happy hump day :)

[sereia 0]

oh yeah, and today Abdou graduates from university! congrats my love!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[hollyw 0]

i reallllllly hope my fiance is like you both!

also, would you be offended if you went to a dinner at your inlaws or friends and there was pork (but also other things to eat?)

yea, it's all new for me because we never ate halal meat in Paris (where there are tons of really nice halal butchers), but all of a sudden now we are just in our own house though, we don't worry about meat served in restaurants or other people's homes. either way is fine with me, except that it's a little out of the way to go to a seperate place to buy meat. but it's really fresh and we get these HUGE chicken breasts... my husband and i can split one for dinner and still have some left over! it's great.

I'm not muslim, so pork doesn't offend me. My husband just eats around it. A lot of times in restaurants i have to point out the dishes on the menu that contain pork because sometimes it's cleverly disguised as pancetta or prosciutto or chorizo pork isn't served a lot in my family though besides bacon (and we're never at my parents house early enough to catch that), so we never really have to worry about it.

[allousa 1]

i reallllllly hope my fiance is like you both!

also, would you be offended if you went to a dinner at your inlaws or friends and there was pork (but also other things to eat?)

Hicham has been pretty cool if we've gone places where they are serving pork. His only thing is that it won't eat anything that has been cooked on the same grill as the pork.

[Jenn! 918]

also, would you be offended if you went to a dinner at your inlaws or friends and there was pork (but also other things to eat?)

Wadi doesn't get offended, he just doesn't eat it. You do have to be careful though, like I had to ask my aunt a while ago if there happened to be ground pork in the meatballs. Turns out there was, and she felt so badly. You try to tell people not to worry about it since it's not like the only thing to eat was meatballs, but you know how hostesses are! I almost wish I hadn't asked.

[sereia 0]

did you tell wadi he ate the pork by accident?

[Jenn! 918]

did you tell wadi he ate the pork by accident?

No, well that time I had asked before he ate any.

But that has happened before, where we found out after the fact that something had pork in it. He doesn't get too upset by it, what are you gonna do? You know?

[sereia 0]

a muslim family friend of ours ate pork by accident. when he found out it was pork he ran to the bathroom and threw up because of the shock value. but after that he realized he liked it and started eating it after that. lol!!!

[ya falaha! 0]

I was at my mom's a few years ago and she was cooking some marinated meat in her slow cooker. I thought it was beef since it looked and smelled like it. I took a little of it and was eating it when my mom walked in and said, you do know that's pork, right? Uh no I didn't. I stopped eating. I have to admit, it was pretty tasty. I guess I coulda asked what was in the slow cooker instead of assuming. Ah well.

[Jenn! 918]

I was at my mom's a few years ago and she was cooking some marinated meat in her slow cooker. I thought it was beef since it looked and smelled like it. I took a little of it and was eating it when my mom walked in and said, you do know that's pork, right? Uh no I didn't. I stopped eating. I have to admit, it was pretty tasty. I guess I coulda asked what was in the slow cooker instead of assuming. Ah well.

Wadi did that once. He ate a bunch of sausages that I had in the fridge. This was years ago, I don't even keep pork in the house anymore because of it.

Ummm, sausages? Come on, think about it, hon! He said they were really good.

[ya falaha! 0]

Mmmmmmmmm sausage. We eat turkey Italian sausage but it isn't the same.

[deemabrouk 0]

Im sooo jealous..I wish I was going in 24 days!!!! My SO sweats there in Egypt!! ANd he hates the heat. He should adapt well to spring summer and fall here..winter will kill him. LOL.

me too.. I am very jealous AND my husband sweats too.. especially when nevous.. HENCE why i sent him handkerchief's for his interview..lol.

[sereia 0]

ugh i just baked some salmon in the oven and burnt my hand on the pan. i've had it soaking in ice water for an hour now, took tylenol extra-strength, and it still hurrrrrrrrrts!

[deemabrouk 0]

Does anyone in the Boston area buy halal meat?? We've been buying meat at Zamzam Foods in Norwood which has been good, but we're moving to Somerville in September and it'll be pain to drive all the way out there... I've been looking at reviews on zabihah.com, but I'm just curious if anyone has been to any of the halal markets in the Boston/Cambridge/Somerville area and liked what they found.

there is Halal food place in Brighton.. and I know in Revere.. Roslindale.. I can ask around too..

[deemabrouk 0]

congrats on the bambino!!

deemabrouk would know of the halal stores. I don't really care about that. I just don't drink alcohol and don't eat pork but I'm not picky about how my meat gets to the table.

well Im a vegetarian.. so EVERYTHING i eat is Halal .. BUT i know alot of arab/ halal stores through friends and being involved in the Muslim community

I won't have to fast for Ramadan this year!!! We're pregnant!

Congrats!!!! ...

BUT you still can fast being pregnant.. (sorry to be a stick in the mud) I know a few woman that did..

[balmytigeress 0]

I read somewhere that in early stages of pregnancy you don't need to do anything special to your diet except perhaps make sure you get all your vitamins and generally eat healthy (which we should probably do anyway....).

So yeah, in the early stages you could fast. Ramadan is about....2.5 months away? So think how far along you are, and how long until Ramadan, then you see it may or may not be healthy for the baby. I'm not an authority on the pregnancy topic so I'd say ask a doctor or something.

I had my own personal heat wave today, the AC on the third floor isn't working. It's over 90 F up there. I talked to my brother in law on the phone, he said to check the fuse box and circuit brakers. I found the box....but it's in the garage and some genius piled a mountain of stuff in front of it. The pile is something like 5 feet deep and 5 feet tall! I think I'm sleeping downstairs tonight because I soooo do not feel like moving allll that stuff to the other car spot in the garage in one session. Need to do some seeerious sorting and disposing, there is just so much stuff! I think the only thing in the pile that is mine is the cat carrier.

So I have to wait til my mom gets back from New York before I can think about organizing/trashing stuff that is not mine. Still don't know how long she will be away. Also don't know if she will be going to college in Florida this semester, she was accepted, but it might take longer than she thought. She is not thrilled about going either. So when my fiance gets here, unless she does another extended trip to Florida, it won't be just him and me. I may have an audience for the first months of this marriage. Just 2 weeks ago I realized that sound travels pretty well thru the floor. she had her headphones plugged in the electric organ thing, and I could hear the dull thump the keys make when they are pressed down. That room is below mine, and I think I had the door closed and I could hear it. So...hmmmm.... And from the living room downstairs I can hear my cat jump down from the sink where her food is upstairs.

I'll have to warn my fiance about what has pork in it. Always have to look closely at the menu and sometimes I forget and have to remove the bacon. How can artificial bacon bits have no bacon? Does it mean fake bacon flavor, or had bacon fat, or what?

BT