Cairo Day 2 – May 3, 2011

Half a world away we found out our watches were one hour fast, by coming down to breakfast too early, at 6:30 when breakfast only started at 7. The waiter setting everything out was very apologetic that breakfast wasn’t ready – but the coffee was and that’s really all that matters. Yesterday no one had noticed the time difference! Anyway, we were in plenty of time for our driver at real 8 am! Today we explored the southern towns with early pyramids: Saqqara, Dahshur and Memphis.

1^st stop Saqqara: a vast site with a very nice new museum explaining it all (named in honour of the French archeologist who came for a season and stayed for 75 years!). Saqqara has the pre-pyramids, flat mounds (Mastaba) which covered up the tombs beneath them. The mounds have been excavated and there are fantastically well preserved carved scenes and hieroglyphs. We were “adopted” by a persistent “guide” who actually proved quite helpful in showing us the way around (and in allowing us to take photos in the tombs – all very hush-hush!). Saqqara is also where the Step Pyramid – the earliest – is; basically it’s several Mastaba on to of each other, built in 2600 BC. We spent a couple of increasingly hot hours here and then decided on “lunch”. Actually only Colin was hungry, but the cold water was very welcome and reviving. The touristic restaurant played a welcoming “fanfare” as each group entered, which was way too loud; nicer sitting inside and hearing it played for others! Women were making and cooking pita in round ovens – interesting.

After lunch we continued on to Dahshur, and the first ”real” pyramids, the Bent Pyramid (where they had to change the angle at the top to prevent it collapsing) and the Red Pyramid. We were able to climb up to the Red Pyramid’s entrance, only then to go down even more internal steps (crouched over due to the low ceiling height). Inside at the bottom I was overwhelmed (almost literally!) by an overwhelming stench of ammonia – whether due to pee or some more natural phenomena, we couldn’t!!! Not all that exciting inside, except you can see the building structure. Had to wait ages for a very slow-moving and large group to clamber down! Our driver then drove us as close as he could to the Bent pyramid – but it’s in a military zone so you can’t get right there. Far off in the distance we also saw the collapsed pyramid of Meidum.

Our final stop was in Memphis (ancient capital, not much remaining) Museum mainly to see the recumbent colossal statue of Ramses II. Stopping at Memphis made us later back into Cairo and we hit ”rush hour” (unless it’s always rush hour here!). But the drive out and back was very interesting: seeing the newer suburbs of Cairo and the countryside with small towns and busy road-side fabrication plants. We also stopped at one of many carpet schools and saw young girls and boys knotting carpets. We were told they get 25 EP per day ($3.75!) and 3% when a rug sells. The girl was 13, the boys looked about 8, but we were told they attended school half-day. Upstairs we looked at their showroom but didn’t have to buy one!

Gerry

Explore Egypt through some great fiction:

Cippolini onions are not often seen in stores, so a sighting is a significant event for me. Cippolinis are delicate and sweet, small and savoury, lending themselves to caramelization in the oven and a bath in a bold sweet/sour agrodolce syrup. A large bag of cippolinis I just picked up at Costco was soon swimming in a fragrant pool of balsamic vinegar, olive oil and honey, augmented with chopped garlic and some perky peperoncino. Soon enough, the onions shrink down and the loose dressing boils down to fit a little more tightly around each orb, coating the onions with a thick, luscious glaze spiked with complex notes of acidic vinegar and vegetal sweetness. The aromas are absolutely intoxicating as this dish perfumes your kitchen with its heady scent.

I love to serve these onions hot from the oven with roasted meat or strewn alongside some hearty spaghetti Bolognese. The leftovers, cold from the fridge, are excellent in sandwiches of cold meat and cheese, or eaten on a plate with some dense country bread, dill pickles and an assortment of pates.

The first task is to peel the cippolinis. You can try your hand at doing this with the raw bulbs or give them a quick dip in a pot of boiling water to loosen the skins. Top and tail the onions and place them in a roasting pan that holds them snugly. Drizzle in a glug or two of extra-virgin olive oil, 2 or 3 glugs of balsamic vinegar and a couple of tablespoons of runny honey. Chop as much garlic as you like. I used about 6 large cloves for about 4 cups of onions. Season with salt and pepper to taste as well as a couple of large pinches of peperoncino. Toss everything together well and roast uncovered for about 45 minutes, turning every 12 minutes or so for even browning. If the mixture starts to look dry, add a couple of spoonfuls of water to the pan to prevent scorching. Final product: meltingly tender, golden knobs of sweet/sour/hot/salty onions, glazed and glistening in a thick, hot syrup. Serve hot, warm, cold or anything in between. These are fantastic any way you offer them. They keep very well in the fridge for at least a week.

Roasting is like magic. In goes something ordinary and out comes something extraordinary. Try your hand at more kitchen alchemy:

Day 1

Calgary-London-Cairo

Uneventful flights – which is probably what you want! 5 hours in Heathrow; enough time to window-shop (is Jean Auel’s latest/last out at home???) and have a “good ole pub lunch”!

As Colin says “Egypt Air makes Air Canada look good!”, but it got us to Cairo safe and sound. The entry visa is purchased at the currency exchange, which we actually managed to work out before we lined up for passport control (unlike several others!). Loads of people “checking” passports, but not terribly seriously (e.g., he flicked mine to the Tanzanian visa, and didn’t open Colin’s at all!). Unfortunately our bags were almost literally last off the plane, so we were kept waiting - but the taxi driver the hotel sent was still waiting for us!!!

Fun and games getting out of the very modern (2 years old|) airport – but the hooting and yelling is very reassuring and “Arabic”! Took maybe an hour from airport to hotel, where indeed they were expecting us and in short order we were unpacking and in bed (by midnight, which was really day 2).

Day 3

Cairo Day 1

We all slept relatively well considering jet lag and general lack of sleep the previous nights. Up around 9 am and down to breakfast, and then took a taxi (“use only white cabs which have a meter”) to the National Museum.

A bit of to-ing and fro-ing before we had bought tickets and stored all the bags/cameras that we couldn’t take in with us…and then – wow! This should be the setting for some sort of “Night in the Museum” movie – hugely over-crowded like good old-fashioned museums (sarcophagi stacked to the ceiling, squeezing by loaded cases, women dusting with wide paint brushes, men telling foreign children who don’t speak English not to touch anything….). Although to begin with we seemed to be moving parallel to a large Brazilian group, they missed out on several rooms and took off without us. While the museum wasn’t empty, it wasn’t bad and I’ve certainly been in many more crowded museums in my time. In fact, the vast majority of visitors were locals. A fancy new museum (mostly celebrating Tutankhamen) is opening in Giza in 2012 and they are already starting to crate things up. Fortunately, all the treasures we were looking for were still there – and what incredible treasurers they were: from the founding of Egypt (4500 years ago with the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt) through mummies to Alexandria and the Romans…the golden rooms of Tutankhamen were of course a highlight, and yielded the best “overheard” of the day (mother with small child to room guard looking at arguably the most famous Egyptian piece, Tutankhamen’s death mask: “what’s that?” The guard looked suitably surprised as he tried to explain to her what it was!!!).

After the comparative cool of the museum it was like walking into a blast furnace as we exited at 2:30 into 35 degree heat. We took shelter in the gardens with some refreshments. Then we walked across Tahrir Sq – noting the burned remains of Mubarek’s former HQ. Apart from that, there really was no sign of anything untoward happening 2 months ago!

Anna and I felt we’d had enough and jumped a (white) cab back to the hotel. Although the hotel had cleverly printed cards in English and Arabic with a name, directions and even a little map, our driver clearly couldn’t read Arabic and didn’t know where we wanted to go…lots of stops to ask the way (and of course we couldn’t remember precisely where the hotel was!) we made it back. Colin meanwhile had his own adventure exploring the railway station and (closed for renovations) railway museum. However, we all met up on our hotel terrace and enjoyed fresh-squeezed lemon juice to rehydrate! Wonderful local restaurant for dinner…and so to bed.

More to come tomorrow!

Gerry

Thinking of travelling to Europe? Check out these great guidebooks from the library!!

With a new book comes new ideas. Salad For Supper. Patricia Wells, inspirational cooking teacher and author, tantalizes with her new cookbook Salad As A Meal, a concept that speaks of ease, freshness, light meals, casual concoctions. Don't approach this with notions of a messy hodgepodge thrown into a salad bowl. No no no. Here we have lovely, gentle tossings of elegantly simple elements that work together to build a sum greater than its parts.

Then, there are the things that go with salad for supper, some gentle soups, homemade crackers, the wines we may like to enjoy. Salad As A Meal takes us by the hand and invites us inside Patricia Wells' charmed life in the south of France, enabling our participation in the creation of sun-drenched foods and easy living. Cookbooks like this promote the fullfillment of a fantasy, a portal to a kinder, gentler world where people sip wine and eat canapes under the canopy of an oak tree. While some elements of our own lives may differ, we can adapt the themes and menus to our own circumstances and get one step closer to creating our own happy retreats within our own homes.

So, which salad should I tell you about? Thai Beef? Potato Salad With Capers, Spring Onions and Mint? Pear, Blue Cheese, Fennnel, Endive and Salted Almond? Vietnamese Chicken and Green Papaya? Marinated Shrimp? You may have noticed that some of these creations are not particularly French, as are many of Patricia Wells' notable recpes. No matter. They are inspired and fresh, trademarks of Wells' casual, elegant style. The more I browse Salad As A Meal, the more enthralled I am with this book. Here is a salad that calls out to me:

Crab, Avocado and Quinoa Salad With Technicolour Tomatoes

3 cups water or stock; 1/2 tsp. kosher salt; 1 cup quinoa, well rinsed and drained; 2 bay leaves; 1 pound (2 cups) lump crabmeat, cooked; 1/4 cup minced fresh tarragon or Italian parsley; 1/2 cup minced fresh mint leaves; 1 large rip avocado, halved, pitted, peeled and cubed; 2 cups mixed red, yellow and green cherry or pear tomatoes, halved.

In a large saucepan, bring water or stock to a boil. Add salt, quinoa and bay leaves. Bring back to a boil and then reduce heat to low, cover the pan and simmer until the quinoa is tender and translucent, about 15 minutes. Drain and return quinoa to pan. Cover with a clean dish towel, replace the lid and let it sit for 10 minutes. Discard bay leaves and let quinoa cool.

Place cooled quinoa in a large, shallow bowl. Add crabmeat, tarragon, mint and avocado. Toss with a dressing of your choice. Patricia likes this Yogurt and Lemon Dressing:

Combine 1 tbsp. lemon zest and 1 tbsp. fine sea salt in a spice grinder and grind to a fine powder. Take 1/4 tsp. of this lemon salt and combine it with 1/2 cup plain low-fat yogurt and 2 tbsp. of fresh lemon juice. Shake well to blend. Adjust seasoning and add pepper if you like. Serve with quinoa salad.

Let your days be salad days:

Celebrate the May long weekend by attending a children's festival or a Little Britches rodeo, all within easy driving range.

The Canmore Children's Festival is an opportunity to set the kids free and to unleash your inner child for a day of fun, laughter and merriment. Storytellers, theatre, comedy, magic, puppets, crafts and games await discovery. Programs at the festival run all day Saturday, May 21st. Check their webpage for details on programs and tickets.

The Cochrane Children's Festival has games and activities for the entire family from 12 - 4 pm on May 21st and includes a one hour show by International Children's Entertainer, Flying Bob! Tickets are $6.

High River is holding its annual Little Britches Rodeo preceeded by the Little Britches Parade. The parade starts a 10:00 am on Monday May 23rd. The rodeo begins at 2 PM. Admission is free, so load up the car and head on down. Participants are aged 3-14 and they put on a really good show.

The library has a great children's book, Little Britches and the Rattlers, about the adventures Little Britches has on her way to the rodeo.