Kuwaiti Shrimp Spaghetti
This looks so plain, and it tastes so good. It’s especially good with Kuwaiti shrimp in season – I’ve never seen such big shrimp, and Adventure Man says he thinks they are the best tasting shrimp in the world.
You need really good olive oil. You need as much garlic as you can handle (think building up your immunities for the cold season to come) and fresh washed cilantro. You need some fresh walnuts or pine nuts. If you are using walnuts, break them with your fingers, you don’t want them too small. Saute:
Clean the shrimp. (Or pay a little extra and have them cleaned at the fish market or Sultan Center) Make a thin slice down the back and pull out that unsightly intestine. (They say it causes no harm, but . . .better safe, and it looks a whole lot nicer) Check the pan, is everything lightly sizzling? Add the shrimp!
Saute that shrimp until just pink, just cooked through, but still soft and juicy.
Drain your cooked spaghetti (hint: break the spaghetti strands into halfs or even thirds for easier eating if you are eating with others) and quickly put it back in the cooking pot. Put it back on the burner, turned off but still warm, and add the olive oil, shrimp, etc. Use a wooden spoon and get at all out of the frying pan, and stir it well into the pasta.
Spoon into bowls. Most people don’t put cheese on a seafood pasta, but if you have a really good parmesan, freshly grated . . . we won’t tell! 😉 Salt to taste.
Did I tell you the Qatteri Cat won’t eat meat? He makes an exception for sardines, tuna water, and SHRIMP. As none of these seem to be very good for him, he only gets a little, now and then, as a special treat:
Bon appetite!
Lexiograms
My friend KitKat is on a roll. She knows how much I love words and puns and groaners (jokes so bad they make you groan because you don’t see ’em coming). Thank you, KitKat!
Lexiograms
1. A bicycle can’t stand alone because it is two-tired.
2. What’s the definition of a will? It’s a dead giveaway.
3. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
4. She had a boyfriend with a wooden leg, but broke it off.
5. A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
6. If you don’t pay your exorcist, you get repossessed.
7. With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.
8. When a clock is hungry, it goes back four seconds.
9. The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.
10. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.
11. He often broke into song because he couldn’t find the key.
12. A lot of money is tainted. ‘Taint yours and ‘taint mine.
13. A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.
14. He had a photographic memory that was never developed.
15. Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.
16. When you’ve seen one shopping center, you’ve seen a mall.
17. Those who jump off a Paris bridge are in Seine.
18. When an actress saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she’d dye.
19. Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead-to-know basis.
20. Marathon runners with bad footwear suffer the agony of defeat.
Moon over Kuwait Towers
Celebrating 100,000 hits:
(Truly, just a lucky shot, with AdventureMan’s help)
Thank you, friends and visitors, for your visitsm your comments and your insights. Thank you for being a part of my virtual family.
Ramadan Lantern
I can’t help it. I bought one. I think they are SO pretty. And I bought one for my daughter-in-law, and I bought one for her aunt, and . . . I could NOT resist.
“Red” Vinegar
There is a vinegar used often for salad dressings, for marinades, for braising, called wine vinegar. It doesn’t have any alcohol in it, it is just vinegar, but usually in the Middle East you will find it called red vinegar.
So when I found it at the co-op, I grabbed it. It was dimly lit in there, but I could see that it was indeed red.
Can you see how red it is? Hmmmmm. . . . it’s sort of an odd color of red for wine vinegar . . .
In fact, the color is so wrong that I check the labels – and it is indeed, just “red” vinegar:
I’m not even going to use it. It’s not the same. It’s not the real thing. I don’t need red food coloring.
Motherhood in 2:55
I saw this on Good Morning America, and then my oldest, dearest friend sent me the same in an e-mail. Motherhood condensed into 2 minutes and 55 seconds. Very original.
Every time I listened to it I understood it better! Adventure Man is rolling on the floor!
Phone Fees to be Lowered
(for my non-Kuwait readers, Kuwait has a monopoly on all the communications in the country, and the phone rates are the highest I have experienced anywhere in the world. Most people who can subscribe to internet phone service providers like Skype, Vonage, etc. and use the internet connections to stay connected with family, friends, and to do personal financial transactions by phone. Kuwait claims they are losing millions of dinars in revenue, and continually tries to monitor and crack-down on illegal internet telephony.)
This is another tiny article from the Kuwait Times, September 26th.
Kuwait: Undersecretary for International Services at the Ministry of Communication Engineer Hameed Al-Qattan said that the ministry will offer outstanding call service fees over the Internet in order to stop the theft of international calls. Al-Qattan said that the announcement of this service will be in October and it will lead to a 50% reduction of international call fees from it’s present price.
I don’t have the figures. But I believe that most of the internet call services are charging between $16 (around 4KD) to $30 (around 8KD) per MONTH depending on the number of minutes you sign up for. Most of the calls to the US / Canada are free up to X number of minutes. Calls to foreign countries cost pennies per minute. They are charged to your credit card monthly, and the cost is a pittance. It’s laughable.
The call quality is not always so great, but hey, it’s a connection, right? And you are not paying an arm and a leg.
So Kuwait is going into competition with all the international internet call companies?
They will provide “outstanding” call service fees?
How cheap do those call service fees have to be in order to be competitive with the providers people are already using?
Will they also provide “outstanding” connections, better than the current internet connections we are dealing with?
Stay tuned!
The Lone Flamingo
God is so Good! Around a year ago, my husband and I saw Dolphins lazily swimming in the Gulf and so I have been half watching for them to come back again. It was such a thrill.
Today, I saw something pink flying. How many pink birds do you know? I had been taking some photos for you anyway, and had the camera in my hand.
Don’t flamingos normally fly in a group? I think he chose this beach for resting, he is poking around in the surf, I don’t know if he is catching anything but it is a ripe place for small fish.
When we lived in Doha, we would drive out to a particular lagoon to watch the flamingos. I feel like I have been given a great gift, a very special gift, having my own flamingo, even for just a few minutes.
Isn’t he beautiful?
Weather Change
Holy Smokes! I just checked the Weather Underground site for Kuwait and the HIGHEST forecasted temperature in the next five days is 104°F / 40°C today and Sunday. It looks like we have turned the corner! Next week, maybe we will have a day or two under 100°F/38°C. Wooo Hoooo, break out the parkas!
It’s like getting a break for the last part of Ramadan!

