Arabian Harvest

The kids and Grandma have been here three days and we've experienced three regional foods since then: dates, olives and camel milk.

Dates: Liam and Gram harvested dates from our tree, while Brady preferred to stay indoors and build castles with the giant appliance boxes I put in the dining hall with tape and rope. The date palm tree only fruits once a year and the locals pick and freeze the fruit and bake with them throughout the year - so we decided to do the same.

Olives: Olives are served with everything called 'Arabian', such as Arabian salad or Arabian breakfast, and they're available in staggering variety in big pails in their own section at the supermarket. Here in my kitchen I've got green ones from Jordan and black ones from Lebanon. The prices at the store are less than half of what you'd pay in an American grocery store and the variety is amazing.

Camel Milk: My local grocer has a big dairy section, a whole third of which is devoted to camel milk. I haven't gotten courage to take photographs there yet, as it is crowded with local women, mostly in traditional clothes, and I'm not sure whether I'd cause offense. I did snap a picture of the milk once I got it home and we had a good talk about the qualities of this 'alternative milk' over dinner. Brady says it vanilla-ey, or like soy milk, Gram says it seems grainy. I think it's best mixed into my coffee. Liam said no thanks to the local item, claiming loyalty to the stuff that comes from cows.