Qatar Air Doha 1st Class Lounge
This is the jacuzzi for wearied women travellers . . .
Bring it ONNNNNN!
This is where you sleep if you have a couple hours to kill:
And this is where you eat – and the food is YUMMY:
You check in seated at a desk, then go through customs to the duty-free and the excalator upstairs. At the top of the stairs you are directed to the left for Business or the Right to the First Class Lounge.
From the moment you walk in, the atmosphere in the First Class Lounge is soothing and spa like. Sheets of cascading water down glass walls, ethereal soft music, and all watery colors. Easy to fall asleep, and it’s OK, because they come and get you, personally, when you need to board for your flight. Amazing. Kinda the ultimate.
Naaahhhh, I don’t travel first class all the time. Had to get someplace, weren’t any other tickets available. Enjoyed it all the way.
Mayonnaise, Aioli and Rouille
Home Made Mayonnaise – The BEST!
You are in Concarneau, a beautiful fishing village in the Breton part of France, and you are waiting for your frites. But it is not the frites that are taking so much time – the frites vendor is out of mayonnaise, and he is whipping up a fresh batch.
He uses a wire whisk, and starts dropping just tiny tiny drops of olive oil into the egg yolks, adding a little more, a little more, until it becomes a thin stream, and then a thicker stream, but the whisk never stops. The end result? Pure magic. Not quite so solid, but nothing like the mayonnaise we know.
We all know that mayonnaise substance that comes out of jars we buy at the grocery store. White to pale yellow, taste varying from fairly tasteless to a little vinegar-y. It’s best for helping wash sandwich meat down, but doesn’t really have a lot to recommend it.
French mayonnaise is totally different. It has TASTE! It’s hard to say which tastes better, the hot fresh French frites (fries) or the homemade mayonnaise, but as a combination – oh man, it is unbeatable. It’s fresh, it’s made with the best ingredients. And because it’s olive oil, well the fat calories aren’t quite so unhealthy. Right.
Here is the best news of all – you can have that same great tasting mayonnaise. With the advent of the blender, you don’t even have to separate the eggs from the yolks – the whipping motion of the blades emulsifies the oil and the eggs and acid (and flavorings)
Basic Mayonnaise
2 eggs
2 Tablespoons lemon juice (or vinegar, or balsamic vinegar)
1 Teaspoon prepared mustard (not powder)
1 Teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups olive oil
(The very most important ingredient is the olive oil; use a very good olive oil, one with lots of taste. In my heart, I think French mustard {not French’s} is the best, and Sel de mer – French salt. If you’re going to make good mayonnaise, go all the way. Do it right. And have fun.)
Break eggs into blender container, add the acid (lemon juice or vinegar), mustard and salt. Turn blender on low. Let the blender blend about 30 seconds before adding tiny drops of olive oil. Add drops very slowly, letting the blender do its thing.
Take your time. From tiny drops, let the olive oil stream into the blender container in a tiny thin stream, and then a slightly thicker stream. The secret to success here is always taking it slow and easy, letting the eggs and acid emulsify the oil. About 3/4 way through the process, the mixture will suddenly thicken. Keep adding the olive oil slowly, until it is all incorporated.
At this point the mixture may still be pourable. Homemade mayonnaise is a little runnier than the kind you buy in the store. Pour it into clean jars and store it in the refrigerator immediately – it will thicken up as it refrigerates.
Disaster: It happens, even if you’ve been making mayonnaise for years. The solution is SO simple. Pour the mixture – it will look like salad dressing with pieces in it – into another container and wash the blender container thoroughly, with soapy water. Break another egg into the container – that’s all. Nothing else. Start the blender, and this time, go a little slower. The secret to making this work is going very very slowly, especially at the beginning. Trust me, the process itself is so fast that you can afford to pour slowly. And oh! the results! You are going to be addicted to your own mayonnaise.
Advanced Mayonnaise
Before you go any further, I want you to successfully make mayonnaise three times. You can put it in pretty jars and give it away; people will love it.
Aioli
The French in Provence, particularly in Marseilles, have a dish that I think was created just to eat mayonnaise. It is called “Aioli”, the same name as the name of the mayonnaise sauce served with it. The entire meal is cooked salt cod, and a variety of cooked vegetables, all served with liberal dippings into the aioli sauce.
To make Aioli, you pop four or five (peeled!) cloves of garlic in with the eggs and acid before you start adding the oil. It’s that simple. (Some people add breadcrumbs. I don’t.) Aioli is also good – GREAT – with turkey, on sandwiches, as a dip for vegetables, oh any excuse will do . . . it is SOOOO good.
Most sources say aioli can be kept about two weeks, refrigerated. Mine never lasts that long.
Rouille
Rouille is served atop a big bowl of Bouillabaisse (French fish soup with whole fish pieces). It is a fiery spicy hot mayonnaise.
Start as if for aioli, then add two teaspoons cayenne pepper. If your family likes things hot hot hot, you can add some of the ground red pepper pieces like you find in the spice markets, or you put on pizza slices in Italian restaurants – it gives it a little more texture. You can also add a piece or two of roasted red peppers, for more intense color. Add the pepper BEFORE you start adding the oil.
Again, some people add breadcrumbs. I don’t.
Fixing a Mayonnaise Failure
A very humid day can make mayonnaise problematic. The heavy atmosphere of an impending thunderstorm can make good emulsification impossible. Accidentally adding too much oil or having the eggs too cold can make a mayonnaise curdle. It doesn’t happen often, but don’t despair. It’s fixable. Just start over, with one egg, and slowly, slowly adding that curdled mixture. You will be amazed at how easy this is.
Even your first time, when you are nervous, it won’t take an hour, start to finish. By the time you’ve done it a time or two, it won’t take half an hour, from getting out the blender to putting the jars of fresh, delicious homemade mayonnaise into the refrigerator. And you will be ridiculously proud of yourself.
There are no preservatives, no added chemicals. I don’t know how long it will last, kept refrigerated – it just doesn’t last long enough to become an issue. C’mon. I dare you. Give it a try.
(Ooops – I just remembered, there is danger to some people from the use of raw eggs. Making mayonnaise with raw eggs isn’t right for everyone. You could get really sick.)
Where Has Your Purse Been?
I received this forward from a friend. The Shauna Lake referred to is a news anchor with KUTV in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Purse Hygiene
A friend sent me this, I really never thought about how dirty my purse could be until I read this.
Have you ever noticed gals who sit their purses on public rest room floors that then go directly back to their dining tables?
It happens a lot!
It’s not always the ‘restaurant food’ that causes stomach distress.
Sometimes “what you don’t know ‘will’ hurt you”!
Read on…
Mom got so upset when a guest came in the door and plopped their purses down on the counter where she was cooking or setting up the buffet. She always said that purses are really dirty, because of where they’ve been.
Smart Momma!!!
It’s something just about every woman carries with them. While we may know
what’s inside our purses, do you have any idea what’s on the outside?
Shauna Lake put purses to the test – for bacteria – with surprising results. You may think twice about where you put your purse next time.
Women carry purses everywhere; from the office to public rest rooms to the floor of the car.
Most women won’t be caught without their purses, but did you ever stop to think about where your purse goes during the day?
“I drive a school bus, so my purse has been on the floor of the bus a lot,” says one woman. “On the floor of my car, probably in rest rooms.” “I put my purse in grocery shopping carts, on the floor of bathroom stalls while changing a diaper,” says another woman “and of course in my home which should be clean.”
We decided to find out if purses harbour a lot of bacteria. We learned how to test them at Nelson Laboratories in Salt Lake, then we set out to test the average woman’s purse.
Most women told us they didn’t stop to think about what was on the bottom of their purse.
Most said they usually set their purses on top of kitchen tables and counters where food is prepared.
Most of the ladies we talked to told us they wouldn’t be surprised if their purses were at least a little bit dirty. It turns out purses are so surprisingly dirty, even the microbiologist who tested them was shocked.
Microbiologist Amy Karren of Nelson Labs says nearly all of the purses tested were not only high in bacteria, but high in harmful kinds of bacteria. Pseudomonas can cause eye infections, staphylococcus aurous can cause serious skin infections, and salmonella and e-coli found on the purses could make people very sick. In one sampling, four of five purses tested positive for salmonella, and that’s not the worst of it.
“There is fecal contamination on the purses,” says Amy.
Leather or vinyl purses tended to be cleaner than cloth purses, and lifestyle seemed to play a role. People with kids tended to have dirtier purses than those without, with one exception.
The purse of one single woman who frequented nightclubs had one of the worst contaminations of all.
“Some type of feces, or even possibly vomit or something like that,” says
Amy.
So the moral of this story – your purse won’t kill you, but it does have the potential to make you very sick if you keep it on places where you eat.
Use hooks to hang your purse at home and in rest rooms, and don’t put it on your desk, a restaurant table, or on your kitchen countertop. Experts say you should think of your purse the same way you would a pair of shoes.
“If you think about putting a pair of shoes onto your countertops, that’s the same thing you’re doing when you put your purse on the countertops.”
Your purse has gone where every individual before you has spat, coughed, urinated, emptied bowels, etc.!
Do you really want to bring that home with you?
The microbiologists at Nelson also said cleaning a purse will help. Wash cloth purses and use leather cleaner to clean the bottom of leather purses.
My comments: I was shocked and disgusted reading this article. I know that when I bring groceries home, I put my purse on the counter or even (gasp) on the kitchen table. I vow, here an now, to change my ways!
Having said that, I rarely ever get sick. My theory is that I have lived and travelled in so many places with questionable hygeine that I have developed resistance to many of the bacteria that bedevil us. I would guess that eating out puts me more at risk for food borne problems than any other behavior.
While I am a sushi supporter, I have to warn my fellow aficianados that raw fish is one of the WORST carriers of bad bacteria, microbes, and parasites. Sushi eating is a risky behavior! Sushi on a buffet is even worse because it has been exposed to more microbes, sneezes, contamination. So if you choose to eat sushi, use protection! Know your sushi maker and practice safe sushi eating.;-)
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