SANDStorm

With only a few weeks left in Cairo, D and I are frantically squeezing in all the sights we’ve missed so far. On Monday, our plan to go souvenir shopping got a little off-track when we ended up spending more time than we imagined at the Mosque of Ibn Tulun and the Gayer-Anderson museum, thus making us too tired to deal with bargaining for trinkets and kitsch (sorry, U.S.-based friends, we’ll haggle for your glass pyramid next week).

The Mosque of Ibn Tulun is my new favorite place in Cairo (I know I say that every time I visit someplace new here). Based on the Mosque of Samarra in Iraq, the mosque was built in the late 9th century, making it Cairo’s oldest functioning Islamic monument.

I haven’t seen a spiral staircase on the outside of the minaret like this one in Cairo before.

The mosque was made of mud brick and timber. The resortation it has recently undergone was somewhat controversial.

We climbed the minaret to get a fantastic view of the city. The Citadel is to my right; the Nile to my left.

The mosque is austere and incredibly quiet even although it’s in the middle of Cairo.

Next to the Mosque of Ibn Tulun is the Gayer-Anderson museum, two 16th-century homes which were restored in the early-mid 1900s by the British major, John Gayer-Anderson. It’s a beautiful home, and since it’s next to the mosque, it shouldn’t be missed, however if you only have time to visit one traditional home in Cairo, I recommend the beautiful Beyt As-Suhaymi in Islamic Cairo.

We left Cairo at 8 a.m. this morning for a day trip to Alexandria with two friends. On the two and a half hour drive we passed by agricultural areas where we saw lots and lots of pigeon coops.

Pigeon houses in Egypt

Once in Alex, we fortified ourselves at Mohamed Ahmed’s, the Egyptian version of the American diner. Breakfast is omelets, shakshouka (egg and tomato), falafel, fuul (mashed beans), beets, and salad. Just exchange the shakshouka and falafel with fried eggs and hash browns and you’d think you were sitting in the Tastee Diner in Bethesda, Maryland. Kind of.

After breakfast we were ready to hit the sights of Alexandria. So, what can you do in Alex in only 8 hours? Plenty!

Start with a walk along the Corniche and check out the fishing boats which will be catching your dinner later today, if you are lucky.

Take a ride on the tram, or just watch one pass by.

Walk to the Fort at the tip of the Corniche and watch the swimmers, fishers, and loiters. The fort is thought to be near the site of the Alexandria Lighthouse.

Go to Montazah Palace Gardens to see how the King relaxed on vacation from Cairo.

Don’t miss out on the Bibliotheca Alexandria. The original library was destroyed in 48 BC and, after more than 2,000 years, the new library opened a few years ago to much fanfare. Wonderful.

And finally, don’t leave without having fish for dinner. Mine had teeth.

It’s been awhile since we’ve written about food. But today, it must be written about because we ate the Egyptian food we’ve been avoiding since we got here: hamam (pigeon) and mulukhiyya (Jew’s mallow).

Hamam (pigeon)
The word for pigeon in Arabic is remarkably similar to the word for bathroom, hammam. Hmm, not sure what that tells us, but thought it should be mentioned. Pigeon is usually served grilled or stuffed; I tried the stuffed version. My pigeon arrived on a bed of leaves, breast-plate face up with the rice stuffing puffed out of its chest. I began to tackle it with my knife and fork, but was told by our Egyptian friend that it was best eaten with my hands.

That was not easy to do, and I considered that he was playing a joke on me (much like D wondered when he was told by our Scottish friends to go commando under his kilt at our friends’ wedding). I picked up the tiny bird – everything was on my plate except the head – and bit into the breast. No meat, just spiced rice. As I picked through the bird I realized that there was very little meat at all. I stopped eating after I had picked out all the rice, but I was probably supposed to eat the skin and eat around the bones. I just wasn’t ready to get that intimate with my pigeon.

D demonstrates the delicate manner in which to eat a pigeon

I give stuffed pigeon a thumbs-up, but that doesn’t mean I’ll go out of my way to ever eat it again.

For those of you are interested and can catch a pigeon:
Recipe for Stuffed Pigeon
http://www.inmamaskitchen.com/RECIPES/RECIPES/poultry/egypt_stuffed%20pigeon.html

Mulukhiyya, “Jew’s mallow”
Even after learning the English word “Jew’s mallow” for mulukhiyya, I still don’t know what it is. Mulukhiyya is the name of the green, leafy plant, as well as the name of the dish, which looks like a bowl of green slime.

What a spread! From front to back, stuffed pigeon, chicken liver and green peppers, yogurt and mint dip, rice, tahini, mulukhiyya (the bowl of green slime), and meatballs in tomato sauce

Can I buy mulukhiyya in the United States? I have no idea, but that’s okay, because I really don’t think I ever will. It’s not that it tastes bad – mulukhiyya is served with tons of garlic and cooked in chicken or rabbit broth so the flavor is very nice. It’s the consistency. It’s slimy and stringy. You can mix it with rice, but then you have slimy, stringy green rice sliding down your throat. However, if you can fight your gag reflex at the texture, the taste is worth one bite. One.

For those of you who are interested and can find the vegetable that mulukhiyya is made from, which bears the same name:
Recipe for Mulukhiyya
http://fooddownunder.com/cgi-bin/recipe.cgi?r=170823

Today was sunny and warm so we headed out with our camera to be tourists for the day. We ended up at Manial Palace, the early 20th century residence of Prince Mohammed Ali Tawfiq. Even though three of the five buildings in the palace compound were closed for reconstruction, the palace building and the hunting museum were worth the admission (and the additional baksheesh to get to see the “extras”).

The palace building

The palace foyer

D and the Prince

A mother-of-pearl inlaid closet

Not even the most beautiful ceiling in the palace

Palace sitting room

Script outside of the palace mosque

A necklace with teeth pendants in the hunting museum

The world’s second largest book fair is held in Cairo each year (Frankfurt’s book fair is the largest). Of course, we had to go. And even though we knew it would be big, we didn’t plan that, after four hours of walking around the fairgrounds, we would still have more than half the fair to see.

Just one hall at the fairgrounds.

While walking through a hall I happened to see a man who vaguely resembled Albert Einstein, with slightly wild grey hair and dark glasses. He looked exactly like the guy on the back of jacket of the book which I had finished just the day before. And lo and behold, he was sitting in front of the Arabic language copy of the book I had read. So, I introduced myself to Sonallah Ibrahim and told him, in very poor Arabic, mixing up colloquial Egyptian Arabic with standard Arabic, how much I enjoyed his book, “The Committee”.

He asked me if I spoke English and indicated I could sit down next to him. I was flattered, so I sat down, but then quickly realized that I didn’t have anything else to say to him (in Arabic or English). So, I gave him a few more compliments and then excused myself, completely embarrassed that I couldn’t say anything more intelligent to one of Egypt’s leading modern writers.

While trying to find a bathroom we happened upon the lively used book section of the book fair.

Surprisingly, the riot police were at the book fair. I had a hard time imagining literature-loving rioters, but a friend of ours told us later that two years ago an opposition group staged a demonstration at the book fair because they knew the riot police wouldn’t suspect it. Aruba awi (“pretty clever”).

After four hours of wandering through books written in a language you don’t understand, you’ve got to stop for food.