So, below you’ll see our journey through the Middle East on our World Culture Tour 2018. As with each area of the world, our journey is taken via movies, food, stories, music, historical documentaries, culture and a craft all based on that area. This time we made a sistrum which the boys really enjoyed playing. As for the movies, there were some in this area that were quite serious for the boys, same as we did with Africa. And, as we also did with Africa, we censored some of the rougher portions. But, we wanted them to see and understand some of the realities of the area. Naturally, Aladdin…and its lesser sequels were the boys favorites. My boys really did like watching “Daddy’s Home guy” in his two war movies for the area (and these were the 2 movies that had to be censored a bit, of course). While in Africa, we experimented by cooking African recipes, which was a lot of fun. This time, however, I wanted to take the boys to an “authentic” Middle Eastern restaurant to find Halaal food. The best we could find, based on yelp reviews in the Charlotte area, was Le Kebob. Eli got shawarma over hummus which is shaved chicken strips over hummus. Luke got the Malohkia, chicken over rice covered by a herb stew. Joanna ordered the vegetarian falafel wrap with tahini sauce and hummus. I ate lamb shawarma wraps, wrapped in Lebanese bread wraps. We followed it all up with baklava for dessert.
We all shared each other’s meals, allowing everyone to try some of each dish. Granted, I didn’t TELL the boys they were trying lamb until after we’d left the restaurant in case they had a loud reaction. They didn’t, they were fine with the slight prank. All the dishes were really good, but I think we all agreed the lamb was just OK. I’m sure it was cooked wonderfully, we just aren’t used to lamb and have never tried it before.
One word of warning, for a drink, Luke ordered a yogurt drink. At least I’m fairly certain that is what it was called on the menu…and it was awful. Just plain nasty. The waiter said he liked them, but I can’t imagine ever developing a taste for them. It tasted like salted, curdled milk. Of course, I didn’t want to offend our waiter, who was from Lebanon, so I did 2 things. I first guzzled enough of it to look like we more than tried it, and then I told our waiter that Luke was a little sleepy and needed a second drink that had a bit of caffeine in it. So, out came a soda, and Luke was happy to get a special treat and to NOT have to drink the yogurt drink!
For the rest of our Middle East stop:
Movies:
• Aladdin
• Lone Survivor
• Persepolis
• Gods of Egypt
• Road to Morocco
• Mummy
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
• Sinbad: Legend of the 7 Seas
• 3 Kings
• Turtles Can Fly
• Prince of Egypt
• Kingdom of Heaven
• History 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZvYJmzvgLo
• History 2: Conflict https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9xfK92Zv68
• History 3: Ancient Egypt https://www.youtube.com/watch…
Food – Hummus, Falafel, Naan, Shawarma, Baklava, Malohkia
Music: Assyrian music, Persian, Sistrum
Stories: Magic Apple, Fox and the Crane
Craft: Sistrum
Custom: Learn to Belly Dance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K62qZ2hGyw
Check out more of our World Culture Tour.
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