Stirring the onion sauce
Placing the meat on the rice mountain!
Finally ready! Delicious. This is what I eat (or variations of) every day at work. Yum.
We always eat from one big plate with spoons (makes cutting meat an interesting team challenge!) Very sociable though. Lunchtime in the office is my favourite part of the day. Meals are really social events here. Even if you walk past people eating together in the street, they will invite you to join them. No wonder i end up eating so much here....
Had a lovely day with Khady and her family and friends. Very relaxed. Such a lovely atmosphere being part of celebrations when the house is full of animated chat, small children running about and babies being passed back and forth. Khady, like 90% of the population, is Muslim, and doesn't drink, so it was fruit juice central. Am realising what a big role alcohol plays in British culture/socialising. I rarely drink here and if I do, it is just an occasional beer. Still amazes me how people can go out so late and come back around 6am on a weekend, totally sober. I didn't think it would bother me but I have to admit I have started fantasising about a glass of wine that doesn't come from a carton, and going for a night out in a pub...
Khady's adorable niece
After eating the delicious Thieb, we played scrabble. Love it. Then the girls invited me to a 'meeting' they were having about a small business they want to set up, making some kind of lingerie. They have each invested 25,000 (about £40) to buy the initial material they need to make the first pieces for sale. They started something similar before, but that was selling dried fish. Could have been successful but they decided it smelt too bad to continue!
