Verjuice

Yay. The extended eG family phenomenon strikes. Do you get it with any other foods? I can't think of any myself.

What does this mean?? Otherwise, I was going to ask how you ate eggs without smelling them. I guess you just stop breathing for a bit. ← As I said, I don't have a problem with smelling them once they've been exposed to heat. It's the, um... how to describe it, the high-pitched sort of metallic smell of sticky-kindergarten-tables stench that wafts from a raw egg or a plate that has had runny yolk on it. This evil smell has tentacles that grant it the potential to latch on to flatware after it has been washed. Al-zinkha was the Arabic word used by one of my dining companions to describe an otherwise edible product that has been tainted with the smell of an unclean animal. It was understood by everyone at the table but it was the first time I'd heard it.

Adding tarragon to what? I love love eggs... fried, poached, scrambled, soft-boiled, in a quiche, in a cake, whatever. But I just can't inhale when I'm cracking them. Please don't make fun of me. I'm one of the good people. ETA: Pontormo has kindly pointed out to me that the tarragon reference came from my very own sig line. Ahem.

I like milk. I like eggs. But the smell of either, in their untreated state, will send me dry-heaving to the nearest corner. Ditto raw chicken,and most importantly, any plates or glasses that have been in contact with eggs or milk and have not been adequately scrubbed (read several times in boiling hot water). I'm not sure I can explain it. It's not a food allergy but it is a powerful instinctive sensory reaction. When we were kids, me and my brother, who shares this repulsion, bonded over it. We'd throw one another shifty glances of concern and dismay when dining with certain relatives who cooked with harrowing amounts of animal fat and whose flatware always had a certain, perspiration-inducing stench. We used to try and subtlely sniff cutlery when dining out to make sure that nothing (spoons in particular were a source of alarm) didn't possess The Smell. Water glasses were most suspect. If, regrettably, we learned that we had drunk from a tainted glass before performing the ritual, our involuntary reflex was an instantaneous, explosive gag. We always agreed on what smelled bad and what didn't and our parents thought we were finicky- and nuts. Then, last week, I came to Lebanon. My mother's homeland, though she wasn't raised here. Today, I met with a local anthropologist and a food writer, among others, for a wonderful, delicious lunch. When it was time for dessert, one of my dining companions dipped his spoon into his ice cream, lifted it to his mouth, sniffed, then quietly set the spoon down and whispered conspiratorially, "Avoid the ice cream, it's al-zinkha". This led to a fascinating discussion about a cultural sensitivity to the smell of certain animal products. Everyone at the table understood the impulse perfectly. Some thought it might be hereditary, as in the case of those present who had been raised abroad, but could not, for example, abide the smell of their breakfast plates after all the runny egg had been eaten, and had separate quarantined sponges in the kitchen for such tasks. Okay, so this has little peculiarity has played a background note in many of my food-related adventures since childhood, but until lunch today, it had never occurred to me that it wasn't a less than charming personal idiosyncrasy. I was so excited to discover that I wasn't alone that I came home and googled it immediately. Alas and alack, I found nothing. Does anyone have any idea what I'm talking about?

Umm, so do you love the new higher standards of arsenic in water? You may get the same tangy zip from water as you do from your apple seeds... Actually, it isn't arsenic, but a cyanide compound that is poisonous, so enjoy in moderation. ← I never chew on the seeds. I may be greedy but I also practice medicine . I am now lamenting the fact that I have eaten neither an apple nor a pear in eighteen months. The ones we get out here are horrible.

Well, Daniel, I certainly wouldn't want to camp in Paris or Monte Carlo either . If there are no stars to see and no silence to relish, then you'll find me sitting by the fire in a nice hotel with a good book and a drink. However, there's no other way to see the wild and rugged outdoors. And if all that's around is some grubby hostel or pension, I'd always rather camp. And besides, that's where the best salmon and blackberries can be found. When in Alaska... live as the grizzly bears live.

Last night, a friend and I were in my kitchen preparing dinner. She was dismantling a head of broccoli. Before I could emit a shriek of alarm, she had scraped the stems into the trash. When I told her that the sweet heart of the trimmed stem is my favorite part, she stared at me in disbelief. Then, I remembered this (edited) post from Marlena Spieler's wonderful blog: And it got me thinking. When I'm driving and eating an apple or a pear, I usually just eat the whole thing, seeds and all. I also adore nibbling on the rinds of lemons and limes after they've been juiced. I love the salty, crispy skin on potatoes and, best of all, salmon. When I was a kid, my favorite food was the fatty trimming on a steak (though I was always told not to eat it). I have a friend who crunches on chicken bones (yes, I've forced her to have her blood checked and she's fine). My heart breaks a little when I'm eating with friends and the salad bowl is whisked away with all the rich, potent dregs marinating away in their deep recesses. Don't even get me started on chicken skin and pan juices. In this case, I'm thinking in terms of pleasure and not necessarily economy. So, are there things you love to eat that others may consider fit only for the trash can? ETA: Just remembered shrimp tails (particularly when it's shrimp tempura) and the irresistibly salty exoskeletons of pumpkin and sunflower seeds. Delish.

Had mana'ish for lunch today, courtesy of Saj Jdodna in Abu Dhabi. One with zaatar and akawi cheese, with khodr bi alboh (greens in its heart-- in this case, olives, mint leaves, tomato, cucumber), and one with kishk, which is basically the most intensely delicious thing on earth.

I have never found anything that compares to Danskos. A lot of people I know swear by Z-Coils but I'm afraid that I'm just too vain to go there. They're so incredibly hideous.

*cough oxymoron cough* just teasing. I can't get truffle butter out here where I live, so I buy truffle oil instead, even though I think it tastes kind of like turpentine. With any luck someone more helpful than myself will chime in soon.

Bahlsen Choco Leibniz are ridiculously delicious. Normally, I prefer dark chocolate. With these, milk is the only way to do it. These babies are mostly chocolate; the biscuit, a mere accessory, is practically suspended in it. My sister spreads nutella on the chocolate side, nukes them, and adds toasted marshmallow: cheater's smores. I prefer them with a smidge of dulce de leche and a sprinkle of Maldon salt. Really, really good.

I second these. I lived about fifteen steps from La Choza for a couple of years and didn't eat there until just before my lease ended. A tidal wave of regret washed over me and I started eating there regularly after I moved a couple of miles away. I love Cafe Pasqual, but only in the early mornings. Their sausage and chorizo is made on the premises and the chorizo burrito is great. If it's past 9 and the rush has begun to sweep in, I go to The Pantry for a consolation breakfast of their signature Buenos Dias.

I used to have it bad for Tropical Dots. Then I moved on to Wild Berry Dots. For a while, I couldn't go into any gas station or drug store without buying some. It transformed mundane errands like picking up bandaids and batteries at Walgreens into a cheery, soulful, artificially-flavored affair. Woohoo, Dots. In the midst of a serious hankering, I'd be unable to decide between the two kinds and grab both boxes, palming the two flavors from each that I liked best. But they basically all taste like baby aspirin. Also, occasional and intense cravings arise for Panda licorice or those Haribo licorice snails (more common out here). In a pinch, Good 'n' Plenty will do when I'm in the U.S.

And then there's the pluot.

Emer'gen-C Raspberry or Cranberry and multivitamins. When I went camping in Cappadocia last month, I brought along a few Odwalla bars. They were a nice treat but totally unnecessary. Eh. I had a vegetarian friend from the States visit me here in Abu Dhabi recently. She brought a huge bag of granola and a container of protein powder. When I moved to the U.A.E. last year though, I packed a box full of stuff I knew I'd be otherwise living without for a couple of years. Not exactly "emergency food items" but very nice indeed: Sriracha, vanilla beans, New Mexico green chiles, Maldon salt, Ventresca tuna, sherry vinegar and red wine vinegar and champagne vinegar (they don't sell anything that hints at alcohol in markets here), Arrowhwad Mills natural peanut butter and Grade B maple syrup. My carry-on luggage consisted of my seventeen-pound dog and a tub of white truffle butter packed in dry ice.

I agree .

I was just talking about this with a friend yesterday, over cold bottles of Leffe Blonde. It was 117 degrees with 80 percent humidity. At night. And summer hasn't even started yet so the oppressive heat has not really made an appearance. Mass exodus will occur in a week or two, when the air is suffused with a soporific pall producing a sensation akin to being wrapped in a wet blanket in a steambath. This means that a huge tupperware of tabbouli and fresh gazpacho must be chilling in the fridge at all times. And cucumbers. Lots of cucumbers. Iced black coffee in the morning. Cold melon or a frosty bowl of cherries for breakfast. Iced herbal tea all day long. Dinner- what's that? Pass me a glass of Sancerre. It's... so.... hot...

Some friends have been complaining about the fact that their cook's repertoire has grown tired and his menus have gotten very tedious. In the spirit of fun I offered to spend a couple days with him in their kitchen. He's from a developing country and has no formal training in cooking (neither do I, for the record), but he also didn't grow up with any exposure to many of the ingredients he now cooks with on a daily basis and therefore isn't necessarily sure of what things like risotto and gazpacho are supposed to look and taste like. His personal tastes are quite simple, actually. He favors fried dark meat chicken and South Indian curries. And he refuses to follow recipes, even though he reads them all the time. So, I gave him a few cookbooks. Yesterday, I talked him through a spinach quiche and helped him set up his mise en place before leaving him to his work in the kitchen. At dinner, he unearthed what was quickly dubbed "Medieval Spinach Hat". Evidently he ignored my instructions and at the last minute decided that the top shouldn't be exposed, so he rolled out another crust, subbing corn oil for the butter, and added that ti the top. In addition, he decided that this would be a good opportunity to use up that leftover frozen spinach from last winter, and the fresh spinach I brought with me was stashed into the vegetable drawer for later use. It was a terrible "quiche". . But I felt really bad about it and tomorrow I'll actually give him a demo.

I haven't been to Buddha Bar yet but friends of mine have gone. I'll try and remember to ask them about it and post back. I like the bar (44th floor? Bar 44? I can never remember) in the same hotel, Grosvenor House. It's my kind of place-- excellent drinks and quiet music so that I can actually hold a conversation with whomever I am with. I moved from Dubai to Abu Dhabi last fall, and when I visit on weekends, I gravtitate towards casual places where I can linger for hours. I hate driving in Dubai on weekend evenings in particular. And I see no reason to ever venture beyond Jumeirah, nor can I imagine living in Dubai and living anywhere other than Jumeirah or Umm Suqeim. That said, Prasino's (described as "modern Mediterranean") isn't far from where you'll be staying. It is located at the Jumeirah Beach Club Resort & Spa. I honestly don't know if I love it as much for the food as for the ambiance. Some nights a horrid pianist will show up and play Elton John covers, in which case I usually migrate to the patio... no menu online, but it's a good solid restaurant by Dubai standards. I have been to Verre a handful of times and was not impressed. They carry a couple of very special Tokaji wines that I got excited about, but I picked a few bottles of the same stuff in Hungary last week and now I don't feel compelled to return to Verre. It's also located in the crummiest part of Dubai. Lenotre may be a franchise but I like it anyway and one has just opened up down the Beach Road near the Lime Tree Cafe (excellent stuff to-go, by the way... and their coffees and brownies are fantastic). I hit Lenotre for pastry every weekend-- it's the only place in the country where I can get my fix of all-butter croissants and salted caramel macarons. You asked what Dubai does best. Dubai is an import society. It doesn't do anything best. It's charm is that you can get it all in one place. But of course that doesn't mean it's good. And if you want to eat local food, your best bet would be to score an invitation to someone's house. As an Emirati, though, I have to say: stick with Lebanese! Al-Nafoorah at Emirates Towers is excellent. Sheikh Mohammed eats lunch there most days. I've heard good things about Vu's (pronounced "views") in the same building, but I can't say firsthand whether it's any good. Then there are the usual suspects like the Seafood Market. Personally I can't stand the place. Time Out just released their annual Eating & Drinking Guide to Dubai, by the way. Available all over town. You might want to glance at a copy. Since moving back to the Emirates last year, my passion for fine dining has comprehensively been adjusted to a become a quest for the best Lebanese takeout dive. In my opinion, that's where the savviest chefs are.

Caramel ice cream with a salted peanut butter swirl and a deep, dark chocolate fudge swirl. No chunks, however plenty of small chips of buttery burnt sugar throughout. Nothing large enough to chew like toffee, but small enough to just crunch a little on the soft palate before melting away. Kind of like the texture Maldon salt crystals.

Cake, for sure. I'm not a huge fan of fruit based desserts; any fruit that's worth turning into pie is better eaten raw in the first place. We get so few decent peaches and berries out here that it would be heresy to cook their essence out them. I saw raspeberries and rhubarb in the store the other day for the first time in a year. Made jam. Still beats pie. I must add, however, that my favorite desserts include the like of sticky toffee pudding, cheesecake, tarte tatin and flourless chocolate cakes/tortes. Since I make all of these in a springform pan, I am electing them as honorary cakes for the sake of this thread.

When my Lebanese grandmother left her husband behind in their tiny village in the Bekaa Valley and emigrated to Massachusetts, she supported her young family by working two jobs as a chef. She cooked for everyone on the street that she lived on for thirty years, and everyone in town thought her name was 'Situ' because that's what her fourteen grandchildren called her (it means 'grandma'). She pronounced 'celery' as though it were spelled 'saturday'. The night before her quadruple bypass surgery, my aunt Salime walked into her house unnanounced. My grandmother was, as usual, pottering about in the kitchen. As my aunt approached the kitchen, she heard the oven slam shut. She walked in to find my grandmother guarding the stove, hands turned heavenward. "What! I wasn't doing anything!" Inside the oven was a 22 ounce raw steak, which my grandmother, who was supposed to be fasting in preparation for surgery, had planned on savoring for dinner. A couple of days later, once she'd been buried, we went back into her house and found that she'd liquidated her bank account and tied the cash in a hankerchief. She had taken all of her jewelry out the safe and set it aside, and she'd donated all of her clother to goodwill. When my aunt realized that Situ had intuited that her hours were numbered, she fell to pieces as she recalled the steak that she'd wrestled away from her mother the evening before she passed away. Situ had never learned to read or write, and her recipes were laid to rest with her soul. My greatest regret is that I never spent more time with her in her domain; her bright, warm kitchen. I bake a totally inferior version of spinach fatayer every once in a while just to keep the legacy alive, but frankly, it doesn't hold a candle to the memories of the dishes that I'll never taste again.

What she said . Since seeing this in the blog I've made it a number of times (substituting cheeses for variety), and it's simply fantastic. I've used it basically anywhere one might use a creamy polenta. Marcia. ← Absolutely. Otherwise known as hunkar begendi (Sultan's Delight). I use Claudia Roden's recipe. It's basically grilled/roasted eggplant into which flour, butter, milk and cheese have been incorporated. Serves beautifully as a bed for grilled, steamed or stewed lamb, but it's excellent with grilled vegetables or just on its own. It's a Turkish dish, and I think it's the best way to eat eggplant. I grew up in a Lebanese household where the baba ghanouj flowed like water. Trust me. This is better. Different, but better. Need to make some immediately.

In what area? The construction in Jumeirah is truly horrific these days, but that hasn't stopped me from hitting Prasino's at the Jumeirah Beach Club (Resort & Spa) on the weekends. It's not new, but it's new to me. I discovered it a couple of months ago and now it's the only place I go because it's so mellow by Dubai standards and the food is excellent. What are you looking for specifically, other than markets? Cheap Lebanese food? Upscale hotel bars? Anything and everything?

When I left the States to move overseas last year, I packed a carton of Licorice Altoids. Once I open a tin of them, the entire contents disappear in a matter of hours. Addictive. Wonderful. I have one tin left it is a licorice-hating friend's fridge. For safekeeping. She rations out a dozen or so a week.