3 Beekman Place

Al Ain: Sheikha Salama Bint Betty Mosque

2011-06-20T11:07:00.002-07:00

I actually think this is an instance when the real thing surpasses the architect's rendering. This is Sheikha Salama Bint Betty Mosque, named after Sheik Zayed's late mom, newly opened in Al Ain. The old Sheikha Salama Mosque that was on this site was torn down in 2007, right around the time my sister showed up in the UAE for the very first time.

Although I can't find any real articles about the mosque, word of mouth says it was designed to put a modern twist on traditional design. The architect obviously took a little bit of old, a little bit of new and mixed it up with a whole lot of green.

First the old. The whole mosque is finished in a sand-coloured rock which echoes the colour and texture of nearby Jebel Hafeet and the Hajar Mountains in the area. The minarets are also a twist on the old wind towers that were built in houses to cool them before the advent of air conditioning. The designs around the top of the towers are very traditional for this area and consist of bands of flowers and geometric shapes plus geometrically patterned screens.

The layout and the plan of the mosque all follow the usual layout, with a Qibla wall facing Mecca and a large courtyard with an ablution fountain in the centre.

Ablution fountain - the water inside was HOT!

However, there are some features of this mosque that have been added for modernity. Inside, this mosque has no dome, (highly unusual!). The roof slopes upwards towards Mecca and is outfitted with dozens of little windows to take advantage of natural light. Directly under the mosque, there is an underground car park, although it's believed most people will walk to this mosque due to its downtown location.

As I stood and took this picture in the searing heat, I noticed my eyeballs were actually sweating, or maybe the sweat from my forehead was dripping in my eyes. Either way it was disgusting and felt awful. Please think about that while viewing this picture.

Lastly, this mosque has been designed with the environment in mind. Al Ain is a relentlessly hot place in the summer. The wind towers pull the cool winds downwards into the building and the light colour is to deflect heat. The walls are made of thick rock, insulating the inside from the outside heat. Sheikha Salama's doors are closed during the day, keeping the cool air in, and the courtyard is completely covered with a large tarp to keep the courtyard in shade at all times. It's rumored to have solar powered lighting at night.

I wish I could find more information on this mosque, and even find out if foreigners will be allowed to enter this one as they are at Sheikh Zayed's Mosque in Abu Dhabi. I'd kick off my shoes and don the abaya for this! I'm quite taken with this building.

If the stars align and the cards are right, I may find myself in Al Ain again this summer and it will be my personal mission to learn more (and hopefully gain access if allowed), to this mosque.

Updates to come....

*Update* The stars aligned! I'm in Al Ain till the end of July!

Keepin' the town square shiny in 50 degrees...

Hitchin' a Ride On The Dubai Metro

2011-06-15T06:49:00.002-07:00

All the metro stations look exactly like this. Unless, of course, they're underground.

Recently I found myself on the Dubai Metro. I can't say much about it other than it's your average metro and very much appreciated by people (and by "people" I mean "me"), who don't like to pay expensive taxi fares to sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

I caught the metro at Ibn Battuta Mall and took it to Dubai Mall. Yes, the one under the current tallest building in the world. (For now, Saudi Arabia is constructing a taller one as we speak!)

Inside.

What? This escalator isn't the longest or tallest or made of gold?

Are we sure this is Dubai?

Hmmm.... Is it just me or does this look like the Sky Train in Vancouver?

Also those are not dollar signs on the floor. I checked.

Right up front, 3 guys enjoying the view. By the way, stripes are in this year.

View from the train. Ah yes, I knew I was in Dubai!

Something you don't see from the road, The Burj Al Arab.

This is Mall of the Emirates and that appendage on the building is the ski hill.

View of the golf course in Dubai.

You can get air conditioned gold carts here, a little tube blows cold air on your neck.

End of the line! It was cheap, easy and very convenient. Just like a metro should be. But I can't finish this entry without a winge at the system. Why are the service buses only good one way from the metro to Dubai Mall? If it's free with a ticket, and I'm catching the service bus from the mall to the metro, where I'll buy a ticket, what's the difference?

I never thought the Emirate of Dubai would be so - *gasp* - cheap!

Shakira and Amr Diab on Yas Island

2011-06-14T07:52:00.001-07:00

I went to Yas Island a few weeks back to see Shakira and Amr Diab in concert.

I took this video with my old, old sony camera. It's amazing the thing still works!

Teeny Amr on the video screen, real Amr behind!

Opening for Shakira was Amr Diab, a legend in his own right, at least in the Arab-speaking world. I was introduced to Diab's music in 2001, in Egypt while whizzing along Cairo's dusty boulevards with Omar and Hussein, Amr Diab's music blaring on the stereo.

His part of the concert opened with a comprehensive video montage of all his songs sung by him and covered by others. From Turkey and Bulgaria to the musicals of Bollywood, Amr's songs have been sung in dozens of languages by hundreds of people. Half the songs I knew, but I didn't know they were his!

The crowd went wild when he appeared, sang with him through every song and chanted his name between songs. Amr gave a fantastic concert, sweating it out in the Abu Dhabi heat. Near the end of his set, when he raised the Egyptian flag above his head, the Egyptians in the crowd cheered even louder. Yep, Amr is Egyptian!

Later, Shakira appeared in the crowd wearing a hot-pink wedding(ish) dress. The bad news was she was lip-synching (badly) through most of the songs, the good news was that she did not disappoint in her dancing or performance. The other good news is that I was really close to the stage.

The real Shakira in the middle of the picture and two video images of her on each side. She sang equally in Spanish and English, and threw in a few Arabic words for good will.

Again you can see a tiny Shakira in front,

and the huge video image of her on the wall behind.

By the way, Shakira does not sweat. Ever.

The crowd for this concert was really mixed, there were a lot of Arabic speakers there for Amr, but of course Arabs love Shakira since she's half Lebanese and as one concert-goer explained it, "sexy as hell!"

The nice thing was that being a woman, I was given a nice ring of space around me along with the covered girl next to me. No pushing for space, the Arabic boys (mostly Lebanese and Egyptian), were very courteous and respectful. We could all see and we all had fun together, singing the songs and dancing, they even translated what the crowd was chanting or what Amr was talking about for me. They were strangers, but these boys helped make this a really good experience for me. And then we all danced the Waka-Waka together!

Shakira strutting her stuff!

*Interesting side note: They serve beer at Yas Island concerts.

Untitled

2011-03-18T21:54:00.002-07:00

I was tired and hungry last night after moving villas in the heat, so I rode my bike over to La Brioche for dinner.

Tons of people were out, mostly men. Actually, come to think of it - all men, but when I'm on my bike they don't even notice me, I'm there and I'm gone! The sun was going down and the air was cooling off quickly. As the men left their construction sites in twos and threes, I could smell their cologne and was surprised to see them in their crisp, clean, after-work punjabis, hair combed perfectly, freshly scrubbed skin glowing.

In one huge sandy lot between villa projects, a huge crowd had gathered. There was a cricket game going on on one side of the lot, and a football, (soccer) match on the other. The football goal posts were made of old scrap pieces of wood hammered together, and all the workers played barefoot on the soft sand. They called to and heckled each other in different languages, but their laughter and cheering was universal.

As I turned the corner there was a gap in a tall fence, for a few seconds I could see a large circle of men gathered in the front yard of the luxury villa project they were constructing. Over the fence I heard drumming, singing, laughing and the tinkling of tea being stirred. Their music reminded me of the folk music Mel and I fell in love with while travelling around Rhajasthan years ago.

Hats off to many of the Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi workers in our area who make the best of their lives here. Life isn't easy for them. They work long hours in the blinding heat, building luxury homes they can never afford to live in themselves and can never step into again the day after they complete them. They rarely see their families, and yet they send their paychecks home to them every month. Suicide, beatings and murder are not uncommon in labour camps, yet these men still find a way to sing and play football at the end of the day.

In contrast, most western foreigners are forever looking for a way to cut themselves off. Hidden away in apartments or rooms, they don't want to see anyone else. They watch TV alone, eat alone, and feel all the more miserable for it.

My bike is definitely the best thing I've bought here. Cars race down the empty streets with their black tinted windows closed tight, the air conditioner blasting, like an antibacterial, hypoallergenic, climate-controlled bubble, insulated against everything real.

I love riding my bike and hearing the call to prayer on the wind. I like riding through empty lots where the sand has been packed down by foot traffic hard enough for me to ride my bike across. I know where there's a white mulberry tree, which house cooks Indian food every Friday and where there's a dead cat, half buried in the sand, that's slowly being mummified by the wind and heat.

On the way back from dinner it was after dark, but there was a full moon and I could smell flowers.

Friday Morning KCA

2011-03-04T08:22:00.000-08:00

Friday morning in KCA is like Sunday morning everywhere else - people sleep in, have big breakfasts with their families, get ready to go to Friday Prayer and generally take it easy. Traffic is non-existent, so it's a good time to take the bike out for a spin.

Our immediate area in KCA is pretty much a massive construction zone at the moment. This pic was taken from the roof of our villa. As you can see everything is in some stage of going up.

The fine sand that's everywhere.

At the end of our street is a lot used for storing all the machinery used on various

construction sites in the vicinity. When I come home from work in the afternoon,

the drivers are usually napping in the shadows of these machines.

Today's destination! Khalifa City Market!

This place has almost anything you need, and plenty you don't need.

Someday, as a grand experiment I'm going to dump some post cards in here

and see if they ever get delivered.

Send me your address if you're interested!

The "Pink Shops" aka "Funkytown" usually I ride a little further afield but

the sun was already blazing at 9am, time to pedal back home!

Introducing: Pamy

2011-03-02T10:02:00.000-08:00

My transport around KCA! I bought her at Carrefour for about 100 bucks. I got a pink girl's bike because I figured the workers around here would be less interested in nicking her. The basket fits 2 bags of groceries and I can tie stuff down to the rack above the back wheel. She was made in another place close to my heart - Taiwan, and she's named after a (former) Canadian Icon!

I usually take her out for a long ride on Friday mornings when traffic is non-existent around here, although lately I've found I have to get up earlier and earlier to avoid the slowly increasing heat. The workers around here had a good laugh the first time they saw a foreign girl peddling around, but now they wave and yell, "Good Morning!" when they see me!

Strange Conversations Vol. 1: Taxi driver - Burj Khalifa to Bur Dubai

2011-02-12T10:13:00.000-08:00

“Where you go Miss?”

“The bus station in Bur Dubai, please.”

“You mean Diera, right?”

“No, the one in Bur Dubai, near the gold souk and Carrefour. The one that goes to Abu Dhabi.”

“Okay, okay, I know…. Shit! Road closed this way, you see?”

“Yes….”

“We take another way? Okay?”

“Ummmm. Do I have a choice? Okay, fine - but don’t go the long way!”

“Noooo! I take short way. Wait a sec, this guy wanna ask me question….”

.......

“Okay we go now. That guy from Saudi.”

“Saudi Arabia?”

“Yup. No say “thank you”, “shukran”, “domo arigato”… nothing!

“Ah..right….”

“You from Saudi?”

“Me? No!"

"Miss where you from, I can ask this?"

"I’m from Canada.”

“Canada? You know, Canada and Germany people same.”

“What? Why would you say that?”

“I know. I been taxi driver long time. You same.”

......

“You work Abu Dhabi Miss?”

“Yes.”

“You have family there?”

“No, no family…. May I ask where you are from?”

“Pakistan, lady.”

“Lahore or Peshawar?”

“How you know Lahore, lady?”

“I have a friend from Lahore.”

“Lady friend?”

“Yes.”

“I am from Lahore. You have husband?”

“Yes.”

“Children?”

“No.”

“No children? Why you not have children?”

“God didn’t give me any.”

“I see. It’s okay, not your fault. Sometimes children too noisy, Mommy! Mommy!

Lady, You see this tunnel? No one in Dubai know this tunnel. Look! Empty! They all do too many U-turn upstairs. But I know this tunnel. Everyday I’m driving!”

......

“Lady, may I say something? Don’t be mad ok? You have baby face. Your husband really so lucky!”

“Ha! Thank you. I’ve told him that many times but he never believes me!”

“Haha! Really lady, you so cute! You make cute children! I think your husband battery finish! He need Viagra, recharge battery.”

“What!?”

“Really, I call husband, tell him “Wife say battery finish!”

“Ha! I’ll tell him you said it, not me!”

“I kidding! Kidding! I never say. I say and big fight coming! Yes?”

“Yes.”

“Husband say, “Why you tell people my battery finish!” Funny, yes?”

“Yea. Funny. Do you have children?”

“Yes, three! One boy is do computers. One girl teacher and other girl medical.”

“Your daughter is a teacher? Like me!”

“You teacher Miss?”

“Yes.”

“You good teacher?”

“I do my best.”

“I ask you one question, you get right, this taxi ride free, ok?”

“Uh…okay.”

“Between 1 and 100, how many times we see number 9?”

“Number 9? Lets see.. 9, 19, 29…. About… 20 times?”

“… Ok I say another one, really this time you get right - you no pay.”

“Wait! Was I right?”

“Okay, you want book. Book is 50 dirham. You have 25 dirham, friend have 25 dirham you buy book for sharing, you understand?”

“Yes.”

“I book seller, I give you discount, but I cheat you just a little bit. I give you book for 45. So with 5 dirham I give you one dirham, friend one dirham and I put 3 dirham my pocket. You understand?”

“Yes.”

“Ok, now you and friend have one dirham, means you pay only 24 for book. 24 and 24 is what?”

“48.”

“Yes! And 3 dirham in my pocket! How possible?”

“Are you telling me I need to watch carefully when I pay you?”

“I NEVER cheat you lady! You have baby face! But you say you teacher, huh? Come on, what’s answer?”

“I’m an English teacher, not a math teacher!”

“Ha! Look, bus station coming on right, Carrefour on left.”

“Excellent, thank you. Here you are, keep the change.”

“No lady thank you! But I wanna tell you something important okay? Abu Dhabi bus straight over there, run quickly! Don’t miss! And don’t talk to the crazy people around here, Okay? They really crazy!”

“Okay, okay thanks again, have a good night!”

New City, New Villa - Welcome to Villa 3

2010-12-31T22:17:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!

Some pictures of the inside of the villa, there are several rooms that are currently empty, but those rooms have been locked so people like me can't snoop in them.

The living room/dining room area that never gets used....

...except by this one.

Patty is actually a cat that belongs to Villa 4, but you know how cats are.

In the dining room! Left over art from my sister in her attempt to give the place a little warmth.

I was really pleased to see this was still there,

a little reminder that Mel once roamed these halls.

The best-used room of the villa, where everything important takes place, morning coffee, rushed breakfasts and dragon taming. (The dragon is the nickname given to the oven by former tenants, as it's a beast that spews uncontrollable fire!)

It's actually a huge room... larger than some commercial kitchens I've seen!

And my room, which is the one with a balcony. I took this the week I moved in.

Since I have a balcony, I've put out some birdseed in dishes. The birds here are pretty amazing, we saw Hoopoes and Egyptian Vultures in Al Ain, and I have seen Green Parakeets in the villa vicinity, but all my dishes can attract are a bunch of these grey Laughing Doves, a couple of sparrows and a pair of these guys below, who seem to prefer cat food to birdseed.

The bird above in the not-so-great photo is a White Eared Bulbul. This guy is native to this area and Saudi Arabia and has a very nice song. While looking up info about this little cutie, I came across this video, which was made by current and former compound comrades!

P.S. - Obviously that isn't really the birds actual song, but it is a piece of music based on it - a shout out to my friend Ken who created a lot of excellent videos, music, stories and poems during his time here in KCA. You can see more from him here at his blog - Ken's Room.

K for Korruption!

2010-12-30T10:01:00.000-08:00

So you're just sitting in the kitchen, enjoying your morning bowl of Special K, and you're perusing the box, as people do with breakfast cereal boxes and - WHAM! You realise that someone has censored your wheat and rice flakes!

You can love your shape in the spotlight, as long as it's all covered up!!

Random Facts about the UAE

2010-12-28T08:20:00.003-08:00

At the top of this U-Turn sign in Al Ain it says Alhamdo-lillah,

which means "Praise to God".

The UAE is unlike anywhere else. Some random facts.

The border between the UAE and Saudi Arabia has never been totally settled, to this day there is no official border recognised by both countries. The UAE claims they share a border with Qatar, while Saudi Arabia says, "Nah-uh".

Since record keeping began it has actually snowed twice in the UAE, in the high mountains in Ras Al Khaimah.

There are very few left turns in the UAE. Say you are driving along and you wish to make a left turn, you probably won't be able to because of the massive meridian blocking your way. This means you'll have to go to the next roundabout and come back, and now the left turn is a right turn. At Raha Beach Villas, Raha Beach Mall is only 200 meters away across the road, but residents have to drive over 10 km to get to it!

The work week runs from Sunday to Thursday. (In Oman the work week runs from Saturday to Wednesday.)

In 2010, the UAE's population was estimated at just over 8 million, of which just under 20% were local Emiratis. The majority of the population are expatriates, and the majority of them are Indian. Many Emirati believe Chicken Biryani is a local dish!

Check carefully! Which one are you?

In Dubai, 1 out of 5 persons purchase 5 pieces of gold jewelry every year. In fact there are schemes run by banks to help people invest in gold, and in the Emirates Palace there's an ATM which dispenses gold bars and coins!

Every night during the week at exactly 7:03 an 7:53 a helicopter flies low over our villa.

To answer Kate's question, (and I had to ask a lot of people this question, because people here don't pay attention to gas prices!) gas is 2.62 Dirhams a litre, which is about .71¢ Canadian.

Dubai's annual precipitation is only 13 cm.

Camel's milk is readily available in any market.

As of January 2nd, the six month visa for Canadians will go up to $1000 CD. Guess no one is coming to visit me soon....

The 11 Million-Dollar Tree!

Welcome to Khalifa City A!

2010-12-23T23:19:00.000-08:00

In my last days of living in Naramata, I took literally hundreds of pictures. In the last month that I've been in Abu Dhabi, I've taken twenty.

It's not that I haven't been schlepping my camera around, it's just that nothing seems picture-worthy. In Al Ain there was so much more natural beauty and here... well... you'll see.

So I decided that maybe the mundane here wouldn't be so mundane for other people, so ladies and gentlemen, I introduce you to, "My Current Home: Khalifa City A".

So I live in a small compound. Not a compound like they have in Saudi Arabia with shops full of booze and pork and people never leave them. Arak Compound contains 6 villas and a swimming pool. It was one of the first developments to happen in KCA, and therefore I'm told it's a bit unusual, they're no longer building this style of villa.

The Arak villas are basically dormitories. We all get a room and our own bathroom, but the kitchen and living areas are shared. There are accommodations for 6 people in each villa.

Outside off my balcony we can see an example of new villa living, each of those villas will have contained apartments with at least 2 bedrooms, if not more. Immediately next to us, we have a vacant lot and beyond that construction that was started long ago, but never completed, (you can just see the corner on the left).

The pool area. Yes we have a pool! I haven't been in yet, mainly because I'm working till late and when I do get home, it's a bit chilly! And I'm usually not around on the weekends.

Villa 3, where my sister once lived, and I now reside. Her artwork still adorns the empty walls. I'll post pictures of the inside, but first I'll have to take some.

All over the villa grounds are squash growing. These aren't cheap to buy here!

Khalifa confusion. This is at the end of our street. The front sign says 3rd street, sector 33 in zone 133. (And I live in Villa 3! All those threes!) The far sign says 42nd street. I have no idea how they've numbered the streets out here, it seems there's no rhyme or reason at all. In the background are two international elementary schools and more villas. The street running next to them is 16th.

My street, whatever its name is. That's Arak compound on the right.

On the way to funky town. There is a long row of shops a few blocks away where you can buy food or have a coffee which Arak compound people refer to as "Funky Town". I walk over about once a week, (I'd go more often if I had a bike!) As you can see, the ground is really just sand. Do you see that round object on the horizon between the rolls of cable? That's Raha Beach and the building has been nicknamed "the Dirham" after the local currency. There's a mall and a few hotels over there. To drive there though, one has to drive almost 10km into the city and back again because the round-about they plan to put in there hasn't been done yet. Again I need a bike.

More construction. Do you see all the cranes on the horizon? That's the new downtown core of Abu Dhabi... someday.

The story is that the proper city of Abu Dhabi is actually built on an Island, and that island is getting crowded. In order to expand, some restructuring is in order. So the plan is to move off island and rebuild in the desert where there's plenty of room for the Sheiks to build their projects that will change how we view cities in the future. Yas Island and Masdar City are located out here near KCA and there will be a direct line from here to Saadiyat Island. But those are other blogs. In the meantime, we have....

Funky Town! Need a pool? Want to landscape your yard? How about a bank, milk, light bulbs, a shower curtain or cheese? Its all here in Funky town AKA The Pink Shops, AKA Khalifa Market. (It's not evident in this picture, but the sixth row down, the shops become dusty pink.)

Around the other side and across the street is a nice coffe shop frequented by many of the expats who live out here. On any given evening you can see 10 to 12 bicycles parked out front.

And there you go! I think I should mention here that if you drive 20 minutes, you'll get to Abu Dhabi proper, and that's a whole different ball game. KCA will be great in years to come, in pictures this is what Abu Dhabi looked like 30 years ago. Perhaps someday, I'll be able to say, "I lived there when there was nothing".

Working on pictures of the villa.

Christmas in The Village!

2010-11-20T05:36:00.000-08:00

People have been asking if we'll be here, and the answer is yes!

Come on down and check out Naramata's lovely Heritage Inn and Spa all decorated up for the holidays! We'll have our scarves, paintings and jewelry for sale at this extra special Christmas Craft faire. Also check out my mom's handmade Christmas stockings next to the fireplace!

Drop by and visit us!

Block Print: The Train Dock

2010-11-09T20:41:00.000-08:00

The Train Dock in the 1980's

When I was a kid, we lived right across the road from the train dock in Naramata. In fact, the house we lived in was actually a barn, floated down from Kelowna on a barge and unloaded off the dock. From there it was dragged across the street and placed on a vacant lot. But that is another story....

I was warned by my mother never to set foot on the dock without an adult present; a rule I broke early and often. The train dock beckoned little kids like me to crawl all over it's sticky creosote beams.

As teenagers, the boys would dive off the towers into the cold waters of Okanagan Lake while the girls suntanned on the deck. Honestly, it was never a great place to swim - the creosote beams created a smelly oily film on the surface of the water and our bathing suits would easily be stained with dark brown tar. But it was a great place to meet and hang out. I have fond after-school memories of eating ice cream sandwiches with my best friend, our bikes dumped unceremoniously in the nearby gravel.

Then, one day in 2002, news spread that the Train Dock was gone. It was deemed unsafe and disappeared so quickly, many Naramatians were surprised and shocked at the speed of it's demolition.

The Train Dock in 2010

Today, the dock has been preserved, but the landmark towers are gone. Where there were once weeds and gravel, there is grass and a manicured path. I wasn't able to find any pictures of the old dock on the web. The one old picture here is a photograph of a photograph hanging on the wall at the Naramata Museum.

And so, this is the train dock the way I remember it when I was 12 years old. This print was composed from a few old photographs and a lot of memories.

"The Train Dock"

Hand-painted block print

Limited edition of 12

My sister will have these prints for sale at the Christmas Faire held at the Naramata Heritage Inn and Spa, along with her paintings. More on that soon!

Green

2010-11-05T08:52:00.000-07:00

Yes, there is a bit of green left here and there!

Mom in the Vineyard

Mountain Ash and Maple

Munson Mountain

Horse Tails at Wharf Park

Red

2010-11-04T08:53:00.001-07:00

Retro-cool

Old Apple Orchard

Grape stems, seeds and skins

On the Vine

Orange

2010-11-03T06:38:00.001-07:00

Squash Soup

Birch Trees

Naramata Centre

Boo!

Blue

2010-11-02T08:16:00.000-07:00

Harvest Time

Gala Apples

Okanagan lake

Naramata Bench

Yellow

2010-11-01T10:10:00.000-07:00

Oak Tree

First Street Bridge

Mountain Ash and Maple

Van Gogh Tree

My walking partner...Zoe!

A Week of Fall Colour!

2010-11-01T09:04:00.003-07:00

Monday - yellow
Tuesday - blue
Wednesday - orange
Thursday - red
Friday - green

My hometown is a beautiful place, and one post isn't enough to share it all....
All taken in the last month, all taken in my hometown of Naramata!

Naramata Village

Adams River Sockeye Run

2010-10-25T09:51:00.001-07:00

Over the past few weeks, news of the Adams River Sockeye run has been coming at us via TV, radio and through rave reviews from excited friends who have visited the river. Apparently this year is a "dominant" year, and 35 million fish are expect to make the run. So we took a Sunday drive up to the Shuswap to see this spectacular sight.

The Adams River sockeye run is known around the world as a "miracle of nature". Since the Discovery channel, National Geographic and huge buses full of Taiwanse tourists were there, I tend to believe that.

Imagine you're a sockeye salmon. After 4 years of hanging out on the west coast, you feel the urge to leave the wide open saltiness of the Pacific Ocean to swim up the (freshwater) Fraser River along with 35 million of your brothers and sisters. Unlike many of your brethren, you carefully avoid the nets and hooks of the overjoyed local fishermen.

From here you battle your way upstream though fierce rapids and waterfalls to the Thompson River where you body starts to turn a bright scarlet red! Your head turns green and your whole body starts changing shape! You don't want to eat and people no longer want to eat you!

Once you enter the Shuswap Lake System you head for the Adams River, where you were hatched four years earlier. You have come here to reproduce and die. You have a one-in-five chance of succeeding, but you'll die regardless. Your dead body will rot alongside the other spawning sockeye which will create a stench that will attract bears, birds and other predators.

You were born an orphan, and you'll die childless.

A few months later, your babies will be born, and they'll feast on their ancestors decaying bodies and in a year, once they're strong enough, they'll make the epic journey, covering over 400km, (250 miles) to the Pacific ocean. Such is the life of an Adams River Sockeye Salmon!

Pumpkin Processing - Doing It From Scratch!

2010-10-21T09:21:00.002-07:00

I've been eyeing my neighbour's mini-pumpkin patch behind her house and it's five perfect flame coloured pumpkins. I'm really too old to raid a pumpkin patch (aren't I?), so I was happy when she offered one up on the condition I not just make a jack-o-lantern out of it.

I love anything pumpkin, missed it terribly in Istanbul, and am now staying in Naramata, which has the fine distiction of being one of only two Cittaslow communities in Canada!

So let the processing begin!

Love that colour! Ok ,first I scrubbed this baby.

Notice this isn't a sugar or pie pumpkin, just your average pumpkin pumpkin.

I should say that Turkey does have pumpkins, and last year at this time I watched the little old ladies of Cappadoccia split open pumpkin after pumpkin, scoop out the seeds and throw the rest away!

Don't believe me?)

Here's a load of scooped gourds headed for the compost!

(This pic was taken on the street in Goreme.)

I digress! Back to the job at hand. With great effort this thing got split in half. I did it using a rolling pin, a dishtowel and a big knife I wasn't in love with. BANG! BANG! BANG!

(I also waited till mom wasn't home, for some reason, loud banging in the kitchen distresses her.)

Face down on foil. My mom has a convection oven. (Love the convection oven!)

Hot air cooks food 25% faster at a lower temp!

Forty-five minutes later...

...mushy!

I let it cool a bit and peeled the skin off leaving just the pulp behind. The pulp got pureed through a blender and produced about 8 cups of pumpkin puree.

Obviously, this isn't hard, just messy and time consuming. I can see the attraction to canned pumpkin, but this is Cittaslow designated Naramata! No shortcuts here!

Walnut pumpkin muffins.

The walnuts came from our friend Ricky's huge walnut trees. Keeping with the slow food movement, we collect bags of them every fall, dry them and use a hammer to crack'em. Our fingers get red and tender quickly, so it's best done slowly over a few weeks.

And two thanksgiving pies!

These pies were good, despite not being made from proper pie pumpkins. Would I do this again instead of canned? Actually, yes.

But not this year. The next pumpkin I process is going to have a candle inside!

The Lost Glamour of Munson Mountain

2010-09-20T09:25:00.000-07:00

If you've ever driven down highway '97, you can't miss Munson Mountain, it's the little mountain next to Okanagan Lake with PENTICTON spelled out in big white letters a la the Hollywood sign. I'm totally ashamed that I've been up only a few times in my life despite having driven past it countless times on my way home. Most tourists cruise past this little jewel as well, with the lure of free wine tasting just around the corner! Well, one afternoon we stopped and walked the short distance to the top. Under-appreciated Munson mountain needs it's glamour restored!

Penticton from the top. During the summer months,

teenagers and tourists gather at dusk to watch the sunset.

This humble little mountain has an interesting history. Firstly, the land was donated to the city of Penticton by J.R. Munson, hence the name. Secondly, the mountain is the remains of an ancient volcano. A volcano! In Penticton! Who knew? What's more, it's the remains of not one, but TWO! volcanic cones.

Up until 1974, the view up the valley from this mountain was on the back of the Canadian $100 bill. (Way back in 1974, when hundred dollar bills were actually worth something!) (Interesting side-note: My parents bought a house in Naramata in 1973 for $4,500.)

That $100 dollar view up the lake, looking towards Kelowna.

Naramata is on the right, Summerland on the left.

I "borrowed" this picture, as I have none of the actual letters....yet!

(To be replaced at a later date!)

The letters were originally placed up there in 1937 to create a landmark for Penticton. When I was a kid the sign was made of thousands of tiny white silica rocks, but the sign was upgraded to poured concrete letters with embedded silica in 1998. It is, and has always been, maintained by volunteer groups from Penticton, notably the Jaycees, the Rotary Club and the Boy scouts.

View from the top, Munson is surrounded by wineries, vineyards and orchards.

A few deer also live on and around the mountain. The day we visited we saw one doe just under the Penticton sign, and last week I saw three deer grazing on the back slope next to the road - which is why I hope the proposal to build an amphitheater up on top doesn't come to fruition. I like the idea of keeping this mini ancient volcano as pristine as possible.

A recent commercial, which got mass airtime during the Winter Olympics, features Kim Catrall of "Sex ad the City" fame raising a glass of white and smoothly delivering a single word, "Sophisticated", with Munson Mountain in the background. Thanks Kim! Glamour! That's what I'm talking about!

In Search of Sri Lankan Cuisine

2010-09-10T09:16:00.003-07:00

One of the most pleasantly surprising things about Sri Lanka is that even though it's just a stone's throw away from India, it's not really like India. In fact, Mel and I observed several times that Sri Lanka reminded us of a mix between Thailand and Goa, (Yes Goa is in India, but Goa is nothing like India either!)

This is particularly true when it came to cuisine. I love indian food and can rattle off six dishes right now that I count among my favorites. None of those were to be found in Sri Lanka. I think that's a good thing, but the problem is that traditional Sri Lankan cuisine is getting harder and harder to come by.

Our guesthouse owner in Kandy sat with us one night and lamented that there was no decent place to eat in town outside his guesthouse, (we concur!). He'd taken his family and friends out to dinner the night before to celebrate his son's birthday.

"Chow mein! Chop suey! Fried chicken! Why can't I find anything really Sri Lankan beyond a Sri Lankan-style curry?"

He was right. Every menu we encountered was the same. Only in a few select quest houses did we find real Sri-Lankan home cooking. I can hear people now saying, "Yeah, but you probably only ate in touristy places", I assure you we ate with the locals more often than not!

Ella weekly market - notice the vegetable that translates as "snake vegetable".

It tastes like a cross between zucchini and okra, we ate it mostly on veg curry.

Eggplant and limes! Buying this way in markets is my favorite way to buy
produce. I love how basic ingredients can transform from this.....

...to this.

A very monotone guesthouse dinner in Sigiriya, the dishes on the left are not spicy,

the ones on the right are. Sri Lankan curries are renowned for being spicy - they have kick,

but not burn-your-taste-buds spicy. Then again, Mel and enjoy a curry that can

make your eyes water and your nose run!

This was served with rice.

Vendor on the train selling fried snacks.

Each piece just costs 10 cents! Idli and vadai with shrimp and chilies.

The vendor served up his snacks in cones made from his children's
recycled math textbooks.

At last! Traditional Sri Lankan cuisine! With some chow mein thrown in for good measure!

Sri Lanka - In Pictures

2010-09-08T11:09:00.001-07:00

Between the lion's paws at Sigiriya

Where do you go after a month in the Emirates to unwind on short notice? Mel and I pondered this question just a week before we were due to catch the plan in Vancouver to Abu Dhabi. In our minds, we both wanted to return to India and spend time in either the north or the east, but we both knew it wasn't going to happen because of the long and sticky visa process, which we simply didn't have time for.

I was randomly surfing maps on the lonely planet website when Mel yelled from the next room, "What about Sri Lanka?" I did a quick search, and learned that Canadians could enter Sri Lanka visa free. Our decision was made.

To even further confirm our plan was a good idea, our good friend Jonny who lived in Colombo for years turned us onto a few "must see" places. Other friends, Dave and Sandra, who we'd also met in Istanbul had just moved to the island and offered us a room in their gorgeous villa to base ourselves.

How much do I love travelling by train? A whole lot! These are kitchen workers watching another train pass us somewhere in the mountains between Kandy and Ella, where the temperature was downright chilly!

Mel taking pictures out of the window of the same train.

Travelling by bus. This is how it looked at the beginning of the trip. Notice how skinny the seats are? Not a comfortable ride. This bus filled to well-past capacity in lass than 20 minutes. I spent a larger part of the trip sitting on that yellow bag of onions.

The children of Sri Lanka are gorgeous and polite. Unlike the kids over in India who chase you down for "One pen! One pen!", the Sri Lankan kids are content with a wave and a smile.

Stupa and prayer flags in Anurahapura - we were fortunate to have hit nice weather in that part of the island's rainy season.

The wildlife in Sri Lanka is probably the most prevalent and diverse I've ever come across, (except maybe Naramata!) Mahout washing his elephant in lake near Anuradhapura.

Old mosque in Galle, a small, relaxed colonial town we really loved. Unfortunately, the walled town lost thousands of inhabitants in the 2006 tsunami.

Boys from the nearby Islamic school leaving the mosque.

Inside of a church in Galle. The floor is paved with tombstones,

the bodies are in a crypt outside.

The beach at Unawatuna. Even though we hit this beach at the worst possible time, (huge Buddhist festival that involved crowds of people and near 24 hour chanting over loudspeakers hooked up to every corner of the town), we really enjoyed this place. Also notable as our friend Jonny met his wife on this beach.

This area was hard hit by the 2006 Tsunami.

A few reminders remain.

Early morning fishing up the road from Unawatuna with a very simple set up - a bamboo stick, a hook and line and plastic bag.

He caught this little guy within the first 3 minutes of fishing.

No idea what kind of fish this is. He said it's a baby barracuda,

but I really don't think so.

The most frightening part of our trip. We decided to take a boat out and around to see the coastline. We were the first into the boat and watched as more and more people piled in. By the time we pulled away from the shore there were 36 people in our little boat. We tipped dangerously from side to side as people wiggled for a spot where they could see over the side.

To make matters worse, as we got further from the shore, the waves got bigger and the boat rocked dangerously. The ride didn't last long, and we gave the boat operators a piece of our minds back on the beach.

Lastly, I love the facade of this old Dutch church - like dusty chalk on a blackboard. We spied this church from the train station, bought a ticket, ditched out bags in the baggage check, and set out to find this church before our train departed.

Sri Lanka was such a surprise! The weather varied from blistering hot to chilly, we visited churches, mosques, plus both Buddhist and Hindu temples. We tramped through ancient cities, climbed mountains and relaxed on pristine beaches. We met a few travellers along the way, mostly from Europe and many people travelling with kids. I'd definitely go back, particularly to the south end which was hit badly by the tsunami.

More to come....

Dining out in the UAE: Lebanese Food

2010-08-11T20:42:00.000-07:00

Whenever we find ourselves back in Al Ain, we make sure to head out to one of the great Lebanese places on Khalifa Street. Al Safadi is one of our favorites because of the good service and fresh & flavourful food. We've been frequenting this place for years now.

As soon as you order, the dishes in the photo above arrive at the table. A huge platter of fresh veggies, a dish of black and green olives and another full of homemade pickles and radish. Oh, and pita bread and crackers of course! Our vegetarian friends have options! Our vegan friends have options!

Hummus beiruti ( garlic and greens added) and moutabal

(an eggplant dip similar to babaganoush). This stuff is to die for.

I looked forward to these two dishes all the way over on the plane!

Really good olives! I've missed you!

Olives in Canada are just not the same.

A pint of lemonade with mint.

The mint is pulverized into a paste and blended into freshly made lemon juice.

Fantastic on a 50-degree-in-the-shade-kind-of-day, which are typical in Al Ain.

A simple pleasure in life. Mint tea. Sigh.

We weren't that hungry on this day, so we didn't order the fatoush, taboulleh or lamb marinated in yogurt. (We usually bring along a group to order that much.) Besides, I learned to make a decent taboulleh in culinary school. Here it is! (I wish I'd made this more when I lived in Turkey.)

1 bunch of parsley, leaves only, roughly chopped

1 tomato medium dice

1/4 cup fine bulgur, washed and soaked in boiling water for 10 minutes

2 green onions, white and green parts, finely chopped

a few leaves of mint, roughly chopped

juice of 1 lemon

1/4 cup olive oil

salt & pepper

1. Combine all ingredients. Rest in fridge for at least 30 minutes. Toss before serving.

Light on meat, heavy on vegetables; light on sauces, heavy on herbs and spices - I love this healthy cuisine and can't find anything quite like it in Vancouver. Especially at these prices!

Bye-bye Al Safadi! Until next time!

Gulf Fashion: From Black to Ack!

2010-07-16T22:48:00.000-07:00

Three of my students at the museum, (I call this pic "Three Sheets to the Wind").

Back in Canada, when I told most people we were off to the gulf to teach again, we were really surprised at the reactions we'd get. Generally, only two people asked us to come see them when we returned and answer some questions they had about the area.

A lot of other people decided to tell us "what it's like over there". And what they always focused on was the abaya, that black cover women wear over their clothes when they go out in public.

"It's horrible! They're forced to wear it!"

Well for the one millionth time, I'm here to say - it's NOT horrible and they are NOT forced to wear it. They love it. It's the national dress, and they want to wear it. (And trust me, the abaya is seriously the LEAST of their problems.)

Gulf ladies are very fashion conscious. Our student mona unpacked her closet for us this week and it was jammed with clothes; bright traditional Omani dresses, western jeans and t-shirts splashed with Disneyland across the front and beautiful handmade indian Punjabis. She also has about a dozen black abayas, all different and very stylish.

An Abaya Store

Abayas are not all the same here. When buying a generic abaya, you go to just a shop in a mall, but many ladies prefer to go to a more traditional shop. There you first choose the body shape, fitted or loose and flowing. Then you add the sleeves, they will have hundreds of styles of sleeves to choose from and finally the trim or decoration. It's safe to say that in my classes, no two abayas were ever alike.

Many of the more conservative clerics complain about the way the abaya has gone in the Gulf, many of them don't cover your curves, in fact, the abaya can actually accentuate them. Those shaylas (headscarves) they wear can be very glamourous looking a la Audrey Hepburn, especially when paired with big Jackie-O sunglasses!

In class, I sometimes catch a glimpse of my reflection in the window, surrounded by my students and I'm struck by how stately they look compared to me. A 15 year old girl can look so womanly, it really as the opposite effect of what it's supposed to.

Gorgeous Gold Gowns for Weddings

It's safe to say, that because of the lack of colour in abayas, girls make up for it in their regular wardrobe. Pink and orange! Yellow and red! Orange and green!

Sequins are pretty standard, followed by beads, tassels, trim, fringe, dingleballs and brick-a-brack. Sometimes it works and sometimes....ugh.

But the standards are here to, Mexx, Gap, Esprit. There is even a Le Chateau in Dubai. The malls are filled with luxury brand name products that get knocked off in China. One student has a Chanel bag, another a Gucci watch.

Here are some of the more interesting examples from the mall.... enjoy!

Pink and yellow!

Skin tight and over the top!

Purple, pink and green!

The outfit on the far left is my favorite, check out those sleeves!

Teenage Tyranny

2010-07-11T02:21:00.001-07:00

Every morning we blow through the doors of the University. Out of the heat, and into the cold colourless lobby. Marble floors support black leather couches arranged in a huge horseshoe around the edges of the room. On these couches sit more blobs of black, some fiddling with their cell phones, others chatting with friends, a few smile and call out, “Hello Miss! Good morning!”

Dealing with these young ladies is such a challenge. You can almost split them down the centre – obedient and shy vs rebellious and loud. The former always getting shafted by the demands and antics of the latter.

Across the board, they all show up at least twenty minutes late for class, but the rebellious ones are forty-five minutes late. The lesson is interrupted by constant demands to be let out to “drink water”, “go bathroom” and “go cafeteria”. You refuse to let them go because you know it’s just an excuse to roam the halls, and you unwillingly become involved in a “conversation” that goes something like this.

(For argument’s sake, lets call the student Sara.)

Sara: Miss! Miss! Me go bathroom, OK?
Rene: Sorry lady, you just got back 3 minutes ago. Not this time.
Sara: Miss! Please Miss!
Rene: Sara, please. Sit down.
Sara: Miss! MISS! Why miss? WHY? Bathroom Miss….
Rene: Sara, what did I just say?
Sara: OK, Five minutes Miss! Only five minutes! Please! OK miss?

(By this time you can see the girl she is desperate to go wander the halls with madly gesturing outside the door. Sara grows more insistent.)

Sara: MISS!
Rene: (Says nothing, but gives Sara a look that says, “This conversation is over”. Unfortunately, it isn’t.)
Sara: MISS! WHY??? MISS BATHROOOOOOM! (Takes on a terrible whine that spreads over several octaves and just makes you crawl in your skin) MIIIISSSSSSSSSSSS!
Rene: (Trying my best to ignore her) Ok everyone, let’s carry on! Who can answer num…
Sara: MIIIIISSS!!!! WHY?? Bathroom. Please miss! I love you miss! Please! Why? Miss! Really, really, I love you! Please! MIIIIIIISSSSSSS! Pleeeese!
Rene: NO
Sara: Ok. Sorry Miss. Miss? Me go drink water, OK?
The truth of the matter is that Sara has no intention of going to the bathroom or drinking water, and she knows she‘s wasting the whole class’s time, but she doesn’t care. Because Sarah has learned from her other female relatives that persistence, whining and whinging are powerful tools. In the hospital, you see mothers absolutely haranging the poor nurses with “Why Missss?” When they are told they must wait in line to see a doctor.

The sad part is after two weeks of dealing with this several times a day, they wear you down and you just can’t take it, so you yell, “Fine! GO!” And they’ve won. Because you just can’t take their constant pestering and nagging any longer. And so they go out into the hall and meet up with their friends and sit in the mosque until the security guard kicks them back to class. Where they wait three minutes and start all over again, “Misssssss!”

And you could have the most brilliantly planned class with all the bells and whistles, but it won’t matter. So slowly you watch the teachers become “untrained”, they no longer bring their A-game. They bring B or even C game some days. And it’s sad and it’s wrong, because you have other girls there who do really want to learn.

Kick those girls out you say? Can’t. Their parents are rich and the University wants to keep them happy.

Read the riot act, you say? Can’t. Losing your cool in this culture is a huge no-no.

Perhaps the worst part is coming to school and listening to these fresh-faced little girls straight-out lie to you. Two girls asked me if they could go to the bathroom moments before we boarded the bus on a field trip. I said “Yes go quickly!” I watched them casually saunter down the hall and turn into an empty classroom, definitely NOT the bathroom. I chased them down only to find them on the classroom computer trying to log onto MSN while three busses full of girls waited patiently in 48 degree weather.

But I can’t say I don’t like them, some of them I really like a lot. I try to remember that this a just an excuse to get out of their gilded cages for a while. I try to remember that for some of these girls, the friends they’ve made here they will never see again except on MSN messenger, because it’s forbidden for girls their age to go visit another household - God forbid a brother or uncle catch a glimpse of their faces!

A few moments ago, during class time, I passed three students in the hall. They were carrying 2 large pizzas from Pizza Hut. They had them delivered to the school and were off to eat in the classroom while their teacher tied to teach them the differences between present simple and present continuous.

“You ordered pizza? During class time?” I asked, shocked.

“Hungry Miss!” They threw over their shoulders as they skipped down the hall with their abayas puffing out behind them, revealing their tight blue jeans and converse runners.

Welcome To Our Villa!

2010-07-08T10:14:00.000-07:00

Hello! And welcome to our fabulous villa! This time around, we live on the exotically named 27th street in Al Towayya District. We have now lived in all 3 of ADU's villa locations. In our opinion, this one is the best.

This villa differs from the others we've been in as it's a bit of a sprawling one story, (as opposed to two and even three story villas elsewhere). It also only houses 4 people at once instead of 7, which means 3 less people to annoy and be annoyed by. We also like this villa for it's nifty location, which is just a few round-a-bouts from our fave mall, Al Jimi and 8 minutes to school. Oh! And of course, ease of taxi procurement!

This sign is smack outside our villa.

As with tradition, our villas have always had one dead tree out front, this one is no exception.

Look at the gorgeous dates growing over the carport wall! They aren't ready yet, but to be honest, we've nearly had our fill of these, even though they are absolutely delish!

Thick curtains to block out the summer heat? - check!

Beige Marble floor? - check!

Beige furniture? - check !

Beige walls? - check!

Dusty Christmas tree leftover from last year? - check!

Yes! It's got all the markings of an ADU villa!

Large kitchen where we do all our socializing.

Two villa-mates kicking back after school.

Inner sanctum.

We could go out there if it weren't a scorching 48 degrees.

My room, devoid of decoration.

The alcove leads to my bathroom and the Great Wall-of-Closets.

The best part of the villa!

Our own private bathroom equipped with a bidet AND squirty hose!

How does one live without them?

And this guy. He wakes me up around sunrise with his screeching.

No matter how far you go, some things stay the same...

Al Ain Camel Souk

2010-07-04T07:32:00.001-07:00

Years ago, when my sister first arrived in Al Ain, she went out to the Emirate's one and only camel and livestock souk. She came back with photos that made me so envious I have been on about going ever since. The problem was that the market had moved to a new location, and no one really knew where that was.

So, if you've arrived here looking for the location of Al Ain's Camel Market - head way out to Bawadi Mall and take the first left after the end of the parking lot, (coming from Al Ain, this will involve driving down to the next round-about and doubling back). Behind the Mall is the camel market.

But now that I've given out that info, here is a little more. The market isn't what it used to be. The camel vendors seem to make a sweet side business intimidating foreigners and trying to get cash off them for taking pictures. You see all the camels are behind grid fencing these days, hardly picturesque.

One man was even quite aggressive in trying to get my Sis and I to shake his hand, but in this part of the world no man would offer his hand to a woman - they simply don't touch. Each places their hand over their heart and nods a little.

I still took photos, but just of the place in general.

Check out the red hennaed beard on the guy on the left!

The new Al Ain Camel and Livestock Market

Poor goats

I know things could have been much worse, there are reports here on trip advisor saying that the camel vendors actually locked people in the pens with the camels and demanded cash to be let out again.

My advice to anyone looking to take some good pictures - head out to the dunes and pull up to a camel farm. Someone will let you in and show off their livestock without trying to cop a feel or fleece you, and you'll definitely get better photos!

The Wedding

2010-07-02T20:44:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the biggest change we've seen comes in the form of Mona, our favorite student from last year. She was engaged the day after we left the Emirates last year, but we called her at her engagement party and her wedding day to wish her the best. Less than a year later, Mona is 5 months pregnant.

She showed up at the school one afternoon and was shown into the teachers room where she hugged me and kissed my cheeks a dozen times with tears in her eyes. When Mel come into the room, she did it all over again. Our short visit concluded with her insisting we accompany her to a wedding on the weekend. We heartily accepted!

A few nights later, we were crawling through the back streets of Al Ain with an Afghani taxi driver, looking for Mona and her husband's new home. Following her directions by cell phone, her arm flapping out the front door into the alley was our driver's signal we'd driven far enough.

Mona sat us in her living room on big cushions, and served us a bowl of dates and oregano tea. I was surprised to see her hair, the first time I'd ever seen her without her abaya and shayla. She disappeared into the rooms of the house and returned with a silver metal briefcase, secured with a combination lock. She fiddled with the lock and soon presented us with her wedding album. In every photo, she wore a fitted gold dress and no headscarf, hence the need for lock and key.

Over an hour later we were finally ready to leave, but mona had one last job, and called us into the bedroom, where handed us four kinds of perfume to apply. We chose the one we liked best and spritzed a bit on – what a joke! Little did we know that throughout the night we’d be spritzed with perfume at every opportunity! Starting right now! Mona appeared with a smoking oud burner and shoved it under Mel’s dress, then under mine. I could feel the hot perfumed smoke curling around my legs and the wafting up my cleavage. Cough! Cough!

Time to go, but with pregnant Mona, mother and grandmother, one husband and Mel and I - well lets just say it was one tight squeeze into the SUV. Mel squeezed in last and sat on my lap. Mona's mother loved this and kept laughing and reaching around to squeeze Mel’s bum, which of course, made us laugh too.

We arrived at the hall and headed for the ladies section. Kids ran in circles in the lobby while the bride’s mother, dressed in purple, and looking like something out of "Dynasty", welcomed us to her daughter's wedding.

Inside the hall, there was an explosion of blue and white. We found a table and sat down. Homus, babaganoush, fatoush and green salad and a vase of blue and white flowers were already on the table. Music blared over the sound system as more women piled into the room. Between them, Fillipina and Afghani girls dressed completely in white doled out the wedding must haves; cardomon and rosewater coffee, more perfume, chocolates, cookies and more, more, more! food!

Front and center was a large stage with a small catwalk. Besides a blue and white settee, it was empty.

Kebabs arrived; we ate, talked and watched. A group of girls spent a lot of time prancing up and down the centre aisle; their super tight and revealing outfits came in a rainbow of colours. If you didn’t know any better, you’d swear they were drag queens, but this was the crop of girls the women would eye, to see if anyone stood out for their marriageable sons.

The girl in dark green quickly became my favorite for the garish sparkles glued to eyelids and stone mask-like expression. Purple girl also grabbed my attention because of the sheer size of her booty she had poured into her skin-tight dress. The dresses were flashy but not quality, in fact, a few of them looked downright cheap, like they might fall apart if you ever tried to wash them.

Soon the mini-drag queens made their way to the dance floor where they barely moved to the music, looking bored and shuffling from side to side.

But the music picked up and a few older ladies joined them, possible their mothers, followed by a group of African Swahili ladies dressed in bright colours. This wedding would be a little different, we knew, as Mona's family is from Oman, Grandma is from deep Africa and there is a Fillipina Auntie.

Despite her swollen ankles, Mona wanted to dance and pushed us to join her, soon we were in the centre of an all girl dance party! The Arabic women busted out their belly dance moves, the Swahilis popped their butts up and down, I yelled at Mel, “It’s starting to resemble a Snoop Dog video in here!” Then all the women started gyrating together and sinking to the ground, lower and lower – till they were on the ground. The bored girls, shuffled an watched their mamas show them how it’s done.

Over the next hour there would be a roasted goat, huge jars of scented sap with long dipsticks we’d apply to our clothes and skin, and more popping and gyrating on the dance floor. Mona’s mother grabbed Mel and I this time and we soon found ourselves in a dance formation called the “round-about”, which was a never ending circular conga line. The woman had choreographed moves for this one – to the left, to the right, gyrate back, gyrate forward, down, down, down….

My delicate knit dress kept getting caught up in everyone’s jazzy jewels.

I should mention all this time there was no bride or groom to be seen. Only a power point presentation in the corner of a few baby pictures of the couple and then a lot of pictures of a not-very-attractive groom sporting a huge uni-brow. There he was holding some sort of trophy, now in the dunes with his friends, there he is sitting in the teacup ride at the fair.

The music stopped. The lights dimmed and the bride appeared at the back of the hall. She had made her entrance by stepping out of an elevator.

Her diamond-studded white dress sparkled in the intense spotlight trained on her, her heavy make up had crossed the line of garish a while back, and her heavy fake lashes and extra hairpieces made her look artificial. Her arms were completely hennaed up to the shoulder in intricate flower designs.

She moved at a snail's pace down the centre aisle of the room. It became clear as I watched her, this is it for her. THIS is what her whole life has been leading up to, this exact moment. Tomorrow she will no longer be a virgin and therefore less valuable than right now.

It could have been the layers of fake eyelashes, but she looked stoned.

Two Fillipina girls filmed her 10-minute solitary walk down the aisle. Mona sat back in her chair and cradled her growing belly with a happy smile on her face, perhaps remembering her own trip down the aisle a five and a half months ago. Yes, Mona got pregnant within 2 weeks of her wedding.

The bride reached the stage and posed for ore pictures as the dancing got started again. We wanted to stay, but simply couldn’t as we had early morning classes and it was already creeping up on midnight.

As we said our goodbyes to Mona’s mom, grandma and the brides mother, we heard an announcement in Arabic over the PA. Apparently, the groom and the bride’s brothers would be arriving soon. There was a flurry of fluttering black as abayas and shaylas were dug out of massive handbags and thrown on over the spangle and sparkle, like dousing a roaring fire.

Back in Al Ain

2010-07-02T11:36:00.000-07:00

These are Fatima's hands.

Fatima is a high school student who's landed a spot in my morning class. Although she let me photograph her hands, capturing her face would be out of the question.

Being back here in the emirates is strange, the babble of Arabic and the colourless landscape become so familiar so fast, we feel we've never left. Is that good or bad? We'll let you know.

Very little has changed here over the last year. We were picked up by the same driver we had a year ago, (although our villa has changed.) We were greeted at ADU by the same smiles and hugs we exchanged a year ago when we said goodbye. We moved back into the same classrooms and greeted the girls, with their hennaed hands clutching their precious cell phones, the familiar scent of Oud, and of course - their yards and yards of shifting black fabric.

And just like last year, the majority of girls could not care less about us, we just get in the way of their socializing with our pesky "lesson plans" and silly blabber about "verbs" and "adjectives".

But there are a few who do care; mostly the girls in the morning classes. Rana takes home every handout she receives and recopies them into a huge book in multi-coloured pens. Amna makes little vocab flash cards for herself. These girls are such a lovely change from... say Reem, who flipped me a dismissive, "Whatever!", when I asked her to come to class on time, or Samoya, who snapped a sharp, "So do you!", when I told her group they talk to much. Unfortunately there are far more Reem's than Rana's. Nothing has changed there either.

I hope to be able to catch up on all the things I want to write about. There's a wedding, and a restaurant, a special student and some very cool people here this year. And then there are the girls. Know-it-all teenagers who want for nothing more than to talk to the boys they are forbidden to be in the same room with.

Stay tuned!

99 words: Here and now.

2010-06-09T15:52:00.000-07:00

a wiggly white dog, diamond sunshine on water, powder-pink blossoms, sand and pinecones, frantic fleeing quail, overgrown apple orchards, red co-op bins, bears in the village, turquoise and salmon scarves, maypole dancing teenagers, rolling rows of grapevines, cookies with tons of icing, ladybugs and dragonflies, rain and sunshine at once, baby tomato plants, sage bushes and clay banks, the smell of skunk, green cherries, wine barrels, dresses that waited patiently for warm weather, peacocks, poppies and lilacs, wildflowers on the side of the road, pink flip flops and purple pedicures, shards of coloured glass, and an inevitable plane trip…

My Story in Wanderlust and Lipstick!

2010-05-26T10:13:00.001-07:00

Although I didn't win the Wanderlust and Lipstick travel writing contest, the website liked my story and asked if they could publish it anyway. Here is my risky entirely-written-in-the-present-tense story!

(And yes! Those are my and Melanie's feet jammed into hamam slippers!)

Morning Walk through Naramata

2010-05-18T08:00:00.002-07:00

Every morning my sister takes the dog for a walk. Now that I'm back in Naramata, I often join her. Here are some pictures I took last week along the route.

Lilacs have come early this year, usually there are buckets

full for May Day, on May 24th long weekend, but this year

it looks like they'll all be gone by then.

Looking across the lake to Summerland

Wine boxes

Symbols of the past.

These big red fruit bins were everywhere when I was a kid.

These days you see them less and less as vineyards replace orchards.

The Heritage Inn, just down the street.

Today the Inn houses a restaurant, hotel and spa,

but in the past it was a girl's school and when I was a

kid, the private residence of Mr. Robinson,

one of Naramata's founders. My Grandma used to

be Mr. Robinson's housekeeper, so I remember

exploring the old rooms as a kid.

Help My Sister Become a Winner!

2010-05-12T10:40:00.004-07:00

As many of you know, my sister has been living in a van down by the river for the past 4 months. (Ok, really a fifth-wheel next to a creek.) but in her Chris Farley existence, there is a glimmer of light! We're talking about having her picture chosen as a finalist in the "Istanbul Eats Photo Contest"!

The contest has two sections, one is National (Turkey) and the other international. Mel's picture is of noodle makers taken a few years back in Shanghai, so look for her under the "international link" labeled "Melanie Noodles".

Simply e-mail your vote for "Melanie Noodles" to istanbuleats3@gmail.com.

What does she win if she's successful? Kudos and bragging rights! That's it! But it's a lot, when you're living in a van, down by the river!

Teahouse Fox Visited by Ghosts!

2010-05-11T18:22:00.003-07:00

If you have igoogle as your homepage you already know you can choose your own theme. I'm loyal to my teahouse fox, (except in December, when I switch for the month to the Christmas Village.)

Why the teahouse fox? Because he wakes up in the morning when I do, and through the day he keeps himself busy, picking oranges, feeding the birds, washing the laundry in the lake. A night he gazes at the stars before putting out a plate of persimmons and lighting 3 sticks of incense. Then he snuggles under his blanket and goes to sleep.

But during the night something happens, I've noticed every morning that the persimmons disappear and the incense goes out. What's going on? I found out last week.

Ghosts come.

Apparently they come for only one minute, and since my igoogle refuses to move off Istanbul time, my little teahouse fox's schedule is upside down, so at 5:15 in the afternoon the ghosts crossed the lake of fire, took his persimmons and put out his incense.

Mystery solved!

Cookies!

2010-04-26T18:45:00.001-07:00

Cupcakes!

2010-04-25T23:38:00.000-07:00

Mel and I decided to try our hand at

cupcakes this week, our first attempt!

We used the pastry bag and huge tips that came in my NCAV kit and made them work for this project. The icing recipe also came from my NCAV textbook, (hey I paid $100 bucks for it, gotta get some use out of it!)

The colours are crazy because my

kitchen is a bleak, fluorescent lit black hole.

Surprisingly, this was Mel's first and only time to actually pick up a pastry bag and she got the hang of it in only a few tries! Cake and cookie decorating is only something I did more as a teenager around Christmas, (except this year's gingerbread house), so my skills are rusty but getting better!

Next up....cookies!

Vancouver: The Lookout Tower

2010-04-25T19:54:00.000-07:00

Downtown

A few friends from Istanbul came to town last week and really wanted to see Vancouver from the top of "Vancouver's Lookout Tower", which is a really lame name compared to Seattle's "Space Needle". Considering Neil Armstrong cut the ribbon and opened the Lookout way back in 1977, it should have a name like the "Astro Tower" or "Sky Point".

Regardless, I was grateful for an excuse to do something touristy. Here are a few pictures of the city at sunset from way up there.

Towards Stanley Park - Leaving the exit sign

was intentional. Really!

Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre,

notice the lights of the ski hill on the mountains in back.

BC Place or Staples Centre, as it's now called.

The Canucks are playing there

for the Stanley Cup playoffs as I write this!

Three Chefs

2010-04-24T12:26:00.002-07:00

To wrap up the whole course,

I feel I have to say something about these guys.

Our Chefs - who guided us through cutting flour correctly with our brand new, super-sharp knives on day one, to cooking a full four course meal for industry experts four short months later. Here's the proper attention they deserve!

Chef Christophe

He earned the reputation as being the toughest chef. On days Chef Christophe was walking the floor, you stood a little straighter, spoke a little quieter and made sure you used a catch pan! When he observed your stove, sauces split, pots boiled over and your hat mysteriously disappeared.

Chef Christophe loves to man the pass where we bring our finished plates for inspection. He enjoys jabbing a thermometer into everything to ensure it's food-safe, hovering over the plate looking for fingerprints, and will even check the bottom of plates to ensure they're clean as well. He never misses to point out a mistake, and always pairs his criticism with a fantastically sarcastic comment delivered like only the French can! We'd sometimes gather after school on bad days and trade the jabs we'd earned, outdoing each other with caustic remarks!

But we actually really appreciated his comments, and sometimes students would wait for him to critique their dish, even as it sat on the table, getting colder, getting rubbery, because we knew he'd tell it like it is. Praise from this man was well-earned and highly regarded.

_________________________________

Chef Tony

These pictures give you an idea what Chef Tony is like. Full of energy and enthusiasm, it was many student's first contact with the school and Chef T that convinced them this school was for them, (I include myself in that group).

On cold January mornings, when the sun wasn't up, and according to the drizzle outside, it wouldn't come up - Chef Tony motivated us in a way that is truly remarkable.

I realised that this guy could motivate anyone the day he gave an early-morning, 20-minute lecture on how to boil an egg, and made us laugh, shake our heads a few times and reconsider the hard-boiled egg as a fine dining ingredient.

Every Wednesday, I'd watch him show up at 7am and prepare for our class, teach us all day and then teach a "Serious Foodies" class until 10pm with the same energy and intensity. At the end of the night, he'd share a glass of wine with all the volunteers and tell us endearing stories about his Grandma or reminisce fondly about how difficult it was during his first year the school was open and how he slept next to the dryer on a bench mat.

Chef Tony led us through Italy week during the Olympics. While the rest of the world was focused on ice and snow, Chef T pushed us to think of the sunshine and herbs of the south mediterranean. That was the first week we really had the freedom to create some great dishes. He taught us about grains and herbs and thanks to this man, I'll never eat white rice again!

______________________________

Chef Warren, keeping it together!

Chef Warren is new to teaching, but not new to the Chefs, he was their student years back when they taught at Dubrulle! After a career that has taken him from "Red Lobster" all the way to Executive Sous Chef of the "Taipei American Club", he came to share his knowledge with us.

Where Chef T is the inspiration and Chef C is the discipline, Chef Warren is the practical knowledge. He showed us how to put out fires, fix a split hollandaise and save sauces on their way to burning. He saved our demi-glace during the final by finding scraps of beef when there were none, lent us his own personal tools when we needed them and gave us tips and suggestions to make our service better that only years of experience in the field could offer. His after-school tutelage on knife-cuts and advice to "imagine yourself going though the steps" contributed greatly to my own success.

And if he ever reads this, I'll bet there'll be a tear in his eye!

And this concludes my posts on Northwest Culinary Academy of Vancouver.

People have asked what I'll blog about next. I have no idea, but a summer full of markets, an up-in-the-air teaching gig back in Abu Dhabi and some plans taking shape for September will surely give me some good material.

So stay tuned....

Graduation Day! At Last!

2010-04-18T10:16:00.000-07:00

Friday morning, we donned our uniforms as a a group for the last time and headed to a nearby church for a few formalities, some food and a lot of pictures.

The man who did us proud in more ways than one.

KK, our valedictorian and top student, delivered

the speech we knew only he could.

He made us laugh and (one of us) cry, as he summed up our

last 4 months with grace, humor and insight.

Three students I loved working with!

The banquet we prepared the day before.

Including Carla's Special Banquet Rice!

Hunter poses with some of the "little ones".

My partner for the last three weeks, the "yang" to my "yin"!

The best partner one could hope for!

And our Chefs who made it all possible.

What a team! More on them later...

...the morning after.

2010-04-18T09:03:00.001-07:00

The morning after the night before, we dragged out burned and beaten bodies onto the floor one last time. This time to set the kitchen back to the moment we arrived 4 months ago. We scoured the burnt caramelized sugar off the inside and outside of the cookware, we picked clear-meat out from between the cracks, and we scrubbed the grease out of the hoods one last time.

When we were done, the kitchen stood ready for the next class. Somewhere out there, there are 26 people excited and nervous people who most likely aren't thinking about us, but we were definitely thinking about them.

The Best Menu and Feedback Ever!

2010-04-16T16:18:00.003-07:00

Best menu design ever!

Courtesy of Bowes' cool girlfriend, Rachelle!

The best menu feedback ever!

Courtesy of Ella's cool boyfriend Chris!

Day 70: The Big Night

2010-04-16T16:10:00.000-07:00

The final night set up.

I usually include a lot of pictures of food in this blog, but tonight, food takes a back seat. This blog is about the people who make it happen - my classmates.

3 out of 5 of our stove members

with our mentor, Chef Warren just before final service.

Amy wrote "success" and "victory" on each member

of our stove for good luck!

Pre-service confidence!

Last minute chiffonade!

The Guest Judges arrive and watch our every move....

....while banquet prepares the graduation dishes!

Service begins! My team in action....

....so focused, they never even noticed I took these pictures.

Chef C mans the pass with his terminator vision

and trusty thermometer, nothing substandard gets past him,

especially split beurre blanc!

Relief!! It's all over but the dishes.

Big shots finish the night back at Barneys...

...with tequila. Of course. Thanks KK!

Day 69: Final Practical Exam Day 2

2010-04-13T22:57:00.001-07:00

Morning prep begins at 8am, here our classmate who

came to us all the way from South Africa is

making cones for chocolate writing.

Second restaurant day today. I can't say the last 2 days have gone smoothly, but they weren't total disasters either. In fact, each day that goes by, my team of five gets better and better. I know I still make a lot of mistakes, and I could still make better choices, (especially when it comes to choosing the right tool for the job), but we are all slowly getting better. Here is our day today in pictures.

Setting the table for our guests.

Last minute instructions for the servers.

(Yes that is the same girl in all three pictures!)

On the line!

My stove-mate plates up our quail appetizer...

... and another partner steps in with the sauce.

Another stove's cream soup.

Our consomme.

That's a little rice paper bag of brunoise veg. This presentation

got good comments from our guests.

Pear 3-ways! (Next stove's dessert.)

Our dessert just before going to the pass.

I swore at this dessert all morning, it

worked out (mostly) in the end, but this

was a challenge to put together.

It's delicious though, my classmate

Tristan gets all the kudos for inventing it..

So tomorrow is it! The culmination of the last four months, there will be a bigger, longer service and a few of our guests will be chefs from some of the busiest kitchens and catering companies in the city who will give us 20% of our final grades.

I'll be leaving my team of five to take my turn on the banquet team, and although it's a little disappointing that I won't be on the line - I'm also happy, because I really need a break. My hands and arms are all blistered up from various burns from working the stove, and I think I might be developing tendonitis in my right wrist. I'm also hoping that being on banquet will allow me to take more pictures.

It's a cliché but - I really can't believe it's almost over.

Day 68: Final Practical Exam

2010-04-12T06:23:00.000-07:00

Well it's 6am, and there's no way I can sleep. Today is day 1 of the final practical exam. We have a lot of work to do this morning and service this afternoon. At this point grades and values are the least of our worries. We just want to make it through successfully.

Our Chefs feel pretty confident that we'll be fine, but here's a nervous energy throughout the class. I guess like with any new job, it'll be a sink or swim scenario. And we have no choice but to swim.

Some of our customers today will be industry chefs, who will critique our food. And on the final night on Wednesday, a group of Chefs will actually grade us, and their opinion will account for 20% of our mark. But all of that will be unimportant if we can't deliver the dishes.

Day 65: Terra Nova Rural park

2010-04-11T17:22:00.000-07:00

Chef Ian shows us the layout of the park.

Chef Ian Lia has been talking about us coming out to Terra Nova since the first week of class back in January. A retired chef, these days Chef Ian puts all his energy into this park and the education that comes with it. (As can be expected, he is well-versed in dealing with the city and grant writing!) Now that spring has sprung, and final exams are looming, a group of us took a field trip out to Terra Nova Rural Park to check it out, and collect some herbs and garnishes for our final projects.

Chef Ian and a project he's been working on with a group

of student engineers. This contraption generates enough

energy to run a lap top off a garden hose!

Terra Nova is more than just a park. It's an "outdoor classroom" which promotes the ideas of community, participation, local organic food and making healthy eating choices. I also got the feeling that respecting and taking responsibility for the land are large areas of their ever-evolving curriculum.

One of the coolest things they did last year was grow wheat. Then they harvested it, ground it up and made bread out of it - with elementary school kids! Fantastic!

Although it's still early spring,

we still found a lot of produce to pick.

There's a large community garden on site, as well as a hazelnut orchard, 2 herb gardens, the soup kitchen gardens and a few large fields where they grew oats last year. The pear trees were in full blossom, and we visited the patch where the Japanese Fuki we used during Asia week grew.

A classmate sampling from the herb beds.

Nice weather for early spring.

The surprise of the day! You know cat tails that grow in marshes?

You can eat the tender part of the stem. It tastes just like melon!

Here's Chef Ian snipping some up for us.

And here's what I came home with, from find to fine dining....

(I love taking photos of weeds!)

The flowers off this plant are sweet, and the stem is square,

the flowers may find their way onto our dessert.

Another flower, the buds on this tastes just like broccoli.

Garlic Chives, another cool garnish.

Thyme. I will never forget picking these

tiny leaves off the stem at Market.

Purple sage. My stove partners will be happy!

I think one of our final exam

dishes uses a fried sage leaf as a garnish.

Day 64: Provoking Post

2010-04-06T18:34:00.001-07:00

We started our day with a really easy plate of canapes. We knew we would do this today, so my partner and I saved all our scraps from the day before and put these together in no time. In most home kitchens this stuff would hit the garbage can as excess waste - in 5 star establishments these get turned into canapes or the trendy amuse bouche.

Leftover Tuile, and sauces!

My partner had a gratin dauphinois on his menu, (fancy-talk for scalloped potatoes) with a great big twist. He wanted to make his out of potato, squash, pear and (of course) beets! I put these together and we fell in love with them - they not only look cool, but they actually taste excellent as well!

I liked showing the little flower of the pear seeds,

but the Chef nixed it - someone may feel the flower

on one's tongue while dining.

Our chicken dish.

Today was an all around really successful day, probably one of the most successful I've had yet! The energy of the class is good, everyone is excited about everyone else's dishes and the critiques are good. At the end of class, as the Chefs were doing their wrap-up I felt happy that I was put with a partner I can communicate well with - and one who is daring enough to produce this......

Turds and curds?

Honestly, I can't look at his without laughing! Was it delicious? Absolutely! Orange and pear churros on a blackberry creme patisierre. Our presentation needs work, but we provoked a reaction from everyone who saw it! After the critique we made more, playing with shapes and plating and our classmates happily took care of the extras - so they can't be that bad! ....Right? ;-)

Day 63: Recipe Redux

2010-04-06T18:07:00.000-07:00

My partner has a fondness for beets.. purple pot pie!

So those black box recipes didn't go away! Today we teamed up with our partner and took a look at each other's creations and then made them again making changes according to the Chef's critiques.

Once that was done, we sat down and critically looked at our dishes again making further changes, improvements and tweeks. This is going to be a two day affair.

Purple Pot Pie with green chickpea gravy and a warm salad.

One of the cool things about this exercise is that your partner has input on your work, which means another personality touches your dish - this is really excellent. My partner loves to play with his food and his mind works in ways my mind doesn't when it comes to cooking. He helped me turn my old dish into this. (No picture of the old dish - sorry!)

Quinoa trout with haricot vert and

roasted red pepper salad and a red pepper hollandaise.

(Forgive the crappy picture quality!)

Day one down, tomorrow we take on Cornish game hen and dessert!

14 Photos From 2009

2010-04-02T21:02:00.000-07:00

While organizing photos this weekend I came across several photos I haven't shared on this blog, but I still like. They were all taken by me in 2009. Here they are, hope you like them!

Gypsy flower sellers in Kadikoy, Istanbul, Turkey.

I love their mishmash of prints.

A man and wife's catch of the day in Chios, Greece.

They were quite proud, this was tonight's dinner.

Balloons at sunrise over Goreme, Cappadocia, Turkey.

Every morning 40-50 balloons hover over the town at sunrise,

well worth running to the roof in your pajamas.

Upon landing in a field outside Goreme,

our balloon operators deal with the rapidly deflating balloon.

I was actually still in the basket when I took this shot.

My hometown of Naramata, BC on Christmas Day.

That's my sis on the far dock.

The Bosphorus at sunset, Istanbul, Turkey.

My old apartment is left of the mosque.

My mom inside an old abandoned windmill, Chios Greece.

It was Mom's lifelong dream to visit Greece.

Romanian priests in Cappadocia, Turkey.

Taken outside the cave churches at the Open Air Museum in Goreme.

Woman in a church, Mytillini, Lesvos Greece.

I love Greek churches and the people who visit them.

Mom, Mel and I all taking photos in Pyrgi, Chios, Greece.

Mel's putting her yoga skills to work.

Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

Taken from the plane. It's huge.

Sunday Morning at a cafe in Al Ain, UAE.

Almonds on ice, Cesme, Turkey.

Street treats are seasonal; iced almonds are only available in summer.

Balat, Istanbul - Tourists rarely visit

this old Greek and Jewish area,

but it was one of my favorite areas to wander.

Arrrgh! Black Box.

2010-04-01T17:35:00.007-07:00

Leaning tower of beets!

I didn't sleep a wink last night. I tossed and turned, my mind refusing to let me sleep, asking me the same damn questions over and over - What if you get poultry? Do you remember how to make tuiles? Are you going too complex? Or too simple?

So when I finally arrived at the school at 8:15 am I was already exhausted. I set up my station and went to receive my tray of food for black box. I had four game plans in my pocket depending on which protein I would be given, and prayed the Chefs wouldn't put me at a huge disadvantage by giving me poultry. Thankfully, I was given a trout, but I was also given squash, the veg on my list I was least prepared for, and puy lentils, the grain I was least excited about.

No time to cry about that! The clock was ticking! Two and a half hours to get 2 appetizers and 2 mains up there. I started filleting my fish and getting my grains going...

My first hour was a breeze, my station was clean and neat, I peeled everything into a catch-pan, my sesame tuiles turned out perfectly, (that just doesn't happen!) Everything was going so well! Confidence was running high!

The Chef who would be marking me hovered around the station making notes and checking boxes on his clip-board. This is nerve wracking, because usually just his presence alone on any day will make me mess up, but that was no problem today - everything was going tickety-boo.

Confidence was still running high when I plated my appetizer, a citrus beet salad. The beet turned everything red, like I thought it would, so I reserved some squash and greens on the side so I could put it on later for a contrasting colour. Then I got bogged down when my sauce over-reduced. I thinned it out, but then the two plates looked slightly different. I obsessed over them a minute or two and took them up to the pass, only to return to my station and see my squash still sitting there! I'd totally forgotten it and it was the required veg! No time to mess around now, focus! I still had another dish to get out. I plunged ahead.

Lentils were cooking, fish was ready to go, quinoa was toasting, but my knife cuts needed doing. I tackled them with crappy results. I decided to forge on and redo them when I had a few spare moments near the end, (these moments never materialized).

My only explanation is that I must have been abducted by aliens around this time because 15 minutes of my life is lost here, (there was no tequila in the vicinity). I glanced up at the clock once to see 10:30 and then a moment later to see 10:45. What? Where had the time gone?

I looked over my game plan, I need to get a hollandaise going. I moved quickly on chopping a shallot for making a gastride but as soon as my egg hit the bain marie, it turned to scrambled eggs, and of course I hadn't heeded the chef's warning about making double gastride in case you need to try again.

Now, of course, the Chef was hovering again! And I realized he was looking at my game plan on the counter and what I was doing, in two seconds he could see I was in the weeds!

I chopped another shallot and turned out a respectable hollandaise. (At this point my classmate sharing my stove probably heard me chanting, "Focus! Focus!") I plated the trout, and took it to the pass (miraculously) on time. The dish looked good, but there were several things that obviously didn't go to plan.

Then, for the second time in this course, I started to shake uncontrollably from nerves - even though it was over. I felt relief, mixed with disappointment and garnished with regret.

We marked our main along with the chefs this time. I marked myself lower than the Chef did in some categories. I was disappointed with the flavor, but the Chef was happy with it and told me not to be so hard on myself. He also gave me extra marks for making the tuiles and hollandaise, (I knew I was going too complex!) BUT he totally ripped apart my citrus beet salad. "Beets need to be thinner! Where's the squash? Not refined enough!"

The feedback was really helpful. This is not the last time I'll have to make these dishes, I may have to do them again as soon as next Monday, and things will be different!

In my weird sleep-deprived, alien-abducted state, I totally forgot to take a picture of my main. Possibly the most important freaking picture of the course, (since I'll have to improve on it), and I didn't get it! (So just trust me on this - my tuiles were gorgeous.)

But I did take some photos of my classmates' work. I have no idea what these are made of, and if they told me, I've probably forgotten....

Looks like a samosa with chard - one of our assigned veg.

Look at this main! Are those turned carrots? Bravo!

From the student who makes wicked quenelles.

My poor citrus beet salad. All red.

Watch this space for improvements!

Um.. for the record, I hate beets.

Location: Alley behind the school.

We are all so exhausted. I ran into my landlord on the way home and he asked me if I was ok. I came home and finally caught up on the hours of sleep I lost last night.

But it's not over. This is just the beginning of a two week push that sums up our course. From here, things! just! get! crazier!

Happy Easter!

Gluten-free-gal-Ashley

2010-03-29T19:32:00.002-07:00

My fellow classmate Ashley and I have something in common; we both must avoid ingredients that are commonly found in a lot of foods.

When I first signed up for culinary school, I worried a lot about my poultry allergy and what kind of problems I was bound to run into. Then I met Ashley, she has celiac disease and must avoid all wheat gluten!

Through Ashley, I've learned that a lot of foods contain gluten that you would never think about, for example - beer!

We have both had days when we have had to pack a lunch because all the food on the menu was off limits to us. The above picture comes from one of those days during Italian week. Our classmate Bowes* saw that Ashley couldn't eat all the pasta we were chowing down on and ran back to his stove and whipped up these little mini kebab appetizers for her.

Ashley also blogs about our class and the difficulties of her disease at glutenfreegal. Click on over for an alternate view of our class!

*If the class were to vote for a Miss/Mr. Congeniality, I believe Bowes would win!

Day 57: Celebration Cakes!

2010-03-29T18:59:00.000-07:00

I haven't written about them, but there are actually 2 classes in our school. The other classroom is occupied by the pastry class. They're also nearing the end of their term and as a final project, they have to create a celebration cake. Here's what they were working on today.

These white poppies will decorate the cake above.

Yes, that is a "tetris" cake in the middle.

Japanese blossoms, notice the shinto shrine on top!

This is the top...

...and the base. It should be quite dramatic once it's together.

I've decided at this time not to continue onto the pastry portion of the course. I'm a little sad because I know the group that is going on has some really talented people and I'd love to study with them, but at the moment it's just not right for me. (Although I may pick it up sometime in the future. Never say never!)

Meanwhile back in Culinary....

Foie Gras

The Chefs spent the big bucks on us today - foie gras, black truffles and tournedo !

We won't have to eat for 3 days now.

Tournedo Rossini

Day 56: A Collection of Canapés

2010-03-27T23:25:00.001-07:00

I love canapés. Every time we make them in class my classmates come up with the most amazing creations. This week we were given leftover crepes and focaccia and were asked to come up with two appetizers alongside three other dishes we were preparing.

Our class never disappoints. A few of my favorites...

The above two are made with leftover crepes.

Inspired by Samarra mosque minarets?

Little cones filled with duxelle and tomatoes.

Don't ya just wanna eat them?

Sisters Think Alike...

2010-03-25T19:17:00.001-07:00

What I made last week.

What Mel made last night.

Day 55: Kickin' it up a Notch

2010-03-25T18:28:00.003-07:00

Another restaurant day, this time the Chefs gave us more dishes to prepare and pushed us harder. I'm getting the hang of it, especially on the organization and visualizing end of things. Just like teaching, it's a lot of prep to get there, but once you begin everything falls into place.

The way restaurant day works is that you prep for dishes. We prepped for four dishes, three of each. One of the Chefs will give your stove an order, "Stove 13! Two quail, one duxelle!" We then rush to quickly and efficiently fill this order. (Usually, as we're filling this one, another is called.) The trick is, all the food must be done at the same time, so it takes careful timing, strategy, and communication between stovemates - no plates getting cold as you plate your mousse!

When done, one person takes the food to the pass, which is a Chef, and they'll pick over it. Lukewarm food! Cold plates! Sauces are too thick or too thin! Undressed greens! All go back to the kitchen - usually with a smart remark, "What's this? Looks like hospital food!" All dishes are fixed, and re-presented, all the while you have to continue on the next dishes!

It's hot, it's stressful, but it can also be a fun challenge. We don't get upset when something comes back, it's part of the learning process. The two times my plates have come back, it's for undressed greens. Oops!

Because this course is almost over, tomorrow there'll be another restaurant day. this is to help prepare us for our last week, when we'll be preparing our own creations over three days for industry professionals. These working Chefs will actually grade us and give us feedback on our dishes!

I tried sweetbreads for the first time today.

They were good!

I can't say I'd order them in a restaurant,

but I can appreciate why people love them.

My group's dishes!

Stuffed quail - there are no bones inside, only those drumsticks!

*Note to self: Chocolate mousse quenelles

look like poo.

The aftermath.

Day 55: Attention Dad! Venison and Beer!

2010-03-24T19:53:00.003-07:00

It's not all sauces and sorbet.

My dad is a hunter, and every fall we'd have some animal hanging in our garage after one of his hunting trips. Deer, moose, bear, buck - he bagged them all, and that meant a freezer full of meat.

In my teens, my sister and I rebelled and decided we disliked venison and refused to eat it. We'd arrive home after school to the smell of roasting meat and ask, "What's for dinner?"

"Roast", my parents would answer.

"Roast what?", we'd suspiciously inquire.

The answer to this question rotated between silence and "don't ask".

Once my mom tried to trick us, thinking our dislike for wild meat was all in our heads. She threw out, "beef!" and would soon regret it. One fork-full of meat had us ranting all night and we methodically checked all her cooking for gamey smelling and tasting meat after that. We suspiciously eyed her sausages, put stews under strict scrutiny and questioned everything on the table. I'm sure we refused to eat beef a few times, deeming it too "gamey" for our delicate palates. (Gosh, what a pain! Why do people have kids?)

So today's themes were mussels and venison, and I gave the meat one more try. But before that, I had to question the Chefs. "How long has that been aged?" "To what degree of doneness do we cook it?" "Can I marinade it in something?" (Gosh what a pain! Why do people become teachers?!)

Bambi

Things I learned:

- Moose, deer and elk are all referred to as venison. We had red-tail deer today, flown in all the way from a farm in New Zealand.

- There are venison farms in the interior of BC and of course farmed venison is less gamey tasting and less tough than wild.

- Wet cooking methods rule, (braising, stewing), unless it's the loin because it has little fat and tends to be dry and tough.

- Always cook between medium to med well - no more, no less. In fact, venison is a tricky meat to cook well.

So we made it, luck was on our side and we cooked it perfectly and... it was ok. Still not a fan. Sorry parents!

But! I am now sure that if my dad brought home another deer, I may not be able to eat it, but I'd be able to butcher it!

Here's a dish I liked...

Mussels! Cooked in beer!

Although I still prefer them this way! Midye Dolma!

Anthony Bourdain ate these in his Istanbul segment of "No Reservations". He made a big deal about how unhealthy and dodgy they were off the street and how he was sure he would pay for it later.

He didn't.

I know because I ate these off the street quite often and never suffered a minute. (And I'm sure if he was ill - they would have put it into the show! 'Cause, well, that's the kind of show it is!)

Day 54:The Glamorous Life of Future Chefs in Training!

2010-03-23T19:27:00.007-07:00

Deboning this little guy was so easy!

But imagine if you had to do 300!

So you watch the food network. All you need is a catch phrase and a bit of kitchen know-how and you can rise to fame and shmooze with the rich and famous! Maybe get a line of soup with your picture on it!

Wrong!

In reality, a cook's job is physically, mentally and emotionally challenging. Standing all day long, and doing tedious, repetitive work, usually next to a hot stove. Fish scales stick to everything! Your fingers are all nicked up! You're pulling skin, scales or tentacles off some steaming-hot dead animal! Don't even get me started on the uniform....

The truth is, there is nothing glamorous about this job. Except, (occasionally) the product.

Preserved Lemons and saffron - as elegant as it gets.

(I'll be making this myself in the near future.)

Picking and skinning chick peas! Good fun!

Icli Kofte! In Turkish, "sensitive meatballs".

Moroccan style Cornish game hen,

stuffed with nuts and dates. Those are black olives on top.

Luckily, in our school we get to eat what we make.

(Well, most the time we're lucky - extra incentive to get it right!)

But then it's back to work....

.... somebody's got to wash all those prawn tubs!

Day 53: Back in the Middle East!

2010-03-23T18:37:00.006-07:00

Middle-east cuisine is something that is very near and dear to my heart. So when I arrived at school Monday morning to be greeted by this amazing piece of art drawn lovingly on the board by Chef T, I felt both excited and a little sad. I really miss this part of the world.

As the chef went over the history of the region, I counted the countries on the map I'd been to. The total came to ten! It dawned on me that I have a lot of knowledge about this part of the world, even more than I realised. I have a dream about travelling back to south-east Turkey and writing a book a la Paula Wolfert about the cuisine of the area. This day made me think it might almost be possible.

This hummus gets 10 out of 10 from me!

(And another student with Jewish roots who knows hummus,

BTW no-one does hummus like the Israelis do.)

This tabouleh gets 10 out of 10 from me!

This zaatar gets 5 out of 10 from me because when

we worked at ADU in Al Ain, this was pretty much the

only thing we could get from the cafeteria

after 3pm, bone dry from hours of sitting under hot lights.

Ugh! Pass!

Lovely pitas. They taste as good as they look.

This mother and daughter team are making mantı. They're sitting out on the porch in the shade in a region of Turkey where mantı is considered their signature dish. And guess who they're making it for? That's right! Me!

If you don't know the dish, tourists call it "Turkish ravioli" and it comes with three sauces, a bit of yoghurt and garlic, a bit of tomato and a splash of brown butter. It's creamy, nutty, tangy and filling all at once. Turkish comfort food.

This is us making mantı, some of the romanticism

is lost on cold stainless steel.

End product. Not the mantı I know and love, so it was a bit

disappointing. For me it was good, but this dish was

crispy and served in broth.

Western take on Iskendar Kebab.

Made with a tamarind tomato sauce which I liked.

(For the record I have never seen a tamarind in Turkey.)

To die for. 11 out of 10.

I loved these ricotta and walnut filled pancakes.

For some reason they reminded me of Damascus.

I'm posting the recipe for this one 'cause they are dead simple to make.

Stuffed Syrian Pancakes

Pancakes

1 cup flour

1/2 t baking powder

1T sugar

pinch of salt

1 egg

milk (as needed to make a smooth batter)

Filling

I cup ricotta

2 T chopped walnuts

2T sugar

pinch cinnamon

Syrup

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup water

1t lemon juice

1/2t rosewater - Simmer and reduce all until syrupy

1. Cook small pancakes just as you would a pancake BUT DON'T FLIP IT!

2. Place 1t of ricotta filling on the uncooked inside of the pancake and fold in half pressing edges together firmly.

3. Deep-fry till golden (2-3 minutes)

4. Coat in cold syrup and garnish with crushed pistachios.

Affiyet Olsun! (Turkish for Bon Appetit!)

Middle-east continues tomorrow....

Day 52: Black Box Exam

2010-03-19T17:33:00.000-07:00

Have you ever seen "Chopped"? I haven't, but apparently the premise is the same. We'll get a box of ingredients and 2.5 hours to cook them in to something you would serve in a fine dining restaurant. The exam is done individually and a very controlled list of supporting ingredients is supplied.

Unlike "Chopped" we do get a bit of a heads up on some of the ingredients we can expect.

One of these protiens:
Quail, Cornish game hen, trout, salmon

One of these grains:
quinoa, puy lentils, course bulgur, chick peas

One of these vegetables:
squash, beets, chard, savoy cabbage

From the assigned protein, grain and veg we have to create 2 portions of an appetizer dish and 2 portions of a main.

Our restrictions include:
- Only one component for the whole black box can be deep fried.
- No soups
- No square plates, no bowls, nothing served on the side

The combinations are vast and some deep thinking and organization are in order. Thankfully organization is one of my strong points, (who knew?) and I'll have a plan of attack mapped out before the big day, which is less than two weeks away.

I need to graduate from this class already! My nerves can't take it!

Rene and Melanie do South India!

2010-03-19T07:04:00.000-07:00

Last week we had a whole day of Indian cooking, a classmate asked me about Hampi, the Globe and Mail published and article on the caves of Ethiopia that remind me of the Ajanta and Ellora caves near Pune and then my Sis goes and writes this, can it be a sign??

Mother India is calling! (She wants to know why you haven't visited her in so long! Mothers!)

Day 50 & 51: Octopus, Quinoa, Mole and Tamales!

2010-03-18T22:54:00.000-07:00

Taking a break: a group of us hanging out back

between the dumpsters playing handball.

The Chefs workin' hard!

(And yes, if you look hard that does say "bone rabbit" on the board. Poor bunny.)

Octopus Salad

The last two days have been all about Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula. Gazpacho, cod cakes, salsa, tamales and mole! Happily, I can say that this week has also delivered several winning recipes that I will add to my normal repertoire.

Blanching octopus for our salad.

Strangely beautiful in the pot

Cod cake on roka (arugula)

The best tamale I've ever had with spicy molé.

My partner made a call and added one more chapotlé pepper to the mole

than the recipe called for, which made it a) spicier and b) redder. Nice!

Spanish paella!

Mexican beer to go with our Latin American dishes, no Corona here!

The Chefs know how to keep us happy!

New World Sprouted Quinoa Salad
A good recipe for people who want to experiment with sprouting seeds.

1/3 cup white quinoa
2 T black quinoa

1/4 cup squash, medium dice, roasted
1/4 cup roasted corn
1/4 cup jicama, medium dice
1/4 yellow pepper, roasted, diced
2 T pumpkin seeds, toasted
romaine leaves, chopped

Dressing:

1/4 cup olive oil
jiuce and zest of 1/2 a lime
i garlic clove finely chopped
1/2 jalapeno, diced
2T torn cilantro
2T torn mint
salt, pepper

1. Rinse both quinoas. Place in a bowl and cover with water. Soak overnight. Rinse in the morning and place on a tray. Rinse twice during the day. Will sprout within 24 hours.

2. Combine sprouted quinoa with the rest of the ingredients plus dressing. Refrigerate and serve cold.

*We toasted up some more quinoa with some oil so they were super crunchy and added this to the salad, if you're a fan of crunchy, healthy salads, you'll love this!

Day 50: Don't Worry, Chicken Curry!

2010-03-16T23:09:00.000-07:00

"In the Punjab, there are three things men can do;

they can become farmers, they can join the army, or they can leave the country.

I chose the last option!"

Chef Gurpreet came in to direct our class today. This was a large undertaking of several dishes in large quantities. We were tackling an Indian buffet!

This was really the first time we worked in huge quantities, I divided the samosa dough in half and wrestled with the huge ball and passed the other half onto a classmate. Across the class huge batches of meat were being browned, a massive pot of rice was steaming and a group was making chai in a stock pot.

Our chef was quite entertaining and in all places at once, as soon as you realized you had a question or needed input - there he was!

Everyone hard at work!

Battered fish frying

Chapati making

Samosa stuffing

Samosa frying

Crispy samosas

End product! Great lunch, great guest chef, great...wait a minute! Is that fresh ginger julienne garnishing that dish?? IT IS!

I rest my case. Good night!

Day 49: Lovage and Fuki

2010-03-15T23:02:00.001-07:00

Spring is my favorite season by far. Especially after a hard winter, seeing fresh new shoots start to push up through the soil is absolutely exhilarating!

So, I took a stroll through Queen Elizabeth park this weekend to see how the season is coming along. The park is just stone's throw from my house, but I hadn't actually made it over there yet, (shame on me!) This is what I saw...

A tree full of gorgeous pink blossoms...

... and Seasons in the Park. The look of the outside of this restaurant reminds me so much of The Peak restaurant in Hong Kong. There's a plaque on the outside commemorating Clinton and Yeltsin's dinner here during the Vancouver Summit in 1993. Someday I'm going to have brunch here.

Stray Blossom

Meanwhile, back at school...

Asian Greens Steamed Dumplings

with Ponzu sauce and Ginger Threads

Menu development day. This time with an Asian theme. This one was the most difficult yet, we were given two vegetables we'd never seen before - lovage and fuki.

Our first dish was super simple, it might have passed on other days, but the Chefs were very hard on us today. Their criticisms were well-placed though and I agreed with almost everything they said - except one.

This dish needed more colour and they didn't like the sauce in a bowl, they wanted it reduced down to a thick consistency and squeezed out on the plate. I agree with this whole heartedly, BUT, we were criticized for having fresh ginger as a condiment. This is one of my favorite ways to have dumplings in Taiwan, and dumplings were never served without fresh ginger julienne. Another way in which the palates of nationalities differs.

We were praised for the flavour of our dumplings though, and we actually made out own ponzu by reducing the juice of an orange and some rind and then adding it to light soy sauce.

Steamed Salmon and Spicy Black Bean Sauce

on Quinoa Fried Rice

My partner and I were sure we were going to be criticized for having too much brown under our salmon as the rice and sauce turned out the same colour. The Chefs seemed Ok with that, they just wished there was less quinoa.

Again we were praised on flavour of all the components.

Fuki Fries on Pork Fried Grains with Sweet Miso Sauce

This was our "out there" dish, I totally messed up and cooked the Kasha when it only needed to be toasted. The "fuki fries" were actually quite good, and my partner made the sweet miso sauce, which worked well with at the components. I think we did quite well, having never laid eyes on Fuki before.

*Note the mess in the background, I had no faith this was going to make it to the table in this stack. So I took this picture at our station. It did make it, but waiting for our critique one collapsed. Luckily, I managed to reconstruct it just in time!