Suq al Waqif Bird Market
As we were heading into the Suq al Waqif for breakfast Saturday morning (Yes! Several of the restaurants are open for breakfast!) we saw a man and his son, both carrying falcons.
AdventureMan joked that they are hired by the administrators to walk around adding local color. We scoffed. Maybe someday, but for right now, these are still real people, with their own falcons. We know because our Kuwaiti visitor stopped them and asked about the falcons. They were so sweet and so delighted to tell us about their birds, and to allow us to photograph them:
There was also a lively bird auction going on:
What we love about the renovated market is that it is still a true market, where real people by daily items for use.
Grossing out the World
I admit it. I failed. I only got 5 out of 11. See how you can do:
http://www.fekids.com/img/kln/flash/DontGrossOutTheWorld.swf Dining Out in the World
Tests your knowledge of eating etiquette around the world. 🙂
Crab Cakes in Doha
We wanted to have a light dinner at home to welcome our house guests, and then take them on a night-tour of Doha. I remembered the wonderful Crab Cakes my friend and her daughter made in Seattle, and I was determined to have . . . well, I knew it wouldn’t be the same, but something LIKE those crab cakes.
So I found the best crab I could buy in Doha, and made up the crab cakes. Wrong crab. Wrong breading – I couldn’t find any panko (I know there is panko in Doha, I just know it, but I couldn’t find it when I was looking for it!) so I whirled up some lime Tostito chips in the food processor and used those.
They were actually pretty good, when I first made them. Not the same, not Pacific Northwest Dungeness Crab, but not bad.
This is four cans of crab meat – you can find the recipe for Crab Cakes by clicking on the blue type; I already printed it back in August or September.
The crushed tostitos weren’t bad for breading, but you only use a little, on the outside, to help them firm up for cooking:
I served them with Plum Sauce, which also wasn’t as good as the fresh home-made plum sauce my friend’s daughter made:
They were OK. If I didn’t know what Pacific Northwest Crab tasted like, fresh out of the ocean and steamed right away, I probably would have thought they were pretty good. I’m not going to make them again here.
Karabaa in Transition
This post is for my friends not here, friends who often accompanied me on trips to Karabaa and all the funky magical shops we would find there. I dropped off the towels at the Mumtaz Tailor to be embroidered, English on one end, Arabic on the other, and while the devastation is no longer so gut-wrenchingly stunning as it was – I guess I am becoming desensitized – I can also see changes.
A lot of the rubble has been carted away. So it makes me wonder, is this what The Pearl is being built on? Is rubble from the old Suq al Waqif and these old buildings along Musherib and Karabaa going to the sea to become reclaimed land? If so, isn’t this going to boggle the minds of archaeologists a couple thousand years from now who are going to find all this stuff jumbled together and try to figure it out?
Yes, yes, it’s true, my mind does wander into trivial areas . . .
From the old parking lot, looking towards Karabaa where the honey man used to be:
To help you know what you are looking at – remember the sign that shows people how to park? It’s still standing – so far 🙂
I wanted you to be able to see just how high the pile of rubble is:
All the rubble that was The Garden is now gone, as if it never was:
OK, now, in the midst of all this noise and demolition, the rubble and the trucks and bulldozers, there is this oasis of serenity. I often see old men sitting outside on those old fashioned built-in-plaster seating areas, or on the bench. Inside, it looks like it might even be a home for old indigents, but sort of palatial, very green, and well kept up. Is there anyone who can tell me what this is?
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
In my book club last year, one of the themes that continued to arise as we read books from many cultures was how we are perceived by the people we hire to help us in our homes. In The White Tiger, a Man Booker Award Winner, the main character lucks into a job working for a family as a driver. We see the people for whom he works from the inside, their sweet acts and all their flaws. We see how callous they can be, and, ultimately, how the driver takes his revenge and becomes his own boss. (Not one of my favorite books, but then again, I’m still thinking about it a year later, so there is something to be said for it.)
In Half of a Yellow Sun we saw an entirely different relationship (in a book I totally loved, BTW) between employer and employee, but it shared with White Tiger the aspect of employer as seen from the eyes of an employee inside the house who sees the family and all its interactions intimately.
The Help, a surprise best seller, does the same to 1960’s era Mississippi. A recent graduate from Ole Miss (University of Mississippi) starts interviewing the maids from local households, any maid that will talk to her. At first, no one will talk with her, but after traumatizing racial clashes, one by one, they share their stories. Just interviewing the maids, just the maids sharing their stories, is enough to bring on serious consequences.
First, the book is riveting. I have a million things I really REALLY need to be doing, and I can’t stop reading. There is something about peeking into your neighbors house, seeing how they behave when they think no one is looking, that appeals to the voyeur in each of us.
Second, these women are taking serious risks. I am on the edge of my chair with each reading, hoping nothing bad happens to them.
Third, there is something that makes you squirm, it is the old “wee giftie” that shows us the worst in ourselves as others might see us; our own hypocrisies, our condescensions, our patronizing acts, how cruel our charitable acts can appear through the eyes of others, and how callous we are in the end towards those who take care of us every day.
It has rocketed onto the best seller list, now the #6 best selling book on Amazon.
If your book club is looking for a book to read that will get you talking and keep you talking for a long time, this is one of the best.
If you have hired help in the house, I double-dog-dare-you to read this book. (OOps, sometimes the little Alaska girl in me pops back out!) Fair warning, though, once you start, you won’t want to put it down.
LOL Cats Really Made Me Laugh
I was such a bad mother. Here’s the problem. Life doesn’t come with instructions. You get faced with new situations, you just have to do the best you can. You might think your parents know a lot, but we are just like you – sometimes we are over our heads.
The first time we moved to Florida, our cats got fleas. The whole house got fleas! We had to give the cats flea-shampoos and we had to flea-proof the house.
Here’s where I was a bad mother. I made our son shampoo the cats. We did it as a team, but he was the one who had to stand in the shower and do the actual shampooing. I was the one who caught the second cat and held her while he shampooed the first cat (it was a walk-in shower with a door that shut, so once inside, the cat couldn’t get out) and then I towel-dried the totally-freaked-out cat while my son shampooed the second cat, etc.
My son – my hero. There is a part of me that still feels guilty for making him to the shampooing. It’s because we didn’t have the chain mail:
see more Lolcats and funny pictures
Spectacular Diamond Find
On my Christmas wish list, LLOOOLLLL!
From BBC News
One of the largest, high quality diamonds discovered to date has been found at a mine in South Africa, mining group Petra Diamonds has revealed.
The 507 carat stone, which could be worth in excess of $20m (£12.5m), was found with three other large diamonds.
They were discovered at the famous Cullinan mine, where the largest diamond in history was found more than 100 years ago.
The new find is being analysed by experts to determine its true value.
A 480 carat diamond found at the end of last year fetched $18m.
“The Cullinan mine has again given the world a spectacularly beautiful and important diamond,” said Petra’s chief executive Johan Dippenaar.
“Initial indications are that it is of exceptional colour and clarity, which suggest extraordinary potential for its polished yield.”
Petra said the stone is one of the 20 biggest, high quality diamonds to have been found.
A 168 carat stone was also discovered, alongside one of 58 carats and another of 53 carats.
The largest diamond to be discovered, named the Cullinan, was 3,106 carats. It was cut into nine separate stones, many of which are in the British Crown Jewels.
BitJockeys Suggestions: Fishermen and Skyline
OK, I made it more panorama by cropping out the excess sky, and I bumped up the saturation a little, and that is about all I can do, other than sepia, which doesn’t look right at all, and some other general effects that don’t enhance.
BTW, do you notice that the Sheraton – that pyramid shape at about 2/3 way across skyline – has just disappeared? It used to be the most striking building on the skyline and now, it disappears.
Slow Saturday; Yousef’s Take in Fisherman Skyline Photo
I LOVE what Yousef did. It’s a slow Saturday, nothing much going on. If you want a crack at this photo, take it. Play with it. Send it back to me, show us what you’ve done. Keep it clean. 🙂
Yousef:
is that a WOW or what?
So . . . I don’t have all these tools. Go for it. The shot is in the Eid morning photos you will find here so have some fun with it.
Amateur Finds Treasure Trove In English Field
I love stories like this one, which I found on National Public Radio where you can read more on this fabulous story. I remember hearing once of a person who thought everything had already been dug-up. . . . wrong! so wrong! There are so many things out there, just waiting to be discovered!
September 24, 2009
A member of a British metal detecting club is being credited with finding the biggest cache of Anglo-Saxon relics ever discovered, experts in England revealed Thursday.
Terry Herbert, 55, stumbled upon more than 1,345 gold and silver artifacts as he walked across a freshly plowed field with his metal detector in Staffordshire in early July. Experts said the number of items could rise to 1,500 when more relics are extracted from 56 mounds of dirt that were also removed from the site.
Herbert told the British newspaper The Independent that finding the historic artifacts was more fun than winning the lottery.
“My mates at the [metal detecting] club always say if there is a gold coin in a field, I will be the one to find it. I dread to think what they’ll say when they hear about this,” he said.
Referred to as the “Staffordshire Hoard,” the find consists mostly of items used in warfare, including 84 pommel caps and 71 sword hilt collars removed from swords and daggers, according to the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery. No sword or dagger blades were found. One expert said the treasures appear to have been a collection of war trophies.
At least two Christian crosses and parts of a helmet were also discovered. The gold items weighed about 11 pounds, and many were engraved with Bible verses or decorated with garnet stones.
Michelle Brown, a professor of medieval manuscript studies, said the style of lettering on many of the relics dates back to the 7th or 8th century, and they are likely to be valued in millions of dollars.
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