Bacon, eggs, a bad fast.

Yesterday was a bad fasting day. In all likelihood, yesterday's fast probably won't count. I was out of sorts and very, very glum. I said to myself more than once, "This is not working. I'm too glum to fast." But I'm an adult, not a child. I carried on. Wanting to continue to fast was more out of habit than conviction, I think, but the bottom line is, I stuck to it. I hope it counts. Later I skipped Iftar with the John Holmes gang, because I felt myself to be in a bad mood. I regret it slightly, because I like the John Holmes gang. They are normal people who don't make a fuss about being Muslim. The ones who were born Roxanne or Tricia didn't change their names to Zahra or Saleha, and the ones born Salima or Ali were born with those names already. And at the last gathering, nobody talked of the "scientific benefits of fasting," except for the new guy, because I think the John Holmes gang isn't interested in proving that Islam is right. The John Holmes gang just wants to enjoy living, in a thankful sort of way, and not have to be defensive about their beliefs, which are just that -- neutral, harmless beliefs.

Now that I think of it, yesterday's fast was comical, like a devil in a red spandex suit was sitting on my shoulder. I had resolved to complete my fast but began wanting to eat the bacon of a pig. I imagined the smoky, fatty taste of bacon, which people go crazy about. On the food network a long time ago, I had seen Giada deLaurentiis make spaghetti carbonara and it had seemed so delicious. So I watched videos on YouTube of people making carbonara. I sat on the bed while Hooman filled his spreadsheets at his desk, and later made him watch the best of the videos, so that he, too, might learn how to make carbonara. It looked terribly easy: whisk together some cream or creamy cheese with two whole eggs and grated parmesan, cook the pasta as usual, and pour the raw concoction on the piping hot pasta so that the eggy mixture cooks right in your plate. It's a kind of no cooking cooking. Top with parsley and fried bacon, and mix. As if things couldn't get any crazier, I looked at Hooman and said, "What the hell. Let's make this dish. And let's use bacon!"

We did end up making a creamy sauce after all, but with vegetables, not bacon, that I cooked in a crock pot. I burned the vegetables by mistake and then had to fish out the burnt bits and throw them away. But it was just as well that I burnt them, because the smoky flavour went well with the fake carbonara. The dish was just okay, not brilliant, because it's difficult to cook if you can't taste anything. I'm not just saying that because it's Ramadan, but because even on a normal day it would have been impossible to taste the sauce. It's made of raw eggs.