Edible Blessings

One of the many things I love about Ramadan is the sense of community, including the way many of us express this through food and feeding others. We tend to pick a day or two in Ramadan and then cook multiple dishes in bulk to send out to friends and family. When my teens were little they would look forward to those days with excitement at the thought of being allowed to take platters to various houses on the street. Now they are older, I have to threaten and cajole them to get them to do it.

 

In turn, I love the days when neighbours and family members send us snacks, platters or meals. It means that I don’t have to cook as much, there is variety at our iftar table, I get to try something cooked by someone else and I feel the love and sisterhood that goes into these gifts of food.

 

Today my lovely sister-in-law called and told me not to cook, she was bringing iftar. She freed up my time normally spent in the kitchen cooking so that I could read Quran. May Allah give her all of the reward and blessing of the extra reading.

 

While we waited, my neighbours daughter came by with a platter of pilau rice, aubergine fritters and shammi kebabs:

She is an amazing cook and her food is always a treat and guaranteed to satisfy.

My sister-in-law got stuck in crazy traffic and tuned up exactly as we were opening our fast, with the most amazing box of food:

 

She had made chicken biryani, chicken wraps, kebabs, channa chaat, raita and added lots of fruit. But the way she had presented her food made me feel like she put in a lot of care and effort for us (not to mention crossing the river to get it to us). I enjoyed feasting my eyes as much as my taste buds.

Another neighbour who I am good friends with dropped by with various desserts – defo feeding hubby these, he stays behind at the masjid after taraweeh for a little while and usually takes a thermos of herbal tea and snacks to share. He can take this with him.

I usually try to minimise sugar during Ramadan, but today I bought myself some chocolate cheesecake to share as a treat for myself and the kids:

The gifts of food have left me feeling super blessed and grateful this evening. May Allah SWT bless all of those that think of us and share their rizq with us with every good thing, perfect health, closeness to Allah SWT and the acceptance of all of their dua’s.

It was narrated that Zayd ibn Khaalid al-Juhani said: The Messenger of Allah (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) said: “Whoever gives iftaar to one who is fasting will have a reward like his, without that detracting from the reward of the fasting person in the slightest.”  (Narrated by al-Tirmidhi, 807)