Eid Holiday

I went over to one of my Egyptian team member's house for the Eid Holiday. Brief history: Eid is to celebrate the story of Ismail and Abraham when Allah called Abraham to sacrifice his son, Ismail, but when he went to kill Ismail, the knife would not break his son's skin. (Hmmm, does this story sound vaguely familiar to anyone?) Then Abraham hears Allah's voice to sacrifice a ram or sheep or some animal in place of his son. Ok, so the religious tradition is to eat meet all day for this Eid feast. The locals get freshly butchered cow, goat, sheep in the morning, give a third the poor, a third to his relatives, and keeps a third for his own family. So, anyways, on the way over to my coworker's home, we past all the butcher "shops", there are pictures to accompanying this sight, but it is not for the weak of heart - very bloody and gruesome (i almost vommitted myself). I literally walked through streets filled with animal blood, there were piles of sheep skins and all sorts of animal parts hanging and being butchered - again, i almost lost it walking thru it all and the smell is not somethin you can miss either. OK, so moving right along to the feast... i know, i kinda didn't make a good set up for the feasting part, BUT! it was sooooooooooooo frikin good! if you've ever eaten at Moby Dick's or one of those places, it was like that only home cooked and so much better! It was great! btw, my coworker is the only in her family with red hair. You'll see her entire family, she has three brothers, one of which is married with an 11 month baby girl. My camera died, so i couldn't take as many pics as i wanted to...sorry. Enjoy!

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Get your own

here's the link to the butchering pics. copy and paste. not for the weak. http://picasaweb.google.com/jennifer.kimj/TheAftermathNotForTheWeak?authkey=obZrDgXXNMM

Just like home...kinda

my version of sang chu sam and daeng jang jigkeh with some ban chanz made in my lil' hotel kitchenette. gotta improvise sometimes. produce here, especially cucumbers, lettuce, tomotos, kiwi, pomegranent, mangos is really really FRESH.