The most important multi-cultural meal of the day

With my husband and I both being mixed we like to try and combine our cultures as often as possible when it comes to food. Luckily, with him being half Persian and me being half Palestinian some foods aren't so different. I grew up with my dad throwing together a pretty standard Arab breakfast on Saturday mornings and that's something I want my future little ones to have. A few of the usual suspects are hummus (made from scratch and served hot), foul (pronounced "fool", made of smashed fava beans), falafel, cheese of some variety, olives, pita bread , sautéed tomatoes and peppers and allll kinds of other goodness. This Saturday we had to help our family move but we ha enough time to squeeze in some breakfast.

We had foul which is cooked fava beans smashed and mixed with garlic and lemon, you eat it like a dip with your pita bread. Zaatar (a dry mixture of oregano, thyme, sumac and sesame seeds) and zeit (olive oil), you dip the bread in the oil then in the zaatar. I introduced this to my husband and he puts it on everything now, even makes zaatar and zeit sandwiches. We also had some of my favorite feta which is so hard to come by in Northern California, God bless SoCal's middle eastern population and my favorite and probably the strangest looking of all things, Makdous which is pickled baby eggplant stuffed with walnuts and peppers and stored in olive oil. I had this for the first time when I went to visit my family in the Middle East. My grandma opened up a cabinet and it was filled with all these items she had pickled, I've been hooked ever since.
Last but not least you have to have your tea, no breakfast is complete without it .