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!
Christmas Party Stars: Artichoke Cheese Dip
As with all the cookie and candy recipes, these ones are really really easy. This first one is very flexible, so flexible I don’t even use the recipe any more. You can use canned artichokes, marinated artichokes, frozen artichokes, cheddar cheese, Monterey Jack cheese, etc.
I’ll give you the basics. You make it a time or two, and then . . . play with it. Make it your own. Share the results with me! 🙂
At one party I gave, two men stood by this dip for an hour, and polished it off between them! Some people don’t like the heat of jalepenos, and if you think your guests like less heat, you don’t have to add them.
Artichoke Cheese Dip
After you have made this a couple times, you don’t even have to measure – you just sort of throw things in. A sure fire crowd pleaser.
1 14 oz can artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
2 Tablespoons chopped canned red pimentos
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup grated Monterey Jack Cheese
2 cups grated cheddar cheese
1/8 teaspoon (just a pinch) cumin powder
1 cup mayonnaise
1 cup sour cream
1-2 finely chopped jalepenos (optional, but these make it the BEST)
Combine all ingredients, turn into baking dish (I use a quiche dish) and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes, or until bubbling hot. Serve with tortilla chips.
Christmas Punch – Rum and Rumless
Brrrr. . . . .it is a COLD in Kuwait. The Qatteri Cat walks around begging me to sit at the computer so he can snuggle up next to me and snooze. I wore a real sweater today, it was that cold!
And – it is time for Christmas Punch. We all love this punch; it makes your house smell wonderful, it makes your throat feel good if you have a sore throat, and cranberry juice and pineapple juice – WOW – it’s even good for you.
This is the original recipe. Try it, but now when I make it I cut the sugar in half. Sometimes I don’t even add any sugar at all. And, this being Kuwait, no rum at all, but it still tastes wonderful, warm or cold. We store the leftover punch in the refrigerator in the cranberry jars, and just microwave it when we want a glass. It is SO good, and so EASY.
Christmas Rum Punch – and Rumless
2 32 oz. jars Cranberry Juice (Can be Cran-Rasberry, or Cran Grape, or what the Sultan Center has!)
1 32 oz. can Pineapple Juice (or 1 liter Pineapple Juice in the refrigerated section at the Sultan Center)
1 cup brown sugar
12 inches cinnamon stick
3 Tablespoons whole cloves
1 orange peel
Original recipe: In 30 cup coffeemaker, put cranberry and pineapple juice in bottom, and place coffee basket with brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves and orange peel in top. Perk juices through basket. When ready light comes on, add 1 quart Meyer’s Dark Rum. (Yeh, it’s a punch, you can use something else, but Meyer’s Dark Rum is SOOO good in this.)
In Kuwait – don’t add the rum!
Alternative when you don’t have a big coffee pot – Put juices into large kettle, add cinnamon sticks, cloves, orange peel, sugar and bring to simmer. When hot, use strainer to fish out cinnamon sticks, cloves and orange peel – Do this sooner, rather than later, or the juice will get too spicy.
Add 1 quart of rum – or not! The juice is good either way, good for you, and has a very Christmas-y smell.
Evening out: Learning to be Flexible
A post from Little Diamond on having passport photos taken in Lebanon reminds me of how differently we live in our foreign adventures. She tells how patiently the photographer dealt with her, encouraging her to comb her hair, and finally, after showing the first photos, convinced her to clean up her act for a second, more glamorous, round.
I read a book Almost French by Sarah Turnbull, in which she describes her arrival in Paris, dressed in typical Outback Australian style, and her adventures learning that in Paris, you don’t even leave the apartment in sweatpants to run to the baker because “it might hurt his eyes.”
I remember returning home from life in Germany and thinking “the women here are so COMFORTABLE in their own skin. They wear jeans, even into their 80’s, they go hiking, they go without makeup, and they look happy!” and I wanted that for myself. In my neck of the woods, too much make-up is a big no-no. And too much is anything beyond mascara.
Identity photos in the USA are simply expected to be awful, so no one thinks too much about it, and we all just avoid showing our ID’s if we can help it (maybe that’s why we drive so lawfully, so that we don’t have to show our dismal drivers’ licenses?)
So when I had to have my first residence card done in Saudi Arabia, I didn’t go to a lot of effort. I cleaned up, combed my hair, put on my abaya and scarf around the neck, and went to the local photo guy and got the photo taken. It happened to fall on the day of a significant birthday, you know, one of those with a zero in it. Later that day, when we picked up the photos from the beaming photographer, I looked, and I mentally gasped. The photo looked fabulous.
What to do? I know the law says photos are to be unretouched, but this photo is clearly a little doctored. As any woman would, I decided to just go with the local customs. I even bought a few more enlarged versions to sent to my family. I still grin when I look at that photo. Yes, I even framed one for myself.
Here in Kuwait, I have had to had these photos taken several times, I don’t know why, for several different cards, and then the cards take time and someone loses the photos and I have to have them taken again. There is a very nice man, he takes them and I can get them almost instantly from him. I even got to pick out the one I wanted, and then, he started airbrushing.
“What are you doing??” I exclaimed, as he brushed broad strokes across my face.
“Oh Madam, I am just evening out your makeup a little bit,” he said, as freckles, crow’s feet, shadows, and any blemish totally disappeared. I wasn’t wearing any makeup, only mascara.
Hypocrite and vain as I am, I just rolled with it. It’s another culture, and I know, because I asked, that everyone gets the same treatment, the re-touch, so all the ID photos look pretty good. Mine would draw attention if it weren’t retouched, I tell myself.
Cross Cultural Flummox
Scanning through the blogs yesterday, I saw one I almost didn’t check. It seemed to be a no-brainer. LaialyQ8 asked if you would share your password with your husband/wife.
Sheerly out of idle curiousity, I checked. And I was stunned to see the responses. Almost every person said they WOULD.
I’ve thought about it all day. It has to be a cultural difference. Hands down, I bet most of my friends would say “no way!” It isn’t a question of how much you love someone, to me, I just need some areas of my life that are private. I don’t keep secrets from my husband – I share things with him gladly.
But do I think he needs access to my correspondence with old girlfriends, friends I knew before I knew him? If they confide details of some crisis to me, does he need access to that information?
He trusts me. He should! And he would never, never ask me for my password, and I wouldn’t ask for his. Of course we share passwords for financial records and access, but not for our e-mail accounts.
It never for a heartbeat occurred to me there was another way of thinking about it. I was flummoxed (that’s for you, Zin!) And it is good information; I need to think about this and integrate it and try to understand it. That’s one of the things I love about living in a foreign country; challenges my assumptions and forces me to think differently, outside the box.
St. Nicklaus Day
In Germany, where we have lived, off and on, many years, December 6th is the day that St. Nicklaus comes, not Christmas. Saint Nicklaus, as opposed to Santa Clause, wears a long red robe with white trim, more like a coat, and it comes down past his knees. He often has a shepherd’s crook in one hand, and is sometimes pictured riding on a horse.
I got this wonderful print – one of many from The St. Nicholas Center where you can find many beautiful old postcards portraying the old European precursor to the modern Santa Claus.
Children put out their shoes, and hope that St. Nicholas will come by and fill them with candy, oranges, small goodies, and not with branches (to be used as switches) and coal, which are for bad children. Germans have such a sense of humor that you can also find branches with candies tied to them, and candies that are wrapped to look like coal. Kind of a mixed message, I guess.
The original St. Nicholas, so the legend goes, was a Bishop in Myra, then in Greece, now a part of Turkey near Demre. He threw bags of gold through the window of a poor family with three daughters, who would not marry without dowry. This is the bare bones of the St. Nicholas legend – I learned a lot more from the same site where I got the photo Who Is Saint Nicholas? You can learn so much more by clicking there. He is, to me, so much more lovable than Santa Claus, who commits house invasion on a grand scale once a year!
In the tiny village where we lived in Germany, I would get up early in the morning and put small cakes and candies on the doorsteps of the three women who were particularly good to me. Oh! The looks on their faces later when they spoke to me.
The grandmother would say “What? you think we are children, that St. Nicholas comes to us?” but you could see from the grin that it tickled her.
Aren’t we all still children, deep inside, thrilled when some unexpected blessing comes our way? Isn’t it always fun, child or not, to be surprised by something good?
Recent Comments
tigerbutterya0c5ff1d… on “Who Would Do Such a… intlxpatr on A Lawless, Authoritarian … Kuwait Someday on A Lawless, Authoritarian … intlxpatr on Oh Thank You, Amazon! Rivergirl on Oh Thank You, Amazon! Wikipedia Donate Button
Amazina
Early Voting in Florida
Here There and Everywhere 