Verjuice

For those who have commented or PM'd me about my sink, thanks! I love it, too. In case you're interested, here is the pic of the sink in the master bath. It's about twice the size of the other one, and I like it just as much: I am obsessed with home renovation and would work on my house constantly if my budget allowed it.

Is that what they call? Hilarious! It is a smart design though. With the heat and humidity, you'd never be able to rid the house of the smell of certain foods if you cooked them indoors. Even with A/C and fans, we'd wake up with our hair smelling of biryani.

Another aspect of all local-style (this is the technical term, believe it or not) homes in the U.A.E. is the presence of an indoor and an outdoor kitchen. The indoor kitchen is used for assembling sandwiches, making breakfast, baking cookies, and casual dining. My sister took this picture while standing on the platform in the nook where we eat breakfast, lunch and snacks. It's not a very practical room, as you can seem but then again it isn't intended to be. The outdoor kitchen is for doing anything with onions, garlic, meat and anything that spatters. It's where things get butchered and where stock pots get scrubbed. It's got a much better stove and a bigger sink. I prefer to cook in there, but I think I stand alone in my preferences. No pictures, sorry. My long-distance photographer refused, saying it was too unattractive (well, it kind of is).

More on the U.A.E.: In order to afford its people an elevated degree of privacy, local-style properties are surrounded by walls about ten feet high. Houses are usually situated in the center of the lot, so there ends up being a ring of land surrounding the house that can be used for any number of purposes from tennis courts to miniature golf courses. Although it will not seem that way in the photos, our house has a modestly-sized garden by U.A.E. standards. Ex-pats generally live in either a flat or a compound, within which the small villas are usually surrounded by smaller walls of their own. Le jardin: My father's passion is farming and agriculture, so we ate mostly our own meat and produce when I was growing up. We grew several varieties of dates and bananas, as well as mangoes, pomelos and other citrus fruits, almonds, figs, cucumbers, lettuces, the most ambrosial tomatoes from a Lebanese graft from February until April, and another half dozen fruits I don't know the names of in English. Tragically, a few years ago, a law was passed dictating that the U.A.E. Municipality was to begin spraying diesel fuel from helicopters in the wee hours as a cheap pesticide on all residential gardens, several times a week. As a result, none of us will eat the produce, even though it continues to thrive. We also occasionally raised goats, rabbits, geese, ducks, chickens, turkeys and... peacocks. We still have them, but we have since transported them up to Ras al-Khaimah, where there are no reflective windows for them to continue bashing their heads into (and subsequently breaking their necks).

Onto the requisite fridge shot. I really dragged my feet with this one, I know. By late morning every day, there a few extra items in here; more on days that I'm entertaining. I go shopping for food every day and try to keep as little as possible in the fridge for a few reasons, the main ones being that I avoid leftovers and frozen food. It's more time-consuming to do it this way, but I make the time and I do it. Obviously, for someone with my preferences a well-stocked pantry is a must. I am never without a small collection of excellent oils and vinegars, fresh spices, the best tuna and anchovies I can afford, grains (quinoa is a favorite), Rancho Gordo beans, polenta, pastas (I buy all of my pasta, except orzo, from Chefshop) etc. So, here's my fridge. It contains local, organic eggs from Lori's Farm, milk, duck fat, goose fat, miso, maple syrup, limes, butter (Organic Valley and Pamplie), a small chunk of raw milk Pecorino, vitamins, and some random jarred goods like preserved lemons and mustard. The freezer contains only ice and the bag of roasted green chiles shown earlier. edited because I accidentally typed 'toasted' instead of 'roasted' green chiles. Can you imagine?

Corn muffin! I love corn muffins. I love corn in any form, actually, but cornbread and corn muffins are high on the list, right after fresh, sweet corn on the cob. I know that some people here that it's a sacrilege to add sweetening to cornbread, but I have no such moral fiber. Delicious.

Uh-oh. There go my plans of ordering pizza and hoping nobody would notice.

No, they use the lunar calendar to determine everything. The closest we have been able to determine is that it was sometime within a two-year window.

Oh, it's not something you'd know unless you lived there; "as you probably know" was directed at Flotch. It's a random and interesting bit of trivia about the country. My dad loves saying, "But I feel like a Pisces".

F, That's obscene but it doesn't surprise me. I just talked to my family about their plans for New Years. As you probably know, very few people in the U.A.E. born before 1971 have any record of their birth, so to simplify things they were all given January 1st as a birthday. Since it's my dad's mock birthday we usually do something special, with a magnificent and often inedible cake, fireworks, and Michael Jackson's Thriller on the stereo. Next time I'm in town, I'll invite you over and we'll reenact New Year's Eve properly without the gross opulence and bad food. What do you think?

Susan, That is equally complimentary as it is coincidental; I just redid my guest bathroom over the course of this blog:

Nonstop flights from Newark to Albuquerque, darlin'.

Can you tell us a little about halal meat? I'm afraid I don't know much about it, yet I'm very familiar with kosher meat. Are the processes similar or very different? What makes it bland and fibrous - the raising, the slaughtering, the processing or the cooking? Thanks for taking the time to share with us. ← Aw, thanks Pam! You are welcome at my table any time. I believe that the halal protocol for slaughter is quite similar to the kosher method. It requires the severing of the jugular veins, carotid arteries, esophagus and trachea with a quick single movement from right to left, but the spinal cord should be kept intact. The animal should not be stunned beforehand. Immediately afterwards, the animal must drained of all blood, preferably within 24 hours. It should be eaten quickly thereafter. Due to the fact that the meat is freshly killed, bloodless and unaged, it tends to be chewy and contain little flavor. It also browns almost immediately upon contact with heat. In my experience, anyway. edited for typo

It's expensive, but it's still not as costly as a number of other places here. ← It's the folks from outside driving up the prices, isn't it? My recollection is that New Mexico, while not poor, isn't particularly wealthy either. ← Santa Fe is extremely dichotomized as far as wealth, but one of the reasons that the downtown area is so expensive is the fact that, in addition to be the second most visited place in the U.S. after San Francisco, Santa Fe is a second-home city, and a major retirement hub for well-heeled folk from TX, CA, and NY.

You have an excellent memory! The old Woolworths has since become a Five and Dime, but the institution of Frito Pie has remained intact.

I couldn't resist buying an almond-poppyseed muffin from Wild Oats when I was there earlier. I love muffins, and their bakery produces the best ones in town. Moist, buttery and not too sweet.

My feet were killing me when I got home. I couldn't wait to lay down and give myself a little acupuncture treatment. I definitely was not in the mood to go anywhere or dinner, but I didn't particularly feel like cooking either. I assembled something to eat using odds and ends from Christmas dinner and a loaf of sourdough bread from SAGE Bakehouse, the best bakery in town. I started tearing into the bread before I had a chance to photograph it, but I'm sure you won't hold it against me since this way you can see the crumb. Look at that crust! High-altitude baking is harder, but not impossible: With the bread, I had some olives, a chicken sausage with feta cheese and spinach, and a lovely wedge of cheese. I felt like I needed something green, so I munched on raw broccoli (not pictured) while the pan for the sausage was getting hot. I've also been on a prosecco kick lately, so I had a glass or two with dinner. Stolen bite while the sausage was in the pan: Sausage. How do you take a sexy picture of one of these? I could not get it right. Supper.

It's expensive, but it's still not as costly as a number of other places here.

I have to say you're one of the most interesting people I've ever had the pleasure of "meeting"! Am I prying to ask what illness caused you to be on that special diet? I hope all is well now. ← That is incredibly kind of you to say. And I've PM'd you the rest!

Awwww, shucks. Thanks, Chufi. Love that you have an Umm Kulthum/Oum Kalsoum sig line, btw.

New Year's Eve Dinner Announcement I've invited four New Years Eve hoopla-phobic and kitchen-friendly Arab friends; a Saudi, a Palestinian and four Tunisians over to cook dinner tomorrow night, and it's ON. There will be a dish from each of our homelands. I'll be making an Emirati dish, though I haven't decided on one yet. Stay tuned for more car rides and calories between now and then, at which point I will bid you goodbye. edited to adjust the number of guests.

Well I am shocked! Mainly because I've been working in midtown Manhattan for years and "would you take our picture?" is as common as "how do I get to ___". So ages before I owned a digital I had to learn how to use one. ← You are a much nicer person than I am! Last week, I was trying to relax at the end of a long day with a simple cocktail and a salad at an Italian place in town, and the obnoxious, drunk woman next to me asked if I would join her party in song and belt out 'Happy Birthday' to her husband. My response was a blank stare punctuated by a crisp 'no'.

YES. edited for emphasis

The menu: I had a cup of coffee: And the chilaquiles, which came with a side of black beans and home fries. The manager, Henry, moved to Santa Fe from Seattle not long ago, and is very interested in food. We talked for a while about restaurants here and in Seattle. Really, what is there to talk about other than food? Well, okay, we talked about politics in the Middle East, too. A digestif of sorts. edited for a duplicate photo

I couldn't quite cope with the thought of going to Whole Foods and picking up a few things to make breakfast with at home, and I wanted a cup of coffee and the Sunday paper, so I headed for The Chocolate Maven. I got there the moment they opened, so thankfully there was no wait for a table. The wait was getting crazy by the time I left, thirty minutes later. These guys do a huge wholesale business, selling their pastries at various retail outlets, coffee shops, and the indomitable Whole Foods. Personally, I prefer the savory food at the cafe to any of their baked goods. High-altitude baking is not something that everyone in town does well. The Chocolate Maven is located inconspicuously at the back of this alley behind a auto repair shop. It may look a little dubious on the outside, but once you step inside, it's wonderfully warm and charming. They hang banners of their accolades on the corrugated aluminum siding just outside. As you can see, they are a local favorite for breakfast and brunch: Just inside the cafe is a newly renovated bakery for retail: The open pastry kitchen was quiet this early on a Sunday, but is normally raging. The hot chocolate menu: Their word of honor: