FROM THE DEPT OF CULTURE MASH-UPS

According to the Brooklyn paper, local Muslims have a unique tradition for celebrating the three-day Eid al-Fitr festival at the end of Ramadan: Chuck. E. Cheese.

Suited boys and girls in party dresses gobbled up their pizza and scrambled for the video games, rides, and the jungle gym. Colorfully veiled women, speaking dozens of different Arabic dialects, sat in booths surrounding the play area and tried to chat against the drone of music, ringing, and squealing.

The bright lights and video games of this family-friendly pizza chain are not a perfect substitute for the rituals of their homelands. "I have a feeling that Yemen would be better,” said one Muslim-American woman. Still, it provides a nice counterpart to a more saccharine trend, captured in the Dining Section of a recent New York Times, on how the cupcake craze has arrived in the Middle East.

~ ARIEL RAMCHANDANI

Picture Credit: (via Flickr)