Makloubeh

When we went to Petra two summers ago a Bedouin family feed us two meals. The first was hard boiled eggs, un-leaved bread, happy cow cheese spread, and spam. At the time I was so hungry that it was delicious...in reality though to this day my darling spouse remembers it as his least favorite meal ever. Just bringing it up gives him the chills. They also invited us to their home that night. We hailed down a taxi and made our way to the Bedouin village. Using just the name our taxi driver managed to get us to their house. We spent the evening in their court yard with the whole family and most of their animals drinking warm cokes, eating makloubeh, watching the boys turned an old piece of furniture into a pretend race car and looking at what I guess would be considered stolen antiquities. It was one of the best meals I remember from my time in Jordan. After two years I decided to try my hand at the dish. I had remembered it had rice, meat, and cauliflower. A little time online and a found a recipe to try. Yes I realize it has an atrocious amount of fat in it but hey you don't have to follow every recipe exactly. I did deep fry cauliflower though...and yes that does make me feel like a bad person. I enjoyed having this moment to reflect on our trip and true to their custom I included some of the "more desirable bits" only instead of offer up the liver to Jason as would be culturally correct I ate it and remembered a cold night, eating makloubeh with shared spoons off a communal platter, when I was offered a large chunk of liver and all the woman watched me eat it.