Beautiful Flower’s Crab Cakes
Sometimes, the absolute best day happens and you had no idea it was going to happen – you didn’t plan for it to happen, it just sort of came about.
One of my two very good friends in Seattle is Beautiful Flower. We don’t call her that, but that is what her legal name means. After having lunch together in Ivar’s, a place we have haunted for years, we visited with my Mom and then she said she wanted us to go back to her house and make crab cakes. She and her husband had the good fortune to have caught their limit in nice fat crabs this last weekend.
I knew she was having guests from out-of-town, and I am a pretty good crab picker, so I said yes, besides, she has a new recipe from her daughter for crab cakes, and she says it is almost entirely crab, and it is a really good recipe, you can really taste the crab. Oh YUM.
So we put our aprons on and she put down a huge black plastic bag (if you’ve ever cleaned crabs, you know it is very messy work) and got out the hammer and the crab-crackers and the crab picks and away we went. She had four good sized crab – and it didn’t even take us half an hour to clean those beauties, giving us more than a pound of sweet, delicious fresh crab meat. We were talking so much we didn’t even notice how hard we were working!
Her daughter arrived, and they started putting together the crab cakes – just wrapping the crab mixture in panko, the Japanese break crumb coating.
We had a lengthy discussion about the right way to fry crab cakes – Beautiful Flower uses olive oil, but her daughter prefers straight butter. I love the taste of butter, but use mostly olive oil with just a pat of butter for the flavor. I think she used a mix, but we were all talking so fast I didn’t really pay attention as I should.
As my friend was frying up the crab cakes, she was telling us that she and her next two sisters all had names that started with “beautiful” but that when the fourth sister came along, her mother named her “too many girls!” Fortunately, the nurse at the hospital writing down the name wrote down “Proud girl” instead of “Too many girls” (they sound sort of alike if you aren’t listening too carefully).
My friend also told us she went to visit her mother in the hospital with her grandmother, her father’s father. When her grandmother discovered that her mother had another daughter, she was so mad she left my friend – 6 years old – and didn’t even visit her mother!
My friend, 6 years old, had to try to find her mother in the hospital and give her the food they had brought. But it was the middle of winter, and the nurses had covered up all the new mothers, from head to toe, so my friend couldn’t find her mother! Finally, somehow she found her and fed her, and then – at 6 years old – she had to walk 5 miles back to her house alone, because her grandmother had left her there! She said she didn’t talk to her grandmother for a long time.
Her daughter had never heard that story, had heard her mother’s sisters call the one sister “Lo Moi”, but didn’t know that it meant “too many girls!” The family still call the youngest sister “Too Many Girls” even though her legal name was Proud Girl.
See what I would have missed if we weren’t making crab cakes?!
Beautiful Flower’s Daughter’s Recipe for Really Good Crab Cakes
1 lb crab meat
2 Tablespoons + 2 Teaspoons chopped fresh chives (or green onions)
2 Tablespoons + 2 Teaspoons chopped fresh dill
2 Tablespoons finely grated lemon zest
salt pepper (we left it out because crab is naturally salty)
1/2 cup panko
Shape crab into patty, roll in panko, place on cookie sheet until ready to fry. Fry in lightly oiled/buttered pan until golden brown. Eat!
Crab cakes served with Beautiful Flower’s Daughter’s Homemade Plum Sauce:
(When I called my friend this morning to thank her for the wonderful time, I told her that I had a crab cake for breakfast, and they are as good cold as they are hot and she laughed and said she was having a crab cake for breakfast, too. What sheer luxury! Crabcake for breakfast! 🙂 )
Another Layer of Glitz for the LuLu in Doha
Here is one thing to LOVE about Ramadan (for non-Muslims). If you wait until all those who are fasting have finished rushing home to break bread (actually water and some dates are the traditional and best way to break the fast and raise the blood sugar levels gently), while they are enjoying Ftoor – the breaking of the fast – the roads are OURS! We are KING OF THE ROAD!
And the restaurants, and the Malls are empty! You can get anywhere in Doha in minutes! And, really, minutes, maybe even an hour, is all you have before the night roads start to get really really busy with people making Ramadan calls on one another, heading to the mosque for evening prayers, taking Mom and sisters to the Malls to check out the Ramadan sales, etc.
As we were heading down D-ring, AdventureMan – and you have to know, this is why we have been married for 36 years, we share the same sense of what is important – AdventureMan says “Look at the LULU!” and I look, and I am instantly busy digging out my camera while AdventureMan is saying “You’ll have to be quick, you’ll have to be QUICK! I don’t know if I can find a parking spot and I can’t slow down too much without getting hit in the rear!!”
(Honestly, when they put up an extra layer of glitz on the already neon-tarted LuLu, they owe it to their neighborhood to put in a photography lane for all the gawkers like us!)
The LuLu is one of our favorite places. When our guests come – especially from Europe – they love that the LuLu has all these exotic soaps from India, fresh fresh pistacio nuts, fresh walnuts, spices and spice mixtures they have never heard of (of which they have never heard, 1001 🙂 ), and upstairs, Arabic school notebooks, and a fabulous sari shop, and . . . well you just never know what. Our European friends also like the prices at the LuLu. When we take them at night, it is all lit up in Red, Green and Gold NEON, it shines so bright you can see it from the sky when you take off, if you take off in the right direction and if you are seated on the right side of the plane. 😉
But ANOTHER layer or neon? The LuLu has really gone to town!
I clicked away as AdventureMan shouted “Hurry! Hurry!” No time to focus, just click, click, click and hope that one or two will show up.
A LuLu, for our non-Arabic speaking friends, is a beautiful perfect pearl, and some of our friends call their daughter LuLu, a nickname, not her real name.
(With special thanks to AdventureMan, who made this post possible. 🙂 )
Apartment Building Coming Down
Expats have their own shorthand, we understand one another when we talk about Doha, although the locals would not have a clue what we are talking about. So I will tell you that this apartment building was newly built at-the-end-of-Indian-Crafts-Street, you know, where the Christmas shop is – and those expats who have lived in Doha for a while will know exactly where that is.
They never even put the glass windows and balcony doors in – at some point, they must have gotten word that all this will come down for the new Dohaland, or Heart of Doha – a revival of the historical district of Qatar.
I won’t complain. I love what they did for the Suq al Waqif, which has been reinvigorated by the new life injected with the restauraunts and cafes. The same shops line the interiors, only now they have more and varied customers.
it just seems like there might be more co-ordination. This apartment building should not have even been started. I hate waste.
Doha Ramadan Frenzy
As my friend Grammy and I wandered through the back streets of Suq al Wa’ef 😉 yesterday, we came across this frenzied scene, all the machines humming, and new dresses for Ramadan being made. I asked if I could take a photo – I think it puzzles them that I would want to, but I loved watching them stitch away:
Qatar Murals
You know how I love public art. I especially loved, in Kuwait, how all the power stations had scenes of dhows, and majaalis, and lanterns – Kuwait things. In Doha, there is a long wall – I think it might be around a power station, but I am not sure.
Yesterday AdventureMan had to take a phone call and – probably because I was in the car – pulled over to take it. We were right across from the wall, which I have been dying to photograph but never could because we were always zipping right by and there was a lot of traffic.
Fridays are quiet. It was during Friday prayers, perfect. Here are some photos:
This one is my favorite. I know the boat is carrying gas, but don’t they look like huge, giant pearls? And then look to the left, to the reference to the giant oyster on the Corniche with the gigantic pearl:
John Lockerbie, Catnaps and Islamic / Arabic Design
One of the reasons I love going to museums over and over again is because I can only absorb so much at one time. Every time I see an exhibit, I learn something new. The next time I go to the Doha Islamic Museum I am going to go by myself, get the headsets, and get an overview. It will be my seventh trip to the museum. I am ready to go a little deeper.
You know you have read a good book – even if you didn’t like it when you read it – when your mind keeps going back there, time after time, mulling over questions, thinking of alternative endings, thinking even about what you didn’t like – a book that troubles you enough to make you THINK is a good book.
John Lockerbie’s website, Catnaps does the same thing for me. As I drive around Kuwait and Doha, I see things and get the great “aha” because I have read articles he writes about Islamic / Arabic houses, their origins, how the earliest houses were constructed, problems with modern constructions. I can’t absorb it all at once, so I visit again and again. I look for window shadings, and I look for air conditioning. Because of his website, I am more aware when I take in the architecture.
Here, for example, is a relatively new building, but look what they did for air conditioning. I was in the building next door; the offices are air conditioned but the hall is hot and breathless.
As I went to the site today to get the reference, I got lost once again in the boat section. Now, I do know my shuw’i from my booms! I’m still working on the others. The very cool thing is John Lockerbie is always learning new stuff, too, and often updates what he has written, so there is always something new to learn on this site.
Don’t try to take it in all at once. Go often to visit and peruse. There is so much there that will enrich your stay in the Gulf if you understand a little more about what you are seeing.
Mr. Lockerbie used one of my photos to show a shaded garden. I haven’t the heart to tell him that the very next week they came and took off the tops of all my trees so the lawn would grow, but now my garden has harsh sunlight like the rest of Doha. The trees grow really fast – several feet per year – so it won’t be long before I have some shade once again.
More Doha Museum of Islamic Arts Photos
I have been so blessed. Since I moved back to Doha, five sets of visitors have come – in a mere eight weeks. My most recent guests were the most fun kind – they loved everything I love, especially the Souq al Waqif and the Doha Museum of Islamic Art. Even though we had a dust storm their entire visit, we laughed and had a wonderful visit.
I got to re-visit my Iznic pieces, most of these centuries old:
And last, but not Iznik, a showstopper necklace that just knocks my socks off every time I see it.
Those large chunks of rock? Real emeralds, the size of pebbles. Real diamonds, the size of ice cubes. Real pearls, a little wobbly, some of them, but they add such gloss and character. What red blooded woman wouldn’t love this piece?
The Museum, on Saturday, had many groups – closely-dropped Americans from the military base, black abaya’d school girls, a grouup of one mixed – maybe a religious family group, visiting particular exhibits of religious interest – and the Museum welcomed so many visitors and absorbed them without us feeling the least bit crowded. . . well, maybe once when we watched a group of about 40 enter one very large elevator. We chose to take the next elevator, which we had entirely to ourselves.
It was never noisy – the water from the fountain tamps down the sound. Even the normally intrusive ringing of the security guard phones was stilled during the afternoon visit. Pity the Book of Secrets exhibit is now closed.
Every time I go to this museum, I am awed by the beauty, the expense, the spaciousness – and in amazement that this beautiful facility is a gift to the people – there is no charge for admission. I just really really wish they would put in a coffee shop!
It was another delightful day at the DMIA. 🙂
Doha Museum of Islamic Art, Take 4
I can’t let friends or family come to Doha without a trip to the serene beauty of the Doha Museum of Islamic Art. Little Diamond was content to view the exhibits at her own speed, so I visited a few of my favorite friends:
I never tire of spending time with Iznik Tiles
There is an Iranian piece that bowls me over with its beauty
And I just have this thing for light fixtures. This is a mosque lamp, and I think it is Turkish
But oh, look at the interior of the museum itself:
There is a breathtaking view of the Corniche Skyline from the spot where, on the map, they say the coffee shop should be. It really needs a coffee shop there. The restrooms are immaculate, the gift shop has lovely items, the exhibits are lush and beautiful, but you need a place to sit and think about what you’ve seen, compare notes, recharge so you can go back and take another look at something you are wondering about. It really, really needs that coffee shop.
More Doha by Dusk
It’s my favorite time of day, when the sun is setting and the long rays of light bring out colors and hues you don’t see in the harsh, pitiless light of the daylight sun. It is also poignantly transient; you have to shoot fast, and even as you shoot, the light is changing and fading:
Here, the fishermen are more intuited than seen:
The light is almost gone. The Doha Museum of Islamic Art seems to be smiling over the assembled dhows:
The Doha Mumtaz Tailor
As a last resort, we head to the Mumtaz tailor to see if he knows where we might find the exact fabric for Little Diamond’s pants. No, says the Mumtaz Tailor, but actually he saw a lot of it just a couple years ago, but it is all gone now.
This tiny little shop, just off Karabaa, is probably not one you would go into if someone hadn’t taken you there.
One of my stitch-group buddies took me on a Doha tour just before she was leaving, took me to all the tiny shops you would never know about if a good friend didn’t take you there. The Mumtaz Tailor is a gold mine. If anyone has just the buttons you need, that zipper in an unusual shade, the lining to go under the cut out brocade – he’s got it, or he knows who does. He also has all the tools-of-the-trade that people who quilt or sew need – good scissors, measuring tapes, embroidery threads, hoops, a whole host of things you don’t even know what they are until you need them. The Mumtaz Tailor has them, tucked inside his fairly small shop, from floor to ceiling, and he knows where they are.
One year, I bought about twenty hajj towels, the very large, thirsty cotton white towels available here in sets of two for men making the hajj to Mecca. I took them to the Mumtaz tailor and he embroidered my family member’s names in English on one end and in Arabic on the other end and I even got to choose the colors. It was the hit of Christmas; a totally unique gift from Doha.
Although he didn’t have the fabric we sought, the minute we walked in I spied a bolt of the only batik fabric I have ever seen in Doha. Six years ago, I bought several meters of this and I have been looking for it ever since, with no success. I bought five more meters. Wooo HOOOOO!
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