Yay...more vegetarian options

It can be tough to be a vegetarian in Middle east countries where the staple diet consists of variety of meat.

Not that I'm asking people to convert to vegetarian, all I'm saying is I have limited options where to dine and what to eat.

As told in my previous blog, i love travelling ..and one of the preparations I do before travelling to any new place is to look for vegetarian options in the local cuisine.

Lebanese food is one of most loved cuisine ,influencing cuisine of many surrounding nations.

So, me & DH decided to explore a Lebanese restaurant today. At first, the waiter was a bit confused when we asked for vegetarian options. We picked up the menu card and started asking for ingredients of the dishes we thought meet our criteria.He was kind enough to answer all the questions.

We ordered Veg. Sambousak and Fattet eggplant.
Veg sambousak is Lebanese form of Indian samosa with slight difference in the outer covering and the filling.
I loved Fattet eggplant for two reasons: my favorite ingredients-curd and eggplant and the crispiness of roasted pita bread and pine seeds.

I recommend you try these two whenever you go to a Lebanese restaurant.

Do you have a recommendation too?(writing about food makes me hungry ...lol)






 

Yay another first!!

I'm not sure if there is a word to describe the excitement of doing a thing/activity for the first time.
'firsts' always excite me...be it the first car ride,first view of the sea or first salary in new job. personally, I feel that firsts are an assurance to ourselves that life has much more to offer than we what see in our daily life.
Someone very rightly said everyday is a new learning. I try to achieve this in my professional as well as personal life.
I have already talked about my wonderful cross stitch group on fb.im always learning something  new about the art of cross stitching because of this group.
I wanted to make a personalized gift for my new born nephew since he was born and learnt about birth samplers on the group. I think they are a beautiful way to capture arrival of new baby.
here are pictures of the birth sampler I made for my nephew and the family loved it. I have made few changes to the design: I have stitched birth time instead of birth weight and changed the font to a simpler one as the original one had backstitching(I'm still not good at BS).

Started on : 5-Sep -2014
Finished on: 22-Oct -2014
Stitched on:14 count white Aida
Floss used :Anchor
Designer: Anchor design studio
Pattern source: Cross stitch collection, Sept 2014
Number of colors: 19
Stitch count:214H*144W
Type of stitches: Full cross stitch, back stitch, half stitch, french knot
Number of strands used :2 for Full cross stitches,1 for back stitch,3/2/1 for half stitch

I used the loop method to start the thread for the first time....thank you Pat Carson for the tip.
I also serged the fabric to prevent fraying.

This is my first birth sampler for the first member of new generation of my family :) .The cherry on the cake is..the only French knot in the design was made by my MIL..