Given this review is based on a dinner with friends, I could start with a tired old reference to Sex and the City/Bridget Jones, perhaps some handbag innuendo and talk about frivolous gossip etc etc. But as a writer I’m not that lazy. Even if there was a “Mr Big” (or Mr. Very Small in this case), some quite attractive men and a sports celebrity at the next tables during this review. The fact is, this was a simple and fabulous dinner with friends. More Dorothy Parker than Wannabe Carrie. Anyone who has seen Sex and the City 2 in all its’ cliched and consumerist fancy will understand my aversion…
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Standing to (A)Tentation
There comes a time in a woman’s life when it becomes her moral duty to break her self-enforced diet. For me, this came last week, when faced with the prospect of the monthly wine and cheese evening at St Regis Doha Prior experience had forewarned me – I can’t drink like I used to. But I can tell you, this healthy living period has not affected my cheese consumption. The team treated us to the usual selection of wines we can’t find elsewhere in Doha and two new cheeses for my benefit. The first was greeted with squeals of delight – Tentation. My friend Jen calls this “Spoon Cheese” after…
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Snacks on a Plane – Adventures in India Part 2
You have to admire the Indian obsession with snacks. Snacking in this country is an art form from samosas through to the more elaborate chaat featuring all types of fabulous spices and textures. But I found perhaps my favorite snack so far – and it’s a meal unto itself. Behold – the Bombay Vegetable Sandwich. Yes.. a sandwich – bread, tomatoes, cucumber, crushed potatoes (usually cooked with spices) and finally – cheese. Gourmet this is not. Hearty and comforting, that it is. Yes, it’s a toasted sandwich. Potatoes are boiled well in advance, and peeled prior to assembly and sometimes mashed with spices. The tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes and other ingredient…
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Like a Paratha – Adventures in India Part 1
When I tell people how much I like India, their faces often screw up and they hold their stomachs. I may be jinxing myself, but I have never had a dose of Delhi Belly that originated in India. Pakistan is another issue. Visiting there back in 2008, I was so ill I lay on the floor of my hotel bathroom in Karachi wrapped only in a towel in a pool of sweat and started to write my will on hotel stationery. I stopped because I realized all I had was a German car the bank mostly owned and a nice handbag to offer my loved ones. Back to India. I…
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Amongst Gouda Friends
Sometimes a gal just needs a home cooked meal. And thanks to my friend Ruth, I enjoyed a little taste of that when she whipped up a spicy treat of Chilli Crab and a Prawn Curry last night. But my end of the bargain, as always, was to bring the cheese. No wonder I get invited to a lot of dinners…hmmmm Still working my way through the cheese accumulated from my European trip, I brought along a Gouda from my friends at Wijngaard and Reypenaer in Amsterdam. This was from their specialty cheese range, which infuses other ingredients like herbs and truffles. The Affiné Zontomaat Bieslook (Affiné Cheese with Sun-Dried…
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Feeling Ropey – All Wound Up About Shelal Cheese
Something had me doing a cartoon-like double take in Spinney’s supermarket this week (and it wasn’t the bill, altough I do tend to leave this place feeling violated and not in a good way). While cruising past the olives and nestled next to the pickles in the deli area I found this interesting sight – Closer inspection revealed it to be a cheese of some description, but the guy behind the counter was unhelpful – “It could be a cheese, I don’t know”. So I took a punt, bought a hunk and set off home to investigate. Turns out this is shelal cheese (Jibneh Shelal), known now amongst hipsters and…
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Middle Eastern Promise
There are eight new cheeses currently sitting in my fridge to try. But all week, I have been craving Lebanese food, specifically Fatteh. In my world, this is the perfect combination of salty, crunchy, creamy and savory (with the exception of a grilled cheese sandwich). Because I have been on a healthy living kick, buying it from one of the local restaurants wasn’t a option, given it can involve a lot of oil. Fatteh actually means crushed or crumbed. My version has chickpeas, oven baked eggplant, toasted pita and of course a garlicky yoghurt sauce with tahina and lemon. Some people like theirs with ground lamb or chicken, I like…
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Up Hill and Down Wensleydale
So this week just past I turned 42. Apparently 42 is not just the number after 41. It has “pop culture” significance. It is the angle of degrees at which a rainbow appears. The three best-selling music albums – Michael Jackson’s Thriller, AC/DC’s Back in Black and Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon – last 42 minutes. Titanic was traveling at a speed equivalent to 42km/hour when it collided with an iceberg. The world’s first book printed with movable type is the Gutenberg Bible which has 42 lines per page. On page 42 of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Harry discovers he’s a wizard. And of course….In…
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You Had Me at Halloumi
The thing about diets is that you tend to eat a lot of salad. A. LOT. I’m 6kgs down and staring down the barrel of a another half a lifetime of lettuce and accompanying low cal pals. But the good thing about lettuce is that you can load it up, and this is one of my favorite salads, created by the chefs at the Grand Hyatt Doha This salad is so simple, yet I can never recreate it. Rocket leaves, fig, bresciola, walnuts, a simple dressing and of course the hero – grilled halloumi. Although it is of rather disputed origin due to the mixed cultures in the Levant and…
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Basque (ing) in the Glory of Meatza
I’m on a diet. There are undiscovered tribes in Papua New Guinea that know this fact. I have been telling everyone about it. Even the guy who pumped my petrol the other day. “You are very glamorous madam, like a Bollywood star,” he said in response. That guy earned a BIG tip. I’ve already lost just over 5kgs in a couple of weeks thanks to tennis, kickboxing and the most un-relaxing yoga classes I have ever experienced, and being the impatient inner child I am, I want it to go faster. So, I quizzed my friend and diet buddy Brooke (check out her fab blog Babbling in the Desert) about…