Here There and Everywhere

Expat wanderer

Black Friday

Black Friday – the Friday after Thanksgiving – bargain hunters in the USA head to the stores. Some stores opened as early as midnight to attract bargain hunters. Many more open around 5 or 6 in the morning. Most have loss leaders – i.e. specially priced items, maybe even below cost – hoping people will come in looking for the bargains and buy something else.

Not me.

Not in a million years.

I did it one year; we had just come back to the US after living for years on Germany. I needed 110v Christmas lights, so I went to a store at 0530 and stood in line until it opened at 6 and got many packages . . . but not enough. Later in the day I went back to see if there were any of the bargain priced lights left, and there were stacks and stacks of them. I learned my lesson.

We also learned that many things go on sale a couple days before in some stores, or are still on sale and in good supply the following Monday.

I hate lines. I hate competitive shopping. I have seen women grab things out of one another’s hands, I have seen them race down the aisles . . . and I just ask myself “What is this all about?” I have that primitive instinct too, hunting down that elusive bargain, bagging it and getting it home – but at what cost?

Anomaly – while gas prices have dropped back to reasonable rates here, fewer Americans are traveling this year. Normally, Thanksgiving is the holiday with the highest accident rate of all the holidays because of the road traffic, but because Americans are holding tight to their purses this year, fewer are on the road or in the air.

We are packing up today and moving on to the next stop. We will stop and see good friends en route to our destination, have a meal and a good visit with them . . .

yes, yes, thank you, we had a truly wonderful and memorable Thanksgiving, a truly Southern Thanksgiving, with family, with friends, and I will share it with you as soon as I get a card-reader so I can upload to the computer. 🙂 There were three kinds of turkey – a deep fried turkey, a smoked turkey, and turkey breast pieces pan-fried in batter, like chicken nuggets only fresher, and tasty. My favorite was a big bucket of venison stew, one of the hunters had bagged a big buck up in Kentucky.

I don’t believe there was a steamed vegetable or un-sauced vegetable in sight! Lots of gelatins made with sour cream or cream cheese, macaroni and cheese, three or four different kinds of stuffings and sweet on sweet sweet potatoes . . . and then came dessert, oh my. The tables – separate stations for meats, stuffings, vegetables and salads – were groaning, but then again, there were many many people to feed. My Southern husband was in heaven, eating all the foods I don’t know how to make and never dreamed of making.

The very best part of Thankgiving was the visiting. It was like one great big diwaniyya, with people in the kitchen and living room, people way out back shucking oysters and peeling shrimp, loads of ice tea all made up, sweet, unsweet, Splenda, lemondade . . . young people playing football or running around. . . it was a very sweet family day, beautiful weather, you couldn’t order a nicer Thanksgiving, and we were so delighted to be included.

November 28, 2008 Posted by | Cold Drinks, Community, Cooking, Cross Cultural, ExPat Life, Family Issues, Florida, Food, Friends & Friendship, Health Issues, Living Conditions, Relationships, Thanksgiving, Travel | 2 Comments

Pomegranate in Quinoa Pilaf

Hot off the press, from the New York Times:

Quinoa Pilaf With Chick Peas, Pomegranate and Spices

By MARTHA ROSE SHULMAN
Published: November 7, 2008
Considered by many nutritionists to be a superfood, pomegranate juice is loaded with antioxidants and appears to lower blood pressure. This quinoa pilaf is based on a Turkish pilaf that is traditionally made with rice or bulgur.

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

3/4 teaspoon coriander seeds

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1/2 medium onion, chopped

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 cup quinoa, cooked (4 cups cooked quinoa)

1 cup cooked chick peas (canned are fine), rinsed

1/4 cup pomegranate seeds

For garnish (optional):

1 cup thickened yogurt

1 small garlic clove, pureed (optional)

1. Heat a large, heavy frying pan over medium-high heat and add the cumin seeds and coriander seeds. Toast in the pan, stirring or shaking the pan, until they begin to smell fragrant, and transfer to a spice mill. Allow to cool for a few minutes, then pulse to crush or coarsely grind. Set aside.

2. Return the frying pan to medium heat and add 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Add the onion and cook, stirring often, until tender, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and salt, stir together for about half a minute, and stir in the cumin seeds, and coriander seeds. Add the remaining olive oil and stir in the quinoa, chick peas, and 3 tablespoons of the pomegranate seeds. Stir over medium heat to heat through, several minutes. Taste and adjust salt. Transfer to a platter or wide bowl and decorate with the remaining pomegranate seeds. You can also mold the pilaf into 1/2-cup ramekins or timbales and unmold onto the plate, then decorate with pomegranate seeds.

3. Stir the garlic into the thickened yogurt. Serve the pilaf topped with the yogurt.

Yield: Serves 6

Variation: Some people like to drizzle a few drops of lemon juice over the top of this pilaf.

Advance preparation: This can be made a day ahead and reheated.

November 10, 2008 Posted by | Cooking, Food, Health Issues | , | 3 Comments

Blood Spatter and Persephone’s Pomegranates

This morning I was hulling pomegranates. I’m not very good at it, and I was imagining the cooks at someplace like Shebastan could make quick work of what took me quite a while. My hands were thoroughly stitcky, but I had a nice healthy bowl of seeds, which I now know are called Aril, that I will eat like candy, and pop into my morning oatmeal – makes it edible and it tastes like health in a bowl.

Pomegranate - Just look at that beautiful color!

Pomegranate - Just look at that beautiful color!

My very cool Mom bought me my first pomegranate – here in Kuwait, they are called Roman’, which my husband said is because they came in with the Romans, but that seems very strange to me because clearly they are Iranian in origin. It took me forever to dig the seeds out. Now I know to just lightly cut the skin in a few places, tear off a hunk and start separating. I read on Wikipedia that it goes faster in water, the seeds sink and the pulp floats. I’ll have to try that next time.

Pomegranate seeds - again - look at those colors!

Pomegranate seeds - again - look at those colors!

Mom bought me the pomegranate because I was crazy about Greek mythology, and Persephone had to spend six months in hell every year because (it’s a long story, this is just the short version) she had been tempted to eat and she ate just six pomegranate seeds, and so when she was freed from hell she still has to go back for six months and that’s why we have winter (well, I was just a kid and it made sense to me) but I always wondered what a pomegranate would be like.

I’ve loved them ever since. But when I was done, I noticed I had spots and streaks like something out of Dexter all over the walls. I think I have it all cleaned up, but I keep finding places I missed!

But you know how one thing leads to another, and then leads to Wikipedia. I wanted to make sure I got the legend of Persephone right, but instead, I learned that pomegranates have symbolism in all three religions of the book – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Click on the blue type above and you can learn more about Pomegranates. Read below for what Wikipedia tells us about the pomegranate’s symbolism in different religions:

Pomegranates and symbolism

[edit]Judaism
Exodus 28:33–34 directed that images of pomegranates be woven onto the hem of the me’il (“robe of the ephod”), a robe worn by the Hebrew High Priest. 1 Kings 7:13–22 describes pomegranates depicted on the capitals of the two pilars (Jachin and Boaz) which stood in front of the temple King Solomon built in Jerusalem. It is said that Solomon designed his coronet based on the pomegranate’s “crown” (calyx).[31]

Jewish tradition teaches that the pomegranate is a symbol for righteousness, because it is said to have 613 seeds which corresponds with the 613 mitzvot or commandments of the Torah. For this reason and others, many Jews eat pomegranates on Rosh Hashanah. However, the actual number of seeds varies with individual fruits.[32] It is also a symbol of fruitfulness.[33] The pomegranate is one of the few images which appear on ancient coins of Judea as a holy symbol, and today many Torah scrolls are stored while not in use with a pair of decorative hollow silver “pomegranates” (rimmonim) placed over the two upper scroll handles. Some Jewish scholars believe that it was the pomegranate that was the forbidden fruit of the Garden of Eden.[33] Pomegranate is one of the Seven Species (Hebrew: שבעת המינים, Shiv’at Ha-Minim), the types of fruits and grains enumerated in the Hebrew Bible (Deuteronomy 8:8) as being special products of the Land of Israel.

[edit]Christianity
For the same reasons, pomegranates are a motif found in Christian religious decoration. They are often woven into the fabric of vestments and liturgical hangings or wrought in metalwork. Pomegranates figure in many religious paintings by the likes of Sandro Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci, often in the hands of the Virgin Mary or the infant Jesus. The fruit, broken or bursting open, is a symbol of the fullness of his suffering and resurrection.[33] In the Eastern Orthodox Church, pomegranate seeds may be used in kolyva, a dish prepared for memorial services, as a symbol of the sweetness of the heavenly kingdom.

[edit]Islam
According to the Qur’an, pomegranates grow in the gardens of paradise (55:068). According to Islamic tradition, every seed of a pomegranate must be eaten, because one can’t be sure which aril came from paradise. The Prophet Mohammed is said to have encouraged his followers to eat pomegranates to ward off envy and hatred.[33] The Qur’an also mentions (6:99, 6:141) pomegranates twice as examples of good things God creates.

[edit]Greece and Greek mythology
The wild pomegranate did not grow natively in the Aegean area in Neolithic times. It originated in eastern Iran and came to the Aegean world along the same cultural pathways that brought the goddess whom the Anatolians worshipped as Cybele and the Mesopotamians as Ishtar.

The myth of Persephone, the chthonic goddess of the Underworld, also prominently features the pomegranate. In one version of Greek mythology, Persephone was kidnapped by Hades and taken off to live in the underworld as his wife. Her mother, Demeter (goddess of the Harvest), went into mourning for her lost daughter and thus all green things ceased to grow. Zeus, the highest ranking of the Greek gods, could not leave the Earth to die, so he commanded Hades to return Persephone. It was the rule of the Fates that anyone who consumed food or drink in the Underworld was doomed to spend eternity there. Persephone had no food, but Hades tricked her into eating four pomegranate seeds while she was still his prisoner and so, because of this, she was condemned to spend four months in the Underworld every year. During these four months, when Persephone is sitting on the throne of the Underworld next to her husband Hades, her mother Demeter mourns and no longer gives fertility to the earth. This became an ancient Greek explanation for the seasons.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s painting Persephona depicts Persephone holding the fatal fruit. It should be noted that the number of seeds that Persephone ate varies, depending on which version of the story is told. The number of seeds she is said to have eaten ranges from three to seven, which accounts for just one barren season if it is just three or four seeds, or two barren seasons (half the year) if she ate six or seven seeds. There is no set number.

The pomegranate also evoked the presence of the Aegean Triple Goddess who evolved into the Olympian Hera, who is sometimes represented offering the pomegranate, as in the Polykleitos’ cult image of the Argive Heraion (see below). According to Carl A. P. Ruck and Danny Staples, the chambered pomegranate is also a surrogate for the poppy’s narcotic capsule, with its comparable shape and chambered interior.[34] On a Mycenaean seal illustrated in Joseph Campbell’s Occidental Mythology 1964, figure 19, the seated Goddess of the double-headed axe (the labrys) offers three poppy pods in her right hand and supports her breast with her left. She embodies both aspects of the dual goddess, life-giving and death-dealing at once. The Titan Orion was represented as “marrying” Side, a name that in Boeotia means “pomegranate”, thus consecrating the primal hunter to the Goddess. Other Greek dialects call the pomegranate rhoa; its possible connection with the name of the earth goddess Rhea, inexplicable in Greek, proved suggestive for the mythographer Karl Kerenyi, who suggested that the consonance might ultimately derive from a deeper, pre-Indo-European language layer.

Pomegranate — opened up

In the 6th century BC, Polykleitos took ivory and gold to sculpt the seated Argive Hera in her temple. She held a scepter in one hand and offered a pomegranate, like a ‘royal orb’, in the other. “About the pomegranate I must say nothing,” whispered the traveller Pausanias in the 2nd century, “for its story is something of a mystery.” Indeed, in the Orion story we hear that Hera cast pomegranate-Side (an ancient city in Antalya) into dim Erebus — “for daring to rival Hera’s beauty”, which forms the probable point of connection with the older Osiris/Isis story. Since the ancient Egyptians identified the Orion constellation in the sky as Sah the “soul of Osiris”, the identification of this section of the myth seems relatively complete. Hera wears, not a wreath nor a tiara nor a diadem, but clearly the calyx of the pomegranate that has become her serrated crown.

The pomegranate has a calyx shaped like a crown. In Jewish tradition it has been seen as the original “design” for the proper crown.[31] In some artistic depictions, the pomegranate is found in the hand of Mary, mother of Jesus.

In modern times the pomegranate still holds strong symbolic meanings for the Greeks. On important days in the Greek Orthodox calendar, such as the Presentation of the Virgin Mary and on Christmas Day, it is traditional to have at the dinner table “polysporia”, also known by their ancient name “panspermia,” in some regions of Greece. In ancient times they were offered to Demeter[citation needed] and to the other gods for fertile land, for the spirits of the dead and in honor of compassionate Dionysus.

When one buys a new home, it is conventional for a house guest to bring as a first gift a pomegranate, which is placed under/near the ikonostasi (home altar) of the house, as a symbol of abundance, fertility and good luck. Pomegranates are also prominent at Greek weddings and funerals. When Greeks commemorate their dead, they make kollyva as offerings, which consist of boiled wheat, mixed with sugar and decorated with pomegranate. It is also traditional in Greece to break a pomegranate on the ground at weddings and on New Years. Pomegranate decorations for the home are very common in Greece and sold in most homegoods stores.[35]

The photos, by the way, are of Indian pomegranates, but I bought Indian ones, Iranian ones and Egyptian ones; some are great big and very red, some are more orangey-red. These Indian ones are delightfully sweet!

Google can help you find all kinds of pomegranate recipes, but there is actually an organization called Pomegranates.org that lists lots of recipes in one easy location. 🙂 This must be pomegranate season, because they are plentiful, and reasonably priced, and oh, what luxury!

Here is one of their recipes:

Chicken with Pomegranate and Walnuts

2-3/4 pound fryer chicken
2 cups walnuts, finely chopped
3 tablespoons shortening
3-1/2 cups water
1/2 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 cup fresh pomegranate juice
3 teaspoons butter
2 teaspoons tomato sauce
1 teaspoon sugar

Prepare chicken for frying. Saute chicken with poultry seasoning in shortening until light brown, set aside. In a large pot saute the onion in 3 teaspoon butter until golden brown. Add tomato sauce and saute for a few minutes. Add walnuts to the onions and saute over meduim heat about 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Add water, remaining seasonings, lemon juice, and pomegranate syrup. Cover and let cook on low about 35 minutes. Taste the sauce and add sugar if needed. Arrange browned chicken pieces in the sauce, cover and let simmer 20-25 minutes. Serve over white rice.

Serves 6.

November 9, 2008 Posted by | Cooking, Cross Cultural, ExPat Life, Food, Health Issues, Kuwait, Living Conditions | | 15 Comments

Sweet October Morning

Goooooood Morning, Kuwait!

It is a sweet morning, a beautiful morning. You can see almost all the way to the horizon, and the lethal layer that hangs over it is somehow thinner this morning:

One of my favorite places, Weather Underground: Kuwait tells us we have five more days below 100°F coming up and here is what it looks like this morning:

The house still smells of cinnamon and clove and Mom’s Fruit Cakes which I spent all day yesterday chopping, pitting, baking, and wrapping in the crisp Kuwait Autumn weather. 😉 I fell into bed last night around eight, and slept almost straight through until 0600 this morning, an exhausted Qatteri Cat snuggled up between AdventureMan and me. No, no, we don’t eat the fruitcakes yet. You make them around the end of October and you store them, heavily wrapped, in the refrigerator until Thanksgiving (4th Thursday in November) when you are allowed to taste the first one. They mellow as they age in the refrigerator.

In other countries, not Kuwait, you wrap them in cheesecloth soaked in brandy, and you can open them now and then and brush on a little more brandy with a pastry brush. Sigh. I am not much for drinking, but I miss the smell of the brandy soaking into the fruitcakes.

October 20, 2008 Posted by | Cooking, Cross Cultural, ExPat Life, Family Issues, Food, Kuwait, Living Conditions, Social Issues, sunrise series, Weather | 4 Comments

Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving

Tomorrow is the official Canadian Thanksgiving, although our Canadian friends have been partying and dining in splendor throughout the weekend. If you have any Canadian friends, be sure to greet them on their special holiday.

Wikipedia says:
Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day (Canadian French: Action de grâce), is an annual one-day holiday to give thanks to God for the things one has at the close of the harvest season. The holiday is celebrated on the second Monday in October.

While the actual Thanksgiving holiday is on a Monday, Canadians might eat their Thanksgiving meal on any day of the three day weekend. Thanksgiving is often celebrated with family, it is also often a time for weekend getaways for couples to observe the autumn leaves, spend one last weekend at the cottage, or participate in various outdoor activities such as hiking, fishing, and hunting.

I saw several references to the Canadian Thanksgiving deriving from the American Thanksgiving, but Wikipedia says otherwise:

The history of Thanksgiving in Canada goes back to an explorer, Martin Frobisher, who had been trying to find a northern passage to the Orient. In the year 1578, he held a formal ceremony, in what is now the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, to give thanks for surviving the long journey.

This feast is considered by many to be the first Thanksgiving celebration in North America, although celebrating the harvest and giving thanks for a successful bounty of crops had been a long-standing tradition throughout North America by various First Nations and Native American groups. First Nations and Native Americans throughout the Americas, including the Pueblo, Cherokee, Cree and many others organized harvest festivals, ceremonial dances, and other celebrations of thanks for centuries before the arrival of Europeans in North America [2]. Frobisher was later knighted and had an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean in northern Canada named after him — Frobisher Bay.

At the same time, French settlers, having crossed the ocean and arrived in Canada with explorer Samuel de Champlain, also held huge feasts of thanks. They even formed ‘The Order of Good Cheer’ and gladly shared their food with their First Nations neighbours.

The centerpiece of the Canadian Thanksgiving is the turkey and stuffing, surrounded by dishes made of root vegetables and gourds – beets, turnips, pumpkin, squashes, etc.

Those Canadians with French roots add special dishes to the mix:

Tortiere (a fabulous meat pie)

Maple Syrup Pie

I grabbed these photos from a fabulous Quebec blogger page where she has included recipes for the above, and for many other Canadian specialties. I wish One Whole Clove were still blogging. In the meanwhile, visit her pages for some delicious and out-of-the-ordinary delights.

Wishing all of our Canadian friends a delicious and delightful Thanksgiving, with many many blessings for which to be thankful, and for an abundant year to come.

October 12, 2008 Posted by | Community, Cooking, Events, ExPat Life, Family Issues, Food, Friends & Friendship, Holiday, Thanksgiving | , | 7 Comments

Northpole Goodies

In an e-mail I received this week, a friend had a loooonnnnggggg list of Candy and Cookie recipes for the upcoming Christmas season. Purely out of curiousity, I clicked a few – and wow. These recipes are quick, delicious, and easy.

I don’t think there is a nutritious recipe in the whole website! All the recipes are for sweets! Here is just a partial selection from the Pies department:

I admit it, I am not that vulnerable to candy, but chocolate truffles are my downfall – and I am going to have to try their chocolate truffle recipe!

Here is the website: North Pole Kitchen Cookbook.

Have fun!

October 12, 2008 Posted by | Arts & Handicrafts, Chocolate, Christmas, Cooking, Food | 7 Comments

Joanna Brady and Tumbleweeds

I have a lot going on right now, and that is when I turn to books, I don’t know why. The more scheduled I am, the more important it is that I have fairly lightweight reading. My favorite genre is mystery, and there are a number of authors I follow, some more important than others.

I was reading the lastest Joanna Brady mystery, Dead Wrong, by Seattle author J.A. Jance. Joanna Brady became Police Chief in the small (fictional) Arizona town of Bisbee when her husband, then the police chief, was killed and she was asked to fill his position. Since then (several books) she has been elected and re-elected, and solved a lot of crimes, and re-married.

Now, in Dead Wrong, she is heavily pregnant, trying to solve a tricky murder that involves a puppy breeding mill and dog fighting ring.

“We have to go to Tumbleweeds tonight!” I call out to AdventureMan. “Joanna Brady is pregnant and she can’t eat creme brulee, but she dives right into tacos and enchiladas! Now I am starving for Mexican food!”

AdventureMan just laughs, he is always ready for Mexican food.

So just after sunset, we are king of the road, and we drive to Tumbleweeds.

I would love to say something nice about Tumbleweeds.

The service was slow. The servers were poorly trained. The food was SO mediocre. The chips were thick, and cold, and you could see fat congealed on them. The salsa was dull. The burritos and tacos were bland. No wonder we go there so rarely.

September 23, 2008 Posted by | Books, Cooking, Customer Service, Eating Out, ExPat Life, Fiction, Food, Kuwait, Living Conditions | 3 Comments

Cool Whip Fruit Pies

With a September Ramadan, all heat and humidity in Kuwait, I thought I would share one of my early-married recipes that I often served while living in Tunisia and Jordan, entertaining without air conditioning. 🙂 These fruit pies are light and airy, and best of all – really really easy to make!

This recipe is straight from Kraft:

2/3 cup boiling water
1 pkg. (4-serving size) JELL-O Strawberry Flavor Gelatin
Ice cubes
1/2 cup cold water
1 tub (8 oz.) COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, thawed
1 HONEY MAID Graham Pie Crust (6 oz.)

STIR boiling water into dry gelatin mix in large bowl at least 2 min. until completely dissolved. Add enough ice to cold water to measure 1 cup. Add to gelatin; stir until slightly thickened. Remove any unmelted ice. Add whipped topping; stir with wire whisk until well blended. Refrigerate 15 to 20 min. or until mixture is thick enough to mound.

SPOON into crust.

REFRIGERATE at least 4 hours or until firm. Store leftovers in refrigerator.

You will notice that there isn’t much in that recipe that is real food. The water, maybe!

I make it a little differently. You can choose any flavor of gelatin, but preferably one like raspberry or strawberry or peach where you can also find the fresh fruit.

REAL FRUIT COOL WHIP PIE

2/3 cup boiling water
1 pkg. (4-serving size) JELL-O Fruit Flavor Gelatin
1 cup crushed fresh or frozen fruit to match or complement the flavor of the fruit gelatine
1 tub (8 oz.) COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, thawed (actually, in Tunis I used real whipped cream!)
1 HONEY MAID Graham Pie Crust (6 oz.)

(Right now they have prepared crusts in the Sultan Center! Yes! They do! If they don’t have any left when you go looking, however, here is how to do one yourself. It is SO easy.

Make your own crust:
Buy a small package of digestive biscuits (that’s mostly what you will find in the Co-ops) or use one wax paper wrapped size package of Graham crackers. Crush them (it is quick and easy in a food processor) and add 2 or three tablespoons of melted butter. If you want to add a little something extra, put in a pinch of cinnamon or ground nutmeg)

Make your fruit pie:
STIR boiling water into dry gelatin mix in large bowl at least 2 min. until completely dissolved. Add 1 cup fresh or frozen fruit, mashed into small pieces. Add to gelatin; place in refrigerator until slightly thickened. Add whipped topping; stir with wire whisk until well blended. Refrigerate 15 to 20 min. or until mixture is thick enough to mound.

SPOON into crust.

REFRIGERATE at least 4 hours or until firm. Store leftovers in refrigerator.

(hahahahaha! There won’t be any leftovers!)

You can find more complicated – and delicious – recipes for Cool Whip Pies by clicking on the blue type. Bon appetit!

September 4, 2008 Posted by | Cooking, ExPat Life, Kuwait, Living Conditions, Recipes | 6 Comments

Teriyaki Flank Steak

I keep meaning to post some food photos for Puratory but the problem is we get everything on the table and we start eating. Mariner Man has been the best at documenting our meals; I only think to take a photo too late, and the camera is far away.

Finally, I remembered, just in time for Teriyaki Flank Steak, my Mother’s speciality that everyone loves. She bought three huge flank steaks, put them into plastic bags with the marinade and froze them. They thawed as we drove to the beach, and were ready for the grill when we got there:

Here is my Mother’s marinade recipe for Flank Steak:

Teriyaki Flank Steak Marinade

Most recipes will tell you to marinate a flank steak for an hour – we thing overnight is even better. Sometimes two or three nights, or marinate it in a plastic bag and freeze until needed:

(per 1 – 2 lbs flank steak)

1 cup soy sauce
1 cup sake or sherry (optional)
1 cup pineapple juice (use two if you don’t use wine or sake)
1/4 cup olive oil
1 Tbs sugar
1 large chopped onion
2 cloves finely chopped garlic
1 t. shredded fresh ginger

Grill flank steak until there is no red in the middle; some people like no pink in the middle. Slice thinly against the grain and serve.

Here is a platter of the finished flank steak:

August 5, 2008 Posted by | Cooking, ExPat Life, Family Issues, Food, Living Conditions, Recipes, Uncategorized | 6 Comments

Down the Drain

As I was wandering through the Co-op (Jamiya) the other day, picking up a few basics, I came across something not-so-basic – a bottle of alcohol-free Merlot.

I was making spaghetti sauce – and here is the truth as I see it – almost any sauce is improved by the addition of a little wine. And this is alcohol-free! I can serve it to my Islamic dinner guests.

The sauce was superb, even if it is me saying it about myself. Just a basic meat sauce, but with the fresh basil from our friend’s prolific garden, and the cup of Merlot – sublime.

That was a week ago. Today, I went to use the Merlot in another sauce and HORRORS! Look at that!

Can you see that? That great big spot of MOLD growing on the Merlot-drink-that-does-not-contain-alcohol???

I had to throw it all out. I don’t take chances on making people sick from food bourn illnesses, not even myself. And while AdventureMan and I are generous in our nature, we are frugal in our private lives, and throwing nearly $16 literally down the drain horrifies me! Maybe it was the humidity – my bread also went green very quickly – or maybe it is the non-alcohol that allowed it to mold so quickly. I don’t know. I don’t think I will be buying another bottle of Merlot here in Kuwait any time soon.

July 26, 2008 Posted by | Cooking, Cross Cultural, ExPat Life, Food, Health Issues, Kuwait, Living Conditions, Shopping | 4 Comments