From the Bakery

We needed some snack food, so headed out to our favorite bakery yesterday.  Hamdan, the 40 year old owner, runs this bakery about a half mile away from us and warmly greets us whenever we stop in.  Hamdan is such a big NBA fan that he knew about the MN Timberwolves even before meeting us. That's Hamdan below in the dark blue galabeya, tending his shop.

Bread is a big part of the Egyptian diet. You likely have seen it pop up lately in the news since Egypt imports a great deal of wheat from Ukraine. (This article says Russia and Ukraine supply 85% of Egypt's wheat while this article says that Russia insists there will be no problem.)  Egypt has a vast subsidy program that helps supply the round flat loaves of common bread that appear with almost every meal at about ten percent of cost.  

In addition to the simple round loaves, bread products can be found in many forms. There are bakeries on nearly every street and if you don't have a bakery on your street, you can just go a block further and around the corner you will certainly find one.  We picked up four different specialties to bring home.  

 

These included a pound of crispy bread sticks and a pound of delightful sweet sesame covered "S"s.

 

Tom enjoys the soft pastry bread treats for breakfast and Linda enjoys the smaller buns for lunch sandwiches.

 

All together, we paid around four dollars for this bakery visit.