Lemon Bar Overdose

My friend, Melinda, was asking for recipes for “lemon cake from scratch” yesterday. I jumped onto one of my favorite websites, www.allrecipes.com to do a search for her and got her set up with a few options. In the meantime, I developed a craving for something sweet and lemony myself. Hey, no fair, I thought, SHE’S the pregnant one! Anyway… I did, none the less, go into my kitchen and make some lemon squares/ bars thingies. I also made tortilla soup, spinach feta sambousa, and beef enchiladas. (The whole episode reminds me of a children’s book my sister gave me that turned into a family favorite- “Ruth’s Bake Shop”) Then I proceeded to pig out. And then I woke up at 3am and vomited it all back up. I think I was hung over from the lemon bars or something. haha! (Is that even possible?) My eyes have always been bigger than my stomach. I thought at first while I was leaning over the big plastic all-purpose bucket in the bathroom that I had eaten something bad. But … the rest of my family seems just fine so I guess it’s just me. Maybe the lemon was fighting with the feta cheese or something. It sure was nasty the second time around!

We’re currently renovating our apartment here. We’re getting a lot done -and fast!- but one of the prices we pay for hardworking workers is that we have little privacy and can’t even use our own kitchen, sometimes for 12 hours a day. Last night, while everyone had a day off, was the first time I was able to get into the kitchen to actually COOK something other than scrambled eggs and tea for over a week. We’d been living on take out food for that period of time- most people would probably love that, but for me, I just prefer my own cooking- as evidenced last night by eating myself sick, literally. Sigh.

As I said, Mahmoud and I are really pleased with how fast the work in our home is getting done. Due to our “ok, I admit it, not-so-simple” lifestyle, we are only really able to have work in the apartment done on Mahmoud’s visits here to Maadi every winter. This winter we’ve already managed to plaster and paint the walls of the reception/ great room and the TV room (which has no TV in it, but what else to call it- sun room? Computer room?), they’ve replaced all the wood trim and corrected some of the ceiling molding that I had issues with. We decided on a lovely buttery yellow hue for that room and we really like how it came out. I hope it matches our upholstery! We haven’t moved the furniture back in there yet, or rehung the window treatments (which if it weren’t for my mom, I’d still be calling curtains) , because Mahmoud wants the Marble Man to come back with that floor polishing machine first to put the finishing touches on the floors. And plus, I think they still have some painting of trim or cleaning up of paint splatters still to do in there. As for the kitchen, we are keeping the original ceramic tiles on the walls, from floor to ceiling, although they are currently in very sad shape. A decade of deep frying in a very dusty environment will leave you with dark greasy walls that are not fun to clean. Sooo…. We have one nice guy in there today scrubbing away, floor to ceiling, even behind the current cabinets and stuff. Yah, I know- you’re wondering why I don’t just do it myself. I did do one section of about 4 tiles. It took me approximately 20 minutes after which I thought my arm would fall off my shoulder. Labor here is so cheap, I guess we figure that it’s worth it to avoid getting carpal tunnel or something, plus at the same time, we‘re creating jobs. Plus, it’ll get done faster that way. I’m always amazed at how strong workers here are. Makes me feel quite wimpy to be honest. Oh well, God keeps us each humble in different ways.

Back to the kitchen… we’ve ordered our new appliances and cabinetry and all should be in place by the time Mahmoud returns to his work in the states at the end of February. He’s at his office down the street right now, surely drinking tea with his buddies (sometimes it seems that is all they do there), and making long distance calls which we can’t make from our home. He went out this morning to visit one of the carpenters in order to check on the status of our bookshelf/ wall unit thing that is built already (man, these guys can be fast when you pay them well!) and is just waiting now for the stain and lacquer. Whew. I get tired just thinking about how much work other people do. Nah, that’s just the ghost of the lemon bars talking. I’ll be up and at ‘em again soon, doing whatever it is I do to sustain my living.