Thursday, February 25, 2010

Luxor Egypt, back streets



After  an exciting evening of waiting to see how long a tomato would take to cook in our brand new " made in Egypt" oven (I suppose my landlord was being patriotic buying an oven  with a large sticker Made in Egypt on it)  or was it the cheapest he could find,    he is not the first landlord who has tried to give me a cheap cooker  at least it was better looking than the last one and I managed to do some cooking  on the rings.
even though I had to take the back cover off because it kept falling down and needed a pan or something heavy to prop  it in an upright position, the reason Pam  ( my wife)  decided to cook a tomato  was I made a fish tagine  after frying the onions and tomatoes  on the top rings  preparing the herbs and all the ingredients  ready for the fish tagine I put it in my favorite cooking earthenware pot ( because it keeps all the flavors in the fish)
I put it in the oven  normally it would take  20 minutes to bake.     With mouth watering   I put my oven gloves on to get said dish from the oven ,   first glance at the dish told me it was not  cooked  so I left it in the oven  silly oll me had put the gas on its lowest  ( no telling no gas marks) so I moved the knob, hoping  that another 15 minutes it will be done.  I hour later I was still waiting.   then, without needing oven gloves on I put it in the good old back up oven... the microwave.   I was in no mood yesterday to test the oven so Pam decided to try it with a tomato.  ( wifely common sense)  it did cook quite nicely  as tomatoes do in a very slow oven,  in fact 2 hours slow cooking.
 Mr mechanic got up this morning ready to politely return my new superb feat of Egyptian engineering to my landlord,  first I must strip it down to see where the fault lies,  So I took the bottom tray off  and lit the oven   lo and behold  out of about 50 holes  only five are working that is like heating an oven with a candle.
and so off we went to find out how much a decent cooker with oven would be,

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Looking from my front room window I can see the road that houses two electrical appliance shops.
First we had to go down the narrow  street for about 1000yards with a mixture of old and new dwellings but what I have noticed  here in Luxor  no one has the same kind of  front door.  I know I have done a series on balconies and doors before http://nilelife2.blogspot.com/2010/02/blog-post_06.html
I find them so fascinating  like the first balconies opposite my flat none the same  its like time has stood still after they where first painted  and now years later life is back and all need another lick of paint but sadly only a few will get. no love is shown to anything here.  its if its not broken do not fix then its to late and the demolition man steps in.  each of the  doors and places are dwellings. and we are not back in the 1800s. this is Luxor Egypt 2010  that houses the largest open air Museum and has one of the largest volume of tourists in the world.





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Sun bread  rising   by the front door  before it is put in the oven. (  not mine) 













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One up one down  the tailor shop on my back street 

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Even the new doors soon get to look aged  
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We had a sandstorm today All windows doors and blinds shut it is still blowing outside thats 5 hours  none stop sandstorm,





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