Let's get Iftarded in here

Last night, we ate Iftar.

What's Iftar? It's the sundown meal during Ramadan--a month of daytime fasting. At the end of a long (and in the UAE, excruciatingly hot) day of not eating or drinking, Iftar is the moment when you can sit down and finally give your stomach what it wants.

Or, in our case, about 10 times what our stomachs wanted.

When the fast-ending prayer sounded, the crowds headed to the buffet, stacking their plates toward the heavens and washing it all down with coffee, water, and mystery beverages (which we later, with the help of Google, discerned were mixed berry and tamarind juices).

Appetizer.

The meal began with dates and ended with a plate of sweets. The more or less complete damage, in the order it occurred:

-Dates, apricots, laban (yogurt drink)
-Lentil soup
-Cheeses, breads, crackers
-Pita, hummous, baba ganoush, foul (beans), a mint salad (I think), stewed zucchini salad
-Shrimp, lima beans, falafel, samosas, grilled steak, grilled chicken, "chicken Harris"
-Lamb, rice, chicken jalfrazie, potatoes au gratin, kefta kabob, macaroni and cheese
-Gulab jamon (Indian sweets), sugar cookie, pineapple, I know I'm forgetting some desserts here

Foreground: assorted spreads. Middle ground: a concerned blogger with plate No. 3. Background: Iftar madness. (photos courtesy Mrs. Blog. All rights reserved)

The end result was a serious Iftar coma and the feeling that we would be just fine without eating for the next 24 hours. But that's all part of the fun.