Prolific Immigrant

Chocolate bar, regular: A mash up of cocoa and such, nearly 50% of which is sugar.

When you’re making any variety of hot chocolate from scratch, I implore you to use an already sweetened chocolate bar rather than a baking chocolate, reason being that a baking chocolate has very little sugar and you will run out of sugar trying to sweeten up the hot chocolate you’re making to the point where your guest utters incredulously, as you pour more sugar into the pot: ‘Ok, this is getting scary’, before they are nice enough to pretend they enjoyed a little bit of the hot chocolate syrup you made and to which they added an additional half a cup of milk after you’ve cooked it to within an inch of its life and you are discombobulated because you usually make a mean anything and then magically, you are the worst host in the world because you can’t make a cup of fkng hot chocolate, the taste of which stays with you over night, even though you threw out the rest the night before and flossed and brushed your teeth and doused yourself with spray Lysol to get rid of the taste and the shivers brought on by the memory.

Or, you can just do what I did this morning en route to work and save yourself the necessity of adding ‘milk & sugar’ to your grocery list.

Original Recipe (OR): Two people whose friend chemistry works extremely well.

Crush: Take the OR and wonder aloud to strangers on the street, beneath your breath at a meeting, while you’re on a bus staring at one of the aforementioned strangers, while seated on a Ferris wheel or buying the wrong variety of chocolate…what would happen if I added a few new ingredients to the OR? Maybe a little saffron, turmeric and a dash of chilli?.

Life: What happens regardless of the addition of saffron, turmeric and a dash of chilli.

Friendship: Withstands all of the above, and then some.

Hurrah! The Annual Girls’ Holiday Dinner was an unabashed success (even though the stuffed chicken was much too salty, even for my taste…).

The Reason(s)
The main reason I began having these Annual Dinners was because The Girls were convening – with great difficulty – perhaps once every six months, and I thought it was time we had a standing yearly event to which we all looked forward. That is precisely what The Annual Girls’ Holiday Dinner has become, a reputation that is well earned because it really is an ‘event’, and not merely a dinner party. The second and much more important reason I do this is because I like presents! And The Girls come bearing gifts…

To the bouquet of flowers where red and white lilies were present, Di added yellow ones

Tasha gifted me the gorgeous gold earrings I’m wearing; Laura brought a box of specialty tisane teas, and Cleo brought a candy-cane candle & 8 different scented body creams. (I enquired if she thought I was stinky. She laughed and walked away without answering, but not before she told me to watch myself as I walked past the stairs “because [I] could fall and really hurt myself”.)

The Attendees
Di & Cleo

Laura & Tasha

(Di was the designated photographer and within moments, the ladies had been lined up both against the wall, and by the sofa so that their portraits be taken. It was really quite fantastic as the shutter bounced up and down, Tasha and Laura did a little tango, while Cleo and Di opted for a more discreet revival of The Outsiders video box, minus one Tom Cruise.)

And I, your BlogMistress

(Di was attempting to capture the length of the dress and I was yelling back responses to Cleo as she rummaged through my closet and queried “Why haven’t I EVER seen you in THIS dress? And what’s BEDO? And are all of these CDs yours? And if your mom ever wants to give away the dress you’re wearing and you don’t want it, will you give it to me? And don’t fall down the stairs, you could really hurt yourself!”)

Although mama was not present in body (she’s in Dubai until this coming Friday), she was present in soul as the dress I wore was in fact once hers. I believe she purchased it in her early 20s and wore it much lovelier than I could ever dream to wear it.

The Drink
Over the course of the six hour meal, we consumed two bottles of IKEA’s Sparkling Apple Drink and two bottles of IKEA’s Sparkling Pomegranate Drink that are wrapped up as though they are champagne. These drinks are fun because by glass no 4, we were all hit by an incredible sugar rush that left us hysterical and prone to confessions. (To add a slight more ambiance to the drink, I placed strawberries in each glass.)

As though these four bottles weren’t enough, I brought to the table at least three gallons of water and rose oil. By the end of the evening, The Girls = Race Horses.

The Meal
The seven courses were presented once an hour on the half hour, as follows…

6.30pm
Asiago Cheese Puffs
Stuffed Baby Potatoes with Shrimp

6.30pm for Dianna, a vegan
Bruschetta & Babaghanoush

7.30pm
Curried Sweet Pepper soup (served with a dollop of sour cream, a dash of sweet paprika & a blackberry)

8.30pm
Arugula, Pear & Asiago Cheese salad (served with roasted walnuts and breadsticks)

9.30pm
Angel Hair Pasta Nests with Shrimp, in Heavy Cream (fresh basil served as the garnish)

10.30pm
Stuffed (with Borsin Cheese & spinach) Chicken Breast

10.30pm for Dianna
Yellow Pepper stuffed with cous-cous, garlic, cashews & dates

11.30pm
Lemon Sorbet…which, sadly, went unphotographed…

12.30am
Vanilla Pound Cake with Vanilla Bean ice-cream, fresh berries & fresh mint

Pretty spectacular, indeed. So spectacular that I was allowed to wear Laura’s tiara and crowned by myself and only in my own head: Culinary Goddess. (Look how large and cow-like my eyes are.)

The Soundtrack
Apart from the incredible company and food, we were joined by the very sexy Tom Jones, Platinum Blonde (Yes! We know they are of The Gay variety, but we love them still in ‘that’ way…), Bono, Terence Trent D’Arby & the boys from Chicago. As only the best Holiday Dinners know, The Eurythmics, The Spice Girls and Justin Timberlake completed our evening’s soundtrack.

The Final Confession
Naturally, there were no lulls in the evening’s conversation. In fact, this year’s theme seemed to be that of The Confession, with the Weirdest Topic Award going to: Gas (not of the petrol variety).

If I were to sum the evening up into one line, I could…and I will…

We promised we would never discuss who said this, and so you must excuse my adherence to this code…

As one of us was staring down at her dessert plate, she quietly and very seriously announced: “I don’t know if I’m seeing things, but I’m pretty sure my cherry just vibrated.”

And that line, my friends, is the line that best wraps up the 2007 Annual Girls’ Holiday Dinner. I do hope you had as much fun ogling the photos as we did devouring the food. Feel free to stalk the entire rest of the photos here.

In a little over two hours, some of (the others missing in the USA) The Girls are coming over for my Annual Holiday Dinner. Technically, this evening is for 2007, as I didn’t have the chance to celebrate the presence of their friendship within the confines of that calendar year.

The table is set with six candles, sparkling pomegranate & apple ” faux champagne”, and oriental white & red lilies (my favorite):

The seven-course menu is:

Asiago Cheese Puff appetizer & Stuffed Red Potato Shrimp appetizer (look: here is ‘The Making Of’ of the latter caught on camera)

Curried Sweet Potato Soup (with a dollop of sour cream and a dash of paprika)
Arugula, Pear & Asiago Cheese Salad
Angel Hair Pasta & Shrimp Nests
Stuffed (with Boursin cheese & spinach) Chicken Breasts (but first & critical, is that the chicken is marinated in brine over-night, as this photo explains)

Lemon Sorbet
Vanilla Pound Cake (with ice cream and fresh berries)

The dress-code: Evening wear. I’ve chosen to wear mama’s 1960s hippie-chick floor-length gauze stunner:

I’m currently pulling together the song playlist and I have to make pretty relatively soon; my home smells like vanilla and sugar and I’m quite certain things couldn’t be any better than right at this very moment…

This is my favourite salad, and it is Gazaweeyah (hailing from the Gaza Strip). In Arabic, it’s called دق, pronounced da’ah. I’m uncertain of the specific root of the word (maybe it is the root) because Arabic often times confuses me, but I do know one variation of it is mad’oo’, the closest in meaning is the English ‘pounded’ (“struck repeatedly with great force, as with an instrument”).

The Gazazwah may just be the most literal of folks, and so it should come as no surprise that in order for you to make da’ah you need a clay mortar & any material pestle. Clay here is key as it helps achieve the full flavour of this salad. For those who cook often, the composition and material of the containers affects the flavour of what you’re eating, and so the need for a clay mortar should come as no surprise. For those of you who don’t cook often…now you know.

Here’s my clar mortar (Thomasina) and wooden pestle (Bob):

Super Duper Important! Before you place the salad inside the mortar, the clay can’t be thirsty any more, or else it drinks all of the yummy salad juice. (Thomasina is greedy this way.) For this reason and before you start chopping, you need to fill the clay mortar with water and let it sit for about ten minutes.

This Is What You’re Pounding
1 small onion super finely (& seriously) chopped
1/2 tsp normal salt
2 large overflowing gigantic tablespoons of dill seeds that look like this:

1 full super hot long green pepper of this variety, image courtesy of Pepper Schlepper. You need to take out all of the seeds and then finely chop the rest – da’ah has to burn your throat and so if this pepper doesn’t make you cry then thou shalt chuck it and buy another, please.

5 large juicy tomatoes super finely (& seriously) chopped
juice from 1/2 fresh lemon
5 or 6 tablespoons olive oil, which is such an odd thing for any Middle Easterner to ‘measure’ because we don’t ‘measure’ olive oil, but rather pour. This because in verse 29, sura 12 of the Quran, God says: ‘Just pour it, the Olive Oil. Yalla.’

‘The How To’ Being The Funnest Part
Only after the clay mortar has had it’s fill of water, you throw in the dill seeds, the onion, the salt, the pepper, the lemon juice and you pound. Really, you pound, you grind, you take out all of your frustration on the wee mixture of food. Make it as much of a mush as possible.

Those of the sneaky variety may wish to forego the mortar and pestle and throw everything into a food processor. THE FLAVOUR WON’T BE THE SAME and then you can’t even call it a da’ah, the key here being ‘you pound the salad into being’ and not ‘you food processor the salad into being’.

Right. So as you’re pounding, think lovely thoughts about your family and friends. Enjoy the moment before you eat some da’ah and cry like a wee child because of the pepper.

As soon as the mixture looks mushy enough, then you add the tomatoes and pound some more! Awesome, I know.

Just make sure that you’re not making a mess of your shirt, because you’re making a salad and not running with the bulls. Now’s not the time to be shy; the mixture is enjoying the pounding. Put all of your weight and force behind it pretending that it’s someone whose wronged you or someone you love…it’ll look like this within a couple of minutes:

When you think you’re done the pounding, pour on all of the olive oil (and more, if you wish) and serve up as is in the mortar! Da’ah is a yummy sloppy salad and each bite is to be scooped up with a piece of pita bread and dripping with hot pepper and olive oil.

Sa7teen w hanna! Good health and happiness!

I’ve been meaning to do this since the beginning of Ramadan and keep flaking, and so here is your first ever One Female Canuck recipe! I’m terribly excited as cooking relaxes me and so this virtual edge provides me a second avenue to enjoy the kitchen…

I’ve chosen a very simple recipe to start, a ‘dish’ with which you’re all quite familiar: Hummus! Yay! (Not just ‘Hummus’ but rather ‘Hummus! YaY!’)

In order for you to enjoy this, I’m going to recommend you start off by making a very small amount (a bowl-full) and then tweaking it to suit your taste. Some of you will find that you like it with more lemon, less garlic, more salt, whatever…the choice is yours, consider the following as some guidelines and have fun playing!

Ingredients for Hummus! Yay!
1/2 cup fresh chick-peas
1 fresh lemon
3 tablespoons tahini
1 tooth of garlic
salt

& for garnish: parsley, cumin & olive oil

THAT’S IT! (Bet you’re surprised.)

Means to Hummus! Yay!
Smush the chick-peas until they’re super smooth! Consider using a purée-ing machine, whatever that may be.
Squeeze into the smushed and super smooth chick-pea thing the lemon & eagle-eye that no seeds fall in!
Then the garlic!
Finally the tahini!
Salt to your liking! YAY!

Really: Make certain that all items are totally mushed together and the mixture as smooth as possible!

Spoon it into a nice little bowl and flatten the top!

Garnish it with olive oil (I made a little hole in the middle, below the parsley, and filled it with olive oil), cumin and parsley!

OR

In a little bit of butter, fry up some pine nuts and pour them over the Hummus (including the butter)! Yay! if you’re looking for a really traditional way to eat this treat. If you opt for this means to Hummus! Yay!, then don’t add the olive oil as a garnish (only the cumin and the parsley, please).

Serve with much pita bread, a winning smile and a very big heart!

Hummus! Yay!

(Tell me how it tastes, please.)

.1. Exhausted from this weekend, and so these RPNs will be more of an explanation of the wonder that this weekend turned out to be.

.2. Elizabeth arrived on Friday evening and we started our weekend by going out for a little pasta and staying up until almost 3 a.m. chatting and learning about one anothers’ lives as they occurred over the last little while, last I saw her in Montreal.

At dinner, recalled that when I was all of 12 years old, I was obsessed with the film Top Gun and convinced I should join the Cadets and make my call-sign Maverick.

I wasn’t very cool as a child and so rather lucky that at different intervals, my mother would commit acts of intervention in order to hold my stupidity at bay.

.3. Saturday can only be described as the evening that will go down in history. On every level and at every turn, the 8 course meal was an absolute success.

As invited, the girls arrived at 5 p.m., each one of whom was indeed wearing sparkly items (clearly stated on the invite). The lights went out and the first course served at precisely 5:30 p.m. Since I refused to turn on any electric lighting, there were no less than 100 candles used to light up all of the beautiful faces around the table. The music was a mix of Norah Jones, Ella Fitzgerald, Buddy Guy, Enya, & Erikah Badu. For good measure, I played a little Brtiney – and although the girls pretended to hate her, I could sense they were battling their own selves to not slide across my kitchen floor in time with the beats. Since I am not an in the closet Briitney fan, I was sliding across my floor in time to the beats.

(I am lucky that amidst the candle light, no one could actually make out what I was doing.)

Nature decided to complete the ambiance of the night by gracing us with howling winds that followed every movement of our evening, and which T dubbed “….like being in a Scottish castle” except we didn’t have the luxury of being served by men in kilts.

The evening itself lazed around and carried us through its graces over the course of five hours, at different moments standing still to allow us the enjoyment of the following:

a) Fresh baguette with Tzaziki, Hummus and Baba Ghanoush dips
b) Arugula with toasted walnuts and asiago cheese
c) Red bell pepper soup with cream, parmesan and fresh thyme
d) Shrimp with dip
e) Linguine with white sauce, shitake mushrooms and scallions
f) Lemon sorbet
g) Filet mignon stuffed with morel mushrooms, garlic and shallots
h) Vanilla ice cream with fresh strawberries and blue berries

Best line of the evening 1: (and I will not name from whose lips this was uttered): As we were leaving my home and preparing to head to another location, one of these brilliant women explained how & due to the amount of food she ate, she hoped that at our destination, she would neither “explode nor crap [her]self”.

Best line of the evening 2: When one of the napkins caught fire and L held it up in awe, only capable of uttering “Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.”

Best moment of the evening: When we all bit into our filet mignons and realized that the meat was in fact melting in our mouths (this is truly no exaggeration).

.4. Elisabeth left earlier today and I was sad to see her go, because she is one of the sweetest and kindest souls I know. Am looking forward to seeing her soon, most likely by the end of this month. Bye, Zaby!