Last night my lovely cousin Summer shared with me a similar taste combination that she loves. She remembers eating watermelon and salty white cheese sandwiches for breakfast during the hot summer days in Iraq. My mouth watered thinking about it; I could feel the juice dripping down my chin.
So I couldn't resist picking up some watermelon at the grocery store this evening. In Iraq, watermelon is called "regee" (with a hard g sound). Emil says this is very slang Baghdadi, which makes me love the word even more.
So I combined the regee with the feta cheese I had in my fridge to make a salad. I added mint - because I eat mint with everything these days - and this is weird, but I have this big ol' jar of black olives from the Arabic store in Chicago so I chopped a few of those and tossed them in too. I sprinkled a little fresh-ground sea salt and mixed it all up with my hands.
It was delicious and super simple. Thanks to Summer for inspiring this recipe! I love that her name has a double meaning in the title.
Summer Regee Salad
Ingredients:
A medium bowlful of cubed and seeded watermelon
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
1/2 cup of chopped kalamata olives
2 Tbs crumbled dried mint
1 Tbs extra virgin olive oil (I used Palestinian olive oil- the best stuff ever)
Sea Salt to taste
Combine in a bowl, mix with your hands, enjoy the texture. Lick the juice on your wrist when no one is looking. Smile while eating.
7 comments:
mmmm mouth definitely watering.
i'm not the biggest watermelon fan, but this could turn me around.
xoxoxo
sherin
why would anyone poison a perfectly good watermelon with OLIVES. yarg. the devil's fruit. anyway, i lobbied today. wasn't quite as fabulous as you, but i gave it a whirl. i tried to only pull women and effeminate older men, but i was forced to shake hands with some sleeze, too. still don't know how you do it...
Yay! This sounds good! I miss that white cheese...
LOVE IT!... Now I want some regee too... BTW, this definitely brought a smile to my face after a crappy few days! THANKS COUSIN!
PS>> that should be a dish on the menu for this summer's family get-togethers! MWAH!
one time i was in arabic class as a kid when we were going over the names of fruit. when my syrian teacher asked us what watermelon was we all said "baakteeth." (excuse my shitty transliteration.) she agreed and we moved on to the next word. all of a sudden this iraqi girl started crying insisting that, in arabic, watermelon was, in fact, reghee. point being, reghee is very iraqi. and the bitch cried, which i love.
vanessa, thank you for coming up with a phonetic spelling of "reghee" that I can get behind. Finally!
wes,don't hate the zetoon, hate the legislators. :) I'm proud of you for puttin out for justice- even if its with the ladies and effeminate men!
everyone, thanks for the love! its so nice to be read by lovlies. xoxo
i am so glad I found your blog.
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