Ali Abdullah Al Kaabi has been cooking traditional wood-fire meals for labourers and the less fortunate for seven years, serving up to 900 people on a single day.

Every Ramadan, as the sun dips below the and the call to Maghrib prayer through the streets of Murbah in Fujairah, the aroma of slow-cooked harees and grilled meat drifts from a doorstep that has become a landmark of generosity for hundreds of workers and families in the area.
Ali Abdullah, a self-taught Emirati cook from Murbah, has spent the past seven years transforming the front of his home into an open-air kitchen and a gathering point for labourers, the elderly, and anyone who arrives hungry at his door.

Ramadan prayer timings

What began in 2019 with a single pot of harees has grown into 9 pots,and one of the most quietly remarkable charitable traditions in Fujairah , one that now feeds up to 900 people on a single day.
“I started with just one pot of harees,” Al Kaai said “Then the following year I increased the quantities. Now I sometimes put on two pots of harees alone that is 30 kilograms and rice up to 60, 70, sometimes 100 kilograms. By the end of the night, not a single grain is left.”

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Ali Alkaabi with neighbors, kids helping to distribute Iftar

Kitchen without walls

Al Kaabi does not own a restaurant. He has no commercial kitchen. Yet every Ramadan, the pavement outside his home in Murbah becomes a fully operational cooking station, where towering pots are set over open wood fires a deliberate choice that speaks to both heritage and hospitality.

“Gas is easier, I know that” he said. “But cooking on wood is something old and traditional. The older people who can no longer leave their homes sit and watch the pots and remember. And the rice cooked with wood has a completely different taste. There is no comparison.”

The menu he prepares is a testament to Emirati culinary heritage, including harees, grilled lamb and chicken, meat and chicken stew, liver, and freshly cooked rice.

On any given evening during Ramadan, Al Kaabi and his circle of friends and relatives who volunteer their time and sometimes bring contributions of firewood, meat, and supplies prepare 40 whole chickens in saloona, upwards of 27 to 28 kilograms of lamb, and around 20 kilograms of liver, alongside hundreds of samosas made fresh on-site.

Ali Alkaabi cooking and distributing iftar

From one pot to nine

The scale of the initiative has grown steadily year on year. Al Kaabi noted that had since risen to as many as nine or ten pots on peak nights. On the first Friday of this Ramadan, the crowd that gathered outside his home was so large that it spilled into the surrounding streets, with an estimated 900 people coming to eat.

“The street was blocked,” he said. “We had to have people organise the queue. Some of the older Pakistani workers they are elderly, they cannot stand in line  so we told them to come to us from the inside. We serve them first and send them on their way. It would be wrong to make them wait.”

He is careful to ensure that elderly and vulnerable workers are served without embarrassment, and he extends the same welcome to Emirati citizens who stop by out of curiosity or a desire to taste the traditional food.

Al Kaabi’s initiative is his effort to introduce foreign workers to traditional Emirati dishes they have never encountered before. Harees, the ancient dish of slow-simmered wheat blended with meat and fragrant with the smoke of the wood fire, is unfamiliar to many of the Arab labourers who make up a large portion of his guests.

“Many of the workers have never tasted harees in their lives but they loved it,” he said. “So I cook it now with large quantities of chicken 15 kilograms, 15 whole chickens. I want them to taste it properly."

His generosity does not end with food. After the meal, Al Kaabi sets up a tea and juice station that remains open until well past midnight to anyone who wishes to sit and rest.

A community effort

Al Kaabi is quick to point out that the initiative is not a solitary one. Friends, relatives, and even some of the workers themselves have contributed over the years bringing firewood, donating meat, or simply showing up to help manage the crowds.

One worker, he recalled, arrived early in the initiative’s history carrying a load of firewood on his own initiative, wanting to share in the reward of the act of giving.

“He said he wanted to help,” Al Kaabi said. “He could not speak much Arabic, but he brought the wood. He wanted to be part of it.”

Neighbors and community members from across Fujairah, Sharjah, Alain and other places have also contributed ingredients and supplies, turning what began as a personal act of charity into a collective expression of the Emirati values of generosity, neighborliness, and care for the vulnerable.

Al Kaabi does not seek recognition "I do not need anyone to thank me, praise be to God,” he said. “The reward is with Allah.” He added that the workers are always happy and that is enough.

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