Dina and her family are Lebanese-Palestinians who have lived in Jordan, Egypt and Abu Dhabi before arriving in Dubai. They were kind enough to invite us for Iftar and put up with our barrage of questions about Ramadan, traditional foods and the finer points of fasting.
We arrived at 5.30pm. Louisa had fasted for the day, too, to get a feeling for the sacrifice fasting entails. This meant that she had not eaten or drunk anything since 5am that morning. Those of us who weren't fasting were offered drinks such as home-made raisin juice with rose water and apricot juice, which are traditional at this time.
Louisa was put out of her misery by an offer of laban and dates, a standard way to break fast. We then went to table, which was laden with a real feast. There was a clear order to the dishes: first lentil soup with lemon, then a salad made with lots of different chopped herbs, tomatoes and crunchy crisps of dried flatbread. After that we all dug into a variety of dishes, roast chicken with spiced rice; an aubergine and sour cream bake, savoury pastries and lots of hummous. The olive oil used in the dishes came from the family grove in Lebanon and was imported specially.
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