Amelia and I decided we knew far too little about the world around us and we wanted to learn more, so we put up a world map in our kitchen. Amelia likes to point at it and say "wawa." Apparently she likes the oceans best.
So far we have focused on Egypt and Libya, for obvious reasons. I think Japan will be our next destination. We have learned so many interesting things so far such as, in Egypt, 99% of the population lives on just 5.5 % of the land area (along the Nile river) due to the aridity of the climate. In Libya, we learned that some places can go decades without rain (decades!) and that they import 75% of their food due to climate conditions, poor soil and severely limited agriculture. We also learned about religion, economy and art.
We have also been making a food from the area we are studying. For Egypt we made Charoset which is a dessert made with apples, walnuts and raisins all chopped up and mixed with a little orange and lemon juice. It was different but yummy in a fruity, nutty sort of way. We especially liked it mixed into oatmeal (not a traditional alteration, mind you, but really the only way we were going to eat this whole bowl!).
For Libya, I have a whole list of delicious sounding recipes (like Lentil Soup with Fried Onions, Tomato Basil Winter Soup, Libyan Chicken with Thyme and Shortbread Cookies with Cloves...yum!) I found on http://libyanfood.blogspot.com. All I've made so far is a simple Cabbage Salad (Salatet Kronb) I found on this same site using vinegar, olive oil and lemon juice because it was all I had the ingredients and energy for. It had too much salt for me, too much vinegar for Andrew and too much cabbage for Amelia, but we ate it for our good health anyway (except Amelia, she threw hers to the dog).
Wish you all lived close so you could come eat scrumptious ethnic cuisines with us and we could quiz each other on world art.
