Danderma's Blog, page 51

The Bygone Days of Cassette players

The other day I was driving my husband’s car for the day since my own car was in the garage getting fixed. I stopped to refuel it with gas and since in Kuwait women don’t get out of the car to fill their car tanks up and my iPhone’s battery was dead I had nothing better to do to kill time but gaze at the dashboard of the car. The car I was driving was the first car I paid for myself from my own salary and even though it wasn’t that old, it arrived in the days before the iPod invention therefore it had a cassette player -and a CD player changer thing in the trunk-.

I remembered how it felt to stuff your car with endless cassettes that kept falling or sliding everywhere, and how if you wanted to listed to a song you had to physically move through the songs one by one to reach the particular song you wanted. I also remember how unfortunate it would’ve been to somehow have the inner tape of the cassette player get out into a mess, and then using our fingers or a pic ink pen we would try to wind the tape back in! When that happened it always reminded me of spaghetti for some reason.

I wondered if my iPhone would fit inside the cassette tape player slot and to my surprise it did. Now we carry around phones that could hold hundreds of songs and do a million other things, all in the size of one cassette player and it wasn’t that long ago! I wonder if, in five year’s time, we would look at the iPhone and think wow that was bulky and slow.

Since the car didn’t have bluetooth enabled or an AV outlet thing, I presume somehow there is some kind of adapter sold somewhere that I could use with my iPhone to enable the songs to be played using a cassette player in the car. Perhaps a blank cassette attached to the iPhone specifically for that purpose? Looks like a shopping trip to a nearby Mac shop is in order. I love how trying to kill time by thinking turned into a shopping project, I should try thinking that way more often.

Lunch at Fauchon Café in the Avenues

Last week I was shopping in the Prestige district of the Avenues mall when I passed by the newly opened Fauchon café. It was buzzing with diners and suddenly I was hit by the strongest craving for their cheese club sandwich, which is excellent by the way. It was night time and Prestige district is always too dark for my liking so I decided to come by the next day to have my club sandwich for lunch and I’m glad I did.

The Avenues Prestige district during the day is gorgeous! Quiet, calm, and the sunlight streaming through the glass reflects on every shiny surface and creates the most amazing patterns. After I placed our lunch order I couldn’t stop gazing at the light and shadow reflections everywhere!

The meal started with freshly baked bread.

Next came our drinks. Those are the iced Cappuccino and lemon with mint.

The star of our lunch was the Raspberry salad. I haven’t seen this one in Fauchon’s other branches before and the waiter told me its new. Leafy greens with green beans, fresh raspberries, baby buffalo mozzarella, all finished off with a raspberry dressing.

The perfect bite! If the pictures looked good, the taste was much better! With every bite you could feel the creaminess of the mozzarella with they crunchiness of the greens and green beans mixed in with the sweetness of the raspberry and tanginess of the raspberry dressing. The salad’s got style, and I like it!

Then came our main dishes. Here comes my cheese club sandwich

And there was also this chicken linguini pasta dish with porcini mushroom sauce.

Of course we had to have dessert afterwards. Tea with amazing lychee custard cream cup pudding thingy.

See what I mean by light and shadow reflection everywhere?

I was having such a good and serene time I didn’t want the meal to end but we had to go home sometime. I loved the Avenues branch of Fauchon café and I especially loved the raspberry salad, which I could use for lunch right now.

Fauchon café is located in the Prestige district of the Avenues mall, right outside the entrance to Harvey Nichols.

 

Does the Number of Events Determine a Blog’s Worth?

A person who reads my blog came up to me the other day and bluntly stated “Is your blog popular? Because I don’t see you get invited to as many events as the other bloggers in Kuwait!”

I was left pondering the statement for a bit, usually I let comments like this pass right over my head even though sometimes they provoke me to reply but in the end I find it better to just sweep them under the rug of human insanity. In this case however, I thought to clarify something that is extremely important to the concept of blogging in general and how it relates in Kuwait. 

Events are a bonus. If you are recognised as a blog for having a fan base and you are invited, it actually means something. However, the events are not, absolutely NOT, the bane of a blog’s existence. If a blog is nothing but a skeleton filled up with event posts, then it’s not a blog worth following in my books. That being said, I didn’t start blogging years ago so I could beg to be invited for events, nor do I really kill myself just to attend an event. Now that’s explained, just because I don’t attend as many events as other bloggers doesn’t mean anything, and doesn’t necessarily mean I wasn’t invited in the first place either.

I have a life, I wake up early in the morning to battle traffic and go to work. At four I finally make it back home exhausted. I then have to make sure me and my husband have something to eat as a main meal on the table. I have a house to run, I have a husband to attend to, I have a social life outside of the blogging world ,and of course I have the most important person to look after which is me. If I can’t make it to an event, or don’t want to make it to an event then I won’t, so what? My needs and life comes first and I didn’t think there was someone on the outside with a stopwatch counting how many events I go to in order to determine how “popular” or how “good” my blog is.

A blog is a blog and an event is an event. In Kuwait, events are not always exclusively for bloggers, and not always bloggers are invited to enjoy it, rather to act as journalists who cover it only. I’ve recently been screamed at during an event and I fled the wretched place in tears. Event invitations are also becoming a some sort of “revenge tool” where a blogger who wasn’t loyal enough is cut off or if you have a grudge against something a blogger wrote or said you’d get your revenge by not inviting them. Not to add that many of the attendees are either relatives and friends of the organisers who happen to just open up a blog or bloggers that find no shame in literally begging for invitations.

Events, in conclusion, are not a measure of anything. Period. Take a breather, dear one with a stopwatch and perhaps you should find something better to do with your time. At least that’s how I see it from my own humble perspective. What about you, dear reader and fellow blogger? Do you think that the number of events a blogger attends determine their blog’s worth?

Monty Bojangle Truffles from Choco Bites

The other day I received an email from the two sisters who own a small home-business selling Belgium Monty Bojangle chocolate products via their instagram account (@Choco_bites).  They wanted to send me a sample of their products to try and when I knew there were truffles involved I couldn’t refuse. A big pink bag was delivered to me within an hour chock-full of their products.

There were many, many truffle boxes that I didn’t know which to taste first plus three different chocolate pieces: salted caramel, hazelnut pralines, and hazelnut gianduiotti.

I couldn’t resist the truffles so I open the boxes and tried them, which took a while considering there were many flavours to try.

There were the original chocolate truffles, powdery and quite chocolatey. There were also flame roasted hazelnut truffles and the cookie truffles. The cookie truffles didn’t taste much different than the original ones to be frank, I kinda thought I would be finding cookie dough inside but I didn’t.

Two types of sea salt truffles, one plain and the other with toffee. The sea salt ones were my absolute favourite.

Ginger flavoured truffles. Those I didn’t touch to be frank. Not a fan of ginger and chocolate but they are usually excellent to open up your airways if you have a cold or to soothe your stomach if you have nausea.

Ah the chilli flavoured truffles. Chilli and chocolate are a match made in heaven. In fact, I think the original cocoa drink recipe made by the Mayans included crushing and drinking cocoa powder and chilli. Chilli brings out the best in chocolate yet not everyone likes the combination. Its a matter of taste.

My second favourite flavour was the orange truffles. I personally am a big fan of fruit-flavoured chocolates and if you love orange with chocolate, you must try both in truffle form.

The good side about these truffles is that they taste very good and can keep for a while, they’d make the perfect travelling companion and they don’t send a lot of loose cocoa powder everywhere. You also can’t have more than 2-3 pieces at once for they are very rich and dense. Thank you Farah and Choco Bites for sending me this generous amount of chocolates that will last me at least a month. I wish you the best of luck

To order these chocolates and truffles from Choco Bites you can whatsapp +(965) 6069184 or follow them on instagram account (@Choco_bites).

Blast from the Past: Athletic Land on MSX

One of my favourite played MSX games in the 80′s was Athletic Land. It was kind of special to me, partly because no one else liked to play it and when I did I had it all to myself without other children nagging for their turn to play.

In the game you can go either right (which I suppose is the right way) or left. If you go right the game will be hard but if you go left you are basically running behind all the dangers and all you need is speed to dodge running balls and stinging bees.

In each stage there are ten scenes. I still remember having a lot of trouble with jumping the ropes over the lake in the scene below and how filled with pride I was when I figured out the exact moment to jump.

Someone once told me that the story behind this game was that the little kid is lost and is on his way home from the woods and if you complete 10 stages the game will end with him returning home at last. All my childhood I tried hard to bring the little lost boy home. I now realise this story was a figment of that person’s imagination.

Nevertheless, it was and still is one of the games I like to play to pass time. I don’t believe I’ve ever passed level four of the game and that fact remains true to this day. A small part of me remains wondering if its true, that if you complete ten stages the boy will return home.

Do you remember Athletic Land? Do you know anyone who went all the way to stage ten, if it exists that is?

PinkGirl’s Birthday Surprise in The Chocolate Bar

Today is my dear Pink Girl‘s birthday and to celebrate the occasion we decided to throw a little birthday surprise for her. We wanted to throw her off-course completely so we thought the surprise should take place on Friday night, two days before her actual birthday. My task was to trick her into believing we were going out to hang out in Pick Yu Hiteen branch then change my mind at the last moment and get her to Chocolate Bar in Al-Bida’a at 7:30 P.M. The girls were supposed to be gathered around and waiting 7 P.M. but dearest Pink was a bit cranky that day and decided she wanted to go out at 6:30 P.M. and I had to stall her by pretending to get dressed.

Then traffic, for one miraculous day, didn’t exist on a Friday night and we were in Chocolate Bar at 7:15! I had to stall her for another fifteen minutes while pretending to check out another restaurant and it didn’t help that the entire party kept calling me, one by one, asking where to go. The fuss was worth it when she stomped upstairs only to halt in her place thinking why were these people sitting at the table next to the wall so familiar? Because they were our friends, all gathered up there to celebrate! Surprise!

After a few squeals and explanations we were all settled down and placed our orders. The talented Jacquies presented her birthday gift, a new header for Pink Girl’s birthday which I have to say looks gorgeous! Good job Jax, you really should start doing this for a living!

The Chocolate Bar was the perfect choice to celebrate the night for all that comes out of their kitchen is lip-smacking delicious!

Of course we were all instagramming and taking pictures and eating and having a blast.

And we ordered desserts, and the girls kept asking for a single little candle to place on top of one of the desserts to sing Happy Birthday.

This is my favourite dessert in The Chocolate Bar by the way, the dark chocolate Raspberry molten cake.

Of course it cannot be a birthday celebration without a cake and a candle. Chocolate Bar waiters brought the cake out with a bang and sang happy birthday to dear Pink Girl.

We staggered out of The Chocolate Bar happy and chockfull of chocolate. We had a great time celebrating Pink Girl’s birthday in advance, thank you girls, Razza, Jacquies, Just Noon, Um 3zooz, Lujain, Just Noon, Triple Sisters, Nourion, Swera, and baby Jana for making the time to be there and join in the celebration. A big special thank you goes to my partner in crime, Razza, who helped me plan out the surprise and hosted the dinner in Chocolate Bar. We love you dearest Pink Girl, happy birthday :* We hope you enjoyed your surprise

The Spectacular Opening Night of Piel Del Toro in the Avenues

Last week I received a velvety purple invitation with a golden bull embossed on its cover. It was an invitation to attend the opening ceremony of the new Spanish fashion store, Piel Del Toro, in the Avenues. The invitation and the opening event were a product of Circus BC ’s creativity and I knew I wouldn’t want to miss it. I was right indeed.

On the night of the opening, which was last Wednesday, I was in the Grand Avenues at 7 P.M. sharp when I heard the fuss and the Ole cries followed by music. It was the “Toro” march where a wooden bull was paraded in the Grand Avenues all the way and bull fighters went in circles around it as if they are fighting it. Many people thought that the march would include a real live bull but thank god it didn’t or I would’ve ran the opposite way all the way to Ikea!

Here is a short video of what was going on. I hope it works!

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The Toro March ended at the little secluded courtyard in the Soku district which was sealed off and by invitation only for the night.

There was live music playing and spanish dancing, clapping, and a lot of Olé’s!

What about the store? Let’s go inside and see, shall we?

Real live models in the window display! A lot of guests got to go inside the window and take pictures as well. These guys were very friendly and posed for me when I took their pictures. Thank you

Inside the store, plenty of casual and colourful clothing for men, women, and children.

Congratulations Piel De Toro on your opening in Kuwait and thank you Circus BC for your invitation to “catch the Toro”. It was quite an event indeed and a night to remember for sure. For more information on Circus BC abd tgeur branding and advertising services you can give them a call on +(965) 90009240, check their website (link) or follow them on Twitter (@CircusBC) or instagram (@CircusBC).

Piel De Toro is located in the Soku District in the Avenues Mall right below IHOP. For more information you can check their website (link) or follow them on instagram (@PielDeToroKuwait).

Movie Review: Oblivion

I went to see Oblivion last weekend for its been a while since something good arrived to the big screens. I didn’t think feel overly excited after watching the trailer, it looked like another post-apocalyptic movie where the survivors roam the earth fending off yet to be found dangers. But it was Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman starring so why not?

To my surprise I enjoyed the movie a lot. True it was too long and stretched unnecessarily but by the time it ends you realise the point of stalling in the beginning. I loved the twist in the tale and didn’t see it coming at all which made all the difference but when it comes it means there is still a lot to happen yet at the movie. I didn’t care for the parts that were cut off in the name of the censorship, especially the conversation in the final show down which should allow you to understand the point in all this. All in all, its a good movie and to my surprise I had a good time watching it.

The movie is not for everybody, a lot of people were leaving the movie especially -and thankfully- the noisy couple sitting right beside me and trying to decipher every scene loudly as they were munching disgustingly on their nachos. It is not an earth shattering movie per say but it’s one you’d want to watch again for sure and a space on my DVD shelves is already awaiting its release.

Recipe: The Grilled Eggplant Salad

Life is about balance and whenever I feel a bit off balance like I did this past week, I know I need a pick me up lunch that won’t make me regret every bite after I was done enjoying it. Sometimes hiding in my kitchen and whipping up something as light and healthy as this grilled eggplant salad makes me feel calm. I posted the salad’s picture on instagram yesterday and I was asked for the recipe and though there isn’t much of a recipe involved I thought I’d share, why not?

Simply shred some crispy veggies like iceberg lettuce and the purple cabbage, mix them with chopped parsley and mint, and toss the entire thing in a vinaigrette dressing, and assemble the lot on a serving plate.

Slice a medium eggplant after discarding the head, keep the skin on, brush with a hint of olive oil mixed with water or lemon juice, sprinkle some salt, pepper, smoked paprika, thyme, and rosemary on top. Then grill using a skillet on the stove or the sandwich making sub until soft and nicely browned on both sides. Assemble the slices on the shredded veggies, top with a sprinkle of chopped parsley and mint, halved cherry tomatoes, and a few feta cheese cubes, and you have a big hearty healthy meal in less than 15 minutes!

Voila, lunch is served. It was very good.

The New Crocs Retro Collection

If you know me in person you’d know that I’m a big Crocs fan and that I really couldn’t care less wether you think they are tacky or fashion rejects or ugly or whatever. I love them and they make my feet happy especially if I’m walking for long distances or going on a plane. My husband loves them as well and he had his eyes on the brown and orange Crocs from the new retro collection. Last week he went to get it but it was sold out in his size and he was told to come back again on Wednesday. Then we received this groovy invitation from Ben Siri group inviting us to the 70′s party thrown to celebrate the launch of the new Crocs retro line and we both knew we would be going.

I arrived late to the Crocs Avenues branch where the launch party took place and small area was very busy with lots of people, a disco ball, 70′s music  blaring, and a comedian in a big afro wig and parrot-green suit giving the audience a life comedy show. We left and decided to come back to shop afterwards when the crowds had lessened.

Groovy cake! The hair is made out of little cupcakes.

What’s different about this collection is the coloured sponge-like soles of the shoes which made the Crocs even more comfy to wear. Groovy!

And to our luck we found a brown and orang Crocs in my husband’s size this time. He was very happy indeed.

Thank you Ashlina Davidson, Dareen Awwad, and Ben Siri group from putting together this groovy celebration. For more information about the Crocs Retro line you can check Crocs Kuwait website (link) or follow them on Twitter (@CrocsKuwait) or Instagram (@CrocsKuwait).