Middle Eastern madness!

You didn't think I'd settle to close the weekend off with just one country, did you? Nope. And today I thought I'd try my luck dipping into the wine bag of fun for a surprise cooking adventure.

The lucky draw this time out was Iran, and a quick consultation with the Wiki list of national dishes revealed that one of this country's national dishes is the kebab. Easy enough.

I also figured that this would be a good opportunity to pick up some of my slack and whip up a couple of side dishes from other nearby countries.

So I came up with a pretty impressive Middle Eastern menu with the national dishes from four countries: Iran, Israel, Lebanon and Syria.

Recipes to follow with each individual country.

Like my affection for Greek food, I've also always been a big fan of cooking from middle eastern countries. It's light, seems to be healthy and now that I've made it I can say it's surprisingly simple. The key is using good ingredients.

And in case you're wondering about the picture, that's me in Israel. Somewhere hiking in the Negev Desert. I went on a trip with college newspaper editors. We swam in the Dead Sea, rode camels through the desert and even visited a kibbutz. Talk about a fun vacation location, if you can get past the terrorism. Our tour bus drove very quickly past the borders of Lebanon and Syria.

So three weeks into my little project that's 10 countries down, 193 to go...