cooking

Today we had brunch with some friends at the mOre Cafe in the Gold and Diamond Park off Sh. Zayed Road. Brunch at mOre is a fairly impressive affair. You can order the buffet if you think you might like to take a shot at bursting your stomach or you can order off their extensive menu.

With everything from Nicoise salad to burgers to pancakes, mOre definitely tries to please everyone and generally succeeds with fresh-tasting, simply prepared foods. Their chefs aren't taking any risks but the food is definitely tasty.

If you get the buffet, as my DH did, before you even leave your seat to go check out the buffet table, a plate of eggs Benedict is whisked in front of you with a basket of bread, and a huge fruit plate. This alone is enough to feed about 8 people, but of course you cant do that with it. When you are done, if you can cram in one more bite, there are some delicious cakes, we sampled carrot and zucchini which were both yummy.

I have a cultural thing about buffets, I find them kind of gross but intriguing at the same time... I don't really want to try all these different foods together in the same meal and so, in this way, the mOre mandatory eggs benedict before buffet table makes an odd kind of sense to me.

mOre cafe supports local arts by allowing painters to display their work in the cafe. Something we definitely need here in Dubai.

My only complaints about the cafe are that the acoustics are absolutely awful. Although it was less than half-full, it sounded like nothing so much as an elementary school cafeteria. Our pleasant waiters had a terrible time hearing us and we them, which led to mix-ups over coffee, mustard and missing utensils. It is so noisy in there, that while I'd definitely order food from mOre for catering or delivery, I'd think twice before going back there to eat a meal at peak hours.

$$ ***

We're being so very clean and healthy around here these days. The kids, of course, wont have any part of it, so I still get to make interesting food for them. Last night the DH and I had grilled salmon, well we would have if the George Foreman grill hadn't melted right in front of our eyes. We had BROILED salmon with this delicious salsa:

Can she do it??

Trying to collect daily menus in advance of my DH going off to Big Giant International Airline Captain Training School (its as terrifying as it sounds- at least Medium-Sized American Airline put them up in a hotel during training). So I will be attempting to be Donna Reed and provide a smiley demeanor, clean laundry, a reasonably well organized household and good food for three months.

Breakfast:
1/2 buckwheat, 1/2 wholewheat pancakes
syrup
milk

Lunch:
Turkey and Goat Cheese with mustard, spinach & tomato

Snack:
Mango banana smoothie

Dinner
Lamb and tomato stew
steamed green beans
Mashed potato

Breakfast:
Scrambled eggs, toast, yogurt.

Lunch:
Turkey & Cheddar or
PB& J on whole wheat buns
snap peas
almonds
dried fruits

Snacks:
almonds
dried fruits
rice cakes
ice cream bars (we were at the zoo and it was like 1,000,000 degrees, I skipped it myself, but I wish I had said no to my DH & the kids, the ice cream here is so garbage-y oleo resins plus sugar, it was a classic 'how to go against the prevailing food culture' fail.)

Dinner:
Veggie & hummus plate
Grilled lemon chicken
steamed green beans
brown rice
black beans with corn & salsa.

Husband is gone back to Big Giant International Airline in the sand, and I am left home to host the first, and probably last, meeting of our Local Catholic School's parents rebel alliance for change. How I ended up in this situation, I will never know. Suffice it to say this is a VERY small town and my DH's paycheck is signed by an oil Sheikh who lives 10,000km away and could give a fig about what happens here.

The situation as it currently stands is:
a kindergarten teacher intends to sit outside my house and take names to report us
the first grade teacher has been fired for evidence of alcoholism
the second grade teacher is virtually paralyzed by ocd
the third grade teacher is in the hospital with a life-threatening illness
the fourth grade teacher has publicly stated she is going to make our children pay for our participation in this meeting
the fifth grade teacher is threatening to crash the meeting (and crash she shall have to because she uses a walker and I have 10 very steep steps to climb to get onto my property...)
a 70+ year old eucharistic minister has called us a 'lynch mob' for trying to get together and discuss how we can help solve some of the problems with the school.
An insightful friend points out that this must be about money for what else gets people so crazy?

On to the food part: The rebel alliance is coming here. Perhaps 20, maybe even 30 parents, plus whatever crazies show up to cause trouble. One well meaning parent pointed out to me that I need to feed them SOMETHING... Which I promise I will discuss in the morning...

We recently had an opportunity to spend four days in Istanbul. Its a fantastic city, incredibly beautiful, totally walkable, gorgeous weather, pleasant people. Go if you get the chance....
Turkish food, on the other hand is a little more curious.

Perhaps because we were in Istanbul and in the main tourist district at that, we found it all fairly homogeneous and fairly expensive. Lots of grilled meat and vegetables, kebabs everywhere. There is lots of street food which is more interesting and affordable, though.

Kagit Helva- Sugar waffles. At around 2p, the sugar waffles come out. They are sold everywhere by people carrying stacks and stacks of them. They are like giant sugar wafer cookies. Quite tasty, albeit non-nutritive snack.

Gozleme- This is a very thin almost pancake like bread stuffed with meat, cheese, spinach or potato. We had them as an appetizer and were going to go back to the quite expensive place where we tried them first, when my son spotted a guy near the hippodrome making them from a stall for 4lira. They were better than the fancy restaurant ones too!

Apple tea- Every restaurant serves apple tea. Its sugar with a powdered apple flavoring mixed into hot water. The kids absolutely loved it. I have to say I don't really 'get' it. But it definitely was fun for them to have a hot beverage after dinner with us while we sipped our coffees...

Pide- Restaurants call Pide 'Turkish Pizza' but it isn't really like pizza at all. It's usually a cigar-shaped dough folded around meat, cheese, and egg with a big hot green pepper baked in the middle. I ADORED these especially when they were hot out of the oven, my DH, not so much. The meat is definitely a little dodgy, but into every trip a little intestinal trouble must fall....


Simit- We were departing on the opening day of the Simit Festival so we didnt get to catch it. They are a circle-shaped dough. Ever so slightly sweet and washed with egg. Very light, reminds me of challa.

Corn- This is another thing I don't get but THE snack of choice in Istanbul seems to be corn-on-the cob. This is not New England Sweet Corn. Its what we would consider corn that was picked WAY too long ago. Its served either boiled or grilled with just a bit of salt. Mr. Muffin Puff Cake was enchanted by the idea of corn-on-the-cob available on every corner for 1lira, but even he admitted it wasn't very tasty.

Eventually we found two good places. One a total hole-in the wall that we sort of stumbled on near the Kukuck Ayasophia served delicious food no different from any of the more expensive places and all freshly made for about 50tl ($32!) to feed the whole team.
The other is opposite the Four Seasons Hotel which although you would think would bode ill for the pricetag, ended up being VERY reasonable, around $65- 70 to feed a family of 5 in a quite nice atmosphere.

Next post, I'll tell you about my favorite meal...

Today my DH took me to Valentine's lunch at the Bo House Cafe in Dubai's Jumeirah Beach Residence Complex. I was kind of excited, the Bo in Bo House is supposed to stand for 'Bohemian' and I was thinking something like our own hometown, ultra-cool (but more importantly delicious), Vanilla Bean. While the Vanilla Bean is, in fact a bohemian kinda place, Bo House is just another corporate 'concept' restaurant.

Its not a bad concept. The interior of the restaurant is all undulating white walls and nook-like vistas of the sea beyond. It has a VERY notable poured epoxy floor covered in swirling multicolored decals and crazy flowered sofas for seating. Outside, where we were happy to eat, is miles less distracting with simple, ubiquitous, imitation-rattan furniture covered in cozy pastel pillows and large umbrellas overhead. The view from the patio is of the JBR public parking lot, but it didn't really detract as seating is high enough up that you get a good sea view as well.

We started with salads. For him Halloumi cheese over spring mix with pomegranate seeds and pine nuts in a balsamic vinaigrette. The salad was tasty but perhaps at 55dhs could have used a more generous hand with the cheese, three wafer-thin slices of the grilled Halloumi didn't really allow for it to be enjoyed throughout the dish.

I had a Mixed Vegetable 'healthy choice' salad which was quite nice. It included steamed cauliflower, artichoke hearts, yellow and green zucchini on a bed of chiffonade lettuce and white cabbage in a basil vinaigrette.

We shared a pot of yellow curry with chicken. The curry was tasty enough but a little bland. It actually reminded me of a super-creamy version of the Japanese boxed curries my college roomie's mom used to send her from Tokyo. Bizarrely, and annoyingly, someone has decided to serve a good two cups of curry with less than a full cup of slightly greasy 'saffron' rice. Ditch the seasoned rice and just give a reasonable portion of plain white rice with this dish and it will be fine.

While the food at Bo House is ok, the service tends to feel a bit like a very mellow version of the Three Stooges. I spotted some friends eating in the cafe proper and I got up to go and say 'Hi'. One staffer was bizarrely confrontational in finding out what I was doing or if I needed anything. "Madam! Where are you going?!? What do you need!?!" I know, everyone in Dubai is afraid that if something is wrong they'll get fired, but if Bo House wants to cultivate itself as a cool meeting place the staff needs to chill about people wandering around the restaurant.

Also, pretty much the instant my final forkful of salad hit my mouth, a server came rushing over and grabbed away the salad plate and utensils, without saying a word, which annoys me. But when we had finished our curry, the empty dishes sat in front of us long enough to gather flies. Timing is everything and Bo House seems to have a problem with offering the sort of laid back but highly functional service that make some 'Bohemian' restaurants truly cool places to go.

$$ ***

Valentines Song...

I wanted to make a super fudgy chocolate pound cake for my DH yesterday. I think I got pretty close... I used Nigella Lawson's recipe for Madiera cake as the basis, but substituted chocolate for the lemon and made a few other changes as well...

150g salted butter (softened)
200g sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 eggs
100g best-quality cocoa powder + 2tbsp. neutral oil
200g + 3 tablespoons self-rising flour

Pre-heat oven to 170. Butter and Flour an 8" loaf pan. Cream together butter, sugar and vanilla. Blend the cocoa with the oil in a small bowl. When the cocoa mixture is smooth, add this to the butter & sugar mixture.
Add the eggs one at a time with a tbsp. of flour, blending well after each addition (I'm not sure why this is important, except one cake I made without doing it was the consistency of a brick...).
When the eggs are added in, stir in the remainder of the flour just until well incorporated.
Fold the mixture into your pan and bake for around 35 - 50 minutes. Do NOT over cook. After 35 min, check very carefully every five minutes.
Cake is done when a toothpick comes out with just a bit of crumb on it (clean = overdone).
Its a very buttery cake so refrigerate it. Serve cool, topped with whippped cream.