Many people avoid visiting Arab countries during Ramadan. Not me. It’s true that both business and life in general are disrupted because of the strict daily fast but the joy and excitement of the nightly feasts more than make up for the slow pace during that month. And it was in Kuwait, which I used to visit regularly, that I had my most memorable Ramadan feasts. The evenings at the friends I stayed with always started with us gathering in the drawing room to wait for sunset. As soon as the muezzin announced the break of the fast, plates of plump dates and bowls of tahini were brought in. We would each have a few dates dipped in tahini -an unexpected combination- but absolutely perfect. Then there was a pause for evening prayer, before we all moved to the dining room for a lavish meal. My friends had three cooks: one Persian, one Indian and another Lebanese. The Persian cook was in charge of making the Kuwaiti dishes and these were my favourites. He would make gabbut, a Kuwaiti version of ravioli, cooked in a lemony tomato sauce -- the tart flavour imparted by dried limes added to the sauce. Or bardalof, a spectacular rice cake filled with meat and eggs – the rice crisp and golden on the outside and moist and fluffy on the inside. Or m’hammar, a sweet savoury rice served with a local baked fish -- the balance of sweet and savoury was exquisite and the rice worked really well with the slightly spicy fish. After we gorged ourselves on these amazing dishes, we still had space for the sweets, which were prepared by the Lebanese cook. One evening it would be fried qatayef filled with qashtah (clotted cream), another evening it would be owwamat, tiny fried balls of batter dipped in syrup or kellage, very thin sheets of pastry wrapped around a semolina/milk filling, fried and then dipped in syrup. All of them simply heavenly. These nightly feasts had one drawback though. By the time I returned to London, I had inevitably put on a few kilos and I had to do my own post Ramadan fast to get rid of the excess weight. Still, I wouldn’t have missed these feasts for anything in the world, and I just wish that I could find some of these dishes right now in London. Or perhaps someone has a really good recipe for gabbut. If so, can you please post it. I, and I am sure others, would be extremely grateful.