As you might expect; we Westerners who enjoy life here are always on the lookout for new ways to indulge our insatiable appetite for pleasure, and I've just found a brand new one!!!!! Don't let on to anyone else and I'll tell you about it. Hush now!
It started a few days ago while I was looking on the Luxor4U forum pages on the laptop. Someone was asking (perfectly innocently) what tins of food people kept in their cupboards, and someone replied "tinned lentils." I'd never heard of tinned lentils before, and became intrigued. Eventually it was explained that the tinned lentils were actually cooked, and not those which I was more accustomed to as being in packets.
Anyway, Freda is an expert in making lentil soup. (Or more correctly; lentil soups, as her English variety differs entirely from her Egyptian one, and the same flavour is never exactly replicated from one batch to another in either country.) Whichever way it comes; I'll eat it! I love it! We had some last week and there was a bit left over, which I had the following day at lunchtime. As I scraped it out of the large pan, it occurred to me that it might be just as nice cold as it is when it's hot.
At about the same time, Freda happened to mention that she could just fancy some 'Sardine and Tomato' spread; and the idea struck me like a blow from a quarter hammer (Colloquialism: quarter hammer = a long shafted, two handed hammer with a head weighing 28 pounds [being a quarter hundredweight] or 12.72 kilos, and formerly in common use in shipbulding and engineering): LENTIL SPREAD!
As Freda made some more soup yesterday; today has been the first opportunity to try it out and I've got to say that it isn't half bad! I thought that it would go better on sliced bread rather than on the local bread rolls, and in hindsight,I think that was the right decision; plenty of butter and a generous spreading of the new wonder spread. Delicious! (Look out Shippams and John West, here we come.)
As you can see from the places where I stabbed the knife in in order to load it for spreading, it's quite firm. This wouldn't be possible with tinned stuff from Heinz or Baxters, it just has to be lovingly home made. I'm not sure whether to have some more spread or whether to heat it up for teatime, what do you think?
Another of my secret little indulgences is to read back copies of Private Eye! We tried having them posted to us, but they never arrived! I suspect that, being satirical, they were deemed to be anti-establishment or something and were confiscated by customs or someone in Cairo. Now we get them in bulk, about six months at a time. (I cannot reveal how we get them in, for obvious reasons!) Anyway, I was perusing one the other day when I was shocked to the marrow to come across the following picture:
Now, I don't expect you young'uns to recognise this iconic American worthy, indeed, I had almost forgotten about him myself. Private Eye were implying that he might be the son of that jug-eared TV newsreader chap; Andrew Marr, but I (and I suspect a great number of 'my g-g-generation') know full well who he is. He is the all American boy with 'no worries': Alfred E Newman, made famous by his appearance and exploits in the 'Mad' magazine from DC Comics, since 1952. (I'd bet he'd like my new spread.)
That's enough of the secret habits of the Luxor ex-pat society made public for one day, or you'll all want to be moving here and spoil it! Now I'd better get back to my cleaning, as we have new guests arriving shortly.
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