Danderma's Blog, page 9

The Creepy Taxi Who Delivered Something

Delivering stuff to your doorstep is a very big concept in Kuwait, meaning that over the past few years a considerable number of delivery companies were setup to bring anything to anyone anywhere. Sometimes delivery prices can be obscene but if you know who to call and deliver to a good nearby place you might get away with a couple of KD’s for a delivery fee. Most delivery companies, if not all, offer a subscription to businesses that deliver stuff all the time and I image big companies do have their own drivers and means of delivery to finish up whatever paperwork they need and if they operate restaurants then of course they do have a dedicated delivery guy. 

Now imagine you are staying home alone, enjoying a cup of tea, then you hear the bell ringing. You go outside to find a taxi, yes a taxi, standing outside your door with a bag. It is not really uncommon to have taxis deliver something in Kuwait per say, but in the past ten years I’ve only someone I know member deliver something by Taxi to my house once, never had a company or a PR agency.

The story isn’t over yet, wait and see. So I go out for the Taxi, and he was a man in his 40’s who looked tired, sullen, and to be frank a bit aggressive. I say hello and thank you as I get whatever he was delivering, turn around to head back inside, when he calls out to me “Hey you!”.

Startled, I turn to face him again and he was looking at me in the most peculiar way. He continues “I remember you, I delivered something from a bakery to your house a few months back, did you get it?” His gaze was so intense and tone so weird I said “Yes yes thank you” and made to leave when he stopped me again “I arrived that day and saw you driving away in your car just as I pulled to to the pavement, this car” he said, pointing at my car, “and then I saw your neighbour getting out of his house and heading to his car, this neighbour” and he pointed to my poor oblivious neighbour heading towards his car at that very moment, now I was getting goosebumps “so I gave the cake to him. Did he give it back?” and he waited for my answer, a creepy inquisitive gaze in his eyes, so creepy that I had to swallow twice to answer him after his very detailed interrogation “Oh yes yes he did, thank thank you” and he goes “So next time if you are not home its OK to leave it them ha?” Next time? There is a next time? I called a quick OK OK in response.

I didn’t waste much time, I raced back inside and locked the door behind me, fright making my hair stand on end because there was such a guy who not only wasn’t he supposed to come to my door because it wasn’t his door in the first place, but was twice at my door registering all these details about us, my car, my neighbour, my neighbours car, what he was delivery and when, and wrapping it all with his very intense and menacing gaze and troublesome expression. Now he might look menacing while he really is a sweetheart but I didn’t like him being there on my door. Frankly, he looked more like an undercover detective than a taxi driver.

I open whatever he has delivered, was it by inexperience startup home business? No. It was from a very well known and very rich company that comes with a fleet of drivers and could spend a couple of KD’s, or even five KD’s, over delivery from a decent delivery company with well behaved and quite innocent deliverymen. I have trusted that company with my own details, the address where I live, and they creepy taxi driver who was eyeing my place, my car, my neighbours, and remembering things he shouldn’t take notice of in the first place. Not once, but twice.

How dare you inflict such a thing on me? Had I known you were going to employ a taxi driver I wouldn’t have allowed my details to be kept with you.

If you are in charge of deliveries, whether you are a company or a home business or even sending out a wedding card, please make sure you use adequate delivery services that you can entrust with recipient’s details, phone numbers, and home address. If you have to employ a taxi, at least let the recipient KNOW that you are going to and take permission from them before passing along those details. Trust and good manners, that’s what it is about.

Trying Vol.1 Excellent Coffee

I was sipping a very fragrant and dense cup of Turkish coffee while writing this post because I couldn’t type down a word without having a caffeine fix! Almost a fortnight ago I’ve been fortunate enough to be in Kuwait City around noon time running an errand that was a tad irritating. Once I was finished I was so happy I wanted to celebrate, and I just happened to be across the street from a very newly opened little coffee shop that I’ve passed by before, peered in through the glass to find it closed, made a mental note to keep an eye out for, and saw a picture of an iced latte in snapchat earlier on the day about. I didn’t waste anytime crossing the street… 

You know the word coffee originates from the Arabic word for coffee, qahwa? Coffee, or qahwa, is a highly cherished commodity in the Arab world and almost everyone I know either worships coffee, sings about coffee, takes pictures of coffee, writes poetry about coffee, or simply guzzles down a flask of Arabian coffee just because. I myself am a self-confessed coffee-holic, to the point of dreaming of my opening my very own coffee roastery/shop/cafe someday. Therefore you can understand my happiness when I pushed through the door of Vol. 1 and realised that we finally have a place coffee-lovers can call home, come in to drink really good coffee, is individually run, and is not part of a chain with harassed baristas and watered down sugar laden drinks! About time really!

Vol. 1 is quite tastefully designed, all marble and dark wooden chairs and concrete. The coffee bar is actually a concrete island in the middle of the shop, with candles burning softly and beautiful music floating softly, tastefully, from the coolest looking retro radio-like Marshall speakers. Blue-prints of the interior design were also hanging on the walls, very nice indeed, with the overall effect a mix between modern and retro, industrial and romantic. Needless to say I fell in love instantly.

Now back to the coffee, if you know coffee, appreciate coffee, than you can tell you are about to have a decent brew prepared the right way by smelling the coffee aroma lingering around the place. I knew I was going to have a good cup of coffee, I could smell it. The coffee making devices on display had my heart beating. Had I not been in such a hurry and it wasn’t such a busy little cafe I would have stood there and tried every bean they had brewed with every method they had on offer, then walking out the door in tremors caused by the caffeine overdose. Sigh.

Now there is one little catch with Vol. 1, you wouldn’t know where to start! Because of the round nature of the serving area and the fact that the small shop is only big enough for a few chairs on the coffee bar on one side and a small table in the corner by the window, you would stand at the centre, both amazed and helpless, not knowing exactly which way to go and order. There also isn’t a menu, not one that my eye-sight can read properly -I wear contacts but I still have trouble reading small print-. What I did is head to the middle of the bar and wait for the very nice and smiling Kuwaiti girl/barista to come over and ask me what I wanted.

Because I had seen a video on snapchat earlier that morning showing a shot of coffee being poured onto ice I’ve asked for the exact same thing. A second later I watched as my coffee was prepared and while waiting I saw complimentary popcorn on the concrete that was complimentary. There were other cards too -above- and there was an interesting “Squat Shake” made with whey protein if you are into that kind of drink, for coffee Athletes it said, how interesting.

So from the cards, you’d know my brew was made from grade A hand picked coffee beans, something I quite appreciate. Another thing coffee lovers would appreciate, or even if you are not a fan of coffee at all, is the selection of goodies on display that would accompany your cup of joe!

Look at the chocolate sauce on these cakes! And bacon truffles? Kuwaitis love their bacon and I know some people who would be very, very, very happy to gobble down that truffle.

A girl on the counter was ordering a few goodies for take away and they were neatly packed away in a cardboard box, even the box was sleek and lovely, just like the place.

It didn’t take long at all for my drink to be prepared, because I was having it for take away it was prepared in a white paper cup but the coffee shot, with a rich golden layer of creme, came in a little shot glass and it was poured over the ice and the milk and the little amount of syrup at the very bottom and now I’m going to order another cup of Turkish coffee because I’m low on caffeine.

So how was my iced coffee? Excellent indeed! I sipped it slowly, savouring every little drop, it was a long day and because of the ice melting very slowly -well it was a cold day- I got to enjoy my drink for a very long time. There is nothing like a good cup of coffee, nothing.

Would I recommend it? Absolutely! Vol. 1 reminded me so much of the independent coffee shops of Australia where you’d walk in and enjoy a decent cup of coffee prepared by skilled baristas, a trend that was catching on in London and perhaps it might just be the next trend/habba in Kuwait, oh please god let it be, I’m so tired of burger places! Thank you, young bubbly barista, for realising your dream and bringing us coffee lovers Vol. 1. I quite enjoyed the cup of coffee I had and loved every detail of your coffee shop. I’m now craving that cup of velvety cappuccino that I’ve seen on your instagram page

Vol. 1 coffee is open from 12-5 P.M. everyday except Friday so if you are lucky enough to be working in Sharq Area of Kuwait City across the street from the fabrics market (blockat) then you can have a coffee break at Vol. 1 and I have to say, I’m jealous of you right now!  For more information you can check out their instagram account (@Vol_1Kuwait) or check the hashtag #Vol1Kuwait

Book Review: Daughter by Jane Shemilt

I intended to read only the first chapter of daughter then move on to other first chapters of other new books I have in my collections. The story was so intriguing from the very first few pages and I knew I didn’t have to read the other first chapters from the other books, this one was what I wanted to read. Again, it was a book I finished in almost one day, resisting the urge to flip through to the last page and discover the fate of the missing daughter.

The book is also a debut, and I seem to be reading a lot of really good debuts recently, and is written by a doctor married to a doctor and together they have a family with teenage kids. The story is also about a GP doctor wife married to an established surgeon husband with three teenage kids; twin boys and a girl. On the rehearsal night of the teenage daughters school play where she had shown extraordinary talent as an actor, the daughter doesn’t return home and is presumed missing. The story unfolds as the cops race with time trying to find the daughter. The story is narrated by the mother who begins to search around her own family life trying to find clues, trying to put her finger on the point in time that her daughter had changed and became someone she barely knew.

I however didn’t like the guilt trip the mother was on because she was a busy working mother and a doctor, as if that was the reason the daughter was missing and the children feel like strangers to their mother as teenagers. It is clear that the woman was trying to give her children space and let them be their own selves, and her children keep retorting that their mother knows nothing, has no idea, is too controlling for imposing rules, and it is her fault for not being there and breathing down her children’s necks all the time, ultimately causing the disaster to strike and the daughter disappears. No one blames the absent surgeon father by the way, apparently its his job to save lives and its OK for him to be away all the time.

That notion, the its the moms fault because she was busy at work, wasn’t a passing sentence or two. It was a general feeling throughout the book that really and truly bothered me and quite frankly surprised me, coming from a working mother who is a doctor. My mother is a doctor and was a mother who took care of her children and raised them herself, imposing the same rules and regulations as any other mother of our generation, so what? Are we to blame the working mother for every bad choice we make as stubborn teenagers and troubled adults because she went to work while excusing the father because he is the male of the house who has to put bread on the table?

Aside from that baffling point, and the fact that they story line flits between past and present a tad too much for my liking, I enjoyed the story thoroughly and liked the ending a lot even though I thought it was a bit far fetched and might not appeal to some. It also leaves the reader hanging trying to decide on what will actually be the ending, trying to guess the mother’s reaction afterwards. I cannot elaborate more without posting spoilers and to post a hint of spoilers is to ruin a lovely novel that I truly enjoyed so lets leave it at than and say you are in for quiet a surprise at the very end. Yes, I would personally recommend it and could see that it might be made into a movie one day in the future.

A Wonderful NYC Sovenier from Jacquies

Do you still bring back souvenirs for your friends and family when you travel abroad?

I love travel souvenirs, or soogha as we call them in the Kuwaiti dialect. I love receiving them of course and I enjoy picking them out when I roam shops and markets of different foreign lands. It doesn’t have to be something extravagant or expensive, sometimes a quirky fridge magnet or a bar of exotic chocolate would do the trick just fine and clearly spell out the exact message you want to convey with a travel souvenir: I was thinking about you while I was away. Sadly some people upon receiving their “soogha” these days would sigh and glare at it miserably, viewing it as both a debt they have to repay and a challenge they’d have to overdue, something that kills the entire spirit of the soogha and perhaps why many people do not bother anymore.

A soogha is supposed to be simple, a token of a time spent travelling. That being said, the definition of “simple” doesn’t exactly apply to our friend Jacquies here. Have I not posted about the last birthday gift I received from her? I cannot find the post therefore I must post about it soon. Jacquies goes out of here way to personalise the gifts she gives out and her soogha is no exception. Because she is the one that did most of the designs for her friend’s blogs she makes sure not only your gifts are chosen carefully, but are also customised with your own blog theme/background/logo. Whatever she can get her hands own really. Have I really not shown you her birthday gift? You’d understand then.

Dear Jax was recently on a trip to New York City and she actually began designing her gift before she reached the Big Apple! What did she do? Just a customised reusable canvas shopping bag -very environment friendly-, a customised teeny magnetic white board, a customised laptop bag, and the most beautiful of them all: a customised iPhone case with picture of Sherlock, my current favourite TV character, residing there proudly inside my very own blog theme

See the lime green N-Box? That gadget is AMAZING! First it comes in lime green, my favourite colour of all time, and yes that was intentional on Jax’s part. Not only is it pretty, its portable and compact and can be placed anywhere in the house to boom music from your iPhone -or any other smart device- by simply connecting via Bluetooth! The sound is crystal clear and she knows I prepare by meals to music. Jax would be glad to hear that the lime green N-Box is now my best cooking buddy.

With love indeed, love you too Jax :* As always, you’ve outdone yourself with a unique and thoughtful gift, thank you thank you and thrice thank you! If she opened up her very own graphics design/gift customisation shop she’d make a fortune! You can go pester her to design your blog if you like :p

When was the last time you received such an adorable gift, or given one back? Do you still give out gifts on different occasions and bring back travel souvenirs or are you with the current new wave of thinking gifts and souvenirs are overrated and nothing but a debt? If you still do, what do you usually bring back as travel souvenirs?

Visiting Bletchley Park, Home of the Codebreakers

If you have been to see the movie “The Imitation Game” recently then you’d know exactly what Bletchley Park is all about, its where parts of the movie were filmed btw. If not, then let me tell you about my visit to one of the world’s best kept secrets: Bletchley Park, home of the code breakers. A place that was well hidden all these years even the local residents thought it was an psychiatric asylum. The park was neglected in later years and was about to be demolished and turned into a shopping mall but thankfully it was saved and restored and opened for visitors to explore.

Bletchley Station is about 25 minutes away from London by Train from Euston Station and five minutes away from the more famous and quite popular Milton Keynes station. If you’ve been to MK before, then you must have stopped at Bletchley and took it as a sign that you’ve almost reached your destination. I’ve passed by the station numerous times and the only reason to visit Bletchley for me was to go to Ikea or to ASDA/Walmart superstore. I never knew that just across the street from Bletchley’s train station was this historical site and I adore history!

After watching the imitation game in the UK I didn’t waste a second and hopped on the next train heading out to Bletchley. You cannot get lost, all you literally have to do is cross the street and voila you’ve reached your nondescript destination. If I had passed by this street before I would have thought those buildings belonged to a school or a government office and in a sense they actually did. Very basic and low key, box-styled with many huts scattered around.

The entrance and tickets stand is located at Block C, the very same building where a 100 Hollerith data processing machines were operated by women of Bletchley Park. Operators used to punch the information gathered from the intercepted message into cards then index and file them after sorting through them for patterns and clues to provide the code breakers with.

In block C also you could see the Enigma machine, used by the German troops to decode their outgoing messages, and an interactive radio machine just like the one used by the Bletchley Park operators to intercept those messages.

A display of old booklets and pamphlets, and war posters can be found in Block C as well.

You could also see some of the filed away messages and codes that were intercepted during the war. Impressive work, considering the messages were intercepted in German and Japanese and not in English.

Block C on its own could take an hour or two to go through if you want to read and look at everything. Once you are done, you head out the door to the rest of the park.

Visiting all of Bletchley Park requires a lot of walking in the outdoors space so you wouldn’t want to go when the weather is miserable or when its raining or snowing.

On the day of our visit the wind was vicious and blowing away making us stumble on our way as we walked hence I only visited two more places. First, it was Block B where I really wanted to see the fully-operational Alan Turin Bombe machine.

It isn’t the actual one which was destroyed after the war but this one was rebuilt again in 2009 from the original blueprints of the Bombe machine. It is said that 200 Bombe machines were built during the war to decipher the german Enigma code and be able to make sense of the intercepted messages.

Perhaps I should have become a mechanical engineer instead of a computer one! Their work is much more fun! I feel like I want to build stuff too! This is the Bombe machine from the back!

If you are an engineer or an engineering student you might want to visit this exhibition and take a look at the details of the bombe machine, it is very inspiring indeed and the exhibition is very detailed. Also in block B is the Alan Turin museum dedicated to highlighting his numerous achievements to the computer world. He is considered the founder of modern computer science, the builder of the ACE computer, and also the founder of the Artificial Intelligence field.

The few items left of Turin’s personal possessions are also on display, including a teddy bear he used to practice his lectures on before his students.

Block B could take another hour or two of your visit. I need to visit there again for sure. Afterwards we contemplated walking to the mansion and we are glad we did.

How gorgeous is the mansion? It is where the Imitation Game movie exhibition is held btw. Sadly by the time I made it through the doors I was too cold and tired so I decided to come back on another day.

Out again into the cold, passing by several different huts and even one with old bicycles used by actual employees of Bletchley Park! I really wanted to visit Hut 3 and 6 where the code breakers worked and the park booklet promises you could feel how it felt to work there but the wind was getting stronger and we could barely walk back to Block B.

This is my first and definitely not the last to this astonishing historical park with over 12,000 employees who, with all the extraordinary work they’ve already done also managed to keep the park a secret for all those decades! If you love history, or are moved by achievements, you’d want to visit as well.

 

Because it was a bitter-cold day I couldn’t wander between the huts any longer and opted to go home, my ticket is valid for one year from the date of purchase after all! Before you leave I stopped at the gift shop which is located in Hut C and loved everything about it! Plenty of old retro items from the Bletchley Park war era including replica booklets of ration books and how to make the most out of whatever was handed out during the war.

Because its Bletchley Park you could see a lot of books with mathematical puzzles on display. The one that I got for myself was a booklet of Brain Training puzzles that are said to be similar to what the codebreakers used when they were operating in Bletchley Park and if you were smart enough to solve them, you’d be the same level of smart needed to become a codebreaker yourself.

And because its important to me to know if I’m clever enough to would have been a codebreaker in the war if I wanted to, I had to have the booklet and I’ve been trying to solve a puzzle a day for the past few days. I was trying to solve puzzles on the plane ride back home and I have to admit that I’ve started out a bit rusty in the beginning but now I seem to have improved. I’ve always loved maths, and I am enjoying solving these puzzles one by one.

If you are in London or visiting London soon you must hop on a train from Euston station and make a stop at Bletchley. After visiting Bletchley Park perhaps you would like to take the train -or a taxi, or a bus- to Milton Keynes and have lunch at the Xscape, or the Hub, or the MK:centre and make a day out of it. Milton Keynes is only five minutes away by train and there is plenty to do there.

The Mansion, Bletchley Park, Sherwood Drive, Bletchley, Milton Keynes MK3 6EB, United Kingdom, Tel:

+44 1908 640404. For more information, directions, opening times, and prices you can check their website (link). To get there from London take a London Midland train from London Euston train station and the trip takes about 25-30 minutes depending on how many stops the train makes.

Choccywoccydoodah’s Hot Chocolate, London

Because I’ve taken quite a liking to hot chocolate this winter I’ve been drinking nothing but the biggest steaming cups topped with the most voluptuous dollops of whipped cream of hot chocolate. I was in London and I decided to go and try the most highly acclaimed cups of melted cocoa and milk around the capital, and one of the first that I got on my list was Choccywoccydoodah’s hot chocolate. 

I’ve seen Choccywoccydoodah on TV making out-of-this-world cakes before, the kind of customised cake that is so elaborately designed, so delicately carved, you would rather put it on a pedestal and display it proudly at the entrance of wherever you call home rather than slice it up and gobble it down. You wouldn’t shred a painting to eat it now, would you? That’s what Choccy’s cakes are like: art! Plain and simply put. I thought they were in Brighton, and you know how I adore everything Brighton -reminds me of my childhood-, but I never knew they were right there in London, at one of my favourite spots in the city… Carnaby Street!

How long have Choccywoccydoodah been at Carnaby? I’m not certain but I’m sure getting rusty! Its been too long since I’ve wandered the streets of London, that’s for sure! Thankfully this time I didn’t waste a moment and headed to Choccy’s corner shop as soon as I had a spare afternoon!

One thing I didn’t anticipate when I arrived at Choccy’s, there was a queue to their cafe! Located on the first floor, we had to wait a bit in line to get a table and thankfully that didn’t take long, about five to ten minutes? I did most of the waiting while my companions roamed around the shop, oohing and ahing at the chocolates and gorgeous cakes on display! Eventually I abandoned my post for a minute, prompting my company to return in line while I wandered around and oohed and ahed myself!

I’ve never seen anything so beautiful that’s also edible in my life! The attention to details is mind-blowing and I’ve heard its all made with pure chocolate!

If anyone is planning to throw me a birthday party then please get me a cake in THAT LEAGUE! Also, if you are going to open up another bakery or a home-business Kuwait, perhaps you’d consider taking a step out of the ordinary and trying to make something as gorgeous and different as those beauties and not overcharge us for them? Pretty please?

Back to Choccy’s, thankfully the wait wasn’t that long before we were escorted to the cafe on the first floor by the friendly waiter. More cake displays are found upstairs next to the tables buzzing with happy diners overdosing on chocolate. Who wouldn’t be happy at the mere sight of so much chocolate?

I want to say that the waitress handed us a menu but that’s not entirely true. The menu was so huge, it actually sat on the last empty chair on our table for us to gaze at There was also a little yellow birdie perched on the red wall overlooking the cafe and I thought he was really cute, can you spot him with this little black glasses?

Now we were there for the hot chocolates of course, but why not have some fondue as well? So we ordered three hot chocolate, two milk and one dark, two with whipped cream and “the works” and one that is “plain” for people on a “diet”. The two naughty hot chocolates are the ones photographed here.

You could see rivers of chocolate running down the sides of the cups, staining the table and causing us to salivate while I was being a pest and taking those pictures. Then again we needed the hot chocolates to cool down a bit, right? We couldn’t just drink them all up, they’d burn us!

Well, patience is a virtue, no?

Where the hot chocolates good? They were excellent and truly delicious! Worth every extra calorie consumed. Mine was the milk chocolate and I had a sip of the dark chocolate one but personally I preferred the milk chocolate hot chocolate even though I’m a dark chocolate person. Highly recommended!

Now for the fondue…

The good thing about the fondue is that it isn’t very big, quite enough for 3 or 4 people or one very hungry chocoholic. There were plenty of dips -fruits, cake slices, biscuits- to go around and that shot of liquid chocolate was more than enough. We did have fun that afternoon.

And no chocolate morsels were abandoned on our plate or cups.

We had so much fun in the chocolate-y and funky world of Choccywoccydoodah we didn’t want to leave. Once we left, it took me a moment to blink back and realise we were back to reality. Somehow it felt like we were visiting Alice’s wonderland when we were all warm and cozy inside, surrounded by edible art and the world’s happiest ingredient: chocolate!

I cannot wait till I’m back in London to go back for another cup of hot chocolate even if it was in the smouldering heat of August! It is that good! If you are lucky enough to be in London -or Brighton- then you must pass by Choccywoccydoodah for some excellent chocolate fix. For more information you can check out their website (link) or follow them on Twitter (@ChoccyWoccyShop).

That Contagious Smile…

This year I didn’t write down a list of “resolutions”. I’ve often found that my mind tends to file away whatever I’ve put on a list for “later”. Maybe because whatever it is on a list is saved there somewhere hence it will never be lost as an idea, does that make any sense? Maybe not, but I do realise now that if I want something done, I better start doing it right away or else it will stay as an entry on a list under a pile of a hundred other lists somewhere. And that is exactly why I’m writing this post up, because I made a resolution in December of last year and I’ve decided to go ahead with it right away. The Resolution? Smile for no reason at strangers. 

The concept of smiling for people is not that hard to grasp, nor is it a newly introduced one. I am not really a smiling type of person, my natural features are usually arranged into a frown when I’m not trying to show any type of expressions or emotions. Frankly, I’ve never found a reason to smile for no reason at people, mainly because we are to busy trying to stare down the constantly staring people we are surrounded with and smiling back was simply dropped out of the equation. Then something happened, and I realised why a smile was important.

It was Christmas Eve 2014 and I was in London trying to shop for dinner supplies for two days in the Supermarket. You can imagine how crazy hectic and busy it was but I needn’t much anyway, just a couple of things I would get then run away. I was in an aisle blocked by shoppers, everyone pushing and running, talking in a hurry or checking something, and in the middle of the aisle was this really old lady slowly leaning on her cart, pushing away half a step at a time, keeping her calm even though people were rushing on either side of her.

The lady was well into her late 80’s, perhaps even 90’s, but she was dressed impeccably, her cotton-white hair in a smooth well-cut bob, jewels and a hint of makeup on her face. She also was shopping for dinner supplies apparently and I assume she was going to be spending the holidays alone for if she had anyone else they’d at least be doing their shopping with her, but I hope I am wrong. I adore old people, especially ones who still turn up well dressed and polite they way they did in their youth, and as I watched the lady she looked up at me and I smiled, a big wide beam from ear to ear, something I’ve never done at people before, a trait I must have picked up from the Australians when I visited back in May.

To my astonishment the lady smiled back, happily, genuinely! Not a sad miserable smile, or a lonely seeking companionship smile, just a really beautiful smile from a good heart that is rare to witness these days. She bobbed her head as she walked past in acknowledgement and the warm happy energy generated by a silly reason caused by lifting the facial muscles up was like a blanket of content wrapped around myself -and hopefully the old lady- on that freezing December day.

The story doesn’t end up here though. I made my way to the end of the aisle, still smiling like a loony to myself, dizzy by the happy smiling expression on the lady’s face, when I realised another face was looming in my range of vision. This time it was a harried-looking mother of two pushing her cart and trying to do her shopping and look after her kids in the crowd. Now this second lady, almost my age and apparently was having quite a stressful day so far, so my smile and deducted that I was smiling at her, or maybe because I was smiling too widely I was such a good sight, in any case, the expression of the lady changed almost instantly into a big wide smile herself and I almost stopped smiling to explain I wasn’t smiling at her. But then I thought to myself that no, I am going to smile at her even though I don’t know her, why not make her happy too? The lady continued on her way with a big smile on her face, and I do hope another shopper caught that radiating smile and passed it on to someone else.

I now understand.

Therefore, I began smiling at random people whenever I can. Not in a fake obnoxious kind of way that comes out as force and spells creepy. Whenever I can smile, especially in the morning, I will. Not at everybody obviously, smiling at strange men in the Arab world can sometimes be troublesome. But I now know that whenever someone is staring me up and down the better response is to smile at them, a big wide nice beam, instead of stare at them back and sending angry sparks in their direction. You’d be surprised at how people react, so far most of the ones I’ve smiled back at gave me back sheepish smiles and turned away their gazes immediately.

Now, dear reader who didn’t think my ramblings is so cheesy and made it this far, please smile, its contagious! It might not cure world’s deadliest deceases or ensure that no child shall ever sleep hungry again, but at least it might spread wide enough to give us more thankful happy people no matter what their circumstances are. A moment of stealthy happiness and relief in the vortex of a busy life. Why not?

P.S. About the picture above, I was caught unaware by my own iPhone mid-conversation and I like the impromptu picture of a happy moment so much I decided to keep it. Someone needs to develop a smart app where the smart phone takes its owners pictures whenever he is out enjoying some event or occasion or party, often those candid photos turn out to be the most honest and frankly the best.

Book Review: The Book of You by Claire Kendal

Another book, another debut, and also another gripping-from-page-one read that I couldn’t put down. I have a new reading system to determine what I want to read, I get a collection of books and read the first chapter of each then decide where to go from there. Only when I picked up The Book of You, and it was the first in the collection, I finished chapter one and continued on forgetting all about the other first chapters that were waiting to be read.

There is barely an introduction in the book, you are in the middle of a stalking even right from the start and its all action from beginning to end, a thriller indeed. You realise how dangerous a situation this poor girl being stalked is in, how hard it is to prove in this day and age that someone is bothering and stalking her, creeping her out, in the eyes of a the law that requires hard-set evidence. How elusive and disgusting a stalker is, ruining someone else’s life and turning it into a living hell and a prison of sorts just because they cannot deal with their healthy obsession.

Then there is a trial, which the heroin is a jury in, and the poor girl is isolated even deeper when somehow she realises that even if she reports her stalker and he does get to be trailed for making her life hell, she herself could be attacked, her tale twisted into something else by ruthless lawyers. There are two sides to every story and not everyone is able to provide proof for theirs even if they are wronged.

You must be warned though, this tale of stalking is distressing and at some points the details are quite gory and grotesque. Almost at the every end before the final climax, the tale starts to drag on a bit and I didn’t care much for the ending though I do understand that it was very befitting and any other ending wouldn’t really be as appropriate.

The Book of You is compared to Gone Girl and Before I Go to Sleep but I do beg to differ. I enjoyed all three but Gone Girl is in an entirely different level and Before I Go to Sleep is a different situation all together. Would I recommend it? I would but do remember some details might be too much for sensitive readers.

Breakfast and lunch at Mado Kuwait

Back in December the much loved and very popular Turkish cafe Mado finally opened its doors in Kuwait. The opening followed a long period of anticipation on instagram with many devoted followers asking about the opening date. I was travelling when it did open, early December 2014, and I’ve heard a lot of mixed reviews about it all of them advising me me to wait a bit until they get on their feet and ran things smoothly.

So I waited. I waited until last week which makes it about a month since they’ve opened. I’ve had other friends go in that very week and they told me it was fine, delicious with much better service. Therefore last Thursday to celebrate the arrival of the first weekend in 2015 I headed to Mado Cafe located in Al-Bidaa strip with many a delicious dreams tackling my palates.

Last Thursday was quite a freezing winter day but the outdoors setting of Mado was so beautiful, open space dotted with green all around, and I couldn’t help but choose a table outside. At 3:30 P.M. it wasn’t really that crowded and we had no problem being seated immediately next to a big fiery heater.

The menus were handed to us in an instant, the service so far was very attentive and prompt. By that time I noticed two tables, one with a couple and another with a family, putting down their menus and leaving and I was baffled. I tried leafing through the menu, only to find a large portion of it quite sticky with pages that seemed glued to each other. Could it be that my menu was so dirty the pages were stuck like that?

When I began to pry open the sticky pages by force our waiter ran to me and explained that these pages were actually glued together because they are the pages with the meats and grills dishes and that they were out of them today and will be serving them tomorrow! So that’s why the people on the other tables were leaving! They came for lunch only to find there isn’t much to lunch on! Personally I found it quiet weird that a restaurant should run out of meat dishes on a Thursday but have them available on a Monday -my friend was there- and a Friday! Why glue the pages like that then? I wasn’t sure.

When we heard there wasn’t much to choose from for lunch, and when I saw everyone around me order either salads or desserts, I was about to leave as well. To be frank, I was so tired after a long work day, too cold,hungry and didn’t want to think about something else to eat somewhere else and all I wanted was something to eat so I asked them if they would still serve their breakfast and they said yes they did! I ordered me the biggest breakfast, similar to the one I had in Dubai’s Mado, and was once again happy and content.

So should we call my meal a brunch? Is it real brunch if you go for lunch at 4 pm ready for lunch but end up ordering breakfast because they were out of many a things on the menu? I don’t suppose so, hence why I said Breakfast and lunch in the title of this post. My hungry husband wouldn’t settle for breakfast though and he insisted on ordering anything lunch-y so he went with the lentil soup and it was the first to arrive.

The soup comes with little bowls of melty Turkish cheese and bread cubes. My husband said the soup was really lovely and was just the thing you’d need in that freezing afternoon. I don’t drink lentil soup so I wouldn’t know myself but I did try the cheese and it was lovely.

Thankfully my breakfast order came with a bread basket so we had three loaves of piping hot bread to snack on with a little pot of olive tapanade while waiting for my breakfast. There was no Simit, the Turkish pretzel-like bread dotted with sesame. The same thing happened in Mado Dubai, they didn’t have Simit on the two days we dined there.

For drinks my husband ordered the Ayran Laban, or buttermilk drink.

I had a sip and it was cool, quite minty, and refreshing but in my opinion not a winter drink, more like a summery one. My husband didn’t care though and enjoyed his drink to the very last drop.

I didn’t order anything to drink because I thought my breakfast tray was served including three little Turkish tea cups (estekanas). When I went over the menu afterwards, I found that the breakfast tray in Dubai came with three tea cups while the breakfast tray in Kuwait didn’t and I had to order my own tea! It didn’t matter though, to Mado’s credit the waiter came with a small cute tray of tea with a tiny rose and a little cheese pastry and offered it to me, complimentary, because it was a cold day and I needed something hot while I waited. They even brought me a refill when my tea got cold in a completely new tray with a new nutty pastry.

Because my husband insisted on having whatever they had available for lunch, he did order the Mado Manti, which is about the only thing that was available on their menu with meat that day. The Manti is a cousin of the ravioli, little dough pockets filled with ground meat and topped with tangy yoghurt.

I did dip a piece of my bread in the yoghurt and it was really delicious. By that time all I had in me is two cups of tea and bread and I was almost shaking from hunger and the caffeine and sugar. My breakfast tray seemed to be taking forever to be prepared but that’s probably because it wasn’t breakfast time.

And then my tray was there! Finally!

A platter of Turkish cheese with veggies, small pots of olives, butter, jam, tahini, honey and clotted cream. A small pot with sausages, and another with a fried egg.

How was my breakfast? Delicious, but was missing a few vital elements! There was no halloumi cheese, and the pastrami was missing -thankfully-. Also, the breakfast included one cube of cheese bureek which is made of layers and layers of pastry and tangy herby cheese and is so delicious and I so wanted to have it for my meal!

No halloumi, no bureek, no pastrami, and no one even apologised for their absence. We didn’t bother asking after them, most likely they’ll tell me they are not available. I’ve also asked them to swap the cherry jam in this breakfast with the strawberry jam in the other breakfast tray available in the menu and they told me that wasn’t possible. I hate cherry jam, and cherries, and anything cherry flavoured. The breakfast tray in Dubai came with a gorgeous rose jam, why does it come with a cherry jam in Kuwait? Who eats cherry?!

I also don’t eat sunny side up eggs and there wasn’t an option of having the eggs scrambled. In a nutshell, my husband ended up eating 3/4 of my breakfast tray.

By the time we were finished Mado was crowded again, probably because it was tea time and people would stay to have dessert with tea and Turkish coffee. I wanted to have dessert, but was afraid they’d say everything was out. We tried our luck and ordered the “Cheese Burma Kadayif” which is like a vermicelli kunafa only twisted tube like rather than being spread on a tray. It came with a side of dondurma, Turkish ice cream and yes a relative of my blog name Danderma.

I have to say that the cheese burma kadayif was divine! So fresh, crunchy, juicy, sweet, cheesy, and absolutely delicious! If there is one thing to have in Mado’s menu, it must be this cheese burma kadayif. You do NOT want to miss it, we almost fought over the last dondurma soaked vermicelli morsel left in the plate.

Our check came to about 17 KD. Not bad at all for a full breakfast tray, dessert, soup, and a main dish.

Is Mado Kuwait worth the wait? Well the location is gorgeous, the service is very friendly and prompt. The food does seem to be delayed a bit and the fact there wasn’t meat that day was a bit weird but I suppose with time these kinks would smooth out eventually, you might want to give them a call to ask about dish availability before you head out for lunch or dinner. However, Mado will always be busy, will always be crowded, and I do see myself going back only on a full stomach to enjoy desserts while in a garden-like setting rather than risk waiting for my food on an empty stomach. I can totally see myself enjoying a cheese burma kadayif in Ramadan after iftar, sipping cup after cup of delicious Turkish tea.

Mado Kuwait is located in Rimal Resort, Al-Bidaa. For more information you can check their instagram account (@MadoKuwait) or check their website (link).

Book Review: The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

The debut novel by Jessie Burton caught my eye with two things: the patterned wallpaper-like cover and the fact that it was placed on a table with a card declaring it 2014’s best read in the bookstore!

The weird thing is when I bought the book, among other books, then made it back home I looked for it everywhere but couldn’t find it. I double checked my receipt and it was right there. The sensible thing was to look again, where would a book vanish to? But I was so pulled by the description on the back, so intrigued, I knew I wanted to read it right then and there so I went back for a second copy and this time, clutching it in both hands, I shoved it into the bag I was going to travel back home with, intending to read the book on my way home.

I finished the miniaturist in one day.

I just couldn’t wait! Not really much of a fan of stories set in very old bygone eras, and this one dates to 1686 Amsterdam, I was pulled through the pages from the first paragraph and only let out with the last page landing neatly next to its read family of pages. I remembered how my first copy was suddenly lost and I couldn’t help but be a bit spooked.

The story starts when an 18-years-old young bride from the country arrived at her husband’s door in Amsterdam. It was an arranged marriage to a wealthy businessman who lives with his wicked sister and doesn’t seem to have time for his young bride at all. As a wedding gift, he gives her a doll house that is an exact miniature of his own house, complete with every intricate detail on the furniture and every thread of fabric.

Happy with her little new toy, the bride commissions a phantom local miniaturist with dolls and a few more items to furnish her house, only to receive dolls that are a copy of the own house occupants, including herself, and realise that whatever she receives from the miniaturist seems to be foretelling a sinister story

I loved everything about this book. I loved the historical glimpse into the past that it offered me and the fact that somehow all human begins actually share the same mindset throughout the ages and that time didn’t change much of people’s true nature, the wide-eyed innocence of the young bride, the sourness of the sister-in-law who comes with a few surprises of her own. Yet, I somehow am a bit disappointed with the character of the miniaturist when its finally was revealed. It somehow didn’t make much sense to me and felt that their part of the story was over a tad too soon in favour of other storyline developments and some roller coaster developments were they, you’ll just have to wait and learn for yourself when you get yourself a copy.