Another Adventure in Arabic
Pressed for time and more than a little desperate, I ran a quick brush through my tangled hair and threw on something that would pass for modest and made a run for the local co-op, desperately hoping they would have what I needed and I would not have to make a much longer trip to the Sultan Center.
Making a quick check in all the obvious places, I don’t see it. I NEED for it to be there, so I make a careful and methodical sweep, analyzing for anything that might be what I am looking for. No such luck.
Three co-op workers are in the aisle where I am looking, so one asks if they might help me. And I am betting they don’t speak English. I can figure out how to ask for almost all of it, and I grab a can and figure out a work-around.
“Ana ashuf al sukre al . . . “(and I point to a word on the can.)
“Aaaaahhhhh!” Beams one man. “BOWDER! Bowder sukre!”
Ah yes, of course. Why didn’t I think of that? Bowder sukre.
“Sah!” I agree.
“Aeyyn al bowder sukre?” he asks his co-worker, who steps immediately to the shelf I was just minutely examining, and pulls off a small bag of exactly what I need. The bags are on the shelf piled high, shelf to shelf, with only the bottom ends showing, right next to similar bags of powdered coconut. Next time I will know.
(It looks to me like there is another word for powder, starting with an “m”; anyone want to help me out?)
Gazpacho
Quick and easy, blender Gazpacho hits the spot as temperatures rise . . .
It’s hitting over 100 degrees fahrenheit in Kuwait this week, and it’s time to make up your first batch of heat-quenching Gazpacho. Not only does it taste good – it has relatively few calories, and lots of vitamins and minerals. It is also very filling for those who are trying to watch their weight.
It was a steamy hot day in Washington DC the first time I saw this made or tasted it, and the heat serves as a condiment, underlining the cool, refreshing, healthy taste of this all-time favorite cold soup. So tasty, and so so EASY!
Beth’s Gazpacho
1 large clove garlic
1 peeled onion
2 cucumbers
2 tomatoes
1/2 large green pepper
1 can condensed consomme
1/4 cup wine vinegar (red vinegar in Kuwait)
1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 teaspoon tabasco
1 teaspoon salt
Fresh, coarsely ground black pepper
2 8 ounce cans of tomato sauce (small packets in Kuwait)
Cut garllic and rub inside of chilled pottery or glass bowl. then crush garlic and put in bowl. Add consomme and tomato sauce. Chop 1/2 onion and 1 tomato and puree in blender with some of tomato – consomme mixture. Pour all into bowl and add other ingredients except vegetables.
(I actually add all the vegetables to the blender and blend to get a thick soup, but I am giving you the original recipe above. I also add some fresh Kuwaiti cilantro – maybe 2 tablespoons)
Chop remaining vegetables as garnish. You can also garnish with some garlic croutons and a dollop of sour cream.
On a hot day, this thick soup can be a meal in itself, with a loaf of French bread or a mezze or two, or you can serve it in smaller portions as an appetizer.
Gazpacho photo courtesy of fotosearch.com.
Oxo Salad Spinner
The first time I ever used the Oxo Salad Spinner in Kuwait, I became a fan. Do you ever buy the Kuwaiti Salad Greens at the Sultan Market? I hope you wash them before you use them!
The Oxo Salad Spinner has three parts; an outer bowl, and inner bowl like a seive, and a top that you press on and it makes the inner bowl spin very very fast inside the outer bowl, and the centripetal force makes all the water fly off the leaves and fall to the bottom of the bowl. So you can just lift out the inner bowl and empty the water out.
No electricity needed, it is entirely mechanical, and so well engineered that the bowl will spin on and on and on unless you stop it.
Before I spin the salad, I put all the salad greens in the inner bowl, put the inner bowl in the outer bowl and run cold water over the greens until the bowl is full. I leave it a couple minutes, then pull the inner bowl out, and empty the water from the outer bowl. The water is BROWN with dirt! I put the inner bowl in the outer bowl and rinse again, and again, until the water comes clear. Then, and only then, do I spin the lettuce/greens dry.
After emptying the spin-off water, I can actually put the spinner in the refrigerator, with the greens inside, or I can transfer them to another bowl or sack. They don’t last too long in our salad-eating house.
This is what the Oxo Salad Spinner looks like:
The part sticking out can be locked in the down position for storage. There is also a button that stops the salad spinner’s spinning motion, otherwise it takes a long time for the spinner to slow and stop.
If you are a reader who does not live in Kuwait, but who buys from local markets or farmer’s markets, you will still find this honey incredibly handy.
You can find the salad spinner by Oxo at Amazon.com for $24.95 plus shipping.
The Best Tomato Salad
The best tomato salad starts with my friends’ home-garden-grown Kuwaiti tomatoes, little tiny cherry ones, that we cut in half. We mix up some of the best olive oil and balsamic vinegar, we cut some fresh basil leaves from their garden and chop them and throw them in.
Then we add cubes of this:
We grind fresh salt and fresh pepper, add the dressing, and oh! It is almost a meal in itself. Perfect with “sheem” and rice and zucchini. Coffee in the garden, while the nights are still so moderate and pleasant.
If there is someone making fresh mozarella in Kuwait, I haven’t been able to find him/her. This is about as close as I have been able to come. It is horrifyingly expensive, and worth every fil. You find it at the Sultan Center, in the dairy section.
Andy’s Flour Power
Breakfast in Panama City Beach is a treat – there are so many places from which to choose! But we found ourselves going back, again and again, to Andy’s Flower Power, a locally owned and operated bakery/restaurant, only open for breakfast and lunch on Panama City Beach, in Florida.
The place is packed. No matter when you get there, you need to get to the front of the line just to get your name on the waiting list. The good news is that the crowd moves in and out fairly quickly.
They specialize in wonderful baked goods, omelettes and waffles made fresh as you wait. Service is fast and friendly, the atmosphere congenial. This is where the locals come to eat and greet one another.
The food is delicious. I have had the custom omelette, with my choices – spinach, swiss cheese and bacon, and the vegetable fritatta, which is to die for, made with marinated and grilled fresh veggies, including asparagus and eggplant.
The decor is lively, fresh and smart:
Breakfast at the Scenic Diner
We love places like the Scenic 90 Diner, in Pensacola, Florida, where local people go to meet and exchange news and gossip and to “chew the fat”. This diner was no exception. They had great breakfast foods – the $3.99 Scenic Special had two eggs, any way you like them, grits or fried potatoes, toast or biscuit, and you could add bacon or sausage for just a little more. They also had a fruit bowl and a granola/yoghurt special for the tennis Moms, but it looked to me like most of them were having the eggs special, too.
The outside looks like an old fashioned (but very modern and upscale) diner:
The interior was equally stylish:
And here were some friendly locals, willing to have their photos taken. They had never heard of “blogs” before:
You can see some of the black and white photos the owner has used to decorate the diner in the background. The food was excellent, individually prepared, the service was also good, and the entire experience reminded us of how good it is to have places in communities where people can gather or even just run into one another to catch up on local news. Prices were reasonable, although not as inexpensive as the chains – Denny’s, Waffle House, etc. We also really like it when the police are a part of the community, and not someone to be afraid of. The Scenic 90 Diner also serves lunch and dinner.
Scalloped Potatoes
This is a very old fashioned American dish, made as many ways as there are Americans.
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Wash and peel 6 medium potatoes and bake for one hour. Leave oven on! Allow potatoes to cool, and grate them into a large bowl.
1/4 cup green onions sliced thinly
3 Tablespoons flour
1 Teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated pepper
1/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cup milk
1 cup sour cream
2 cups sharp cheddar cheese
Grease a 2 quart casserole. Spread 1/4 of the potatoes on the bottom of the casserole, and sprinkle with 1/3 of the sliced green onion, 1 Tbsp flour, 1/4 teaspoon salt, dash of pepper, 1 Tablespoon butter, and 1/2 cup cheddar cheese. Repeat two more layers, finishing with the last layer of potato on top, covered by the last 1/2 cup of cheddar cheese.
Heat milk just to scalding, add sour cream, stir well and pour over potato mixture. Cover, pop in the heated oven and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover, and cook an additional 30 minutes. Let stand 5 – 10 minutes before serving. Serves 4 – 6 people.
The photo is courtesy of Fotosearch.
April Fool’s Craziness
When I was a little girl, April Fool’s Day was both a lot of fun, and a day to Watch Out! One year, my mother made eggs for breakfast, but she had put cotton balls in the egg, so they were chewy and didn’t break down. We caught on as she dissolved into a puddle of laughter in the kitchen.
The Museum of Hoaxes has published a list of the top 100 April Fool’s hoaxes, ever. These are the top 10, but you can click on the blue letters above to read the rest.
#1: The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest
In 1957 the respected BBC news show Panorama announced that thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. It accompanied this announcement with footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees. Huge numbers of viewers were taken in, and many called up wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti trees. To this question, the BBC diplomatically replied that they should “place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.” Check out the actual broadcast archived on the BBC’s website (You need the RealVideo player installed to see it, and it usually loads very slowly).
#2: Sidd Finch
In its April 1985 edition, Sports Illustrated published a story about a new rookie pitcher who planned to play for the Mets. His name was Sidd Finch and he could reportedly throw a baseball with startling, pinpoint accuracy at 168 mph (65 mph faster than anyone else has ever been able to throw a ball). Surprisingly, Sidd Finch had never even played the game before. Instead, he had mastered the “art of the pitch” in a Tibetan monastery under the guidance of the “great poet-saint Lama Milaraspa.” Mets fans everywhere celebrated at their teams’s amazing luck at having found such a gifted player, and Sports Illustrated was flooded with requests for more information. But in reality this legendary player only existed in the imagination of the writer of the article, George Plimpton.
#3: Instant Color TV
In 1962 there was only one tv channel in Sweden, and it broadcast in black and white. The station’s technical expert, Kjell Stensson, appeared on the news to announce that thanks to a newly developed technology, all viewers could now quickly and easily convert their existing sets to display color reception. All they had to do was pull a nylon stocking over their tv screen, and they would begin to see their favorite shows in color. Stensson then proceeded to demonstrate the process. Reportedly, hundreds of thousands of people, out of the population of seven million, were taken in. Actual color tv transmission only commenced in Sweden on April 1, 1970.
#4: The Taco Liberty Bell
In 1996 the Taco Bell Corporation announced that it had bought the Liberty Bell from the federal government and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. Hundreds of outraged citizens called up the National Historic Park in Philadelphia where the bell is housed to express their anger. Their nerves were only calmed when Taco Bell revealed that it was all a practical joke a few hours later. The best line inspired by the affair came when White House press secretary Mike McCurry was asked about the sale, and he responded that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold, though to a different corporation, and would now be known as the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial.
#5: San Serriffe
In 1977 the British newspaper The Guardian published a special seven-page supplement in honor of the tenth anniversary of San Serriffe, a small republic located in the Indian Ocean consisting of several semi-colon-shaped islands. A series of articles affectionately described the geography and culture of this obscure nation. Its two main islands were named Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse. Its capital was Bodoni, and its leader was General Pica. The Guardian’s phones rang all day as readers sought more information about the idyllic holiday spot. Few noticed that everything about the island was named after printer’s terminology. The success of this hoax is widely credited with launching the enthusiasm for April Foolery that then gripped the British tabloids in the following decades.
#6: Nixon for President
In 1992 National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation program announced that Richard Nixon, in a surprise move, was running for President again. His new campaign slogan was, “I didn’t do anything wrong, and I won’t do it again.” Accompanying this announcement were audio clips of Nixon delivering his candidacy speech. Listeners responded viscerally to the announcement, flooding the show with calls expressing shock and outrage. Only during the second half of the show did the host John Hockenberry reveal that the announcement was a practical joke. Nixon’s voice was impersonated by comedian Rich Little.
#7: Alabama Changes the Value of Pi
The April 1998 issue of the New Mexicans for Science and Reason newsletter contained an article claiming that the Alabama state legislature had voted to change the value of the mathematical constant pi from 3.14159 to the ‘Biblical value’ of 3.0. Before long the article had made its way onto the internet, and then it rapidly made its way around the world, forwarded by people in their email. It only became apparent how far the article had spread when the Alabama legislature began receiving hundreds of calls from people protesting the legislation. The original article, which was intended as a parody of legislative attempts to circumscribe the teaching of evolution, was written by a physicist named Mark Boslough.
#8: The Left-Handed Whopper
In 1998 Burger King published a full page advertisement in USA Today announcing the introduction of a new item to their menu: a “Left-Handed Whopper” specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. According to the advertisement, the new whopper included the same ingredients as the original Whopper (lettuce, tomato, hamburger patty, etc.), but all the condiments were rotated 180 degrees for the benefit of their left-handed customers. The following day Burger King issued a follow-up release revealing that although the Left-Handed Whopper was a hoax, thousands of customers had gone into restaurants to request the new sandwich. Simultaneously, according to the press release, “many others requested their own ‘right handed’ version.”
#9: Hotheaded Naked Ice Borers
In its April 1995 issue Discover Magazine announced that the highly respected wildlife biologist Dr. Aprile Pazzo had discovered a new species in Antarctica: the hotheaded naked ice borer. These fascinating creatures had bony plates on their heads that, fed by numerous blood vessels, could become burning hot, allowing the animals to bore through ice at high speeds. They used this ability to hunt penguins, melting the ice beneath the penguins and causing them to sink downwards into the resulting slush where the hotheads consumed them. After much research, Dr. Pazzo theorized that the hotheads might have been responsible for the mysterious disappearance of noted Antarctic explorer Philippe Poisson in 1837. “To the ice borers, he would have looked like a penguin,” the article quoted her as saying. Discover received more mail in response to this article than they had received for any other article in their history.
#10: Planetary Alignment Decreases Gravity
In 1976 the British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on BBC Radio 2 that at 9:47 AM a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event was going to occur that listeners could experience in their very own homes. The planet Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, temporarily causing a gravitational alignment that would counteract and lessen the Earth’s own gravity. Moore told his listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment that this planetary alignment occurred, they would experience a strange floating sensation. When 9:47 AM arrived, BBC2 began to receive hundreds of phone calls from listeners claiming to have felt the sensation. One woman even reported that she and her eleven friends had risen from their chairs and floated around the room.
Bad Laws Encourage Breaking the Law
Going to university in Seattle, I did a paper on Washington State “Blue Laws” and how they were repealed. In Washington State, they have some really cool ideas that encourage citizen participation – one is called the initiative, and the other is called the referendum.
What this means is that citizens, just common, ordinary citizens like you and me, can gather support and signatures, and initiate proceedings to get a proposal on the ballot, in front of all the voters. They can also refer an existing law to the voters to get it repealed (made not a law anymore.) It’s hard work – but citizens do it all the time.
I just used my internet phone to change my car reservation, because KLM has “delayed” my flight by one night. I broke the law. It’s a bad law, and I am not by nature a law-breaking kind of person.
I also break the law by bringing in real vanilla flavoring when I enter Kuwait. Yes, it contains alcohol. I only use it for cooking, and I never serve it to Moslems. I have alcohal-free vanilla, too, that I use for when I cook for Moslems, but it doesn’t taste the same.
I probably bring in books and DVD’s that I am not supposed to, although I have never seen a list telling me what books might not be allowed. Most of my books are about ideas, and yes, ideas can be a dangerous thing.
Bad laws force normal law-abiding people to break the law.
(This does not apply to speed limits, which are good laws, and if they were obeyed, would save hundreds of lives in Kuwait every year. Think of every life as something precious, a resource, and you will see that disobeying the speed limits is like throwing resources down the drain.)
I know this entry is really all over the map, but I have all this angry energy and I don’t have anywhere to expel it. If I could, I would kick KLM all over Kuwait for what they have done. They have robbed us of one day with our son and his wife and I am really really angry. They didn’t even tell us, just changed the reservation. One flight was “delayed” 24 hours, so all the passengers on the next flight were also “delayed”. That’s not a DELAY! You cancelled a flight! And now you are going to have hundreds of angry passengers, angry phone calls, and people PO’d at KLM. Shoddy way to do business.
The Many Uses of Vinegar
When I wrote yesterday about being a mosquito magnet, Walzing Australiaquoted a recommendation about drinking vinegar every day to keep the mossies away. It tickled a brain cell, and I googled Vinegar and Health this morning and found pages and pages of information. Vinegar is amazing, even if it is HALF as good as all these articles claim.
From How Stuff Works: The Healing Power of Vinegar
Health Benefits of Vinegar Overview
Vinegar has been valued for its healing properties for thousands of years, and during that time, it has found its way from the apothecary’s shelf to the cook’s pot. Today, it can continue to play that dual role, taking the place of less healthful dietary ingredients and helping to regulate blood sugar levels while entertaining our taste buds with its tart flavor.
There seems hardly an ailment that vinegar has not been touted to cure at some point in history. And while science has yet to prove the effectiveness of many of these folk cures, scores of people still praise and value vinegar as a healthful and healing food. So let’s take a look at the history of vinegar, the healing claims made for it, and what science does and doesn’t have to say about those claims. Along the way, we’ll discover why vinegar deserves a place in every healthy kitchen.
The Healing History of Vinegar
For centuries, people from Asia and Europe have used different types of vinegar to add flavor and zest to their food. Read about how this tangy condiment was first discovered and then developed into a must-have for kitchens around the world. Learn the key ingredient that gives vingear its special sour taste and the basic chemical process used to create it.
Misconceptions About Vinegar’s Health Benefits
Although some people believe vinegar is a miracle cure, it can’t fix everything. Marketers have asserted that vinegar cures diseases such as diabetes, osteoperosis, cancer, and many other disorders. Some even claim that it halts the aging process. Obviously, these claims are exaggerated. Find out what’s being said, and learn the truth about the real nutritional value of vinegar.
How Vinegar Affects Digestion
Although vinegar can’t cure cancer, it can help improve your general health in many ways. Vinegar benefits the digestive system, improving the absorbtion and utilization of several essential nutrients. Learn about the different organ systems that are affected by simply adding vinegar to your diet, and find out how you can improve your health and the taste of your vegetables at the same time.
If you go to the above website, there are additional articles that elaborate on the uses of vinegar. There are so many websites about the positive powers of vinegar!
There are hundreds of articles about the health benefits of vinegar. One of the most comprehensive was at Vinegarbook: Vinegar tips for health where there are topics you can click on to get to the full article, such as Treat Dandruff with Vinegar, Itchy Skin Soothed with Vinegar, Urinary Tract Infections and Vinegar, Soothing Aching Feet with Vinegar and several articles about fighting off colds and sore throats with vinegar. Vinegar has some known anti-fungal properties, and also anti-microbial and antiseptic properties. Fascinating, all from a cheap little bottle of vinegar found on any grocery shelf.
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