Beautiful Flower’s Crab Cakes
Sometimes, the absolute best day happens and you had no idea it was going to happen – you didn’t plan for it to happen, it just sort of came about.
One of my two very good friends in Seattle is Beautiful Flower. We don’t call her that, but that is what her legal name means. After having lunch together in Ivar’s, a place we have haunted for years, we visited with my Mom and then she said she wanted us to go back to her house and make crab cakes. She and her husband had the good fortune to have caught their limit in nice fat crabs this last weekend.
I knew she was having guests from out-of-town, and I am a pretty good crab picker, so I said yes, besides, she has a new recipe from her daughter for crab cakes, and she says it is almost entirely crab, and it is a really good recipe, you can really taste the crab. Oh YUM.
So we put our aprons on and she put down a huge black plastic bag (if you’ve ever cleaned crabs, you know it is very messy work) and got out the hammer and the crab-crackers and the crab picks and away we went. She had four good sized crab – and it didn’t even take us half an hour to clean those beauties, giving us more than a pound of sweet, delicious fresh crab meat. We were talking so much we didn’t even notice how hard we were working!
Her daughter arrived, and they started putting together the crab cakes – just wrapping the crab mixture in panko, the Japanese break crumb coating.
We had a lengthy discussion about the right way to fry crab cakes – Beautiful Flower uses olive oil, but her daughter prefers straight butter. I love the taste of butter, but use mostly olive oil with just a pat of butter for the flavor. I think she used a mix, but we were all talking so fast I didn’t really pay attention as I should.
As my friend was frying up the crab cakes, she was telling us that she and her next two sisters all had names that started with “beautiful” but that when the fourth sister came along, her mother named her “too many girls!” Fortunately, the nurse at the hospital writing down the name wrote down “Proud girl” instead of “Too many girls” (they sound sort of alike if you aren’t listening too carefully).
My friend also told us she went to visit her mother in the hospital with her grandmother, her father’s father. When her grandmother discovered that her mother had another daughter, she was so mad she left my friend – 6 years old – and didn’t even visit her mother!
My friend, 6 years old, had to try to find her mother in the hospital and give her the food they had brought. But it was the middle of winter, and the nurses had covered up all the new mothers, from head to toe, so my friend couldn’t find her mother! Finally, somehow she found her and fed her, and then – at 6 years old – she had to walk 5 miles back to her house alone, because her grandmother had left her there! She said she didn’t talk to her grandmother for a long time.
Her daughter had never heard that story, had heard her mother’s sisters call the one sister “Lo Moi”, but didn’t know that it meant “too many girls!” The family still call the youngest sister “Too Many Girls” even though her legal name was Proud Girl.
See what I would have missed if we weren’t making crab cakes?!
Beautiful Flower’s Daughter’s Recipe for Really Good Crab Cakes
1 lb crab meat
2 Tablespoons + 2 Teaspoons chopped fresh chives (or green onions)
2 Tablespoons + 2 Teaspoons chopped fresh dill
2 Tablespoons finely grated lemon zest
salt pepper (we left it out because crab is naturally salty)
1/2 cup panko
Shape crab into patty, roll in panko, place on cookie sheet until ready to fry. Fry in lightly oiled/buttered pan until golden brown. Eat!
Crab cakes served with Beautiful Flower’s Daughter’s Homemade Plum Sauce:
(When I called my friend this morning to thank her for the wonderful time, I told her that I had a crab cake for breakfast, and they are as good cold as they are hot and she laughed and said she was having a crab cake for breakfast, too. What sheer luxury! Crabcake for breakfast! 🙂 )
Tradition: Ivar’s in Mukilteo
I don’t know why I love going to this restaurant so much, but I do. The worst meal I have ever had there was mediocre, but considering we go there all the time, the majority of the meals have been between 90 – 100% absolutely wonderful. On this visit, my friend had clam chowder and the Fried Alaska Clams, and I had the crab bisque and the salmon on a bed of spinach. We were so busy talking, there are no food photos, I didn’t even remember photos until we were on your way out of the restaurant.
The Fried Alaska Clams, by the way, were so good that we ordered another order to go, and took them home to my Mother, who adores Fried Alaska Clams, and she said they were perfect!
The boat:
Looking toward the entry:
No signs of recession; the restaurant is full!
You can watch the Mukilteo Ferry come in and depart:
View of the pier on this gorgeous Pacific Northwest day, just outside Ivar’s.
The restaurant was full, but it seemed to me, at least on the lunch menu, that the prices are lower than they were six months ago. My friend said she thought so, too. A BIG bus full of Japanese tourists ate there, but the restaurant is so big, I don’t even know where they were eating.
And Purg, I feel so bad that there are no food photos from Ivar’s, that I took a food photo of the food in my refrigerator for you:
Irrelevant Clothing, Shoes and Scissors
It doesn’t matter how long I have been living in the Middle East, it doesn’t matter how many times I have made the trip back and forth, I never seem to get it quite right.
I knew it was going to be less hot in Seattle. I knew it. And still, I didn’t pack a single pair of closed toe shoes, a single pair of nylon stockings, and only a couple long sleeved things. It doesn’t matter that I have lived in Seattle, that I know Seattle, when I am in the middle of the heat and humidity of August in Doha, I lack the imagination to think clearly about the coolness of August in Seattle. I have a lot of lightweight cotton dresses . . . hmmm, so irrelevant in Seattle.
I keep a storage locker here. It started when we moved our parents from their big house to a 2 BR condo (with a water view 🙂 ) and Mom had separated out some of her treasures to divide among us movers. The problem was, I didn’t really want to take them with me (bulky and I would have to bring them back) and I have already imposed on the sister who lives here with a bunch of my stuff, so I finally decided to rent a storage locker. I discovered as a landlord, it actually comes off my taxes. I still have to pay for it, but it isn’t a total loss. I keep Seattle supplies in the locker, too.
When I went to the locker yesterday to pick up some more long sleeved stuff, and my Seattle hairdryer, and my Seattle make-up and living supplies (dishwashing soap, coffee filters, paper towels, laundry soap, etc.) yesterday, with my Mom in the car, nothing went right. My code didn’t work. I had to go inside, leaving my Mom sitting in the car, and it took them a while to work out what was wrong.
(“We don’t have seven number codes! . . . .Hmmm, , mmm, , , yeh, it says you have a seven number code all right, . . .. so here is your new code . . . )
And the new code didn’t work either.
They opened the gate for me, I went to my locker, and with my Mom sitting in the car, discovered my laundry soap had leaked during the time between visits, and with my Mom sitting in the car, I had to clean it all up AND dig out some relevant clothing, and some wrapping paper for gifts I need to send, and scotch tape and scissors (yes, I keep all the things that I frequently use in the locker so I don’t have to buy them again and again and again.) I also grabbed the bag of cosmetic items – like shampoo, toothpaste, my Seattle toothbrush, etc.)
My poor Mom! Remember her? She is still out there sitting in the car!
(The code didn’t work on the way out, either.)
So after all that sitting in the car, I treated Mom to a trip to Trader Joe’s, a place we both love. I picked up sugar snap peas; I just eat them like candy, instead of candy, they are SO good, and some sushi for later on, and Mom picked up things that were really bad, like triple gingersnaps and a wonderfully fragrant new Rosemary Tree.
On the way home, she said “you know you have some stuff in the guest bathroom” and I assured her that I did not, that it was all my middle sister’s stuff, and she said “No, Little Diamond looked at it while she was staying here and said it was yours, that it was stuff you use.” Hmmm. Little Diamond said that?
So when we got back to Mom’s house, I checked the cupboard, and there was one of those zipper bags like (ahem) I always use, and inside was . . . yep. Another hairbrush. Another Seattle toothbrush. Scotch tape. Scissors. My particular make-up back-ups. Shampoo. I brought it with me, and I had two almost identical zipper bags full of Seattle supplies. I can only imagine that sometimes when I get here after all those hours of traveling that my mind is just so addled I am not thinking.
It also makes me feel a little weird that Little Diamond knows me so well that she can identify MY things with just a glance at the contents of the plastic bag, LLOOLLLL! I am that predictable?
On my way over to my Mom’s, I had stopped at the local Fred Meyer’s, a Target-like local store I just love. Now that I am in Seattle, I see things differently. I see things I can hardly resist, like something in me feels like getting ready for the winter, but then, Thank God, my sterner self jerks me back just as I am reaching for:
Look at those socks! Look at those colors! I can barely resist, they are such a hoot! but then . . . where would I wear them? Even if I were abaya’d, people could see my bright polka-dot chartreused ankles and it would draw unwanted attention . . . . maybe just around the house . . .
But no . . . around the house – look at these!
Thick, fuzzy sleepers, only $16.99, like we wore when we were kids, only these are for grownups, and oh! look at that zebra print! The cheetah! They are almost irresistable!
And so irrelevant in Doha!
Sunrise in Amsterdam (for my Kuwait friends)
OK, OK, now I have to tell you the truth.
I am not celebrating Ramadan in Doha this year.
When we moved to Doha, we didn’t know how long we would be there. It could have been just months. I know, I know, those who knew us and knew the situation just gasped and said “Why would you do this?”
We don’t know.
This is our life. This is the life of expat contractors. You always get a choice, but sometimes you do what will help out the company. The packing and unpacking part, the leaving friends part – all that is bad. Really really bad. The moving to a place you have lived before, where you know the roads, you know the grocery stores and gas stations and don’t have to learn everything all over again, and best of all – where you still have good friends – all that is really really good.
So once we learned that we will be in Doha for longer than three months, I quickly booked a trip to Seattle. If we were moving again soon, I wouldn’t have bothered, because these long trips get harder and harder on us.
As we were about to land in Amsterdam, I just happened to look outside the window – and there was the sun. Thinking of all my friends in Kuwait who got sick and tired of the sun rising over the Gulf (hee hee hee, it’s MY blog, and I never get tired of the sunrise! 🙂 ) I thought you might like to see the sun rising over a bunch of nice cool clouds and an airplane wing in Amsterdam.
Breakfast at the Beirut Restaurant, Suq al Waqif, Doha
“We want to take you for breakfast at the Beirut!” my friend said with enthusiasm, and I was shocked. She is totally covered. How could we eat at the Beirut? I remember her family loves the Beirut, and I remember lining up with all the other cars along Shar’aa al Karaba’a to buy felafel and foul and hummos, yes, oh yes, such good felafel. But it wasn’t really a place for ladies, especially covered ladies and their daughters.
As is usual with this friend, I never really have the complete picture. When my niece and I go to pick up my friend and her daughter, it is actually my friend and three daughters and we squeeze into my car and head – not to Karaba’a, but to the Suq al Waqif!
When I go to park in one of the new, tiny, narrow little parking spots, my friend laughs and says “You park like an American! I am going to show you how to park like us!” and she points to the one tree off in an unpaved area, and sure enough, there is one spot, not in the shade of the tree but in the shade of a large truck parked in the shade of the tree. “Now you are learning to park like we do!” she laughs, and I laugh too, I am always learning something from this friend.
We walk a short distance and she leads me into a restaurant which on the outside says Matam Beiroot, but it’s in Arabic. If you are walking from the upper parking lot, it is one of the very first buildings you come to, at the top of the street.
Inside, there are all kinds of tables and chairs, but my friend and her daughters lead us upstairs to the family section, where we sit off in the corner, so she and her daughters can sit with their backs to other customers while we eat. We are a strange group, two women covered head to toe, two younger girls in hijab, my blue-eyed-blonde niece and me, laughing and enjoying each other so much in the corner.
Since then, I have been back many times. The Beirut is a lot of fun for breakfast. They have wonderful felafel, and several different great hummos, and they have beans and the ubiquitous french fries, and tea. Grammy and I grabbed a quick bite there on our trip to the Suqs.
I really am so bad at remembering to take photos. This is where the felafel used to be, before we dipped them in the lemon juice and gobbled them all up:
here is what is left of the hummos:
And here is the traditional style ceiling with traditional style light fixtures:
Doha Ramadan Frenzy
As my friend Grammy and I wandered through the back streets of Suq al Wa’ef 😉 yesterday, we came across this frenzied scene, all the machines humming, and new dresses for Ramadan being made. I asked if I could take a photo – I think it puzzles them that I would want to, but I loved watching them stitch away:
Vietnamese Salad Rolls (Woo HOO on ME!)
OK. They may not look like much to you, but these are my very first Vietnamese Salad Rolls, one of my favorite eats in the whole world.
And I am giving myself a BIG WOOO HOO for doing them.
You all think I am much braver and more experimental than I really am. I have loved these for probably 15 years, but on my own I could never figure out how to make them, and I really didn’t want to try. I told myself I couldn’t get all the ingredients, anyway.
“Oh yes!” said my French friend, mistress of the kitchen, nothing she couldn’t do, and she invited us for dinner and the first course was Vietnamese Salad Rolls, made in her own kitchen. “They have the rice wrappers at all the Phillipino stores in Kuwait.”
Who knew? My French friend knew ALL these little secrets.
She carefully explained how to make them, but my mind shut down when she said “There is one part that is a little tricky – the rice wrapper has to soak for ONE SECOND in a pan of hot water, but only one second!” To me, that sounded very scary and daunting.
Then she gave me two packages of the wrappers.
I took them out now and then and read the instructions and put them back in the cupboard. I even shipped them from Kuwait to Doha with me. I read detailed instructions on the internet. I printed some out.
Yesterday, I found more wrappers at the MegaMart and bought two packages and now, with plenty of back up and with an unanticipated energy and hopefulness, I thought “why not give it a try tonight?”
The secret to making these is to have everything ready in advance – a bowl of cooked shrimp, sliced in half down the spine (so both halves look like a shrimp), a bowl of basil leaves, a bowl of mint leaves, a bowl of chopped parsley, a bowl of thinly sliced lettuce, a bowl of julienned carrots, a package of the rice wrappers, the cooked vermicelli in a strainer (it stays flexible because these go together fairly fast) and a flat round pan of hot water to soften the rice wrappers.
Once you have the ingredients assembled, the assembly – which for some reason was the part that daunted me – goes fairly easily and rapidly. If you soak the thin, brittle wrapper for exactly one and a half seconds, and lay it on a cutting board, it becomes very flexible and exactly the right texture. I started 3 inches from the top with the shrimp, then lay the rest of the ingredients in a row vertically, but almost on top of each other. Then I pulled the bottom up over the ingredients and tucked it in – not too tightly, but very snugly, folded in the sides, then wrapped the top over the already-rolled up section, and wow – a salad roll!
Vietnamese Salad Rolls
INGREDIENTS
• 2 ounces rice vermicelli
• 8 rice wrappers (8.5 inch diameter)
• 8 large cooked shrimp – peeled, deveined and cut in half
• 1 1/3 tablespoons chopped fresh Thai basil
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh mint leaves
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
• 2 leaves lettuce, chopped
•
• 4 teaspoons fish sauce
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic chili sauce
• 3 tablespoons hoisin sauce
• 1 teaspoon finely chopped peanuts
DIRECTIONS
1. Bring a medium saucepan of water to boil. Boil rice vermicelli 3 to 5 minutes, or until al dente, and drain.
2. Fill a large bowl with warm water. Dip one wrapper into the hot water for 1 second to soften. Lay wrapper flat. In a row across the center, place 2 shrimp halves, a handful of vermicelli, basil, mint, cilantro and lettuce, leaving about 2 inches uncovered on each side. Fold uncovered sides inward, then tightly roll the wrapper, beginning at the end with the lettuce. Repeat with remaining ingredients.
3. In a small bowl, mix the fish sauce, water, lime juice, garlic, sugar and chili sauce.
4. In another small bowl, mix the hoisin sauce and peanuts.
5. Serve rolled spring rolls with the fish sauce and hoisin sauce mixtures.
FOOTNOTE
• The fish sauce, rice vermicelli, chili garlic sauce, hoisin sauce and rice wrappers can be found at Asian food markets.
These are so fresh-tasting and light, perfect for a hot summer evening, perfect for a special Ramadan breaking-the-fast appetizer. Once the rolls are made, seal them on a plate under a couple layers of saran-type wrap to keep the wrappers from drying out. You can make them a couple hours in advance and wrap them good and store them in the refrigerator; they keep well for a couple hours. Don’t make more than you can eat the same day; they don’t keep well overnight.
The recipe above uses a different sauce than we use. The Vietnamese in France use this sauce, which is more of a vinaigrette, but the Vietnamese in Seattle and in St. Petersburg, Florida, use a peanut sauce:
1/2 cup peanut butter
2 Tbs Thai sweet chili sauce (sometimes called chili pepper sauce for chicken) it is that thick, sticky sweet orange-y red sauce with pepper flakes in it)
2 Tbs soy sauce
2 Tbs rice vinegar
1 Tbs sugar
1 Tsp finely chopped ginger
1 Tbs tahina
Cook one minute in microwave and stir until all the peanut butter is dissolved. Then add liquid – can be water or orange juice or pomegranate juice or chicken broth or sake (!) to thin to a thick salad dressing consistency.
AdventureMan was so amazed and delighted when he came home and saw I had been able to make these all by myself! I am so amazed and delighted that I can do it! Wooo HOOOOOOO! We didn’t eat them as an appetizer; we like them so much, we ate them as the main course, with some finger-food veggies – snow peas and carrots – as side dishes.
Think Pink Walk October 30th
This is what I love – advance planning and advance notification so I can mark my calendar now and look forward to the walk on October 30th. Not only that, I can tell all my friends, so they will be there, too. This is a grand event, a great way to exercise and show support for a worthy cause at the same time.
Women all over the world die because they are afraid to talk about breast cancer, afraid they will be shunned, afraid they will be treated as damaged or inferior. Fear can kill us. Silence can kill us. Supporting one another and encouraging one another can be part of the coping process and the healing process.
Please – mark your calendars, too. I want to see you there.
Breast cancer support group gears up for annual event
Web posted at: 8/9/2009 2:57:6
Source ::: THE PENINSULA
DOHA: Think Pink Qatar, a Doha-based support group for breast cancer patients and survivors, has set the ball rolling for upcoming events it will be organising.
Drawing approximately 30 volunteers to an organisational meeting yesterday, the group initiated the process for one of its major annual events, the Think Pink Breast Cancer Walk of Life. Due to take place on the evening of October 30 at the Corniche, volunteers have been mobilised to make the event as much of a success as last year’s event.
The recent meet will lead up to other events the support group will be undertaking in September and October include a Pink-Out Day at schools, the Think Pink Benefit Gala, a Pink Hijab Day, and Proctor and Gamble sponsorship. There will also be a Harley Davidson Women’s Ride for Life, organised by Margarita Zuniga, courtesy of the Harley Davidson’s Women’s club.
Due to growing interest from community members, Think Pink Qatar is organising its 1,000 plus volunteers and members into a coherent line-up in time for event. “Today’s meeting is to start organising for this event, as many have volunteered, and we have now found it necessary to devise teams, covering sponsorship, music, event planning,” said Karen Al Kharouf, Founder of Think Pink Qatar. “Because the group has grown from 200 to 1,000 members, there is the need for consistency and a centralized system.”
More volunteers are hoped for, to take the currently part-time organisation full–time, and to add to numerous out-reach programmes the group currently runs. This includes adding more to the survivors groups, and the Pink Candies, a group of older teenagers who provide morale support for breast cancer sufferers. Al Kharouf underlined the need to create greater awareness in Qatar, as many women dislike talking about the disease, hence its high death rate.
PS: I see Peninsula says the walk is on the 30th, Gulf Times says it is on the 31st. Hmmm. . . .
Happy Birthday, Mom
“You make me sound so OLD!” my Mother scolded me, when I wrote about how she was 85 years old and still living on her own. Mom keeps active. She can’t do all the things she really wants to do – travel, mostly – because she can’t manage a heavy bag or standing too long – but she keeps up her own place, fixes her own meals, goes out with friends, exercises, makes and keeps her own appointments. We should all be so fortunate, when we hit our 80’s.
(This is not my Mother’s birthday cake, but when I looked up cakes I found this on Kay’s Cakes.com and knew it was a cake my Mom would love, if she loved cake. Actually, she loves Lemon Meringue Pie, and that is what she really had at her birthday party.)
My younger sister has shown her a couple really nice places where she could have more assistance on a daily basis, beautiful places with activities and transportation for elders.
(I can already hear her wincing at using the word ‘elder’)
She doesn’t want to be surrounded by old people. She stays young by being as active as she wants to be.
She has signed up for a three-day mini university course at a nearby university, where they use the college facilities during the summer months to offer interesting mini classes. One of the four classes that she has signed up for is Early Islamic Spain. I’m impressed, Mom.
She keeps up with the news, sends me clippings, reads books we tell her are worth reading, and keeps up with her friends. She is good at managing her money, and researching her investments. She does better than most women half her age.
Happy Happy Birthday, Mom, and many more to come.
More Doha Museum of Islamic Arts Photos
I have been so blessed. Since I moved back to Doha, five sets of visitors have come – in a mere eight weeks. My most recent guests were the most fun kind – they loved everything I love, especially the Souq al Waqif and the Doha Museum of Islamic Art. Even though we had a dust storm their entire visit, we laughed and had a wonderful visit.
I got to re-visit my Iznic pieces, most of these centuries old:
And last, but not Iznik, a showstopper necklace that just knocks my socks off every time I see it.
Those large chunks of rock? Real emeralds, the size of pebbles. Real diamonds, the size of ice cubes. Real pearls, a little wobbly, some of them, but they add such gloss and character. What red blooded woman wouldn’t love this piece?
The Museum, on Saturday, had many groups – closely-dropped Americans from the military base, black abaya’d school girls, a grouup of one mixed – maybe a religious family group, visiting particular exhibits of religious interest – and the Museum welcomed so many visitors and absorbed them without us feeling the least bit crowded. . . well, maybe once when we watched a group of about 40 enter one very large elevator. We chose to take the next elevator, which we had entirely to ourselves.
It was never noisy – the water from the fountain tamps down the sound. Even the normally intrusive ringing of the security guard phones was stilled during the afternoon visit. Pity the Book of Secrets exhibit is now closed.
Every time I go to this museum, I am awed by the beauty, the expense, the spaciousness – and in amazement that this beautiful facility is a gift to the people – there is no charge for admission. I just really really wish they would put in a coffee shop!
It was another delightful day at the DMIA. 🙂
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