Perils of Caffeine in the Evening

After that dramatic lead-in, sorry if this sounds mundane. I had a wonderful time at dinner Thursday night. My friend’s wife, also a Jordanian/Palestinian, had worked much of the day preparing what amounted to a feast, consisting of:

• Adas - a soup of pureed lentils, lemon, rice and spices
• Kufta - savory meatballs served over white rice in a stew-like sauce of tomatoes, potatoes and carrots. The meat was ground beef. They said that they had pretty much switched a lot of their cooking from lamb to beef because more of their American guests prefer it to lamb.
• Kapsa - a rice concoction laced with spices, raisins, nuts, etc baked, and then topped with grilled chickens
• Dessert was Qatayef - dainty crepe-like pancakes filled with goat cheese and folded into a crescent, then served drizzled with a honey-like syrup
• Arabic or Turkish coffee - finely ground beans boiled with cardamom and a bit of sugar, served in small porcelain cups.

My friend’s two daughters from his previous marriage were spending the night, and helped set the table and serve the food, and were model children. (When I said as much to their mother the next day, she was moderately incredulous). The girls did say that they were happy that we were speaking English at the table. Apparently, when their father and stepmother have Arab guests for dinner, everyone speaks Arabic, and they’re left to fend for themselves.

Over the course of the evening, I learned a lot about the evanescent sense of domicile in the Middle East. Of course, the Palestinians have multiple layers of displacement. I also learned that other nationals there become displaced because some accept contracts to work in one of the oil-rich gulf states, and end up residing in Oman, Bahrain, UAE and Saudi Arabia for basically a 30-year career. But, at the end of their contracts, they must re-patriate to their countries of origin for their retirement, which causes a significant social dislocation. They are paid well while they are working, but they can’t really meld into the community because they will eventually have to leave.  And when they get back to “home”, they have no friends, and perhaps not many relatives left either.

So, after the dramatic build-up of last night’s post, I have to say that the evening was so convivial that I have nothing to “dish”. We talked about so many disparate things that I wasn’t at any risk of stumbling into the subject of work at all.  My friend’s wife is a physician trained in the Czech republic and working through a residency here in Milwaukee. She’s fluent in English and a delight to converse with. My sense is that there isn’t much that my pal can put over on her.