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?
Rain, Dear
My husband called me this morning from Germany and said “I am so glad we don’t live here anymore, it is all dark and grey and rainy today.”
I laughed and said “That’s the exact weather we are having in Kuwait.”
I have only recently started driving, really driving, the way I used to drive around Qatar. (One time my husband took a day off to take a trip around Qatar. We left early in the morning. We were back in time for lunch.) I was fearless, at least during daylight hours. Traffic was heavy, but much calmer, much tamer than in Kuwait.
When I first got here, I thought I would never drive. Then, little by little, I would drive here, drive there, mostly for groceries or meetings, then, little by little, more. Now, I am actually pretty good, or at least getting pretty good.
Or so I thought until today. I had to drive home in the rain. I am confident and also cautious as a driver. I was surrounded by two kinds of drivers – nervous and UNconfident drivers, and drivers who were totally oblivious to the dangers of a newly slick wet highway and driving their normal fast, weav-y way. That makes for a hair-raising ride, especially when you are caught between the nervous brak-ers and the cavalierly speeding weavers.
Did I mention school had just gotten out, so many of the cars were Mums with children, and the others were young bloods who had been trapped in the classroom and were eager to break loose? Deadly combination.
Made it home, mentally designing a medal. Soldiers get medals just for participating in a campaign and living to tell about it. I think the Kuwait freeways and ring roads should be combat-medal qualified. Maybe black, with a yellow stripe down the middle . . .and you get stars for acts of extraordinary bravery?
Sadu House Opening
The new, serenely beautiful Sadu House re-opened on December 3, with little fanfare, and a lot of treasures. The history of weaving is beautifully displayed, with spindles, floor looms, raw wool, spinning wool, and huge photos and graphic drawings on the walls. The spaces are inviting. There are spaces where women work with floor looms, and other spaces with standing looms.
Best of all, they have preserved the architecture of one of the few remaining truly Gulf-style houses, built around center courtyards. They have covered over one courtyard with glass, protecting it from the elements but allowing the light to flow freely into the surrounding rooms. The doors are all inlaid or carved, the windows deep and inviting . . . it is a beautiful space, welcoming and well arranged. There is an admirable textiles library and a great gift shop with some truly Kuwaiti items.
The Kuwait Beauty Sisterhood
We love the Kuwait Airport. I love it that you can get a cup of coffee and just sit and wait for your arrivals to make that long long walk as you exit customs and head toward the exit. We love watching the families so excited to see one another. We make up stories for ourselves to explain what we are seeing. Sometimes, we cry, too, because it is so moving. We love it when the women ululate on seeing a new arrival, when brides arrive with their husbands, when Moms come back from Hajj.
A few nights ago, my husband was meeting late arrivals at the airport and he saw something we have NEVER seen before. He saw four women, all with identical bandages over their noses. He figures they must have gone somewhere for plastic surgery. All four at the same time? We figure they must be sisters, or cousins, or very very good friends, all having their noses trimmed at the same time. He said they weren’t at all self-conscious about it, rather they were grinning with pride. I think when there are four of you with the same big bandage, it must take the self-conscious factor WAAAAAYYYYY out.
We’re always laughing at what we call “buying hope in a bottle.” For me, it might be the next luxury face cream that promises me “visible results in 7 days”. For my husband, it is always the next super camera. For some, it is the hot motorcycle, or the next hot car. For some, it is the hottest new computer, or the tiniest, biggest gigabyte iPod with all the bells and whistles. We’re all looking for a little hope. It just gives me a big grin thinking of those four brave girls going under the knife together for better noses.
Happy Birthday, Law N’ Order Man
We drove to the hospital the night of December 2nd – it was a very cold clear night, and it seemed we could see every star in the sky, bright, twinkling, as excited as we were about the coming of this child. We were such kids, and we thought we were all grown up.
You, dear son, you taught us what being grown-up was all about. We thought we were ready for parenthood. We didn’t have a clue.
You were such a pretty baby, born early that cold cold morning in the hospital by the Chesapeake Bay. So pink and delicate we could see your veins through your skin.
We still marvel at you. After all these years, we still thank God for sending you to us, and we wonder at God’s mercy and sense of humor. You taught us everything we know about being good parents.
Oh! The fun we had! You were so funny, and so serious. We are so eager to see you, and your lovely bride.
And son, we are so proud of you. Happy Birthday, dear one, and thank you for being our son.
Extra Credit Christmas Cookies: Rosettes
OK, good on ya, you’ve done your shopping and the cupboards are bulging. You’re already planning how to knock out those basic cookies, but now – now we get to think about trying something a little more challenging.
I will admit, this is not such a challenge to me. I grew up watching these made every year, it’s a Swedish thing. Now I make them every year, continuing the tradition. So I am going to share all the secrets with you, and you are going to do just fine.
First, a little theory. The rosettes I make every year use a sweet, lemon flavored mixture. Twice I have made savory timbales – you use a different batter. Those timbales are used to serve vegetables or something like lobster newburg when you have a lot of time and you want something to look very elegant, but the truth is, it’s a lot of work.
Meanwhile, rosette cookies for Christmas are also a lot of work, but you make a big batch at once, they last for up to six weeks in an airtight container, and they look very very cool and take up a lot of space on a cookie tray. And everyone thinks you are amazing, because they look so hard, but really, they’re not that hard.
Basic Rosette Lemon Batter
Beat 2 eggs
add 1 cup milk
Sift 1 cup flour
with a pinch of salt
1 Tablespoon sugar
Add to above and mix all together. It should look like thick cream. Add:
2 teaspoons of lemon extract, stir in.
Then you let the batter stand at least an hour. I often make it the night before and let it stand in the refrigerator overnight, then pull it out when I get up so that it warms up to room temperature. If you don’t let it stand, it doesn’t blend the right way.
You can do this in a pan on the stove . . .I did it that way for many years. But there is this wonderful machine called a deep fryer . . . if you have one, you are home free. I use something called a Fry Daddy, which is just the right size.
You will need a LOT of oil. I use a very mild vegetable oil like safflower oil or corn oil, something that doesn’t have a strong flavor on its own.
Warm the oil to 375 F/180 C.
Put out several sheets of paper towel. When the hot rosette comes out of the oil, you will pry it off the mold with the tines of a fork and let it rest upside down on the papertowel to absorb any of the excess oil.
Have a fork handy.
Choose the rosette wheel you want to use – most kits come with two or three. The most classic is a wheel shaped, but I also use a star and occasionally have used a butterfly. The timbale shape is also wheel shaped, but without all the divisions. Attach the form you choose firmly to the iron.
Get a comfortable chair, and sit by the hot oil. Have your bowl of batter right next to you, and paper towels nearby. Please, this isn’t something to do with children around, not when you are working with 3 – 4 cups of sizzling oil.
Dip the rosette iron in the hot oil, maybe five seconds, so it gets hot. (A hot iron is the secret to being able to get the rosette off easily when it is finished cooking.) Pull it out, tap it against the side of the pan to knock off excess oil.
Dip it quickly into the batter, it will hiss as the hot oil hits the cooler batter. Hissing is good, it means the iron is hot enough.
But dip into the batter only up to the top edge, not over the top edge! If the batter goes over the top edge, you will not be able to get the rosette off when it finished cooking.
So now you have a hot iron with batter on it, just right.
Plunge it into the hot oil. It will really hiss and bubble, that is what it is supposed to do, that means it is cooking. It will only hiss and bubble for maybe 30 seconds, then the hissing and bubbling will slacken. Somewhere between 45 seconds and 1 minute, pull the rosette out and see if it looks crisp and golden. Turn it upside down, tap excess oil back into the hot oil.
Over the paper toweling, use your fork to gently pry the rosette away from the mold in a couple places, and using gentle pressure, push the rosette off the mold. Place it upside down on the toweling so that it drains. One down!
At first, take it one at a time until you feel comfortable that you’ve got the hang of it. Then – you can actually do two irons at once. You let one iron heat while you are cooking the other rosette, then switch back and forth.
From time to time, maybe every ten rosettes, stir the batter again, because it can get oily and needs to be stirred.
If you do this with a pan on the stove, it is harder to maintain a steady temperature, and you will need a hot oil thermometer to keep track of it. When the oil gets too cool, the rosettes turn out too light and too floppy. If they get overcooked, they get too brown and they are hard to get off the iron. The deep fat fryer is your best bet for maintaining an even temperature.
This is also something more fun to do with a sister or a friend. My Mother and her best friend did it every year together; it was their special tradition.
OK, when you are finished with all your rosettes, and they have cooled, store them in a large tupperware container, WITHOUT CROWDING. These are so fragile, and they break easily.
Sift Powdered Sugar over Rosettes
When you want to take a tray of rosettes somewhere, you need to sift powdered sugar over the top, with the empty side up (the way they were when they were cooking) so that the powdered sugar goes down into the crevasses.
Some people use a sifter, but my preference is to use a small basket seive/strainer with a handle, put powdered sugar in it and tap it on the side with a fork. It controls where the sugar falls a little better, and gives more control over how much sugar you put on each rosette. Put them on the platter empty side up, so that they look all snowy and sugary and crisp.
WARNING! Do not attempt to eat one of these wearing a black dress! They are crisp, and they crumble, and sometimes powdered sugar goes everywhere, and it is a (mess) to get off.
As the cook, you get to eat the mistakes as you go along. At the end, you won’t want to eat any more. They aren’t so sweet, but they are mostly FAT! You will get other recipes for rosettes with your iron.
Have fun.
I found this photo at About housewares and it is a good photo, but to my way of thinking, the rosettes are upside down. I serve them the other way.
2011 Update: I used a Fry Daddy this year and every single rosette turned out perfectly. 🙂
Today’s Grin: We are Forbidden to Report the Following Story
Todays Kuwait Times bottom left corner:
Information Gags Press
Kuwait: The Ministry of Information issued a gag order to all local media over reporting the tussle between two leading Kuwait companies over the September takeover of a KSE-listed firm. A copy of the court order ordering the ban was attatched to the ministry’s letter to all local dailies and media. The following is a translation of the accompanying Arabic letter (shown on the front page):
From the Ministry of Information, To the Editor-in-Chief, Kuwait Times. With reference to case number 900/2006 filed by Mohammed Abdul Mohsen Al-Kharafi Holding Co and Mohammed Abdul Mohsen Al-Khorafi & Sons for General Trading and Contracting against the Minister of Commerce and Industry as the supreme chairman of the Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE), a court order has been issued pertaining to the banning of the publication of any news concerning the subject of the contestation (number 2/2006) till a verdict is issued concerning the nondisclosure violations. Therefore, please be advised to stop any publication till the case is over.
So the Kuwait Times reports that it cannot report the story. Brilliant.
Bahrain Censors Google Earth
This morning my nephew from GE sent me an e-mail with an article from the Financial Times on Mahmoud’s Den and Google Earth in Bahrain. When Google Earth upgraded the resolution on Bahrain, Bahrainis started recording the discrepancy in properties, and circulating copies of residencies, luxury cars, boats, etc. in contrast to the poor, crowded villages. The Bahraini government banned the use of Google Earth in Bahrain. You can guess what happened next – downloads shot through the roof. It’s just human nature.
The article in Financial Times gives more information.
When are governments going to figure out that when you ban a technology, you only make it more attractive? Google Earth downloads for free, it is available to everyone with a computer and adequate bandwidth. No matter what safeguards you put in, there are ways around it. That’s just the nature of technology.
Mahmoud’s Den sports a button that says “No Sunni, No Shiia, Just Bahraini”.
Christmas Cookies: Candy Cane Cookies
Red and white twisted together and formed into a cane – these are festive and tasty. Please, please, use real butter.
1 cup butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg, beaten lightly
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
Cream butter and sugar together, add vanilla and beaten egg. Sift flour and salt together, add to butter and sugar mixture.
Divide the dough in half.
Add red food coloring to one half – be generous, so it will be really red – several drops. Take walnut sized pieces of each color and roll between your hands until they are about 6″ long and about the same thickness from top to bottom. When all the white and all the red dough is rolled into 6″ lengths, take one of each color – red and white – and twist them around each other – you know, like a candy cane.
Place on ungreased cookie sheet and bend top over to form a hook. Bake at 375 F/190 C for about 8 – 10 minutes. Check at 8 minutes – you don’t want these ones to get brown, just thoroughly cooked!
Note – these are really really good for children to make. They love the rolling part, and just need a little help with the twisting together part.
This is the only photo I could find, other than another with really awful candy canes made of red and green. I thought it was too awful. This one she is using the cookies on a wreath, but the cookies look pretty good.
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