Homecoming

Last weekend we went home to Sydney for a cousins wedding. What was unusual about it was that all my siblings returned for this wedding. We haven't all been together since my wedding early last year and before that about 2 years ago. And we haven't all lived together since I moved out about 7 years ago. My sister is now in London and my brother in remote country NSW...

The crazy thing was, us siblings decided to act like we did about 15 years ago. Talk about regression! It was like we had never left home, or aged. The highlight was the car trip to the airport with the three of us crammed in the back, fighting noisily before all falling asleep. Things never change!

And to celebrate, my mother went into crazy cooking mood. For 5 of us she made this many dishes, most of them Arabic dishes. I forgot to take photos of all the savoury pastries she made as well. Apologies for the photos - I was hungry!

Left -molkeyah and right- bamia. Molkeyah is a green leafy vegetable -leaves pulled of the plant 'jute' (also makes hessian!). This is cooked with lamb and lemon and too much garlic, served over rice. I have found it impossible to get this vegetable fresh in Melbourne (though I am sure you can probably find it in Dandenong somewhere) so have settled for the far inferior frozen product. Bamia is an okra and lamb stew which i have blogged about here

and here we have a pasta bake and kefta bil tahini, which I have blogged previously here. I wish I had a Pyrex dish as big as this though - mum has had it for 30 years.

Too much food was had on this trip leading to a week of vegetarianism (is that a word?). Luckily my garden is still overproducing so that has not been a problem. Arabic food often has a lot of meat in it which i can only really handle in small doses. The food and family though, were great! Hopefully it will not be as long between family get togethers.