When Two Big Holidays Collide
Thanksgiving is one of the BIG food holidays for Americans (and Canadians, but they celebrate it in a different month, on a different day) and the Eid is one of the big food holidays for Muslims, and can you see where I am going with this? We have houseguests coming tomorrow and I was out of what are called here “digestive biscuits” (horrible name!) and what we call graham crackers, which make for a very quick and easy pie crust.
As the jello mix was cooling before I could add the walnuts and pineapple and celery, I thought I would zip to the grocery. It’s still early in the morning, after nine but before ten, I can get in and out before the crowds hit.
Wrong. Oh so very wrong. If it were a normal day, yes, in and out in a flash, but when two big holidays are about to collide, no, there are other early birds like me, all jockying for spaces, for carts, to get their veggies and fruits weighed, to get their purchases rung up . . .
Fortunately for me, the first wave, the real eager beavers, was slipping out with their packages, and I got a parking place. No worrying about getting a space near the entry – any space will do. Besides, the weather has cooled and walking a little extra is nice this time of year.
I also lucked out on the produce lines – while everyone lined up near the citrus fruits, no one seemed to notice there was another weigh station near the Indian veggies. Lucky me! (For my stateside friends, when you pick out your produce here, you have to have it weighed and labled with the price before you get to the check-out stand.)
All in all – it wasn’t to bad. Not in and out in a flash, but in and out not too bad. The cars were streaming in as I departed, and I vow not to return until the Eid is over!
Failproof Easy Pecan Pie From Quail Country
A long long time ago, in a country far away, we lived in one village and our friend lived in another, but we often visited back and forth. One day she called and said they were coming into town with her parents, and I said “oh, we won’t be here those dates, but I will leave the key with my friends down the street and you can stay here.”
Months later, a mysterious package arrived in the mail, from my friend’s parents, with a lovely, gracious note of thanks for letting us stay in our house, and one of the world’s greatest cookbooks, Quail Country, by the Junior League of Albany, Georgia. (Quail Country, Smith House Publications, 516 Flint Avenue, Albany, GA 31701)
One of my all time best recipes, Soused Apple Cake is from there.
Today, I am making pecan pies for Thanksgiving and giving thanks for the never fail Pecan Pie recipe, which I have printed before, but will print again because it is such a life saver.
Pecan Pie
3 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 cup coarsely chopped pecans
1 9-inch deep dish pastryt shell, unbaked
Beat eggs slightly; add sugar, corn syrup, salt and vanilla. Blend well, but do not overbeat; add butter. Stir in pecans. Pour into pastry shell. Bake in preheated 350 F (180 C) oven about 50 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Six servings.
I actually cheat on pie crust. I use a Graham Cracker Crust, made with what are called digestive biscuits here in Qatar and in Kuwait. So a small package of digestive biscuits, crushed, add a little cinnamon and about 1/3 cup melted butter. Mix, and press into pie pan. Nothing could be easier. 🙂
And as I am making the pies, I also give thanks that our son found a wonderful woman to marry, and that his wife’s aunt has sent me some of the world’s best Texas pecans, which I hand carried when I moved from Kuwait to Qatar because I was NEVER going to leave them behind!
Another Doha Perspective
Looking from the Diplomatic Club area (over on the left; you can no longer see the Diplomatic Club) toward the Sheraton/business center area of Doha.
Qatar Train Map
I found the paper with the map! How cool is this?
When I look at this, I think if the money ever runs out in Qatar, they will still have invested in a superior infrastructure – education, transportation, roads, parks, attractive public areas, effective policing and traffic control – way more important than luxury malls.
The Tribal in all of us – Prayers for Rain
I know it is about that time of the year . . . clouds are gathering, you can almost smell rain coming. And yet it holds off. Every year, in Qatar, and also in Kuwait, the national leader gathers with his people and prays for rain.
What country doesn’t need rain? Even in the Pacific Northwest, where jokes are made about the abundance of rain, when the rains fail to fall, people pray for rain.
I remember living in Monterey, California during a drought; it didn’t rain for a couple YEARS. When it rained, people danced in the streets for joy.
There is no sweeter smell on earth, I think, that the smell of the first rain hitting the dusty earth.
From today’s Gulf Times
Prayer for rains
HH the Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani joining the worshippers to perform the Istisqa (rain-seeking prayer) at the Al Wajbah prayer ground yesterday morning. The prayer is in line with the Sunnah (sayings and deeds) of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him), who performed Istisqa prayers when there was a delay in rainfall.
Cats Purr Purr-posefully
This study cracks me up. When a cat is catting around you in the morning, it is usually because they are hungry, and they want you to feed them. If you get up and feed them, you have just encouraged them to bother you. YOU train the cat to bother you! The Qatteri Cat knows I won’t get up and feed him until I am ready. With me, he will purr, but he settles down and waits for me to get up – and feed him. LOL, I guess he has me trained, too.
From today’s BBC News:
Cat owners may have suspected as much, but it seems our feline friends have found a way to manipulate us humans.
Researchers at the University of Sussex have discovered that cats use a “soliciting purr” to overpower their owners and garner attention and food.
Unlike regular purring, this sound incorporates a “cry”, with a similar frequency to a human baby’s.
The team said cats have “tapped into” a human bias – producing a sound that humans find very difficult to ignore.
Dr Karen McComb, the lead author of the study that was published in the journal Current Biology, said the research was inspired by her own cat, Pepo.
“He would wake me up in the morning with this insistent purr that was really rather annoying,” Dr McComb told BBC News.
“After a little bit of investigation, I discovered that there are other cat owners who are similarly bombarded early in the morning.”
While miaowing might get a cat expelled from the bedroom, Dr McComb said that this pestering purr often convinced beleaguered pet lovers to get up and fill their cat’s bowl.
To find out why, her team had to train cat owners to make recordings of their own cats’ vocal tactics – recording both their “soliciting purrs” and regular, “non-soliciting” purrs.
“When we played the recordings to human volunteers, even those people with no experience of cats found the soliciting purrs more urgent and less pleasant,” said Dr McComb.
How annoying?
She and her team also asked the volunteers to rate the different purrs – giving them a score based on how urgent and pleasant they perceived them to be.
“We could then relate the scores back to the specific purrs,” explained Dr McComb. “The key thing (that made the purrs more unpleasant and difficult to ignore) was the relative level of this embedded high-frequency sound.”
“When an animal vocalises, the vocal folds (or cords) held across the stream of air snap shut at a particular frequency,” explained Dr McComb. The perceived pitch of that sound depends on the size, length and tension of the vocal folds.
“But cats are able to produce a low frequency purr by activating the muscles of their vocal folds – stimulating them to vibrate,” explained Dr McComb.
Since each of these sounds is produced by a different mechanism, cats are able to embed a high-pitched cry in an otherwise relaxing purr.
“How urgent and unpleasant the purr is seems to depend on how much energy the cat puts into producing that cry,” said Dr McComb.
Previous studies have found similarities between a domestic cat’s cry and the cry of a human baby – a sound that humans are highly sensitive to.
Dr McComb said that the cry occurs at a low level in cats’ normal purring. “But we think that (they) learn to dramatically exaggerate it when it proves effective in generating a response from humans.”
She added that the trait seemed to most often develop in cats that have a one-on-one relationship with their owners.
“Obviously we don’t know what’s going on inside their minds,” said Dr McComb. “But they learn how to do this, and then they do it quite deliberately.”
So how does Dr McComb feel about Pepo now she knows he has been manipulating her all these years?
“He’s been the inspiration for this whole study, so I’ll forgive him – credit where credit’s due.”
Cooling Down in Qatar
I quilt. I quilt for hours. In my quilting room, I stream National Public Radio from KUOW in Seattle, and when they say the temperature is 49°F and there are high winds expected, I almost feel cold.
So when I say it is cooling down in Qatar, it is a little tongue-in-cheek. I’m the Alaska girl, remember? We went sleeveless if it got up to 65°F; 70°+ was a heatwave.
Now that it is “cooling down”, the temperatures at night are just under 70°F.
I’m still running the A/C; looking forward to the days when I can turn it off. But, compared to the searing heat of summer, this is heaven. 🙂
“You’re Such a Good Driver”
Twice in the last two weeks, friends riding with me have said “You’re such a good driver.” You’d think I would be flattered, but instead, it makes me aware of how much I have adapted to driving conditions in Doha. The truth is, I am pretty good. The truth is, that’s not a good thing.
Doha is smaller than Kuwait. The trick in Doha is to know which roads are closed, (that is usually in the newspaper,) and to have two or three routes to get to the same place. The trick is to know where the lanes are going to go wonky with all the people needing to make a left turn, and at the same time, how to avoid the mandatory left turn lane that can catch you by surprise.
The trick is to yield to the bigger vehicle, especially if he is a cement truck, crane, or similar very heavy vehicle, unless you think you can quickly get ahead of them so you won’t have to go 15 km/hr for the next thirty miles. The trick is to avoid being behind a truck loaded with not-secured concrete blocks. The trick is to know that new cameras are going up all the time – have you noticed? Even the locals are slowing down, so I am guessing that the fines here are being imposed across the board.
Last week, I even saw a policeman pull a truck over for an illegal left turn – he turned from the lane next to the legal turn lane – he got pulled over. I don’t know if he got a citation, but he got a talking to. He seemed to be listening respectfully. I was shocked. There are times you will see three lanes turn left, only one of which is the legal left turn lane. It’s so common, you take it for granted. But things seem to be changing.
I have also caught myself doing some things I would never ever think of doing in the US. I needed to use a cash machine, and all the parking spaces were filled. I gave it 5 seconds thought, parked my car behind two cars right by the cash machine, and prayed no one would need to move while I was getting my money. Unfortunately – no one did. My bad behavior was positively reinforced.
The other night, picking up food on the way home, I begged some workers to let me park in a marked “no parking” spot so I could pick up my food.
“Bas hamsa deqiqa” I smiled as I ran to pick up my food, which, fortunately was ready and I paid, ran back out, tipped a little for the spot and drove off.
These are things I would never never never do in the United States. I do it here because it makes my life easier and because . . . everybody else does it.
I can still hear my Mother’s voice saying “and if everyone were jumping off a bridge, would you do that?” That’s what mother’s say. I probably said it myself. And here I am, knowing I shouldn’t do it, and doing it.
When I first got here, a woman was taking me shopping and as we got to the roundabouts, she said “You’ve just got to commit!” and she would whirl through the roundabout with seconds to spare. An Iranian friend got us from the airport to the Diplomatic Club once in 17 minutes in peak night-time traffic. It was easier for me to watch the clock than to watch her drive; she didn’t even look left when she entered the roundabouts. And she got us across town in 17 minutes. I still wonder at that accomplishment, and feel myself, at the same time, quaking in my boots at her confidence.
So I wonder if my admiring friends feel the same way, if I have become so used to local driving that I am adapting dare-devil tactics in my driving as well as in my parking?
I shudder at the re-education I will have to undergo when I return to the US for good.
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