I will be off once again! This time closer to home...to Zamboanga for feasting and fiesta!
Zamboanga is in the southern region of the Philippines and is known as the City of Flowers. This is my first time to visit and I am so looking forward to it. As much as I love seeing other countries, I also love seeing more of my own. With more than 7000 islands, there sure is a lot to discover!
Another reason I am looking forward to this trip, and the reason I am actually going, is because Zamboanga is my boyfriend's hometown and I am going with his family for the fiesta there. This means fun times, GREAT seafood, and finally seeing where he was born :)
Sweet on Sweets in Egypt
What's life without dessert? Uh-huh, I thought so. It's no different in Egypt where the sweets are out of this world! This was the beautiful array of sweet-stuff in our hotel's dessert buffet. I didn't know where to start. I hovered for a moment, eyeing everything intently, then I made my selection and hurried back to our table to try my choices.
Yum. Yum. YUM!
Some of the desserts in Egypt I found similar to those in Greece. Especially the Baklawa. Typical Egyptian Baklawa uses sugar syrup or sharbat, which is sometimes flavored with orange blossom water, unlike it's Greek counterpart Baklava, which uses honey. As I love baklava, the Egyptian version (which is sometimes almost identical, sometimes with that elusive hint of orange water) was a fast favorite.
Then there's Konafa/Kunafa which is made of fine wheat shreds, similar in appearance to vermicelli. It's also syrupy-sweet (and that's a good thing!) and filled or topped with nuts.
Basboussa/Basbosa/Basboosa is semolina cake with coconut, soaked in a syrup of honey or sugar syrup, and lemon. It's likewise topped or trimmed with nuts like pistachios or almonds. Like konafa, it is sweet and rich...and very yummy! The hint of coconutty taste is very pleasant. A bit of trivia: boussa means kiss in Arabic...aaaw! :-)
Pictured above is also a slice of a honey and cinnamon sponge cake which was actually very light, nicely spiced, and great to have in between bites of the much sweeter fellow-desserts. There was also some kind of peanut brittle square that for the life of me I could not find out the name of!
Other desserts I had for which I don't have pictures:
Mihallabiya/Mahalabeya - Rosewater flavored milk pudding
Ruz-bel-laban/Ruzz Billaban - Cold rice pudding
We ate most or this, or a combination thereof, every time dessert rolled around, wherever we were. We were hooked!
Note: I have only posted here about desserts with Egyptian origins. I had other desserts as well...everything from fruit tarts to mille-feuille. Let it not be said that I wasn't on vacation! :-)
Another note: If you haven't had enough of the desserts, I'll have more pictures of them on my post about the Nile cruise onboard dining...so stay tuned for that!
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