Fast Times.

Tonight I attended a lecture series on Ramadan and the Arabic culture. A traditional Iftar was served, including Arabic coffee. I poured a cup of the coffee and was immediately struck by its pale color and absence of the fragrance I’ve come to expect from any beverage by this name. I recognized immediately that it was the same scent of the raw coffee I’d caught a whiff of when I tried to grind it un-roasted the week before last. And also immediately started to feel less stupid.

After talking with our host, I learned that Arabic coffee is roasted only lightly. It’s about a one on a scale of ten, eleven being somewhere in my range of preference. I want to say it tasted dreadful, but that would be impolite as well as hasty. It simply was not coffee in my book, yet it was still, definitely, coffee.

You learn something new every day, as they say. If you’re lucky, you learn two new things... 

This is tamarind:

I took about 20 photos before giving up. Sorry, this is just what it looks like.

I have seen it many times in not-your-ordinary groceries and always assumed it was a legume. It is not. It is a fruit. I ate a bit of it tonight and decided it will make a wonderful jam. I can’t wait to try it this weekend.