Why the area is called Little Gaza instead of Little Giza or Little Cairo or Little Beiruit, I don't know. At any rate, in this section of town is where I do the majority of my grocery shopping for a couple of reasons. First, I can find all the unusual things that the Amazing Egyptian Dude likes to eat and second, the prices are nearly always much much cheaper at these little neighborhood markets than they are at the big chain stores.


Ok, you shopping people, when was the last time you saw broccoli selling at 3 pounds for 99 cents?! Or SEVEN bunches of Italian parsley for the same amount? Deals like this one can be found at the largest Middle Eastern market in our area, Malek Fawaky or in English, Super King. The store is every bit as large as your homegrown supermarkets, the produce is as fresh, but there are a couple of noticeable differences: (1) the place is packed from opening to closing, and (2) the prices are always lower than the competition. Because it's always so busy, I usually don't shop here. Instead, I go to a smaller market closer to my home.


Al Tayebat (which means "tasty and delicious" in Arabic) Market is where I prefer to do my grocery shopping. It's much smaller than the other store, but it has the same great prices as illustrated in the photo above. Five limes or seven lemons for $1 -- when was the last time you saw a price like that at your local Ralphs, Piggly Wiggly, Stater Brothers, Kroegers, or A&P?

If you live in an area that has a significant immigrant population, it might be worth it for you to do a bit of exploring yourself. Look for ethnic markets where you can find bargains just like these!

To see entries from other participants or to play along, click here.

With the computer goblins getting my week off to really bad start, I was genuinely hard pressed to come up with five positive things to write about for this week's post. But once I remembered about the first one, it provided just enough inspiration that the others kind of fell into place. That's the power of music and a good story.


1. The power of music and story. My best friend sent me an email with a link to an Il Divo video. Thinking that I'd like to use it for a future Music Monday post, I tabbed over to You Tube and began to search for it there. "Amazing Grace" is such a popular song that finding versions of it by singers from Willie Nelson to Elvis Presley was quite easy to do. But one video in particular caught my attention for a few reasons: (1) I did not recognize the name of the artist, (2) the performance was at Carnegie Hall, so I knew he was not a nobody despite my ignorance, and (3) the video is three times as long as all the others for the same song. Curiosity piqued, I had to check it out. I am soooooooo glad that I did! Not only does Wintley Phipps have an astonishingly powerful voice, but he has the uncanny talent to tell a story in such a powerful way as to captivate an audience with the magic of his words. My only complaint about the video is that he doesn't sing as much as he tells the story behind the song. I do hope you'll take a moment to be spellbound like me!





2. Feline friends. When everything else in the world seems to be going wrong, I can always count on my cats to lift my spirits. They don't have to "do" anything, really -- they just need to "be." Like Maggie stealing my napping spot on the couch for her own nap.


3. Simple meals shared with special people. It's always a pleasure to have the kids over to just hang out with the old folks. On Sunday, we had a girls' day at my house with me, Basma, and Iman. The Amazing Egyptian Dude had things to do at the business and the Awesome Egyptian Dude was meeting up with a friend he hadn't seen in eight years, so we girls just hung around the house, watching movies and playing dominoes. When Magdy came back in the evening, he brought dinner with him -- the most amazingly huge pizza that I have ever seen in my entire life! When he put the box on the dining table, it quickly swallowed up half of it.


In addition the ginormous pizza, he brought a smaller one. Just to give you some perspective on the size here, the smaller pizza, which is a LARGE according to the pizza shop, a Pizza Hut large pan pizza is only half its size! The kids took home half the leftovers and we kept half. We ate pizza for lunch the next day at the office.

4. Tolerable weather. The temperature hasn't climbed much higher than 85 or 86 degrees all week here in the OC, and for that I am genuinely grateful. It has meant that while the power company won't love me, the Amazing Egyptian Dude and our bank account will because the need to use the a/c has significantly diminished.

5. Computer humor. Because even in the middle of a meltdown, crash, crisis, whatever you want to call it, laughter is the best medicine.


A Spanish Teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.

House for instance, is feminine: la casa.
Pencil however, is masculine: el lapiz.

A student asked, "What gender is computer?"

Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether computer should be a masculine or a feminine noun. Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.

The men's group decided that computer should definitely be of the feminine gender (la computadora), because:

1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic;

2 The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else;

3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval; and

4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.


The women's group, however, concluded that computer should be Masculine (el computador), because:

1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on;

2. They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves;

3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem; and

4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.


The women won.


Happy Friday, everyone! And don't forget tomorrow's Small World Saturday theme is SCHOOL.

Egypt Everlasting is hosting a weekly meme to introduce participants to different parts of the world. Every Saturday, they post a theme and participants take it and show that theme in their part of the world. This week's theme is WATER, so share something about an ocean, lake, river, pool, waterfall, the rain, water of any kind in your part of the world. Next week's (8-15) theme: SCHOOL

To see entries from other participants or to join in the fun, click here.

Here we go . . .

I live in Orange County, California, an area that is sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean and the San Bernardino Mountains. This area is technically a desert, but that doesn't mean that we are lacking water!

The Beach Boys, who are from my hometown (Hawthorne, California), made surfing the beaches of California popular in the 1960s with their song, "Surfin' U.S.A." Most of the beaches that they name in the song are located in California, with a few in Hawaii thrown in for good measure.



Newport Beach is as famous for its super, super rich people (Orange County is the wealthiest county in the whole state) as it is for surfing.


The part of California where I live also has a beautiful lake hidden 5100 feet up in the mountains that I see every time I go outside of my house. Lake Arrowhead in the San Bernardino Mountains is about 90 minutes away from my house, but going there is like going to a different state -- maybe even a different country! I get really nervous driving the winding two-lane road up the mountain and can't imagine what it must be like in the winter when there is ice and snow.




Finally, the city where I live is the neighbor of the Magic Kingdom. Disneyland is so close to my house that we can walk there. Disneyland may be in the desert, but anything is possible in the Magic Kingdom, including places like Splash Mountain!




All of these different kinds of water can be found in less than 80 miles from my door. California, in spite of its current budget woes, is still a wonderful place to live!

Post about 5 favorite things from the past week. It can be anything that tickled your fancy: favorite quotes, posts, happenings, scriptures, recipes, pictures, great internet finds, etc., etc. Be as detailed as you like, the more detail the more fun for those of us visiting. Susanne, the hostess, just asks that it be kept family friendly. Click here to play along with us.


1. Yesterday, my Aunt Nola sent me an email filled with "godly humor." In it, was this cartoon that made me laugh unbelievably hard because it is so true to life:



2. No matter how many adjustments we have to make to our lives since my retirement, I've come to the conclusion that it really was the best decision for me. Just a couple of days ago, I got a message from a colleague in another department through the university's network on Facebook. He wanted to know whether I, or any of the others to whom he had sent the message had received our Fall semester teaching assignments yet because the up and coming Chair of the English Department had let him know that she was awaiting word from the President of the University as to whether or not re-hiring part-time faculty would even be an option this semester. With classes beginning in only two and a half weeks, the stress level must be unbearable for these poor people.


3. A friend sent me this cute joke:

A man was sitting in his favorite chair watching TV when he heard his wife's voice from the kitchen.

"What would you like for dinner, love, chicken, beef, or lamb?"

"Thank you," he said. "I'll have chicken."

"Shut up," came the voice from the kitchen,"You're having soup. I was talking to the cat."


4. The orange tree in our backyard is in bloom, and one of my favorite smells ever is that of orange blossoms! The tree is absolutely loaded with them. Last night, while the nieces were swimming, I spotted a humming bird darting from one flower to the next all around the tree. Of course the camera was at the office so I couldn't get a picture and besides, the blossoms attract lots of bees which I am deathly allergic to. There's hardly anything more glorious than the scent of orange blossoms first thing in the morning. Once you've smelled them, it's not hard to understand why they used to be the preferred flower for bridal bouquets!


5. I'd like to introduce a fun new meme that I started on my other blog and invite everyone to participate!



Egypt Everlasting is a blog about everything Egyptian and although Egypt’s history is long and her culture fascinating, she is but one nation in this world of ours that grows smaller with each day. Every Saturday, we’ll post a theme. Participants will post a picture, story, song, poem, recipe, craft project, piece of art – anything, really – that tells us something about your city/town, state/province, or country for that week's topic. Our hope is that through this weekly meme, we’ll learn more about our countries and cultures.

We just started last week, and the first theme was Home Sweet Home. I hope you'll check this week's theme and play along!

Y'all know that I'm married to the Amazing Egyptian Dude because I talk about him, in only the most positive ways (*grin*), a lot. For a long time, we've been importing products from Egypt and selling them here in the U.S. and since a great deal of our business is done online through our websites, I started a business blog quite a while back. Anyway, long story short, it was going along just fine until the template creator's photo host started to not recognize the images that make the blog look nice. Since I had to find another template anyway, I talked the AED into shifting gears with the blog and making it more about Egypt and Egyptian culture with a bit of the business stuff mixed in for good measure. The finished product is Egypt Everlasting.

On August 1, we'll be hosting Small World Saturday, a new meme, there that I'm really excited about. I hope that you'll check it out and participate or offer any suggestions that you might have on how we can make it better.

I'm trying out the JS-Kit Comments and Comment Luv there because I love how it makes it possible to carry on a conversation through the comments. If it works well, I just might use it here, too.

So, please check out Egypt Everlasting and let me know what you think!