It has been a long time since my last post so I thought it only fitting to revive the blog with a post about my last trip home to Tucson. Also, speaking of home, great timing to mention that this is the same week we welcomed a new Abyad into the world, Justus Jeffrey Abyad. I am now an uncle for the 6th time and enjoying it. 🙂
One of my favorite food activities when staying with family is breakfast. When done Middle Eastern style, it will usually consist of a bunch of little dishes including a lot of cheese, bread, eggs, falafel, fruit, more cheese, and sometimes “ful” (an Arabic dish that is basically fava beans). And possibly my favorite cheese ever is Armenian string cheese. We grew up eating this constantly, also good toasted and melted on pita bread.
Here is the ful, awesome with fresh tomato and onion.
Just to prep you, the food in this post will be really diverse but it is a typical showing of what is eaten when I go home. 🙂
Anytime I am home in Tucson, a large chunk of my time is spent with my Vietnamese family. This last trip, I got a chance to hang out with one my best friends growing up (Trung), and his girlfriend Paulina. Paulina very lovingly made us some homemade Pho which was awesome. I wanted to take a picture of them but they weren’t being so cooperative so I’ll just have to find one of Trung in Vietnam, drinking from a cup with his name!
Here are the Pho and condiments… done the right way with fresh meat and ingredients.
Fortunately this trip was also the week of Thanksgiving so we spent Thanksgiving at my Uncle and Aunt’s house in Phoenix allowing for another Middle Eastern Thanksgiving experience which I can share with you here…
And just to get closer…
BOOM tabouleh…
BOOM green bean casserole…
BOOM sweet potato casserole…
BOOM kibbeh…
and finally grapeleaves…
And so you can have a view of the plate…
So Happy Thanksgiving a little late. And this last segment of going home was our visit to Old Tucson Studios, which every child in Tucson loves. It is an actual film studio that has been filming since 1939, filming movies like Tombstone and The Three Amigos!
Check out the excitement on this child (Bethany); the excitement I also shared when driving/riding in these cars…
Food wise, we had a pretty great experience here as well. There was an open grill with lots of good stuff including the infamous Sonoran Hot Dog which I love and can only get, legitimately, in Tucson.
With some nachos…
Here are some grill shots…
So there’s a rundown if what just 3 days may look like in Tucson, always a good food experience. 🙂 How can you turn this down?
JIMMY Eats! 