Another Simple Dinner

When Fairoz invites you for dinner, it is no ordinary dinner. It is called a feast! She and her husband invited 3 of us for dinner. She swears it was no trouble at all and that she is used to cooking for her family when the kids and grand kids come over.

Hors d' oeuvres were a variety of nuts and an assortment of wonderful Syrian Baklava. That was to wet our appetite of what was to come. When she started bringing the food our their balcony overlooking the ocean, we were all shocked as she brought out the salad which was followed by stuffed potatoes, grilled lamb, barbecued beef kofta, lamb, and "giant" ribeye. For vegetables, she had made stuffed eggplant, peppers and zucchini. At this point, I was expecting a belly dancer to come out to entertain us while we were eating. Everything was delicious and we were all overstuffed like her veggies.

Raymond and Alma brought Sans Rival (French, meaning no rival); a Filipino dessert that is made with layers of buttercream, meringue and chopped cashews. They also brought Brazo de Mercedes; translated is arms of Mercedes. This is another Filipino dessert that is made of soft meringue around a custard filling. The arms of Mercedes were obviously not muscular, they were more dimply or jiggly. Both desserts were edible.

At the end of the evening, we were forced (yeah, right) to take some food home. Since we did not want to hurt Fairoz and Medhat's feelings, we took enough to feed another army. I warned them both that when I have them over for a simple dinner.....it will be just that, very simple. They may have to eat first before coming over!