"In The Kingdom of Men", My Thoughts from Page 82

Right now I'm reading In the Kingdom of Men, a book about a woman who moves to Saudi as the wife of an oil worker. The author was on Diane Rehm for an interview last week and I was intrigued by the experiences of the author and her family which inspired the story. I'm about 80 pages in so far (on the dreaded e-reader), and I'm both impressed and offended.

My E-Reader and Me

As soon as I rolled into Baltimore two weeks ago, I patronized the local independent bookstore Atomic Books (who are awesome), and, when I finished all of those books and was stuck in Union Station longer than anticipated, I bought more books to read.

The problem with this book purchasing compulsion is not the expense (having no local library to call my own in my nomadic existence, I spend a large % of my disposable income on books), I love buying books and thumbing through the pages and writing in the margins. I love re-reading part or all of the foodie tomes that have filled my shelves of late, passing on books to my friends, and trading in books at second-hand book shops in Cyprus, Egypt, Austria or wherever else I find them.

The problem with my reading addiction is weight.

Ein on the Books

Wow, two books completed in a week! I go off to the beach for a few days and swallow a book and a half and still have time to read about (ogle) George Clooney's weekend of Washington hijinks in the Post. Woot!

I followed Bossypants with a few short stories from a Margaret Atwood collection called Bluebeard's Egg. It was amazing prose, but far too dense for beach reading - more of a 'stuck home in a snowstorm read', so I put it down and picked up a piece of entertaining drivel - The Travel Diaries of Karl Pilkington based on a British 'reality/travel' show for Sky network called "An Idiot Abroad" (which I have never seen because I have never had access to Sky when I've been in Britain) which is definitely a show with a very specific target audience: dudes who never leave their couches.

All I can say is: I am NOT Karl Pilkington.

Still though, by the end of this year, I will have visited three of the seven "Modern" Wonders of the World described in the book; so that was interesting. Also, the book was funny, and apparently my literary genre of choice right now is 'funny books about mostly real things'. It's just like when I went through my Anthony Bourdain phase where I read all of his books in a summer (note to Tony: write more books - I feel that reading your entire cannon of foodie ramblings more than twice might be overdoing it).

Now I'm back in Cairo and am officially starting my third diet-that-will-backfire-and-will-result-in-weight-gain in three years (also called 'getting old'). At least I have a streaky/weird sunburn/tan from the beach get-away!

Sokhna Reading

This morning, while sitting here:

I finished my first book of 2012 ('first' because I still have one chapter of "Island Beneath the Sea," which probably added 5 lbs to my luggage both to and from America --- where I didn't read a page), Bossypants by Tina Fey.

After reading this book, I have decided that I AM Tina Fey (except that I'm younger, taller, curvier and from Baltimore instead of Philly).

(Oh, and I'm not famous, or a comedian/actress/writer, and I live in an Egyptian Suburb instead of Manhattan...)

Okay, okay: I am NOT Tina Fey - but at least we both had nightmares about Count Chocula as children (unless that was a joke, in which case I again feel very, very alone in the world).

Anyway, I finished Tina Fey's book and I spent the entire three days it took me to read it laughing out loud (not LOLing; actually laughing - like people used to do before there was internet) - so I guess I liked it (a lot).

The Book Made Me Do It

Two summers ago, as I wandered around Eastern Europe all by my lonesome for two weeks, I had a lot of time to read. Finding English language books was difficult, but I was desperate, and this is what lead me to Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.

I had resisted this book. Many people, most of whom do not share similar literary tastes to me, had recommended this book so much that I had a dislike for it without knowing what it was. Talk shows and magazines liked to herald the author for her spirit of adventure and self-discovery - and this gal living in EGYPT was like "um...been there, done that."

Anyway, I picked it up in Budapest where I was lingering over long, rainy Summer day lunches of stews and salads and read it in a few days. It turned out to be just the book to eat long, hearty, rainy Summer day lunches by.

Fastforward a few years. I've been back to Italy twice since reading Eat, Pray, Love. I have a trip to Bali planned for July. (note: I still have no interest in visiting an Ashram in India) I had a trip to Cyprus planned for Easter vacation: it's close, has good wine and Cadbury chocolate eggs, and is chock-full of historic sites. I've been there the past two Springs and it is a budget vacation compared to going further afield.

Then I watched the movie adaptation of EPL the other night. Every shot of Rome, or food, or food in Rome, caused me to audibly gasp. My travel buddy and I were meant to book our flights to Cyprus yesterday, but I decided to innocently search for flights to Rome before we went to the travel agent - and discovered they cost only 500 LE more ($85 by yesterday's exchange rate). Hotels were not much more a night. There is no car to hire. They have cheap good wine, too.

So, ok, maybe it's crazy, but I'll be spending part of the week leading up to Easter in Rome (likely the busiest time of year there), and the rest exploring the Amalfi coast. There are visits to Pompeii and Capri in the plan, as well.

But really, most of the trip is about this:

The Consequences of Reading about Real Life

There comes a point when knowing too much becomes a hazard. When knowing the political turmoil behind a single rose strips that rose of its beauty and intent. When, having read the statistics about fuel consumption for food mobility, you deny yourself your favorite foods, and become bitter that the aromatic shrimp dish being enjoyed by your dining companion is not placed in front of you. When your culinary hero comes off as a bit of a pretentious social-climber and you wonder if your fandom has been wasted.

I have read exclusively non-fiction this year. I think though, there comes a point, where your abilities of reason need to kick-in.

I absolutely loved Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. It made me think very much about seasonality and local sustainability. I believe these are VERY important things to address. By eating seasonally available, local ingredients I’m supporting local farmers. I’ve ridden through these farmers’ fields, I’ve seen them hard at work, often using the same tools that their ancestors used - scythes and hoes, donkeys and wooden carts. I love being able to support these farmers and their families in the villages around (and even in the center of) Cairo.

However, while I support these ideas, I cannot let them completely rule my life (which, fortunately, Kingsolver acknowledges in her book). Sometimes, I want a Granny Smith apple - formerly of Massachusetts - in my belly in Cairo. Shrimp and seafood are staples of my diet; unfortunately, despite the inviting deep-blue of the Nile outside my window right now, I’ve read enough (and experienced enough) of the consequences on the Western tummy of eating Nile fish that I know the locavore seafood option won’t work for me. (Nor will switching to a poultry-meat only diet). I’m still going to eat my Vietnamese shrimp, my New Zealand mussels, and my Australian fish as long as it is available. I’m sure the people who work in those industries, and the import/export industry, appreciate my patronage, too.

I’ve just finished Wildflower by Mark Seal. This was a biography of Joan Root, a wildlife filmmaker and conservationist in Kenya. The story was captivating and Root comes across as an amazing woman - and the Kenyan flower industry is painted the villain - with roses the source of all the evils in Root’s world.

So should I not buy roses? or Asparagus in Winter? (or Julia Child’s cookbooks?)

No. I should be aware of these issues; and do my part to ensure a healthier planet by eating locally when I CAN (not just when it suits me, but to supplement my diet everywhere reasonable), and I can ask for baladi (local) roses at my flower man (he usually gives me the local organic roses anyway, because he knows I prefer their scent - and they all cost the same - less than $4 a dozen). These are small steps I can take that won’t disrupt my daily routine. Maybe they won’t make a huge impact - but small steps by an individual can’t hurt. (as for Julia Child - I just can’t shake my love for recipes and sass - even if, in her letters, she comes across as a snob.)

In the end, I’m not going to stop reading non-fiction, and learning from it; but I am too much the critical thinker and individual to let what I read rule my life.

Reading + Eating

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, the book I am currently reading (still), combined with my Weight Watchers waist-line reduction program, have resulted in much healthier eating from local sources.



To that end, I had a huge score at the veg man today. For just $20 I got:

A bunch of broccoli as big as my head
5 heads of garlic
A pound of Brussels Sprouts
A pound of Strawberries - all PERFECT (no smooshy ones!)
A half-dozen bananas
A half-dozen apples (gala and local green)
A bunch of celery
A giant sweet potato (think 2 american yams size)
3 baby zucchini
3 large carrots
1 small tray of mushrooms
2 large baladi oranges (local oranges, very sweet)
4 large new potatoes
and a handful of tomatoes.

...and I was overcharged by local standards.

There are some things about eating seasonally in Egypt that are so worth enjoying! I'm pretty sure the apples and bananas were imports (banana season here is about a month away yet), but they were priced well, so it wasn't a big deal on my pocketbook; though carbon foot print wise I'm sure locavores would have my head for buying that bunch of bananas.

The celery and carrots have already gone into my weekly soup (this week: chicken veg), the broccoli and zucchini will go into a seafood pasta dish tomorrow night, and the fruit I don't eat by Monday will go in to a large fruit salad on Tuesday when I'm home for Police Day.

I've lost 17 lbs and have been feeling more energetic since I started the diet, so all is good on that front.

On the reading front: it's hard to get through books at home when I spend my days wending my way through Hamlet and Julius Caesar with 13 and 14 year olds; but I'm going to start a book list in my sidebar and will TRY to finish at least 10 books in 2011 that are not on my curriculum. Insha'allah!!

If you need something to read, I recommend you check out the sweet post "Morality Check" on Mama Doc's blog (blog list to the right). My friend, Mama Doc, has the most gorgeous twins who say the sweetest, most dear things - and this post is rather thought-provoking as well.

Eating Seasonal?

This probably belongs on the other blog; or maybe it doesn't - who knows anymore?

I'm reading "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver. I am very interested in the "by-gone" idea of eating locally and seasonally; and tend to patronize restaurants that feature local, seasonal ingredients.

However, I am not Mario Batali, and my cooking abilities are yet limited: shrimp (available locally from the Nile - though I'm not sure my delicate constitution can handle them), fish (same deal), basic soccer-mom veg, and meat and chicken.

I judge the growing season by the donkey carts I see coming off the highway on my morning commute (and play dodgems with on the weekends), and the trucks I follow across the bridge from the farms on the way home. Yesterday, the trucks were piled high with oranges; today they were piled high with tomatoes. I see homemade pasta sauce in my future week.

But, trying to reduce butter and fried-foods intake has meant a major shift to my diet - including imported delights such as Pam and I Can't Believe it's Not Butter - the only way I can meet my weight watchers restrictions and still enjoy eating.

Still, though, there's one item I don't feel guilty about creating a carbon footprint with. The miles traveled are extreme, and the results delicious on top my popcorn right now.

I feel no guilt, whatsoever, about having a shaker of Old Bay wherever I live. It's a little taste of home and is the comfort of summers ripping apart red-shelled Maryland crabs on the porch: the newspaper tablecloth soaked with juice, Italian bread slathered in butter stacked high, and the burn of old bay in paper cuts from the crabs' sharp tips. This is what food memories are made of.

What Makes the Ideal Bookshelf?

A few months (?!) ago, my friend posted a request on her blog - photograph your ideal bookshelf.

I wanted to settle in to the new apartment before I took the picture and I've taken pictures of two of the three bookshelves in my study. These aren't my IDEAL bookshelves, as many of my favorite books have been left behind in the Americas. Instead, this is what I have picked up on my travels, read, and have left to read.

First, the "cultural reading" shelf.


I haven't read all of these yet, but have some serious recommendations (and you should read them, because I'm an English teacher and I say so).

First, The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam - which I picked up in Vienna last Summer and read in Bratislava on a day spent recovering from a rumbly tumbly. Not only a great title, but a really interesting portrait of life in Rhodesia in the late 1970s.

J. Maarten Troost, my favorite Dutch-Canadian-American humor-travel writer, figures prominantly on the shelf and would definitely make my "ideal" bookshelf if such a thing were ever assembled. It says quite a bit that I have copies of his book in storage in America, and extra copies in Egypt.

Nomad's Hotel is another Dutch travel-writer's journey. Very much over-stylized in the writing, but incredibly interesting as well and full of quotables that I relate to very much

The Egyptian and Middle Eastern Books on the shelf are yet-to-reads that I've been working through as I've been reading Midaq Alley and Mistress of Nothing - two fiction novels set in Egypt that are not on the shelf at the moment as they are, well, being read, and Apricots on the Nile a non-fiction read about life in Cairo in the 1930's that was also worthwhile (and came with recipes!).

Anil's Ghost, which I picked up at a book swap in Cyprus, was incredible. I'm told by another English teacher and several students I must read A Thousand Splendid Suns this Summer, so I probably will.

The other shelf is my favorite shelf - three guesses why - but again, not my ideal because it's lacking important titles.


For instance, it is still far too heavy on the Europe, and not heavy enough on the places I haven't been. (Like Bali, for instance, where I hope to be visiting next year!!!!!)

I'm on the fence about buying a kindle. A digital reader means much more room in my luggage for things like new shoes (my enormous feet are too big for the shoe-shopping in Cairo); but it means no more bookshelves to photograph, books to lend, or wonderful book smell.

oh what to do, what to do?

Sticking Around

I'm glad I've stayed in Cairo for the Eid el Adha. Last year I took these days off to explore the Athenian Riots...er, I mean Ruins; but since this year the Eid coincided with TURKEY DAY (see previous post) and I was hell-bent on hosting Thanksgiving, I decided to stick around.

Sticking around was the right thing to do. For starters, my landlord has upgraded our building. There is now a buzzer. This is huge. When I would have a party before, every few minutes I would be running down to let folks in. No more, dear friends, now I can buzz you in! *squee*

Second, Thanksgiving. 'nuff said.

Next, there was waking up to the braying of sheep on Friday morning. Followed by the mostly all-day sound of ... er, well, it was like hammering, but that's not what it was. The sheep had been quieted by then. Still, delicious smells of cooking and celebrations in the streets!

Yesterday, I got to tool around Rd 9 with T and then went to the movies with another friend to see Twilight: New Moon (with apparently every other person in Cairo). Now, I have some issues with Twilight and the [emotional control] relationship Edward has with Bella; but it's still good candy in the cheesy vampire-werewolf-teen-love-triangle arena. Also, it was a two cappuccino day: I love two cappuccino days! Then, I came home to find ANOTHER wedding on the street. While the music was a bit loud this time (window rattling loud) it's still always so much fun to come home to these celebrations livening up the otherwise quiet street.

This afternoon I get to participate in one of my favorite Cairo traditions (if something you are doing for only the second time can be called a tradition): Christmas shopping in the Khan-el-Khalili. The weather is perfect - chilly and sunshiny. I'm taking my camera. There will be pictures, and cool presents for a certain brother, a certain sister-in-law, a bff's husband, and a very dear friend for whom a stuffed stocking over the mantle piece is always in order. This is actually the tail-end of the xmas shopping that I started in August, because that's how I roll.

So, with all this stuff, all these things I love going on, and the fact that I've already told my school, I guess it's safe to publicly announce that I'm sticking around Cairo another year. el hamdulleleh!

some quotes

Just started Nomad's Hotel by Cees Nooteboom, it's sort of a cerebral travel journal and I like it so far...all 15 pages or so that I've read so far.

Two quotes have resonated with me that I'd like to share. The first comes from the book's introduction, written by one Alberto Manguel "For all true travelers know that the reality of the world distracts from the reality of the world."

Doesn't it tho?

The second comes from Mr. Nooteboom himself, "...anyone who is constantly traveling is always somewhere else, and therefore always absent."

This is one I really, really have felt the last few months. Always absent, always somewhere else - for me it reflects both the excitement and sometime loneliness that comes from constant traveling (i.e. being away).

What is it with me and Dutch Travel Writers? (my favorite is J. Maarten Troost - both for his humor and for inspiring me to be a bit more adventurous in my choice of home-country)

Ah, reflective travelers; how I love to be among their ranks!

What I'm Reading

Being that I'm an English Teacher, I figure it's been a while since I did a post about what's been good on the bookshelf. Fortunately, I've had time to catch-up on reading since Christmas and here's what I have:

Current: The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak: I've only just begun this novel, but it is an interesting portrait of East-meets-West.

Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje: This was a creepy novel about government corruption during the civil war in Sri Lanka. Eastern ideas vs Western Ideas in a woman returning to her homeland after living in America. A mixture of themes of homecoming, mystery, suspense, and tragedy. Very good, interesting read - though a bit sad for my vacation reading.

Married to a Bedouin by Marguerite van Geldermalsen: a non-fiction auto-biographical account of a Kiwi woman who marries into the Bedouin of Petra in Jordan. Really fascinating and something I could definitely relate to as a Western woman trying to find her way in a new land with a new language and different culture.

Stalking the Wild Dik-Dik by Marie Javins: A single girl takes off alone on a round-the-world over-land journey. This book is the autobiographical account of her trip overland from South Africa to Cairo. Very interesting, a new and different perspective on places I will never go and inspiration to travel to Zanzibar sometime soon.

That's it - any recommendations for what to read next?

Reading Material

I've been having plenty of time to read this summer while avoiding my packing and here is what I have come across so far...

One of the books assigned to my students next year is Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. I had never read it before and so picked it up on the "Summer Reading" table at Barnes and Nobel just after school got out.

The story is a simple tale of one man's journey through life and change in Africa during colonization. We see, through his eyes, the effects of changes to life and governance once the white man comes, and as readers we are challenged to compare the brutalities and beauty of both cultures as they interact.

The writing style was very plain which reinforced the simple beauty of the story and I highly recommend it. I cannot wait to discuss this story with my 10th graders next year!

I've also just read The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood which was shocking and though provoking. The book is about a woman living in the not-to-distant future where the United States has been taken over by a puritanical government. Due to pollution and war, much of the population is unable to have children and so special "handmaids" have been designated to act as surrogate mothers for powerful couples unable to have children. Unfortunately, the handmaids really didn't have a choice in the matter and face harsh punishments if they step out of line.

The time in this novel isn't always linear, sometimes it takes place in the narrator's present and sometimes it takes place in her past, so it can be difficult to read. Also, the subject matter is pretty mature so I'd say it's good for 11th graders who like to be challenged and up.

Currently Reading: Twighlight (a teen vampire novel) and about to start Coriolanus (Shakespeare Play).