Back from other reality

As I am reading the date of my last post I find it difficult to believe that it has been so long! Truth is, ever since I came back from my Czech home, I have had trouble with time - working a lot on both of my jobs took most of my time and catching up with myself took the rest, so writing was left behind. Well I am now back, at least from my two weeks of holiday in scoldingly hot Egypt, and ready to share some of my life with you once again.

My life in Egypt was close to blissful. Waking up to a blazing sunshine and golden heat every morning and going for an 'early' pre-breakfast swim in the empty bluey sea. Then feasting on lots of watermelon, sprinkled with a juce of some local, small but sparklingly tingly limes, before spending my day swimming, walking barefoot on sand and springy grass, reading, listening to music, creating lots of vitamin D and windsurfing or wakeboarding. Shortly - tough life - I have the bruises to prove it!

Lunch was something small to share with Cooked Husband, if he remembered to return to the beach from his hyper windsurfing sessions, and then some more of the same. As this is mostly a foodie blog, I must tell you all about the dinners. I have never have it so easy to eat raw. We stayed in this hotel on half board, and our breakfasts and dinners were buffet style. There was always fruit, salad and hot food, plenty of cakes and pastries . Somehow anything that was not fresh and juicy left me so uninterested; partially I think it was the heat, but also the cooked food was really not that great. Poor Cooked Husband kept trying, but always ended up disappointed, as everything seemed to have sat on the buffet for some time and was not very fresh any more.

Not so my salads. OMG! I had a large plate of green leaves (would you not have guessed) with lovely local olive oil and more of that zingy lime juice, followed by a huge plate of rainbow of veggies - the tomatoes were a true tomato red colour, sweet and succulent; the cucumbers were small, crunchy and sweet, the carrots were so flavourful and juicy in their own, carroty way... this made the 3/4 of my plate very night. The last small space left was filled with a selection from the rest of the fabulous salad bar. There were some local salads with aubergines and chickpeas, marinated fennel and courgettes, stuffed cucumbers, marinates spicy and sweet peppers, green and reddish black olives - in short, I could eat like that for a very very long time before I was bored! There was something a little bit different every day. It was amazing! Not absolutely everything was raw, but I was more then happy to enjoy a little bit of local hummus, egyptian feta cheese or tzatziki as a small addition to my mountain of raw food.

I was told many times before by my friends or family, who came to stay with me and for whom I prepared yummy healthy meals, that they would be very happy to eat that way if someone made it for them all the time the way I did. Now this was my turn to see what they meant. I am happy enough to eat my simple salads and smoothies at home, but to have a choice from around 20 different salads, all fresh, ripe, coulourful, vibrant, juicy and literally calling me to munch them, staying raw would not be an issue at all.