Danderma's Blog, page 21

Lunch on Nino Arabella’s Beach Terrace

Nino restaurant is a timeless classic. Restaurants come and go, rise and fall, but Nino has secured a permanent spot on my top five favourite restaurants in Kuwait. When it first opened in Kuwait back in the 90′s it was the it place to be yet recently I’ve been mostly ordering my Nino fix from Talabat app -which might explain why I’ve spent almost 2000 KD’s worth of food orders as per Talabat’s records!-.

This year however saw Nino open up not one but two new branches and one of them, the Arabella branch, comes complete with a terrace with the most amazing view of beach, something that is surprisingly scarce considering the long strip of sea and beaches of Kuwait.

Exactly how gorgeous is this view of Al-Hashimi Dhow? I’ve been dining at their Arabella branch several times already and each time I take too many pictures of Al-Hashimi! Where else in Kuwait could you dine with such a view and really excellent food?

The original Nino branches always start your meal by serving you a basket of sliced freshly baked bread. In Arabella’s branch they start your meal with one loaf of bread, each time its a different kind, with a chunk of butter sprinkled with coarse sea salt. The bread that arrives is fresh out of the over and quite irresistible.

And yes it will be gone by the time your food arrives, no good at all!

The good thing about Nino, which also sometimes backfires for me, is that their menu is always and forever evolving, sometimes too rapidly. The latest changes saw my absolute favourite giant mushroom dish disappear which totally breaks my heart but also saw the introduction of Kuwait’s number one superfood, quinoa.

Nino’s new quinoa and beetroot salad is to die for. Quite tasteful and satisfying and a meal on its own. Its one of those dishes you wouldn’t want to share with other and if you’ve never tried quinoa before I strongly recommend you have your first taste of quinoa by ordering this salad. Yum!

Another new dish at Nino Arabella is the cheese fondue. A small pot of melted fontina cheese with three different dips: bread sticks, mushroom slices, and potato balls.

Though I loved the concept of the cheese fondue very much I wouldn’t necessarily order it again. The mushrooms and potato balls were OK as dips but the bread sticks were a bit boring. Also, the melted fontina cheese was a bit blah. The portion is also too big for two people dining, it might be better suited for a group of four or more.

Dipping was so much fun though!

Nino’s idea of cheesy fries.

One of my favourite pizzas in Kuwait, thought its too thin for my liking, is Nino’s funghi pizza! The giant mushroom slices on each slice is marinated with something so tangy and lemony and with the first bite I am immediately transformed into a college kid having lunch at Nino between lectures. The good old days

Nino are also famous for their sliders, I think but I’m not sure that they are the first in Kuwait to introduce little burgers or sliders in Kuwait but I’m not the burger expert. Nino also serves new chicken sliders that come nestled between two crunchy pieces of toast rather than a soft tiny bun.

They are quite huge and might do well for a main dish rather than an appetiser.

Nino’s Al Coccio pasta can now be prepared with orecchiette pasta (little ears) and is, as usual, so unbelievably good.

Why hello there!

I usually never have dessert at Nino because I’m always too full by the end of the meal and take half of what I ate home but this time sitting at their gorgeous terrace, amazing cool breeze ruffling everything in its path, happy people eating and chatting, and warm sun overhead meant we really didn’t want to leave so we ordered this thing that I do not know the name of but was resisted for a while and when all resistance failed it was devoured completely!

I love Nino. I always did and I always will. I can eat everything off the menu and still be happy and I always enjoy the swift polite service and the modern interior. My current favourite location is now the Arabella once because of the terrace and I am determined to enjoy as many meals as I can there before the weather becomes too hot to sit outside, which is sadly in about two weeks.

My other favourite dishes at Nino includes their mushroom soup, the greek salad, the ravioli, the Giant Mushroom, and their mushroom and cream mashed potato. If you are new to Kuwait, visiting, or you haven’t been to Nino in a long time I suggest you go dine at Nino’s Arabella branch. There is quite a waiting list for the outside terrace but its worth the wait! For more information and directions you can check their instagram account (@Nino_Restaurant).

It means something to me…

Last Saturday while I was in the Taste of Boubyan for Autism Carnival waiting for my brioche to be prepared by Maria Rustica’s a cute girl was helping out at the booth who totally made my day and actually put a smile on my face. She told me that the first time she prepared French Toast herself was after reading my recipe post for French Toast from 2009 which is almost four years ago! 

I was quite touched and really honoured when she told me that. To be told that I was the reason for someone to try something for the first time therefore being associated forever with their first memory of that thing, to be remembered for something I wrote down years ago, and to be actually told about it, to me that’s priceless! It doesn’t happen very often especially in the era of instagram and fashionista’s dominance but when it does, when someone out of the blue lets me know they read something on the blog and they liked it, or benefited from it, or even hated it and disagrees with it, its what actually keeps me coming back to the blog and let me write and post more ofter.

My readers, you were and always been an extension of the people of my life and I appreciate each and every one of you, even the ones who hate me and leave me bad comments. Your appreciation, or feedback, means a lot to me especially if it is positive. Sometimes I feel like I’m typing into a world of nothingness but most of the time you remind me that I have a voice and that voice is now being heard, for that I thank you.

And dear cute girl, what you’ve told me that day brought joy to my heart. You might just as well brought me a big tray of breakfast in bed with a bunch of flowers and big pot of coffee! Thank you, really and truly thank you :*

Taste of Boubyan for Autism Carnival

Last Saturday we had the pleasure of attending a very special carnival, the Taste of Boubyan, with amazing food cooked by Kuwaiti chefs for a great cause. The carnival is organised by Boubyan Bank and Kuwait Concierge and was held in the garden of the Regency hotel in bida’a with the aim of raising funds for the autistic children of the Applied Behaviour Center of Kuwait (ABC). ABC offers educational treatment programs based on the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) to help the children with autism. However, ABC isn’t funded by the government and that’s why money was being raised to help out with Taste of Boubyan carnival.

Once you arrive at Regency’s garden you can purchase a number of 1 KD vouchers and use them to pay for the food from the different booths. You can buy as many vouchers as you want. Half of carnival’s proceeds will go out for the ABC fund.

When we arrived at the carnival it was around 1 P.M. and a bit hot with the afternoon sun high up in the sky. However, there was a nice breeze and the clouds were gorgeous, with many happy children running around and plenty of buzz of people chatting and eating away.

The beach view was gorgeous! I so wanted to go and take a close up photograph of those sea gulls but I was wearing heels and they were already hurting my back by digging into the garden soil.

We took a look around the booths to decide which ones to buy from and there were plenty! Al-Fouz Kitchen‘s traditional Kuwaiti booth was as colourful and attractive as always!

Dear Maria Rustica’s, the Friday breakfast bagels lady from #ShakshookaMarket, had this funky little thing on the chopping board of her booth and I had to know what it was!

What was it? A teensy freshly baked brioche bun stuffed with a mix of smoked red bell peppers, shiitake mushrooms, onions, sundered tomatoes, sumac powder, and parmesan cheese. Topped with fried rice noodles and truffle aioli on a bed of baby rockets! Quite a mouthful for a teensy bite, try repeating that description three times in a row. That was my brioche being prepared by the way!

Roots and blade booth by Chef Dana Al-Tourah of Tatami had a big familiar big yellow pot simmering away on the tiny stove. Inside there was her signature Chili con Carne!

Chef Dana also was serving buckwheat crepes with cashew date sauce and they looked so good and healthy I wanted to hit myself over the head with the yellow pot of chilli for having a grand brunch one hour before. I don’t know why I did that when I was going to a food carnival, I’ll take that pot on the head now! Sadly my picture of the pancakes was all wobbly but my picture of the chill does look good even for a vegetarian like myself, don’t you agree? Chili con carne was dripping in one big bubbling hot delicious mess everywhere!

There was also a booth with such fresh produce it stopped me in my tracks! How juicy do these berries look? I wanted to just reach out and grab the bowl for myself, I believe I must have some sort of berry addiction!

The booth was Chef Hanouf Al-Balhan’s and she was making tiny finger food and awesome  looking desserts.

I couldn’t resist this bowl  of filo pastry filled with a crunchy chocolatey Nuttela and nuts and topped with those luscious berries and your choice of sauce. I chose mango sauce of course!

Of course there must be burgers, or rather sliders. Of course you’d find my husband standing at Black Paprika’s grill where they were being cooked. He got himself two and he kept raving about how good they were. I guess you’d have to take his word for it.

There was also a booth, @Lezzet_Kw, selling Turkish Shawarma, one of the latest trends to make it big in Kuwait in the past couple of years!

My husband was extremely happy with that shawarma as well!

After choosing our lunch and paying for it with the vouchers, we grabbed a table in the garden and sat down to enjoy the view, the weather which kept getting cooler and better, and great conversation. How relaxing was that view? Something that’s almost out of a Bounty chocolate commercial, with a little bit of imagination and a sprinkle of optimism brought on by being surrounded with good food of course.

The food we had was excellent! Very fresh and quite delicious! Mind you, I only managed to have a bite of brioche and another of the Nuttela filo pastry after my huge breakfast.

There were plenty of drink around but when I get thirsty I can only quench my thirst with water. That bottle of cold isbre water was quite heavenly.

As we were eating and chatting away Chef Hanouf arrived with a bucketful of the most vibrant fuchsia roses I’ve ever seen. Each female in the carnival received a rose for it was the 8th of March and was the international women’s day.

Thank you chef hanouf for the lovely rose! Dear Ansam who needs to start blogging again soon wore hers with her cross bag!

It was a great carnival and a lovely way to spend your Saturday! I was having such a good time I really didn’t want to leave. Thank you Boubyan Bank , Ansam Al-Radwan, and Ala’a Al-Jariki from Kuwait Concierge for putting together this great event and for inviting me to it.  I hope you raised enough funds for ABC‘s children that day! Best of luck and keep up the good work!

The Ten No-no’s of Farmers Markets

1- The first and most important, and actually trivial point is not to jump other customers already waiting in line. Then again its a challenge for people to not stay in line around here and people won’t say anything because its “fashla” but here I am stating it again and I’m one customer who will give you an earful if you do. I did it before and I’m not afraid to do it again.

2- There is no need for to push or shove on a busy booth. The days of shoving other kids to get your cheese sandwich from the canteen at school are long behind you. Stand quietly and politely and you will eventually get to place your order. Survival is not for the loudest and most obnoxious and a hassled booth owner trying to sell is not supposed to be a referee between to buying adult customers so grow up and behave.

3- Speaking of adults, just because a child is standing in line with trying t pay for something doesn’t make it OK for you to grab it out of their hands and claim it as your own. What kind of person are you? What did you leave to other children on the playground? Shame on you!

4- Sometimes its exciting that you baby you watched grow into an adult is now selling at a farmers market! However, given that farmers markets are currently the “it” thing to do in Kuwait almost all of us have met a person we know well selling at a booth. Saying hello and standing for a quick chat is perfectly normal. Hogging the seller and chatting forever, catching up on both your lives in a busy market while a long line of waiting people forms is not OK. Please me mindful of that fact, we can all get carried away with chatter.

5- You are entitled to sample things before you buy them. However, the polite way to do so is to ask for a sample. Please do not grab food items and take a bite with your hands. Plus, if you buy something do please let the seller pick and hand it to you and do not use your hands to choose pick your cookies or bread pieces. You don’t do that at other bakeries or supermarkets, the rules aren’t different in farmers market.

6- Farmers market make great family day out destinations. However, if your entourage include all of your children with one nanny per child, please have the courtesy not to crowd the already narrow market booths and have your children and nannies screaming and running all over the tiny available space in front of a booth. They can for sure stand to the side as you wait to make a purchase, and you can articulate the word shush now, can’t you?

7- Food sold at a farmers market is not the same to food found in your local Co-op and that’s why people bother to go to them. Sellers worked hard for that food, either growing, harvesting, cooking, preparing, or packaging it. Some of the ingredients used are already expensive either because it’s not available in Kuwait or is organic or of a gourmet value. Therefore, it’s not nice to make a big deal and letting us all know you think the item is “too expensive”. No one is forcing you to buy so put that expensive item down and walk away.

8- The thing about farmers markets is that they are crowded and you get to interact and mingle with the people. It gets busy, stuffy, and sometimes downright annoying but patience is always a virtue. There is no need to get all rude and huffy to a poor seller just because you are growing tired. Please and thank you also go a long way.

9- Purchasing things at a farmers market requires money and its a great thing to have spare change. You do know, however, that a 20 KD bill is not considered change and that trying to break it by buying something that costs one KD only is bordering on too much?

10- Last but not least, the market is called a farmers market for a reason. It is the place to be casual and tone down the “kashkha”, not a reception to show off how many designer bags you own or how big the diamonds adorning your arms are. I don’t understand why anyone needs to be clad in fur, diamonds, rubies, and armed with designer heels just to stroll into a market to sell or buy?

What do you think? Is there anything you’d wish people didn’t do at a farmers market?

Picking Strawberries in Kuwait – Part 2

Continuing from my previous post about my strawberry picking trip in Kuwait, once you overcome your awe at the sight of endless beautiful strawberry plants all around you you can turn to your left and see the packing and weighing table.

The picking process is quite straightforward: you are handed a plastic bowl and a pair of scissors and you just go ahead and choose the most ripe and delicious looking strawberries you could find around, filling as many bowls as you want.

I began walking around looking for ripe strawberries to pick and, for the first time in my life, noticed the life cycles of a strawberry fruit! They start small and green like those strawberries below.

And I suppose they stay green for a while even after they are fully grown then slowly turn colour into red and taste into sweet. How beautiful! And how different from the Albino Strawberries I once saw sold in Waitrose which are actually called Pineberries and look like strawberries but taste like pineapples.

It took me a while to find the perfect strawberry to pick, especially given that I had my camera on me and I couldn’t resist taking endless pictures!

I was very much tempted to take some members of this family of strawberries home with me, but separating them felt a bit cruel.

They say the sweetest strawberries are the smallest in size and that the big strawberries, even though they look juicer do not usually taste as sweet. Therefore I kept my eye on the smaller ones and I noticed some of the strawberries had these cute little white flowers resting next to them.

The greenhouse was a bit stuffy and hot and even though I was wearing jeans and a summery top I felt l was melting, but then I looked up and she was there, waiting for me.

There she is! I felt like I should introduce her to you guys. 

Her name is fofo and she is the most perfect, reddest strawberry I’ve ever seen. She is also the very first strawberry I’ve ever picked in my entire life. Yes, I’m making a big deal out of this, why should I? I’ve travelled the globe but managed to pick strawberries for the first time from a farm in the middle of the desert of my home country, Kuwait! So yes she gets a name and she is fofo the strawberry I’ve first picked. Hello fofo, isn’t she a beauty?

You are supposed to cut the strawberries from the stem gently with the scissors and then place them slowly in the plastic container and not throw them in so they wouldn’t break. Once I found fofo I kept seeing her twins everywhere! Each more beautiful and juicy than the next.

And before you know it this was happening…

After filling two separate plastic containers we decided it was time to weigh them and pay. We couldn’t possibly consume more than two heaping containers of strawberries before they go bad and they spoil quickly, three days tops if refrigerated.

Weighing time! Both containers cost us 3 KD which means 1.5 KD per container. Its not cheap, considering that local strawberries are selling from wafra farm in the same container  for 400 fils in co-ops but I suppose the extra price is the added cost of the experience. I’d go back and pick another container full any day even if it costs five KD per one container.

By the time I got out of the greenhouse with my bag of freshly picked strawberries I was exhausted but quite happy! However, I was ready to go home for sure. Here is my bag of fresh strawberries, each and everyone picked by myself

We couldn’t leave before buying some corn for the way home! It was so juicy water spluttered everywhere with every bite.

On the way back home we stopped for a little picnic in the middle of the dessert with lunch we’ve pre-packed from home and washed the strawberries we bought for dessert. Taste-wise the strawberries varied. Some were quite sweet, some a tad sour, and some were simply tasteless but to me they all were different because I picked them myself and from the desert soil of Kuwait .

It was quite a fine day, with a lovely and unexpected road trip followed by trying something new like strawberry picking and ended with a lovely picnic in the desert, all alone with no one else around for miles while I ate strawberries in peace and watched the sun set slowly behind the sand -and the electricity towers and poles but you can imagine them as monuments-. It was a great day, and I have my two blog readers Lateefa and Beejay and my fellow blogger 3ateeja to thank for letting me know about the farm. You truly made my day, thank you guys!

I’m not sure how long will the strawberry picking be available but I expect you could definitely go there next weekend. Pack a lunch, prepare a good soundtrack, charge your cameras, roll down the windows, and go try something new and you wouldn’t expect you’d do in Kuwait.

The Blue Lake farm is located in Abadaly and you can call them beforehand to check if strawberry picking was available by calling +(965)-55058663. You can also check their account on twitter (@Albohayra) or on instagram (@Albohayra).

Picking Strawberries in Kuwait – Part 1

Now that I think back, I think the first time I really longed to go strawberry picking was after reading a Baby Sitter’s Club story of going strawberry picking and then having too much strawberries on their hands they had a festival or something. I read that story eons ago and ever since I’ve been looking for the chance to go strawberry picking when I’m abroad, mainly in the UK, but not once was my visit timing right. Until of course I posted about strawberry picking in Kuwait and two of my readers, Lateefa and Beejay, told me about the Blue Lake farm in Abdaly where you are allowed to pick fresh strawberry and buy them by the weight!

I adore strawberries and ever since the season of strawberries started in Kuwait I’ve been having strawberry walnut feta cheese salad for lunch every day! Through the blue lake’s -or Albohayra Alzarqaa- instagram account on Friday they announced the strawberry picking is available that day until sunset and needless to say I downed my cup of coffee at once, put on my pair of converse, and drove all the way up north to Abdali. Driving to the farm was no trouble at all once you follow the map they provide but here are the directions just in case: drive up north to Abdaly on road 80. Keep on that road for a while, about an hour or an house twenty at least.

Once you reach kilo 67 and you see the signs below, take a right on Abdul Rahman Al-Falah road, once you do keep on straight ahead. 

Keep on that road for another ten minutes or so, you’ll pass a co-op, a fire department, and a mosque area. Just keep on straight ahead until you see this sign for the blue lake farm, the farm’s entrance is just at your left.

By the way the farm is only about 13 kilometres away from the Iraqi border, the furtherest up north of Kuwait I’ve ever been in my life! All you have to do is park your car and go inside. The entire trip to the farm took about 1 hour and 30 minutes from South Surra and the weather was lovely: sunny with a light cool breeze and just perfect for a road trip.

In the farm there are a few chalet you could rent for the night overlooking a lake but it was sealed off from visitors, and then there are a bunch of green houses arranged around a long walkway which is where we were headed. The farm was, to my surprise, crowded! Children running around, men and women buying produce and flowers, and a big pot of boiling endless cobs of corm was smack in the middle of the action with lines forming to buy corn.

I wanted to head inside the strawberry green house right away but I restrained myself enough to go exploring what else is available. Apparently the farm also provides fresh tea by the name “Nabla” that I was told is actually pretty good. The packaging and branding is quite lovely as well, I proud to acknowledge the fact that this is a Kuwaiti brand from a Kuwaiti farm!

There was a “herbs” green house, with mint, rosemary, basil, another weird basil “7abaq” that I dislike myself but my husband adores, sugar canes, and other types of fruit like tangerines and grapefruits -or so they seemed!-.

And there were flowers! Endless rows of lilies,  water lilies, and these beautiful little things!

You could buy bouquets of fresh flowers, everyone was walking around with a big bunch, or you could take home the plants themselves: roses and strawberries for growing at home! What are the little plants called in English? We call them “Shatla” in Arabic! They are not shrubs, are they?

Because winter and spring are over and summer is upon us, we thought it was fruitless to buy and try to grow little strawberry at home -yes, pun intended!-. We decided that if god grants us to live until next winter, we must come back and get ourselves a few of those good looking little plants and try and grow them at home. After the little farm tour -which didn’t take long- I all but ran to the strawberry green house!

This is the first thing you see when you step into the strawberry greenhouse! Endless columns of strawberry plants with ruby-red strawberries waiting for me to take them home.

I was rooted to my place, dazed by the beauty surrounding me! I believe the feeling I had washing over me must be similar to the feeling Ali Baba had when he discovered the treasure cave in Ali Baba and the forty thieves legend, only instead of gold and rubies I was looking at strawberries. Beautiful, luscious, fragrant, sweet strawberries!

After savouring the gorgeousness of the scene, I was ready to start picking the strawberries and that’s what I’m going to talk about in my next post, part two of my strawberry picking in Kuwait trip. 

The Last BBQ of this Winter

In Kuwait the BBQ season starts hand in hand with the good weather season. The moment it turns cool outdoor with a light breeze we take the coals out and shake the dust off our grills. Now that the summer has suddenly and almost officially arrived, we are saying good buy to the last days of gorgeous weather. Its almost too hot to stay outdoors during midday and the AC’s are all churning back to life, therefore we decided to bid farewell to the good weather by having a tiny BBQ for two.

As a vegetarian people always wonder why I get so excited about BBQ’s when I cannot eat meat. I enjoy grilling all types of vegetables and marinated sturdy cheeses like paneer and have you ever tried slices of grilled caramelised pineapple or made a salad with grilled pears and goat’s cheese? The possibilities are endless and its not only burnt animal carcasses that can go on the grill. In any case, we started our BBQ with two little different coal burners or “dowwas” as we call them in Kuwait.

The first dowwa had the potatoes, pre-boiled, wrapped in foil, and slowly cooking away. When they were finally done they were tender, fluffy, and absolutely delicious!

We also had corn on the cob, which is perhaps the most delicious thing ever cooked on a grill! Is there anything better that flame grilled corn?

If I had the patience I would’ve cut up the grilled corn and turned it into a salad or a salsa tossed with plenty of smoked paprika and grilled capsicums. Unfortunately I was famished so biting into it immediately was the only way to go. 

There were burgers, but not mine! Thick patties lightly seasoned and one of them was smeared with HP sauce.

Once the patties where done each was topped with a different slice of cheese and left on the grill for a bit so the cheese can get all bubbly with melted edges.

Now done, time to assemble the burgers on soft buns, grilled veggies, and all the dollops of condiments a bun could take.

The best part of any BBQ meal is dessert but our dessert that day was, well, savoury and not so sweet. Nothing but the one and only chestnuts would do, you can’t lit up coil at my house without grilling some chestnuts, period! I could live on grilled chestnuts for all three meals

And with that dinner we bid the good weather days adieu. Summer is upon us, actually its here already, and that means lots and lots of ice cream and 50 C afternoons. It also means alphonso mangoes are on the way followed by the arrival of the holy month (29 June!) and before you know it the winter is back again. I’ll be looking up recipes for an entirely vegetarian BBQ post and might blog about it in September if god grants us to live until then.

On the Subject of Selfies, or the lack of them

Unless you’ve been living under a rock or something, you must have either seen, liked, favourited, or retweeted the epic Oscar selfie taken by our favourite hollywood stars and their Oscar host Ellen Degeneres. I’ve done all the above and, believe it or not, as I kept seeing it all day long -and still am- on every social media and website, I felt both happy and sad. Happy because you got to see delighted people sharing a moment of success and sad because there must be something wrong with me for being the person with the least amount of selfless on planet earth and barely any incentive to take one in the first place. 

I’m not sure why but I can attribute my lack of selfless to several factors. I’m not a person who looks good in photographs, in other words I don’t photograph well. Also, I apparently am not a photogenic subject for other people therefore I’m almost always excluded from group selfless when taken. I also love to take photographs and I do photograph both food and people well -or better than landscapes for instance- therefore selfie-loving people always tend to ask me to take their pictures for them, not caring if I’d like my picture taken as well and, in more than one occasion, they’d get totally immersed in their mini photo shoot they’d start barking orders at me with each different pose, too vain to notice they are behaving in an obnoxious manner and that I am not their very own photography slave!

Even my own husband barely takes pictures of me when there is obviously one million pictures of him taken by me. It’s not that he doesn’t love me, he’s just not interested in the whole concept of photography and barely has any photographs of himself before he met me therefore I’m not that sensitive about it.

Why am I feeling that something is wrong with me for not taking selfies? Should I be feeling that something is wrong with me in the first place? I’ve only recently began feeling this way, thanks to the amount of cocky people on instagram posting selfies. A selfie once in a while is OK but when you follow someone who posts the exact same pose five to six times a minute several times a day you realise even though they come off as egoistic attention seekers deeply in love with their image exactly like the Smurf with a tiny mirror or that they are simply happy and confident people enjoying their day and the effort it took to look that way. Its more confidence than vanity, obviously they like the way they look and are happy with it otherwise why share their pictures with the world, no?

Am I the abnormal one here? I have my suspicions but I know this for a fact: I come from a time where a photograph meant a developing a roll of film and have your finger crossed while waiting for the photos but it isn’t the case anymore, the years are flying by and the amount of pictures I have of myself growing up aren’t many especially from my twenties era. I’m still in my early thirties, perhaps its time to document myself and the way I look the future. Have I been self-loathing myself away from a selfie? Everything is possible but taking some selflies of oneself shouldn’t mean I must inflict them on the world all the time. It also means I’m getting myself that stick that helps people take pictures of themselves for I’m not one to pester and beg other people to take pictures of me.

What do you think? Do you take selfies of yourself all the time or do you feel silly doing so or are you made self-conscious by not doing so when everyone else is? By the way I’m sharing my idea of an “accidental” selfie in the picture on top, can you see me? I’m the one with the camera *waves hello*.

Movie Review: Non-Stop

I’m loving the latest movies starring Liam Neeson. Taken, Taken 2, and Unknown are all current favourites of mine and his latest, Non-stop, could perhaps be my absolute favourite of Liam Neeson to date! 

I was lucky to watch the movie less than a week after watching the trailer which, though gave away a good chunk of the plot, was quite intriguing. Liam Neeson is a Federal air marshal on a plane who, while up in the air, gets informed by someone that a person on board the airplane will be killed every twenty minutes unless millions are transferred to the killer’s bank account. It is up to the air marshal to try and stop the killing spree and catch the killer before its too late.

The movie, though a bit reminiscent of Jodie Foster’s Flight Plan, is quite exciting and keeps you on the edge of your seat. I actually was crying out “no no no no NO” in one scene. It also bids me well that I’ve known who the killer is the moment he/she appeared on the screen but it wasn’t that hard to guess in the first place but there are so many suspects you could get thrown off quite a bit. Quite an enjoyable movie though a tad gruesome and won’t work well for people who are afraid of flying or are flying anytime soon but its a must watch and will certainly make it to my DVD shelf once its out.

My Week of Trying Diet Care’s Lunches

Hello March! Can you believe its been three months since the start of 2014 already? Where does the time fly to? I hope you all had a lovely national and liberation days vacation. Now lets start blogging again, shall we?

In the week before the vacation I, along with almost all the bloggers of Kuwait, had been offered the chance to try Diet Care’s lunches for one week or, to be more precise, five working days. The offer included a main dish, soup or salad, and a dessert thats to be delivered daily from Sunday until Thursday. I personally love Diet Care’s food and usually pass by their stand in our local Co-op to get lunch every now and then so when the opportunity came to try their new menu and get rid of washing the dishes for a week, I wasn’t the one to say no.

When I was contacted by Diet Care I made a request for the food to be delivered after 1 P.M. for no one will be home to accept the package before 1. However, when the first day of Diet Care’s trial came I got a call from the delivery guy at 11 informing me he is waiting at the door. I asked him to come back at 1 and he did but he also informed us that he will be coming everyday at 11 because it is his designated time slot. He was true to his word, everyday at 11 he would come and I would ask him to leave the food outside the door until we were home. Therefore, if you are thinking of joining them I’d say you should work out the timing issues first, that is if you don’t have someone at home at all times.

I never did receive packages from Diet Care before but when I did I think I loved theirs more than any other diet company’s package. It was just the right size and quite compact, not too heavy and even came with heating instructions printed on the box! Now for the first day, a Sunday, I received vegetables lasagna for my main dish. The lasagna was really good and the portion was quite generous packing 400 calories and worth every bite! I love lasagna

The salad was a 100 calorie worth of Cesar’s salad and personally I don’t like Cesar’s salad and never understood the hype surrounding it since it arrived in Kuwait in the mid-90′s. Loads of lettuce and quite boring but if you love Cesars you might enjoy it differently. It was quite fresh though.

For dessert I received two Eclairs, one caramel and one chocolate, both come with 200 calories -or a 100 each-. I tried the chocolate one, it was quite fluffy and not overly sweet but its nothing like a cream heavy and chocolate glazed eclairs you’d get at a bakery but for someone on a diet who is craving eclairs I believe it will do.

The second day, a Monday, I received a cheese stuffed chicken breast in mushroom and cream sauce with a side of mashed potatoes and sautéed vegetables. This dish was eaten by my husband and he loved it, for such a big portion with lots of ingredients its hard to believe it has only 400 calories!

For the salad I received the “Corn and Capsicum” salad which when I chose it sounded like a fiery Mexican salsa-salad with grilled capsicum and lots of corn. Sadly, it was basically a cabbage salad with a hint of corn and capsicum slices and some bread crumbs. How did corn and capsicum translate into cabbage exactly? The bread crumbs did nothing for the taste and if you do not like cabbages you might want to stay away from this one. A 100 calories for this salad.

Monday’s dessert was a small slice of carrot cake complete with cream cheese frosting. The lot packed 200 calories and it was really moist and delicious.

Tuesday was awesome! Egyptian style day with falafel sliders in sesame pita bread with a side of fattouche salad. The 3 falafel sliders had 600 calories which means each is 200 calories and you could get quite full with two only. The pita was soft and delicious, the falafel patty was good and light, and the sandwiches came filled with rocket and radishes but I took them out and stuffed them with lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers from the fattouche salad. It also comes with the tiniest amount of quite light tahina but it was indeed enough for the three sliders. I love this dish and I’ve been to Diet Care stand in the Co-op yesterday asking about it but its still not out yet. I cannot wait for it to be out.

By the way the fat touch salad is perfect and I’m actually craving it as I’m typing this post, the sauce is tangy and sweet and for a 100 calories only its quite a treat. I’d have it for all my three meals if I could. For dessert I received Um Ali, which is the Egyptian version of a warm oven baked bread pudding that I adore and though it doesn’t look the part it was quite delicious and heartwarming especially since it came with 200 calories only per portion.

Wednesday for lunch I received grilled chicken with mushroom cream sauce and spaghetti for a main dish. The portion was quite generous considering it packed 600 calories but since it had chicken in it I handed it over to my husband.

According to my husband, the dish was quite bland. The chicken was also pink and a bit undercooked with no hint of that “grilled” feel to it. I suppose it wasn’t recommended then.

The salad, a 100 calories worth of “feta cheese and vegetables” should have been called the corn and capsicum salad instead of Monday’s cabbage salad! Especially considering that the feta cheese presence was limited to two tiny barely seen cube. It was good though.

For dessert I received two lemon macarons, a 100 calorie each. They were big for macaron, quite fluffy and lemony. I liked those a lot and one was more than enough. If you are a macaron fan on a diet you might want to give those a try.

For the last day, a Thursday, I received Dawood Basha for the main course. Dawood Basha is the Middle Eastern answer to meat balls and usually come with a side of vermicelli rice. The dish is a favourite of my husband and has 400 calories. If you are a fan of Dawood Basha you might want to give this a try.

The 100 calories salad of the day was the grilled eggplant salad and for the third time the name barely reflect what the salad is all about. The box had plenty of crisp lettuce, a few sprinkles of pomegranate seeds, and a scattering of eggplant cubes here and there. The salad was OK but the dressing was quite tangy, bordering on too tangy especially since it was almost only lettuce and sauce.

The last dessert was an individual portion of Apple pie with a tiny pot of cream cheese sauce. For 200 calories this apple pie was quite good and satisfying.

Thank you Diet Care for this opportunity. I cannot wait for your new items to appear on your points of sale in nearby co-ops! For more information regarding Diet Care you can give them a call at +(965)-1806050, check their website (link), or follow them on Twitter (@TheDietCare) or instagram (@TheDietCare).