In the medinas in Morocco there are traditional earthen drinking vessels that everyone shares, and they're painted with black patterns. They have a strong smell. Hubby told me the smell is from a traditional sort of disinfectant. Is that in the black "paint"? Anyone know what it is?

See these little tales of eating habits show how much love we have in our relationships .

Ya my husband and I ate together during my trips there. I always gave him the first bite of my food. Our wedding video shows him feeding me but me just eating like a greedy child...lol.

But ya its really nice to have such sweet intimate meals, really brings the love back every time.

I can't wait to double dip and not feel guilty for it.

I always lay our own plates out and somehow my husband finds his ways to the common bowls. Last night we had all of the ingredients for tacos and also rice, beans and a salad. He ended up eating out of the salad bowl, meat bowl and rice and bean bowl. I thought to myself I better join in if I want any so we ate out of them together. Once I made mozzerella cheese sticks and he put the plate in front of himself and the kids said so cute and quietly...may we have just one cheese stick. He just kind of took over! It is according to the place and who is eating with us how we eat our food.

In Egypt We also ate on a small table.When I first went there Mohameds mother made sure I had my own plate to eat with .Always she has been that way. Now the last time I was there MOhamed and I ate off the same plate. When I went to his aunts house they always made sure I had my own plate and his grandmothers would never let the plate be empty.

WOW this tread has brought back some really happy memories for me when we were in Kashmir.......The first meal we had with Perviz family his mom gave us all plates and glasses and just my mom and i a spoon...
so the first meal everyone looked uncomfortable but we all ate sitting on the floor with a plastic cover put on the floor to sit the food on and they kept saying im sorry it is not like ur home (after living in pakistan this was normal for us lol) so when the second meal came.......as soon as perviz had served me i looked at his plate and at mine very nicely took his piece of chicken off of his plate and started eating it while my mom was using her fingers to eat rice just like they were he sat there stunned everyone had stopped talking then perviz started laughing so hard i thought tears would fall........that was the very last time we were treated any different ahaha but i did notice that towards the end of our stay he started making sure he got to his chicken piece before i could lol

Individual plates, but sometimes I'll take something from his plate, and vice-versa

Will probably use individual plates/bowls because that's how we ate at his family's.

I WOULD not mind eating communally since I alway think that definitely would save on washing dishes! (I tend to eat right out of the cooking vessel anyways)

This topic brought back great memories: the first meal was a little awkward (because I wasn't feeling well), but the second, third, etc meal was great -- they were smiling and laughing I guess when I started taking things and eating certain ways. Later the SO said that the family has been talking about it, being reminded "ah, K's mansaf" awww (now I get envious whenever SO mentions they're having mansaf!)

My SO also from time to time feed me, makes me go all yaya-gaga

I often wonder if he'll actually LET me cook an entire meal for us. (the entire time I was with him, he insists to do the prepping and cooking while I direct him... eeh). Actually I don't mind neither way

My own family half of the time eats at the coffee table, so I'm pretty sure that'll be a habit that'd continue to carry on. I bet we'll have a nice formal dining table too (I would insist on it since I enjoy entertaining). I'm curious about those Moroccan wrap around couches... anyone got a picture of those?

It's like this:

Thanks Jenn! Those are kind of what we sat on at his family's. Never gave them a term.

*pondering if such furniture will be in our future home too....*

Here's what we do.
Mansaf goes on a platter and we both eat off the same platter.
If its soupy, we get our own dish
sandwiches, we have on our own plates
Fries and things like that, we usually have on 1 plate and share
Bread, share
Salad (chopped up veggies with lemon juice etc) 2 spoons but eat from the same bowl.
Salad (lettuce salads) our own plates
Maftoul goes on a platter and we both eat from it
Ma7she we both get our own plate

so i guess the best way to say it is .. casserole type dishes and french fry type stuff we share
soups and sandwiches we get our own...

drinks..any drinks... I don't have a problem if any of my family drinks from my glass as long as they're not sick and don't backwash. Problem is that I usually drink it all before anyone has the chance to ask for a drink. A lot of times, hubster will give me whats left of his drinks if he doesn't want them anymore.

We don't share, but mostly because I am diabetic and eat a little differently from everyone else. I count every carb I eat and watch portion sizes, so it' makes it a little harder to share.

You could probably create it if your hubby is handy and can make (or buy ) a few benches without sides. Just cover them in that thick foam you can pick up at the fabric stores and cover with fabric - you could even attatch the fabric with velcro to the wood so that you could wash the covers.

Wow, i watch home improvement shows waaaay too much

In my hubsters home, it was ON the floor so I wouldn't even need benches. Just some foam and materials... hmm I noticed the cushions weren't soft soft but weren't brick hard either. anyone know if its a certain type of foam??? The pillows were odd too.. a harder foam..i think it woulda killed someone if it was thrown at them... what was in them???

You're not the only one! I'm the handyman in our house and Abdel loves telling his buddies and co-workers that his wife taught him how to do something like lay tile or hang drywall. I had planned to build all of these built-ins as well as do the finish work in our Moroccan dining room.

Abdel doesn't like to watch the how-to shows, but if he isn't home that's what I turn on.

Yes Amera, I am looking for a job overseas and we'll be moving as soon as I find one. Our company has a couple of openings coming up in the hopefully near future that I will put in for as soon as they post and I'm really hoping I'll get one of them so I can keep my current benefits (number of years of vacation and stuff like that). If I don't get one of them I'll be applying for any other jobs I can find that I qualify for. Abdel starts teaching me French this week so the longer the job hunt takes, the better my French will be, and right now that's the only think keeping me from being able to apply for many of the jobs I've seen that I'm otherwise qualified for.

those seats are way hard...not like good for lounging or sleeping, wonder if they are just equal to a twin bed mattress because his twin bed in the family home felt the same when u sat on it

i noticed that too. hubsters bed was hard as a rock. I had to use it once when jet lag caught up with me and i just couldn't stay awake anymore. it was not a peaceful sleep, thats for sure.. no wonder they always walk around with grumpy faces...

I second that! I wouldn't sleep well the first couple weeks, which is very unusual, then I guess the jet lag caught up with me (but then at that time we HAD to get up earlier). I used to get frustrated waiting, waiting, waiting for SO to get up. Hopefully he won't sleep toooooo much when he is finally here.

I read an article about making window seats out of prefab kitchen cabinets, and I've wondered if something like that would work for the wraparound sofa. It would give us a little extra storage, and we need as much of that as we can get, but I'm not sure about the width.

This layout is exactly like hubby's mom's sofa back home, down to the location of the window and the approximate dimensions. She has white, lacy curtains on the window and in the doorway on the right. The breeze through those curtains is lovely.

I actually had the best sleep of my life on one of those rock hard mattresses. However, I did not care for the hard pillows.

Dh's family's cushions are made from wool. Twice a year they unstuff them and put the wool out in the sun all day and then restuff the cushions.

wool? hooda thunkit... I thought it was some kind of foam.. is that particular stuff available here?

they walk around with grumpy faces cuz they are grumpy.

We eat mansaf off the same tray. We eat maglooba off the same tray. When we go out to restaurants, we ate off our own plates but secretly long to reach over with a fork and stab the others food.

jJ

I do that with anyone I'm eating with lol!!!

You could probably hit up some sheep farmers and see if they have any- -you'd just buy raw wool.

would that get buggy?? or is it fairly critter safe??

I personally never felt weird about eating off the same tray. I also never got sick from sharing. I suspect that I will just let my husband kind of dictate how his food is served and I really don't mind eating the traditional way. When we eat out in Algeria, everyone has their own plate. When we have eaten at home there, people have some things on their own plate and other things they eat off the same plate. I too havent done the 20 people eating from the same plate thing.. the most maybe 6 or 7 and I just havent had the ick factor ever...


I was with a friend of mine who freaks out over germs but has the dirtiest house I have ever seen.. but dont touch her plate or glass.. weird( shes American)

I mean really.. if I was looking for the germ free lifestyle I would not be flying my crazy ### over to Algeria all the time... For God's sake, the first time I went to his house there were two sheep walking around in the courtyard and kids were riding on them

yay for sheeps!

It wuoldn't get buggy, but I bet we'd need to air it maybe 3 times a year instead of twice... maybe only twice. We have a higher humidity so that could cause some "smell" issues. Airing it in teh sun kills most of whatever would want to live in there.

I asked mohamed the last time i went could we get a new mattress ! He said yes he had it already when i got there!Those pillows are to hard! Next time we go we will take some soft pillows. hes not use to the pillow here yet!

It depends on the time, place, company, meal.... I enjoy sharing a plate with him.

I have to tell a quick, funny story. We were at a lunch one day, and the person who brought lunch apparently didn't have enough plates. We were given separate plates for the main dish, but they asked if we'd mind sharing a salad plate (we were the only couple there). Apparently, they don't know about Moroccan culture!