This blog is pretty much inactive as we move to more visual mediums such as Instagram and TikTok as well as freelance writing. Please see my list of freelance articles here. Please follow me on TikTok at: @ms_munchie Please follow me on Instagram at: @munchiemusings ..read more

When I was growing up there were no avocados around. I was in the Middle East in the 70s and there were many foods such as avocados, figs, and squash that I had never been exposed to. I didn't have my first avocado until my college years. It took some time for me to grow into them. At first it was the avocado pasta salad I would make at my job at a fresh pasta store. (This has since become my favorite potluck dish to bring because it's always a hit.) Then I learned to appreciate guacamole. We truly are spoiled with avocados in California. On the east coast it can be hard to even find avoca ..read more

This blog is officially 12 years old and yet you probably wonder why it's been pretty bare this last year or so. I've been blessed with so many connections, friends, and opportunities with this blog over the last decade-plus. Unfortunately, this style of blog is pretty much dated and dead. Everything is more visual today with Instagram stories and YouTube channels. You may find more of me on these other channels. Meanwhile, this blog has become what blogs originally were intended for. It's an online personal diary for me. That's why most of my postings in 2019 were of my adventures in Saudi A ..read more

If you enjoy dining outside in Sacramento, then I have a new suggested spot for you. It's a bit exclusive since they only do these dinners a few times a year. Imagine dining on a rooftop near Golden 1 Center with great views of the surrounding city. This is what the Revival Garden Dinners offer you. Coming up in October you can enjoy a meal during the evening hours on the 5th floor of the Sawyer Hotel. There you will find their small rooftop garden where Chef Patrick Prager has been growing such things as peppers, tomatoes, squash, melons, and herbs.  I was both lucky and unlucky to a ..read more

I've been a little depressed lately with the state of the world. More than the current politics, it's the destruction of this planet that has me feeling so low. I was thinking the other day that in the span of my lifetime alone (55 years), we have killed off about 60% of the world's wildlife, created zillions of tons of plastics and spread it so that even the smallest of sea creatures show plastic ingestion, sped up global warming, and now the Amazon, producer of 20% of our oxygen, is being wiped out by fires.  This is a grim beginning to a post, I know. I did get a little bit of sunshine ..read more

Why is it that everything always gets scheduled on the same dates? I've been back from Saudi for over a month now and bored during the weekends. Now I'm frustrated because a bunch of events that I am interested in all land on the same weekend. Some of these may be of interest to you. Heritage Fire Many of you know that this is my FAVORITE food event of the year and I generally go if I can. Problem is it is on a Saturday when other things are competing for my attention this year. This meat fest takes place at the Charles Krug Winery in St. Helena and features a couple dozen of Northern Calif ..read more

Wouldn't you take advantage of free airfare for a two-week vacation in Europe? That's what I did on my way home from Saudi Arabia. I decided to hop through Amsterdam, Paris, Antwerp, and Cologne before flying all the way back. It was in Antwerp where I visited Michelle, the one who helped me get the Saudi job. Michelle was so thoughtful to purchase us a food tour for my visit. I would get to try the local specialties and she would get some background for her to share with future visitors. Michelle was careful to select the tour after one mentioned a stop at Five Guys! Really? Please! Luckily ..read more

No. There is no problem with the picture. It's supposed to be black. That's because I couldn't see or take pictures of my food. I had attended a dark dinner. You may have heard of these restaurants. They have them at most major cities around the world, including San Francisco, Amsterdam, London, and Paris. That's the one I chose to go to -Dans le Noir en Paris. The restaurants feature a dining experience where you cannot see your food and must rely on your other senses instead. We know that if a person loses one sense, such as sight or sound, they compensate with stronger responses of their ..read more

When I was growing up in Saudi Arabia in the 70s and 80s, we did not wear abayas. We went shopping in Khobar with the understanding that our legs and shoulders must be covered. We would even go in jeans. It wasn't until the 80s, after the Ayatollah Khomeini rose to power in Iran and the 1979 uprisings in Qatif and Mecca, that the Kingdom started to go back to more conservative ways. By the time my parents retired in 1987, we were going to Khobar in thobes, although not abayas. In the spring of 2018, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said that it was no longer a requirement for women to wear a ..read more

I'm calling this a diary but it's actually more like a food log. Instead of daily entries in a diary, I'm giving you an overall log of all the wonderful Arab foods I tried on my trip to Saudi Arabia. As I child I wasn't exposed to all these wonderful treats except for maybe some baklava and Turkish delight. It also turns out that the Eastern province seems to have less diverse and interesting food (to me, anyway) than the Hijaz (western) region where I was on this trip. FYI, often used below is... Kashta - clotted cream flavored with rose water Sweets Mammoul - cookies with date filling ..read more