Jordan – CP7

After the tutoring lesson on July 18th, Metab and Adel’s friend, Muhammad, walked into Starbucks and invited me to come back to their friends' apartment for a meal. And by invited, I really mean insisted. But I was not complaining, because they were making cabsah, effectively the national dish of Saudi Arabia, and they had been talking it up for a while. When we arrived, I was welcomed into the apartment in a flurry of Arabic. After I had been introduced to everyone, I imposed a mandatory English-only rule for the rest of the night. The apartment belongs to Ryan and Fatwan, two Saudi CIES students with very good English, who jumped back and forth between talking to me and checking the delicious smelling pots in the kitchen. Muhammad was trying to buy a car, so we got into a discussion on the best and most reliable car brands, and I gave him a few websites for used cars.

Finally, the food was ready, and Fatwan and Ryan began preparing for dinner. They moved the coffee table out of the living room and placed an old paper movie poster face-down on the floor where the table had been. Then they covered the paper with a long sheet of tin foil. After that came the steaming, delicious smelling pot of spiced rice, which Fatwan dumped onto the tin foil, followed by cooked chicken with more spices. Last, came two bowls of plain yogurt to cool down the rice, and a bottle of Texas Pete hot sauce.

You eat cabsah using your hands, well, actually just your hand. Taking your right hand (the left hand is unclean), scoop up a little bit of rice and make a fist, squeezing the rice into a pellet. Use your thumb to manuever the pellet of rice to the edge of your hand, and put it in your mouth. Since the rice is very hot, it's helpful to pour a little yogurt over the rice you want to cool down. The pieces of chicken just sit on top of the pile of rice, so tear off a little piece of one, and you can have some of it with your rice. This meal was absolutely delcious and very satisfying. Plus, Fatwan tells me that eating hot foods with your hands releases an enzyme from your plams and fingers that is very good for your digestion!