Post Tagged with "Middle East"

Tahchin – saffron rice and chicken

This colourful photo is by This Photographer. Thanks for sharing!

This Persian dish is called Tahchin, and is made with chicken and rice baked in the oven. The yellow colour comes from saffron which is added to the rice.

Check out our Food of the World photo group on Flickr to see more photos posted by PocketCultures readers around the world. We’d love to see yours too! Just join the group and add your photos.

Read More:
Nasi Goreng – another rice dish, eaten for breakfast in Indonesia
Iran as you don’t see it on the news: recommended documentary about Iran
Britain’s 10 favourite foods – British people in the kitchen

There’s life outside Istanbul

When you think of Turkey what do you think? Istanbul? Or maybe holidays on the Mediterranean coast?

Kocaeli Daily Photo brings photos and stories from Kocaeli, a part of Turkey which we usually don’t hear much about. From the site:

Province of northwest Turkey, bordered to the north by the Black Sea, to the southwest by the Sea of Marmara and to the west by Istanbul. Area 3986 sq.km; Population about 1.4 million. Izmit is the central city of Kocaeli.

As you’ll see from the photos, there is plenty of life there: fishing and industry as well as people cooling off in the waterfall and enjoying the summer in other ways. Expanded roads shows another side of Turkey’s growth story.

Read More:
Simit: Food from Turkey
Yogurt and Turkish cooking
Middle East blogs from Blogs of the World
New tiger on the block: Turkey’s astounding economic growth

The restless mind of an Egyptian student

Sara describes herself as ‘An Egyptian, extremely diversified, super procrastinator chocolate junkie with a memory span of a goldfish…’ Have a peek at life in Egypt through her Friday love list, a weekly list of things she loves.

You can find her at Ramblings of a Restless Mind, where she writes about a lot of things, including Arabic rap music, university graduation and the inescapable exams. Exams are the same for students everywhere, aren’t they?

An Insider’s view of Saudi Arabia

American Bedu is Carol, a former American diplomat who resigned to marry her Saudi husband. Now she lives in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and somehow finds time in her packed schedule to write this blog.

American Bedu is a great way to start to explore Saudi culture, as Carol lives her experiences with an open mind and tries to explain different aspects of life in Saudi Arabia in a way that us outsiders can relate to.

Blogging from both sides of the border

Hope man lives in Sderot, in Israel. His friend Peace man lives in Sajaia refugee camp in Gaza.

Together they blog about their lives in Life must go on in Gaza and Sderot.

In their first post they explain why they started the blog:

to bring to people’s awareness the true nature of what 2 peace seeking people on both sides of this insane situation are feeling, thinking and going through

It’s a rare opportunity to read both sides of the story and also to see the stories of the people who are living through this conflict.

2:48am in Kuwait

Today’s blog has been recommended by 2 different readers. TWOFORTYEIGHTAM is written by Mark and Nat, a Lebanese married couple and long-time residents of Kuwait.

Wake up and read the header from 2:48am

Here’s what Bu Yousef had to say about it: “it covers many things happening in Kuwait. Nicely designed and well written”

Bianca of The Early Bird cafe in Fahaheel also suggested this blog, writing that it is a “cool blog, open minded and informative” (by the way The Early Bird has some great reviews anyone who happens to be in Kuwait)