Joining MENA Cooking Club

My favorite kind of breakfast: Egyptian style! 

After living in the gulf region for more than 2 years I started to develop an interest for its culture and especially its food. It`s funny how I hardly cook any typical Belgian meals anymore, I prefer to cook a variety of dishes from all over the globe, but the Middle Eastern kitchen really captured my interest (and my taste buds!). 

I guess after living in a certain region for some time it definitely grows on you! It`s not that I didn`t eat Middle Eastern dishes before or that I wasn`t fascinated by this beautiful region, I guess I just saw it in a different light: I looked at Qatar and the gulf region through the eyes of a tourist. Over time I`ve taken a different viewpoint, I now look at this region through the eyes of a resident. And that`s quite different. 

Before, when I used to prepare Middle Eastern dishes, I made them in a *Belgian way*. They turned out to be nice and tasty (most of the time, lol!), but they weren`t the *real deal*. Of course, even now, a pro will definitely taste a difference between my cooking and the one of a real Khaleeji. (Resident of the gulf region) But... I`ve gotten better at it and I absolutely love experimenting with the typical spices and ingredients that are used in the Khaleeji kitchen. For me it is an adventurous and exciting journey as the Middle Eastern kitchen is so extremely different from the Western European one that I`ve known most of my life. My Egyptian husband even commented that I make bamya, an Egyptian okra stew, better than his own mom! (And she makes really yummy food!) Now that counts for something. ;-) 

But I still have a lot to learn and in order to teach myself new recipes and skills I`ve joined MENA (Middle East and North Africa) Cooking club. Every month I will discover a new country of this fascinating region through it`s cuisine! We already know July`s country and we`ve been given 3 recipes to try out, but I am not supposed to tell you yet, sjjjjjjjt. :-) Time for me to start experimenting with these new recipes and I`ll share my yummy journey across the Middle East and North Africa with you all on my blog. :-) Be sure to try out the recipes yourself, you`ll be hooked in no time!