Pacific Northwest Bouillabaisse
For two days now, it has been rainy, oh! sheets of rain coming down. If you have an umbrella, it doesn’t help. You are soaked before you can even get your umbrella up, and the wind keeps blowing in gusts from different directions so the umbrella goes inside out.
The perfect day for Pacific Northwest Bouillabaisse, a recipe from a cookbook my aunt gave me, published in 1946 – no longer even in print. But the recipe is a winner – easy, satisfying, and with a salad and French Bread, a complete stormy day meal, warming and satisfying from the inside out.
A bouillabaisse is flexible, and relies on slow simmering and some reduction to obtain its deep, rich, complex flavor. Fishermen use what they catch – the more, the merrier, in a bouillabaisse. For extra credit, serve with a rouille, a red, peppery mayonnaise. (Yes, blenders make any mayonnaise do-able.)
Pacific Northwest Bouillabaisse
From Mary Cullen’s Northwest Cook Book, 1946 (with alterations)
This is one of the all-star recipes if you like seafood and if your friends do, too.
1 1/2 lbs. cod, halibut or red snapper, or good solid white meat fish like grouper, cut into bite sized chunks
1 large hard shell crab, cook, take meat out (or two or three small Kuwaiti crab)
2 lbs. small clams in the shell, or if you are stuck, you can use canned clams
1/2 lb. mussels, if available
10 – 12 medium large shrimp
1/3 cup olive oil
2 onions, chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 bay leaf
3 cups fish stock (I use the water from cooking the crab, and cook the fish heads etc. until you have a good, tasty stock)
1/2 cup dry white wine (optional)
1 green and 1 red sweet pepper, chopped
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon saffron
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
2 Tablespoons minced parsley
Prepare fish, removing bones and cutting into bite sized pieces. Several kinds of fish can be used, if preferred. Clean meat out of crab legs and crab body, put aside.
In large pan, sautee onion, peppers and garlic in olive oil, add bay leaf and cut up fish and fish stock, cook very slowly, without boiling, for about 20 minutes or until fish is tender.
Add crab, clams, shrimp, mussels, seasonings, and lemon juice. Let cook 3 minutes. Sprinkle with parsley and serve. It is tradition that on cold winter’s days, the bread can be dunked in the broth!
This is a photo from Wikipedia, showing genuine French Bouillabaisse. The Pacific Northwest version doesn’t have a tomato-y broth, but more clear broth.
Seattle’s Houseboat Sub-Culture
In Seattle, there is an entire sub-culture that lives on houseboats, mostly urban professionals. Unlike many parts of the world, the houseboats in Seattle are truly designed as houses, and have to meet city standards. They can only dock in designated areas, and they are solely for living, they don’t have any means of propulsion. They are not truly boats, but houses floating on the water.
I lived in one for two weeks, many years ago. I never got used to it. I worried about sinking all the time.
Seattle is quirky. Houseboats, caffeine-addiction, super-technology, fitness addicts, airplanes (home of Boeing) and one of the most literate cities in the United States. Washington state has the highest minimum wage in the nation – $7.93 per hour.
KLM, Bureaucracy and Customer Service
It is so easy to complain when you live overseas. We complain about Wasta, we complain about corruption – and all it takes is another trip out of Kuwait to see that it exists everywhere. Bureaucracies exist to encourage arbitrary decisions, bribes, and meanness to the customer.
But every now and then, you find a brave soul who stands up for right, who uses policy like a rapier against the lazy, and I met one of those this morning.
I am connecting in Amsterdam, and I have thousands and thousands of miles I never use. Mostly I have been booking flights on a relatively short term basis, and when your family needs you is not the time to be trying to dicker over free tickets, etc. So as I entered the business lounge, I asked the very nice woman behind the desk if an upgrade was possible for the next leg of the trip.
Her fingers flew across the keyboard as she checked this, she double checked that, and then said “you would have to pay 150 Euros to upgrade + 25,000 miles”. Piece of Cake. For a 10 hour flight? 150 Euros! Here’s my money.
No no, I had to go downstairs and pay. And downstairs, it is six, when ticketing is supposed to open, but they are very very busy ignoring the customers. They have coffee to get, greetings to exchange, water to distribute, computers to boot – no, no, ticketing open at 6:00 does NOT mean they are ready to serve the customer at six, only that they are in the general area at around six.
And they were not happy to have a customer. The counter lady gave me the same information as the lady upstairs – 150 Euros + miles, and then she took my ticket to the ticketing lady behind her, who gave it a glance and said no, it was impossible, my card was KLM and the ticket was on a Northwest flight. I said “You are partners! This card is supposed to work on all the partner airlines” and she said “no, the regulations say that your class of ticket cannot be upgraded on Northwest.”
I don’t usually let things get under my skin, but the sheer blatancy of her desire to get rid of me annoyed me. I said that this was not right, and not fair, and she shrugged her shoulders and smiled.
Smiled! Whew! I could almost feel the fire coming out of my ears and eyes!
Back upstairs in the lounge, I checked in with the same lady who had helped me before and told her what the ticketing bureaucrat had said. I was calm, but also very angry. So was she. “That’s just WRONG” she said, and got on the phone. 45 minutes later, she was still at it. She would verify all her information, call ticketing, and the ticketing lady would still say “No!”
Finally, I signed up for a shower, and washed away all the frustration while the dear lady in the business lounge continued to get people involved. By the time I came back out, fresh and sweet and clean, she gleamed in triumph! “You have your ticket!” she said, her voice triumphant!
So downstairs I headed once more to pay. The ticketing lady was totally snippy to me, taking her time, shaking her head in disgust, until I asked her name and wrote it down. Suddenly, she was all sweetness and light, and like magic, my new improved boarding pass appeared.
Al hamd’allah.
But here is what bugs me. I’ve worked many many jobs that required keeping customers happy. I am really good at it. I take pride in it. In the long run, I believe, good will pays the biggest dividends. And when I can make something good happen for someone, it’s like something good happens for me, too . . .
So what possible reason would people in roles where they interface with the public have for being rude? unhelpful? snippy? to take visible joy in saying no?
I can imagine that being an airline counter service agent at this time of the year, with all the delays and confusions, and abuse they have to take could be dis-spiriting. I can sympathize that they have to deal with people who all want special treatment. I’m just another person asking for an upgrade. But at the same time, doesn’t it make them feel worse to be rude and unhelpful?
Do you deal with the public? Are you ever rude? What pushes your buttons, what can make you rude to a customer? And as a customer, how do you handle a rude employee?
Chinese New Year’s
Today I am busy packing for my upcoming trip back for my father’s services, and taking down the Christmas decorations. Why now? I won’t be back until after New Year’s, and I don’t want to have to face it all then.
My son and his wife left late last night, and will be meeting up with me again later this week. As soon as they left, I stripped the bed, threw the sheets in the wash, started taking down the tree. My method of coping with grief is to stay busy.
But I also have another agenda. And I am going to tell you something that may change your life, as it changed mine. So if you are very very happy with your life right now, stop reading NOW. It’s a Locard Principle kind of thing – if you read this, it will leave a trace on you. OK. You’ve been warned.
I have a very good friend, an amazing woman. She was born in Hong Kong, into a wealthy family, and married an American. Not only was he American, but he was in the Navy, and he was a Mormon. So she had to learn three cultures at once – American, Navy/military, and a new religious culture. I tell her I am amazed that she survived; that is a lot of new information and new ways of doing things to do all at once.
Who knows why people become friends? All I know is that friends like this, you keep. From the beginning, we were like sisters. For all our differences, we never had a problem making conversation – we both liked investing, and we talked money, real-estate, stocks endlessly. And we had sons the same age who became – and still are – best friends.
We settled in the same area, and while I am living in Kuwait, she has visited my parents, called them, and frequently sat with my Dad while he was recouperating from his latest debility. She would take him flowers from her own garden, and magazines, and keep him distracted. She has been a blessing to us all.
Several years ago, in one of our conversations, she told me about Chinese New Year. When the New Year comes, your house must be sparkling clean, your bills must all be paid, and you must have money in your pocket, food in the refrigerator, and friends in the house. The way you start your New Year is the way your new year will be. So if you want order and prosperity, you have to be prepared.
I’m not Chinese. I’m not superstitious. And what if she’s right?
Every year, I have to have the tree down and everything put away by New Years. (Traditionally, the tree can stay up until the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6th, when the Wise Men come to visit the Christ child, and should be taken down the next day. Especially when using live trees, you want to anyway, as the tree is dried out, all the needles are dropping and it becomes a fire hazard.)
What if the Chinese are right? I make sure all my bills are paid, and I pay a little extra on the mortgage. I make sure we have money in our pockets, and plans with friends that include good food.
I’m not Chinese. I am not superstitious. But why take chances?
From time to time I think about NOT having everything done by New Year’s, but if I try that, I get too nervous and end up having to do it all on the last day of the year. My friend says you do NOT want to start the New Year cleaning your house!
She told me. I just told you . . . are you starting to get nervous? (wicked gleam)
Christmas Eve Day
This is my favorite day of the year. I love Christmas Eve Day. We had a dinner last night, here, with good friends. We all worked together to get all the foods prepared, and as we sat at the table, I could see conversations going on, full of lively interest in all the candlelit faces – it was a beautiful moment. It was such a good mixture of people, the food was good (well, maybe I oversalted the rouladen a little) and plentiful, and in spite of the sorrows of the year, we are greatly blessed.
We have done all our shopping and wrapping, we will run some errands today – fun ones – and have lunch somewhere, it will be a fun, relaxed day. Tonight we will go to church, to welcome the birth of a tiny, vulnerable baby who made such a difference to so many lives here on earth.
So much pain! So much sorry! And one small ray of hope, that in our hearts we can truly love one another, and somehow this sad, troubled world can find the peace for which we all yearn.
Today is a day of pure anticipation, of hope, and belief that goodness matters, and that goodness is possible, and that we have redemption.
Our holidays of Christmas and Eid al Adha are joined this year. I wish all my brothers and sisters peace, joy, and the blessings of love and family for the coming year.
The image is from The Image of Christmas – The Nativity Represented in Art by Dr. Catherine Lawless December 2005. I chose it because Joseph and Mary and the baby look more like Semitics, instead of pale white Europeans. It is by the Sienese painter, Sano di Pietro, painted around 1445 and now in the Pinacoteca Vaticana.
Divinity Origins
Someone asked about the origin of divinity candy, and as I looked it up, the first words I came across were these:
“Candy. A term derived from the Arabic qandi, meaning a sugar confection.” That’s in the Oxford Companion to Food. Much much more on candy at Food Timeline.
I have never heard that word used for sweets – is it still used?
Dining Out: Souk Mubarakia
This is for Skunk – he recommended the outside restaurant at Souk Mubarakia, which also happens to be one of our favorite places to go.
Does anyone know of a restaurant around here with an old Kuwait theme – like where they have private small rooms where you sit on the floor, like a small majlis?
Liberation Tower at Night and Qatteri Cat
We love going to Souk Mubarakia. Took this recently on a cool, clear night from the souks
The Qatteri Cat has not lost interest in the tree, but no longer seems interested in pulling it over. The blanket is Masai, from Tanzania. Great Christmas colors!
Walnut Mamoul
Earlier in the blog, I gave you the recipe for Russian Tea Cakes. They go by many names, including Swedish Tea Cakes, Mexican Wedding Cakes, Sandies . . . the list is endless.
Yesterday at the Sultan Center, I saw a cookie called Walnut Mamoul. I have made Date Stuffed Mamoul with my friend before – is “mamoul” sort of a generic word for cookie? (biscuit?) The walnut mamoul look almost identical to the Russian Tea Cakes. In the tea cakes, you flatten the top somewhat, and the walnut mamoul had more of a dome shape, but everything else LOOKED identical, and we often make the Russian Tea Cakes with walnuts. I wonder if it is the same cookie?
WordPress Blockage + Website Unblocked
I’ve been fiddling all morning and I can’t get onto WordPress through Safari. Checking around, I can’t look up any of my favorite WordPress blogs on Safari today – Jewaira, Africa Blog, Sociolingo – nothing happens. All kinds of other things are working, though, including a site that has been blocked for months – Go Fug Yourself.
It’s not what it sounds like. It’s an unfortunate name. It’s a very funny, nasty, mean-spirited blog about fashion mistakes. Did I mention it is very very funny?
I pity anyone who wants to be a celebrity. Imagine having to look perfect 24/7 and occasionally not getting it right. These critics are merciless. Did I mention they are also hysterically funny?
Every month, I write a note to QualityNet saying they’ve made a big mistake blocking this site, that it has NO sexual content, and, in fact, mocks and scorns women who show too much of their “lady parts”. I was shocked today to see it is no longer blocked!
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