Zucchini is apparently abundant in Cairo.  They are one of those things you can pretty much always count on being available at the store… like flatbread or Chipsy, or eggs stacked up on the floor.  Zucchini’s always there, en masse, taking up quite a lot of real estate in the produce section, and reminding me I should try to work with what’s there and not keep wishing for a Whole Foods with blueberries and blackberries and lettuce that won’t stress me out.  Anyhow, the zucchini are there, pale green, and abundant.

And since when life gives you lemons you’re supposed to make lemonade, I realized that when Cairo gives you zucchini, you’ve got to do something good with it.

And I’d say, mission accomplished.

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Today is a beautiful day in Cairo. The torrential rain and hail storm we had a couple nights ago has cleared the air and magically washed the dust off of everything. We went for a walk and stopped in the cheese shop — truly an oasis of culinary delight in a desert of french fry sandwiches and fava beans.

At the recommendation of a friend, we picked up these…

Yogurt in terra cotta jars. Say what? I bet it is fabulous and can’t wait to try it.

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So you may already know that one of my favorite things is ice cream.  I won’t get into it here, but I could talk for hours about gelato and ice cream, and probably shed a tear or two for the absence of pistachio gelato made with pure Sicilian pistachio butter in my life.  But as I said, I won’t get into it here.

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On Wednesday night, we went to an Egyptian wedding.  We were honored to have been invited!  Before the wedding, I started asking around to see what we should expect, what we should wear, and what we should bring.  As with many things in Egypt, if you try googling “Egyptian” anything, you have to sift through all of the articles about ancient Egyptian anythings to find the relevant ones.  It’s challenging, but what can you expect for a place with 5,000 years of history.

Anyhow, I decided I needed a long skirt, which I finally found at City Stars.  It was surprisingly not an easy feat.  I think shopping for a tube top and a mini skirt would be easier at City Stars with its western stores like Bebe and yet NO Banana Republic.  But I digress.

At 8:00pm we headed to the wedding with Youssef.  The wedding was held in an intersection of alleys lined with apartment buildings.  It was incredible!  There were bright bright lights, and colorful lightbulbs strung from building to building in the alleyways.  There was a big stage in center with a full band and stacks of speakers.  The music was really good.  There were several vocalists, a keyboardist, a guy on the drums, and someone manning all of the electronic equipment.  I really enjoyed it!  I’ll see if I can post a clip of the band for everyone to hear.  Everyone had their cell phones out taking video.  It was really neat!

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I almost forgot.  It turned out pretty good seeing as it came from a box after sitting on a shelf at the store for who knows how long!

We splurged and got a box of devil’s food cake mix at the store.  Brandon added a splash of grand marnier to the buttercream frosting.  It’s gonna be good.  No frills, but it smells like orangey grand marnier goodness.

I just discovered this photo effect in our photo editing program, Gimp.  I promise not to make everything sparkly, but it just looked so good on this I couldn’t resist.