If you have been to dinner before you will know that we always start off with a menu as such but then extra dishes appear from the kitchen as if by magic ......

Baba Ganoush kind of salad - grilled chopped aubergine salad dip - a bit of a salad that thinks it's a dip.

Labneh - this homemade Middle Eastern soft cheese is regularly on the menu served sprinkled with pomegranate seeds, basil and olives.

Persian slow roasted leg of lamb - I love lamb and we will be either slow roasting a leg of lamb with cinnamon, cumin, almonds and apricots - It's in the oven for 10 hours so when I say slow I mean slow.

In the UK we regularly eat hummus cold but in Arabic countries they eat it warm too so tonight we are going to roast a tray of root vegetables and serve them on a bed of warm humus and sprinkled with sunflower seeds for a bit of crunch.

Persian rice - this is a little bit of work, compared to regular white rice, but it is so worth it - the crispy crunchy butter topping is a total delight

Pears poached with cardamom and rosewater - close your eyes, picture a dessert, a Bedouin tent and dive into this delicately fragranced warm pear.

Chocolate and halva brownies served warm with vanilla ice cream and cream.

Tea, coffee of all different varieties with some turkish delight.