Tuesday, 23 July 2013

Iftar - The Feast of Champions

If  kilometers were miles, then on Saturday, I ran a marathon. Of course, they're not, so I actually ran 64.3% of a marathon, but it was really hot and really hard and I didn't get a medal, so credit where credit's due, eh?

As you can see from my snazzy-pants watch, it took 3 hours 24 minutes, which is just 9 minutes longer than the Titanic film... I know what I would rather be doing.
At about 24km, I said to Penny (who had joined me for the final 10, to help keep me going), "It hurts, it hurts, I really can't do it"
She was lovely, with all the "yes you can, you're almost there, you're really brilliant" that I needed... but it was actually a big, fat wasp, circling my head that made me tear off like a maniac and actually do the fastest km of the whole run, screaming and waiving my hands.

From the picture you can see that I burnt a whopping 1611 calories. This would not do. This is Africa... Skinny is the new braces. I had to eat.

After a day at the beach, we decided to eat the Mother of All Iftars. No-one had fasted, no one cared. Seven courses, here we come...

[Yes, I was the obnoxious girl taking pictures in a restaurant. Look guys, I did it for you. I wanted to give you an education. Knowledge is power, and I'm all about empowerment. Plus, I did it sneaky-like with the flash off. I'm still not proud of myself]

Here's the menu. You had to pick one thing from each of the little lists, plus you got some starters (which are already on the table), including dates stuffed with butter and walnuts. Traditionally the fast is broken all over the world with dates and water or milk, but dates stuffed with butter... doesn't that sound disgusting...?


Yes. My friend Senvy thought so. This is his dates-stuffed-with-butter face. Haha!


Then it was a brik. When breaking-fast, you must have a brik. Most people had the traditional tuna one, which looks like a half moon, but I decided to mix it up and have the chicken one, which they made with the same pastry, but it was rolled up like a spring roll.


Then Soup, traditionally you have Chorba, which is a barley and tomato soup (with Harissa obvs), but they also had a seafood one which looked good (but a bit octopussy - I like octopus, but not that much) and I picked the chicken and coriander one.
Still going strong, it was time for the Salad course. I had the Tunisian Salad, which is just chopped up tomatoes and cucumber and onions and please-mind-the chillis, but they also had Salad Mechouia, which is spicy grilled salad. Grilled Salad? Yep.


For main course, I was still feeling brave and so I went for the cous cous au poisson, which was served with grouper fish. There were lots of chickpeas going on. Honestly, I tried my best, but I hardly made a dent in this bowl.

[NOOOOOO! I was editing this on my 'other laptop' and I accidentally deleted the picture. You didn't need it anyway. I'll paint it for you with words. It was just a white bowl of cous cous and some chick peas with a big hunk of white fish and a green pepper on top. There... all better]

Following this, I whoffed my dessert down too quickly to take a picture! I had Muhallabia which is a ground almond pudding, it was a bit nice. I took a picture of Senvy's, he didn't like it. It looks like a chocolate mousse, but it's actually not, it was like zgougou. It was a bit gritty and gross.

 
 Then Tea. Thank Heavens. Mint, naturally.
Afterwards we had planned to go to a club, but everyone was bloated and tired, so instead we just went to my friend Lucy's house and had lying-down chats while we digested.

This morning I did some sums (on my fingers, while I was on the loo) and I have been in Tunisia two months longer that I was in Uganda. Blew my mind.

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