Verjuice

Went for a walk with my imaginary dog at 6am. Came back and ducked into the hotel breakfast room long enough to make a cup of PG Tips with milk (brought the bags and the organic whole milk from home) and to assemble this sesame bagel with cream cheese. It was crisp and salty, and not half bad.

Just got back from dinner with Rob and friends. Unfortunately for this thread, the conversation was far more captivating than these pictures will be. Four-cheese calzone with mushrooms, roma tomatoes and red onion: The damage. The smallest glass contains the dregs of the prickly pear pilsner that was unanimously determined to smell just like Midori:

Hola from a hotel room in Silver City... the drive took seven hours to the minute, including stops for styrofoam coolers, petrol, sweet rice flour and buffalo. I haven't met Rob yet (dinner is a couple hours off) but he is already my hero, having spared me two hours of agonizing starvation with some treats. I've already eaten all of these, having left Santa Fe early fueled by tepid coffee and a Clif bar. Addictive and delicious.

The bushel of green chile was offered in jest. The dancers, on the other hand... Do you need me to bring some chocolate as backup?

Okay, I have way too much space left in my car (and it's not a big car). Someone give me something else to bring. A barrel of pickles? A keg of beer? A bushel of green chiles? A troop of go-go dancers? Fireworks? I will be stopping at Whole Foods and Talin (Asian market) on the way. Can stop at Trader Joe's if requested. Anything?

No dresses. Maybe a skirt. Maybe. I'll dress in sepals, wearing topnotes of carnation and elderberry. I also plan on donning hideous edible onesies and chaps with beguiling panache. On second thought, I wouldn't want to embarrass our host. I'm hungry. Can we eat now?

Oil change: $27 Cute orange kitchen apron: $16 Blackened chicken salad sandwich for the ride:$7 Opportunity to spend the weekend with Rob and Kerry: Priceless.

Hi Smithy, They can be found at Jackalope, here in town, but not until spring as they have sold out for the season. I called them and they will be happy to ship them to you. Some are made locally and others are made in Mexico. They are priced (very affordably, I think) at around $24 to $60, depending on size and make, according to the manager I spoke with. Hope that helps.

That's true, but there's no comparison: the last reliable estimate showed that between 20 and 30 percent of the world's cranes are in Dubai.

You pretty much nailed it. I didn't fall in love with this town for its dreamcatchers, kachina dolls, adobe Taco Bell and crystal healing workshops, that's for sure. After Lebanon, which would be a very difficult place for me to make a life, Santa Fe is the place where I feel my identity is most integrated as someone living suspended between two cultures. I think that's why I missed it when I left. It reminds me of the old Gulf in many ways. I love that Northern New Mexicans maintain such strong family values. (And, to be blunt, my dark skin is less of an anomaly here than it is in Dubai! ) As much as I love the U.A.E., it has undergone such an extreme makeover that I barely recognize it anymore. I would live in Ras al-Khaimah if I could, but it's not really a viable option for various reasons. I mean, I'm blown away by the fact that this city is 400 years old: Whereas this one is only 36 years old:

Ever try any of the COMPASS BOX SCOTCHES ? I just bought the Asyla (OK) but am dying to try the Flaming Heart. Unfortunately, our BevMo doesn't carry it. Wonderful blog, I haven't been to Santa Fe for way too long. It may be a project for 2008 ! Thanks ~ Kathy ← Thanks. I just checked out the Compass Box site-- very pretty. Love that one of their whiskies is called 'Peat Monster'!

Thank you! I feel very fortunate. The brik pastry (it's called warka, which means paper) was brought here from Tunisia by one of the guests. I found this recipe for you of exactly what we made that night, brik bil tunn (brik with tuna), from eG's very own ChefZadi, and he says you can sub spring roll wrappers for the brik if that's what you have access to! I shop for food every day (often twice a day, if my clients need any specialty foods), and only buy what I need for that day, so my fridge is always empty by the end of it. I went shopping at 6 pm for the NYE dinner. The fridge was packed to the gills after I unpacked my groceries (I thought about photographing it, but didn't!). Leftovers were taken away with guests, so my fridge was empty again by the time it was over. Sometimes it amazes me, too.

You can send the Highland Park to me.... that's one of the few single malts I like! Different strokes & all that! ← I think it must be that iodine smell; as with cilantro, there's something about it that is ambrosia to some and anathema to others. I suspect that the reason I disliked Highland Park (which I bought after reading about it here on eG) when I tried it has to do with the fact that it was the first single malt I attempted to drink after Ardbeg put me off scotch for two months. Even though it as not nearly as peaty as the Ardbeg, the merest whiff of iodine was enough to remind me of it. My eyes began stinging and tearing up like crazy. Bizarre!

Thank you. At the end of the day, I'll go for Oban, but the only ones in my collection that I really can't stand are the Ardbeg and the Highland Park. They don't do it for me at all; too peaty. Oh- and that bottle of Glenlivet Nadurra featured earlier in the blog? A big fat no.

Thank you, Chef. Alas and alack, I didn't own a digital camera at the time I was in Lebanon, which I now deeply regret.

Thank you for the lovely words! p.s. for those who have inquired about my teaser photo: It's Lake Santa Cruz, only twenty minutes north of Santa Fe and one of the best kept secrets of the area. If anyone wants driving directions, just say the word.

Thank you! It was your interest in Emirati food that propelled me into action. I called my father and said, "Well, what would you make if your were cooking an Emirati dish for a friend who's never tried Emirati food?". He chose fareed, but the main ingredient in fareed is an unleavened paper-thin bread, and I didn't have time to locate a saj beforehand. So I said, "Well, how about machbous?". He wasn't keen on the idea, for the same reasons that I mentioned a few pages back. But I was feeling stubborn, and I told him I was going to make an updated and more digestible version of machbous, which he found amusing to no end. Traditionally, machbous is made by cooking bone-in chunks of lamb (the fattier the cut, the better) down with a blend of spices called baharat (red pepper, cumin, cinnamon, ground loomi (dried lime), cloves, black pepper, ground cardamom, nutmeg, ground coriander, turmeric and saffron threads). Once the lamb is cooked, you add several cups of water, bring to a boil, add the rice, and cook the rice in the pot of boiling lamb water. I didn't want stewed lamb, but I wanted flavor and spice. The lamb sausages, though not merguez, contained merguez seasonings. I rendered some fat from the sausages and then placed them aside. I used a couple of tablespoons of the spicy fat to coat and toast the rice before I cooked it. Then I ground my spices for baharat and made a thin paste out of them by streaming in a little ghee, which I fluffed into the rice, along with freshly grated lime peel in lieu of the loomi (dried lime) just as it was finishing. I'll try and get a couple recipes into RecipeGullet.

Thanks for the kind words, everyone! I am going through blog detox now and experiencing lots of separation anxiety. I got so used to photographing my food that I felt like I was cheating during breakfast. SuzySushi, Maher is exactly right about the fettat hummus. My picture does it no justice; I should have served in a glass bowl so all the layers could appreciated, but I don't have one. It's a wonderful dish; very simple but very heavy. I used fried pita, then layered on the chickpeas, hummus, thick yogurt with garlic and mint, pine nuts and olive oil. If you are fond of the individual components, then I can't encourage you strongly enough to try it. Much greater than the sum of its parts. MarketStEl Re: the symbol; as soon as my sources get back to me, I'll get back to you. Racheld When I'm cooking aromatic food, I wear this black beret thing that fits all my hair in it, and it keeps it smelling more like angel kisses and peach blossoms than hot lamb fat and fried onions. And then, as soon as possible after dinner wraps, I shower it off! Shelby Nope! I never sleep.

And this is where it ends. Thank you so much for reading. I was totally intimidated by the idea of doing this but I sincerely enjoyed every minute of it. I'll leave you all with my best New Year regards and a little ham and cheese, by which I mean... Ham it up every once in a while... And don't forget to say cheese.

Dinner is served. Baqlawa: Ice cream: Pam R, a discussion during dinner turned to the subject of halal meat, at which point I was reminded of what is possibly the most important aspect of the slaughtering ritual: facing east. Also, I regretted tonight that I didn't talk at all about my love of scotch. Maybe next time?

The brikmaster, B, was the twentysomething year-old brother of a friend, F, who was also present tonight. He is here from Tunis to donate a kidney to F, who is scheduled for a transplant within the next couple of weeks. B's presence made the evening extra special, though we all spent the greater part of the night poking fun at one another's Arabic (there were four different dialects being spoken). Preparing the hummus for the fettat hummus: This is C preparing the rustic Saudi dish of her childhood. She calls it "Meccan Pizza". The filling contains lamb, tahini and mint, among other things, and the crust contains a special blend of spices that she mixes and keeps on hand. The soup, fifteen minutes in: Sausages: R, a linguist, is removing chickpea skins on autopilot while moderating an intense debate about Islam: The Meccan pizza, baked: Grating lime zest into the machbous. I like my machbous with lots of caramelized onions: The finished dish. Someone stole the parsley I'd been saving for a garnish: Brik, wonderful brik: Fettat hummus:

Ah, a free moment at last. It's close to 4 a.m. and the last of the company just filtered out of the house. As I was shopping for the ingredients for tonight's dinner, it dawned on me that I never took pictures of the individual dishes from Christmas Dinner, nor did I ever post a menu. I tried to do better this time around, but hey! Stuff happens. There were eight guests in all, including one six year-old (who left far before 4 a.m., okay?). Four of us cooked and the others were kind enough to do most of the cleaning up. What a treat. There were a couple of non-drinkers in the bunch, so we had pomegranate soda and ginger beer chilling with the champagne and Bandol Rose. Menu: Red Lentil Soup (Turkey) ... Aysh Abu Al-Lahm (Saudi Arabia) ... Fettat Hummus (Lebanon) ... Brik (Tunisia) ... Machbous-inspired spiced rice with lamb sausage (United Arab Emirates) ... Fried Cauliflower (who knows where this originated? Everyone at the table had eaten it growing up) ... Raw Vegetable Salad ... Turkish Coffee Ice Cream ... Baqlawa (Lebanon)

After I arrived, Duncan sheepishly admitted that he was out of eggs. Could me make a run to the store? No, I was too hungry, so we went to Bumble Bee's Baja Grill instead. Salsa bar (those SFR Best Of Banners on the wall are probably getting to look pretty familiar to you guys): Roasted tomato: Tomatillo: Habanero: My favorite of the menu. I usually get a salad with lamb (they use organic local lamb) or the Tito burrito with shrimp. Today, I tried the Tito with char-grilled mahi-mahi. The second half: And now I'm full.

I brought the coffee and decaf with milk over to my friend Duncan's house, because he had promised to make me one of his special omelets. When I got there, his dog Racer X ("Rex"), who is my second favorite dog in the world after my own, did not want my attention to be directed at anything other than him, so he positioned himself in the middle of all of my shots. Rex is half-wolf and half-Akita, and he weighs 130 lbs. He thinks he's the size of a kitten, and will try to get into your lap. If any of you have seen the film 'The Tao of Steve', then you may be interested to know that Duncan wrote the screenplay, and the film was shot here in his house. After the film was released, Duncan was asked to start writing a relationship advice column called The Tao of Love. Vic the cat:

Purplewiz, I realized this morning that I had enthusiastically recommended Ohori's without taking you there myself. What was I thinking? They sell all kinds of attractive coffee and tea equipment that I sometimes have a hard time diverting my eyes from.