Amicable Alimentations: Sticky Toffee Pudding & Friendships that Stick

The steamed pudding.

Amicable Alimentations: A series of posts with no predictable order or timing dedicated to a delicious food and the friend who most reminds me of it or inspired me to love it.  Here's the link to post number one, number two, number three, number four and this is post number five in the series.

*  *  *

When you're facing life as an ex-pat, the natural tendency is to compare.  To compare the familiar, the presumed-correct, the "normal," with the unfamiliar or odd or inconvenient.  Living in the UK was baptism by fire in this regard, especially because it is deceptively convenient in the sense that the language is ostensibly the same (it's really not) and the outlook, that of "first world" or "ally" or whatever other politically and culturally-charged label has been hoisted on the UK from the other side of the Atlantic, similar (it's really not).

I'm an open-minded person, one who doesn't mind certain inconveniences if the pay-out is charm or beauty or leisure, or even education.  But I'm also highly intolerant of inefficiency, laziness, and lack of perspective.  Not a whole lot of things I saw and learned in the UK really stuck with me in the end, but many of my experiences and friendships did. 

Another thing that did stick - almost inevitably, as it was a rather sticky thing - was a love of steamed puddings, and Sticky Toffee Pudding in particular.  Steamed Puddings.  Yep - that sounds kinda gross to an American audience, doesn't it?  It makes me laugh.  The first time I heard of Suet Pudding I kind of gagged a little bit.  Beef fat pudding?  Literally, steamed lard pudding?  "What could be more disgusting?" said my inner-food-snob, dismissively.  I was wrong, of course.  It's delectable, especially in its' savory iteration.  And while I am indeed a professed lover of savory things, I must also admit that it was a sweet steamed pudding that fully won me over to steamed puddings in the end.  Well, that and the colorfully named "Spotted Dick" dessert which, however displeasing an image it may conjure - runny, creamy custard oozing all over its' brown spotted glory - is strangely delicious.  But we'll return to Spotted Dick in a moment.

I think I first had Sticky Toffee Pudding one very rainy June - our first in London, only weeks before our basement flat on Warwick Road was violently thrashed by an unexpected flood, at a restaurant in Kensington called Ffiona's.  My dear friend Sandra, whom I always think of as my "New York friend" (because really she was literally the only person outside my co-workers I hung out with in Manhattan), and her husband Jed had made the trek across the proverbial pond to visit us in the UK during what we erroneously called a "short relocation period" to Europe before heading back to New York. (We never returned to New York, of course, and we ended up staying in London for almost 4 years, but never mind the commonplace oddities of foiled life-plans.)
 

Ffiona's Charming Exterior on Kensington Church Street
Image Credit

I'd long-before noticed Ffiona's as it fell along the pleasant bus trip from Earl's Court to Notting Hill which we often made on the weekends.  It was located on a particularly picturesque and winding road through central London called Kensington Church Street, not far from an even more picturesque church where there was the most enticingly beautiful flower stand I'd ever seen and never went to.  That's a regret.  Anyway, it was tucked away in a small series of stone buildings and had a quirky sign.  It was one of hundreds of restaurants I'd pointed out to Matt and said "We should go there!" and never did.  Such is life in London - so many things to spend one's money on, and so little money to do it with!  And, yet, in this case - we did go to Ffiona's, and all because of something else rather sticky and wonderful - my friendship with Sandra.

You know, it's not often one finds a life-long friend, but I did when I met Sandra.  And despite only having lived in the same place as friends for a little over a year, we've shared some awesome experiences together, and, most of all, continue to.  From tapas' nights cooked in tiny Manhattan kitchens to Grey's Anatomy Marathons to drooling over Bacon Naan at Tabla to Greek feasts in her first home.  From karaoke in a sleazy French quarter bar to near-fisty-cuffs outside a fancy restaurant in Nola.  From my pregnancy with Roman to watching her adopt her beautiful twins to now sharing Alexander's adoption, our lives have been, it feels, somehow divinely intertwined.  I'm happy to be able to look back and say that.

The Cozy Interior.
Image Credit

But back to the pudding.  As luck would have it, Sandra's husband's parents had lived in London too.  They'd lived less than a mile from our flat in Earl's Court, in a beautiful mew (Adam & Eve Mew, if I recall correctly) on the much nicer, less dodgy end of Kensington Borough.  They'd recommended Ffiona's to us and were good friends with the namesake owner of the joint.  We went and had a lovely dinner there - mostly due to ambiance and company, I must say - which ended with Ffiona's "infamous" sticky toffee pudding.  It wasn't the best STP I've had since, but it was good enough to be memorable and make me want more.  Also on that trip, as Sandra recently reminded me, we made a feeble but valorous attempt at making Spotted Dick (because, again, who can an opportunity to continue making fun of that name?) in our damnable but somewhat-charming basement flat on Warwick Rd., which, quite frankly, was falling apart long before the July flood of 2007.  In the midst of checking on the pudding, our oven door literally fell off very nearly smashing onto my feet at 400 degrees.  It was, as Sandra put it, a little bit scary at the time, but pretty hilarious afterwards.  Moments like that, with good friends and in memorable places, make foods come to life.

And so I dedicate this post to Sandra and our many memories, food and not, one of which has left the legacy of Sticky Toffee Pudding in my life.  Sandrett will be coming to visit me and meet Alexander in a week's time, and I can't wait to have another delicious adventure with her here - including making some STP again.  Hopefully the oven door won't fall off this time, but even if it does, we'll laugh just as hard.

*  *  *

English Sticky Toffee Pudding

Serves 8-10

I made this version of Sticky Toffee Pudding, the recipe for which I found on David Lebovtz's wonderful blog, and which is a derivatory version itself, being a variation on Mani Niall's version in the book Sweet!  I have to say, I deviated slightly on the tofee recipe as I, sadly, didn't have Lyle's Golden Syrup or Molasses.  And, also, I prefer to use a few more dates in mine (because I love dates).  This recipe has always been a winner for me - I think I made a toffee addict out of my brother-in-law Jim, for one thing - but I made it again a few weeks back and it worked a treat on the chill from a Mile-High Winter's day.  Best served warm. 

Cheers!

David Lebovitz's Sticky Toffee Pudding Recipe

Hammour, Mon Amour: Fish (en)Counters in Abu Dhabi

Hammour fish at Lulu's fish counter
Abu Dhabi, UAE

From the first time I walked into a grocery store in Abu Dhabi, I've wanted to write this post (this is my Abu-Dhabi-Fishmonger-post, in case you were wondering).  Having a long-standing love for and appreciation of seafood, fish and fishmongery (please see here and here and  here), I make it a point to seek out and investigate the best and most interesting places and practices everywhere I have lived with regards to the aforementioned selling and eating of fishy things.

In New York I shamelessly frequented Agata & Valentina, an overpriced gourmet grocery on the Upper East Side, mostly with an Italian-leaning and a wonderful Asian fishmonger named Kenny, who could cut fish to the gram.  Apart from that, I never had time to find a better fishmonger and mostly ate seafood in restaurants, because I mostly ate in restaurants.  Ah, single, disposable-income-heavy life in the city.  Good.  Old.  Days.

In London, Waitrose did a decent job of offering up the usual suspects: salmon steaks and the odd seabream or Dover sole.  The nearest good fishmonger to me (besides the Friday fishmarket at the church by Putney bridge which I never made it to!) was in Clapham Junction on Northcote Rd at a tiny little street stand.  And whenever I did manage to make it over there of a Friday, I loved to get cockles, prawns, and all sorts of good whole fish for decent prices by London standards.  Of course I could have spent buckets of money buying my fish at any number of gourmet shops in Chelsea, but to be honest, on the whole I was never very impressed with the fish selection in the UK.  As Rick Stein points out, it seems all the good British seafood gets sent straight to France, where people have a palate for more than "fish n chips."

In Abu Dhabi, I never made it to the (semi) legendary Mina fishmarket at the port, because the first time I tried to go there it was on a blisteringly hot summer day, I had Roman (who was grumpy) with me, and the smell of the place almost knocked me over (and I was in the car, with the a/c on).  Instead, I went straight to the two largest supermarkets, where I'd be doing the bulk of my grocery shopping: Lulu and Carrefour.  And what I saw at Lulu that first week in the Middle East, completely shocked and inspired me.

 * * *

Top 6 Reasons I Loved Lulu's Fish Counter

Abu Dhabi location, Al Wahda Mall

Shopping for fish at Lulu, Al Wahda Mall

6. Proximity.

Something I truly hate about shopping at most supermarkets versus shopping at regular fish markets is the way that the consumer is systematically distanced from the product, through processing, through packaging, through physical encasing.  In most supermarkets there are glass cases separating shoppers from the fish, not allowing them to closely examine, smell and touch the fish the way they would at a real fishmonger, at a real fish market.  

In the UAE, the fish are prominently displayed in an open display case, and there are boxes of rubber gloves (and trash cans for the used gloves) lining the display, encouraging shoppers to slip some gloves on and have a feel, a sniff, a real, good look.  And after they've inspected (or not) to their hearts' content, they can buy or move on.

5. Convenience.

The fishmongers at Lulu can perform any type of cleaning on your fish and seafood that you want.  In the UK I'd get dirty looks from the fish counter workers when I asked for my whole fish to be filleted or cleaned or cut into steaks.  God forbid!  And half the time, they actually either didn't know how to do what I was asking or they did it badly.  It got to the point where I used to scale my fish a second time around after getting home.

In Abu Dhabi, the workers are efficient, professional and usually pretty fast.  They will do anything from filleting to normal cleaning to deveining with the shell on or without.  And there's never annoyance or attitude.  In fact, they take your fish, print two stickers, and give you one to come back with when the fish is clean, after you've finished your other shopping.  Highly convenient.

4. Freshness.

I rarely saw old fish at the Lulu fish counter.  That's more than I can say about meat counters at places like Carrefour, but the fish counter was always moving at a high rate of turnover at Lulu.  The fish always had clear, glossy eyes.  They smelled of the sea.  And they were being bought up more quickly than I'd ever have imagined.

Abu Dhabi used to be a sleepy fishing village, full of pearl divers and bedouins, so the locals do have a taste for seafood naturally.  But add to the mix a huge Asian diaspora - born and bred fish-eaters, especially the Filipinos, but also the Indians, and you've got the perfect fish counter storm.  I practically had to elbow my way to the front of the counter sometimes.  And whether it was soft-shell crabs, small or jumbo prawns, or barracudas, the fish were flying off the ice.

3. Variety.

Yes, you read right: barracudas.  And shark-fish.  And parrot fish.  And red snapper and seabream and angel fish.  And a million other fish I'd never seen or heard of, much less at a fish counter, before.  And NONE of them were in fillet form.  All whole, all beautifully whole and fresh off the boat.  

barracudas at Lulu

They had every size of shrimp and prawn (head-on only), cuttlefish, calamari, octopus, and it was the boring old salmon and tuna steaks that were relegated to the prepackaged display cases, in their safe, sanitary Styrofoam and plastic wrap, waiting to be plucked up by some unsuspecting white woman with her hand sanitizer at the ready, ready to be cooked to death and then roasted just a little longer just in case.  Kind of funny, actually.

2. The DIY Element

shoppers choosing fish

So the rubber glove phenomenon I mentioned above was not only meant for inspectional purposes. In the UAE you were encouraged to not only inspect your own fish and seafood, but also to select and bag it.  I really and truly delighted in being able to inspect and wiggle and choose every single shrimp in my order.  I once spent the better part of ten minutes chatting with an old Lebanese man about the seabream, as he systematically picked every single one on the display up and wiggled it (there were about 30 or 40).  He gave me a lesson on finding fresh fish (he maintains its red gills and not clear eyes that show freshness - oh and the smell of the ocean).  And when he was done choosing, after demanding they bring more fish out from the back, the display was almost instantaneously fixed and re-iced.  Love it.  Why can't we have this option in the US?

1. Hammour, Mon Amour!
In the UAE only one fish is king.  A beautiful large grouper known as Hammour fish.  You see it on every menu, at every hotel buffet, and it is prominently displayed at every good fish counter.  It is usually sold at a pretty large size and is an impressive culinary centerpiece when cooked and served whole on a large platter.  

I had Hammour for the first time at the Al Raha Beach Hotel Friday Buffet in the first month we were in Abu Dhabi, and it stayed with me because of its thick, delicious texture, not too fishy and not too bland.  Last month, I also had the pleasure of having a delicious whole, small hammour at the chic but decidedly overpriced seafood restaurant in Muscat's Chedi Hotel as one of my last meals in the Middle East.  It was roasted whole and served with a preserved lemon sauce and a side of sauteed baby courgettes.  It was a fitting way to pay homage to a fish that was a constant presence during my time in the Middle East and which will continue to be a food I love for years to come.

Goodbye Abu Dhabi! Goodbye Middle!

Rockin' in Ras Al Khaimah

It's such a tiny island, in such an inhospitable place.  Its whereabouts mean nothing to almost everyone I ever knew and yet its footprint on the world - and me - is there.  It's a place of contradiction, ostentation, beauty, warmth, and more contradiction, most of all fundamentally rooted in the fact that nobody but a few desert nomads dared ever live here until oil money brought air-conditioning.  Its people are mysterious, to  give you the short of it, and bring me to complete awe - because in two generations they have gone from abject poverty, from pearl divers and hammour fishermen and desert wanderers who treated camels better than humans, to nothing short of full-blown desert oligarchs who love aviator sunglasses, Burberry, and, of course, dates.  Who knew I'd have the chance to live here?  Who knew that when I didn't even know where the UAE was, much less WHAT it was only a year ago, I'd be thrust into the very heart of it, into a strange surreal life of expat aloofness, of semi-Arab culture, of desert allure.

And yet, here we are again, in those bittersweet last weeks of inhabitance - actually, on the last night of them - in a place that was never quite home, but isn't really not home anymore either.  The goodbyes are endless and inevitably repeat themselves time and time again, in a vain hope that if you pretend not to finally really say goodbye you'll see some of these people - your friends, and somehow also your family - again.

No matter how excited you might have initially been about the new opportunity elsewhere, the newness of moving again, the adventure and the thrill of the unknown, you inevitably become nostalgic for things you never knew appealed to you about the place in which you reside, and reflective on the many cultural and quotidian impressions that will remain with you for years, even a lifetime, to come.

There are goodbye drinks (mostly mocktails), goodbye dinners (mostly involving sheesha), last playdates (at Al Wahda Mall, of course), last weekend trips (to Oman, incidentally), and even last trips to the favorite supermarket (Lulu) or corner of the city (the Corniche).  You discover new things you wish you'd known about before (Masdar City and Sumo Sushi), and start to inadvertently send a text to a close friend (that's you Rachael) suggesting you go there next week, when you realize you won't be here anymore next week.  And it's little things like this that make moving, no matter how much you complain about or even kind of dislike a place, difficult, and (dare I say it?) sad.

Abu Dhabi has been such a strange experience - disarming and enraging and amazing in equal parts.  When we arrived here, still suffering from bad customer service and inefficiency whiplash from our experience in London, we were so wide-eyed and bushy-tailed and eager to learn and enjoy and love the Emirates, that we largely ignored the bad things for a very long time, which actually worked in our favor.  Roman had just learned to walk two weeks before our plane landed in Abu Dhabi; he was saying only a handful of words and was mostly only tacitly (and, let's face it, vaguely) aware of anything going on around him.

Now that we're leaving, only 9 months later, Roman is running and jumping, speaking in sentences, and thanking contractors and grocery store cashiers for me when we leave a place or receive a service.  He doesn't actually own a jacket anymore, and he only has two or three pairs of pants (most of which no longer fit).  He hasn't worn close-toed shoes in months and I don't remember the last time I put a pair of socks on him (wait, yes, I do, Christmas in Connecticut).   Personally, I've made the permanent switch-over to wearing nothing but flip-flops, pretty much every single day, no matter what, and I even got Matt to agree to me buying him a pair of frat-boy-esque leather flip-flops from American Eagle, which he now dons proudly, while grilling or at the beach. 

There's so much that's comfortable about our lives here, so much that I will miss dearly in many ways.  And the only and really best way to tell you about it is through one of my lists.  Here it is.

* * *

Top 5 Things I'll Miss About Living in the Middle
East, that is
Abu Dhabi, to be exact

Iftar at Emirates Palace

5. The Flash (just a little :)).

Me and the flashy side of Abu Dhabi have a love-hate relationship.  A rather large part of me unequivocally feels it's over the top, selfish, ostentatious, fake, and even wrong in many ways to completely embrace and unquestioningly accept the luxuries that living in Abu Dhabi offers up to most Westerners.  The labor situation and the painful and appalling issues of class in this country are reproachful and ultimately one of the big reasons Matt and I couldn't stand living here much longer.  But, that said, sometimes I truly do love indulging in the pleasures of a five-star hotel, the immaculately clean and manicured lawns and gardens and pools, valet parking literally everywhere you go, and no need to pump your own gas, ever. :)  

It feels nice and exciting to be treated like you're special, and to live in a city where everything is pretty and clean and new.  On the other hand, it does start to get tiring and boring to never be expected to clean after yourself in a mall food-court (or any other public place).  And it seems very unnatural that everyone's children here are raised by foreign live-in maids.  Plus, I can't say I ever think it's necessary or justified for someone's entire job to be to stand in a public bathroom and clean the stall and toilet directly after every single person who uses it (they are sometimes even waiting outside the door, sadly).

But I loved the Atlantis Hotel on the Palm Jumeirah in Dubai, I loved the glitzy Souk Qaryat Al Beri near the Shangri-La, Abu Dhabi (and the spa at the Shangri-La is awesome too).  I completely reveled in the uber understated-luxury of the Fairmont Bab Al Bahr, especially the Lebanese Restaurant and it's amazing outdoor sheesha-bar. I felt like a rock-star when I had a drink at the SkyLite Bar at the Yas Hotel the other night.  I love Marina Mall, and despite not liking the decor, did feel a thrill in going to dinner at the Emirates Palace.  We all like to be pampered sometimes. :)

4. My House

I loved my Abu Dhabi house.  It is the first house Matt and I have ever had, and it was such a pretty house, not to mention a welcome breath of fresh air after cramped NYC apartments and mildewy London flats.

Yes, it was located in an entirely artificial compound off-island from Abu Dhabi, but it was so tastefully done!  All the houses are desert colors, and our particular one had a small but infinitely charming courtyard right in the middle of it, lending light to every room, and instilling a little bit of freshness with its trickling water feature and our lemon tree.  I also loved the big airy rooms with giant windows, most of which opened entirely, floor-to-ceiling, to the open air.  I loved my white linen curtains, that flowed in the breeze.  And I loved my tiny but extremely practical kitchen, in which I cooked comparatively few exciting meals but still, it was a place where I discovered Syrian cooking, Lebanese spices, and baked with Ghee for the first time.  I loved my front patio with my giant Frangipani tree, the white flowers blooming and wafting the smell of colonial decadence into my tiny, private oasis.  I loved the sprinklers going off every morning, and watering my potted plants with Roman every night in the summer.  What a beautiful place we've been lucky enough to live in.

3. Desert-y, Abu Dhabian-y Things.

I love sandstorms.  I love seeing the colorful sand swirling on the road in patterns when the wind blows.  I love the dunes, the endless dunes of the the Empty Quarter.  I love the camels that wander 

along highways just miles outside of Abu Dhabi or Dubai, and the small ramshackle camps made for them with palm-leaf tents and a few date palms for shade.  I love dates too.  Especially the ones with almonds stuck in the middle.  I loved seeing families breaking the fast at Ramadan, in the moonlight, under the shade of date palms, at the park or even on the grassy side-croppings of roads.  I love the Grand Mosque in its pristine whiteness and the aquamrine-azure of the shallow Persian gulf waters.  I love seeing white-clad men and black-clad women glide, seemingly unshaken, in unbearable heat.  I love Maqta bridge and its rickety glory, and the wading waters below where the Bedu used to cross by foot with their camels to Abu Dhabi island.  I love the way every time I smell frankincense, or drink coffee with cardamom, or hear the Adhan - the call to prayer - , I'm taken back to some intangible but very Abu Dhabian, desert-y place and time, a time now of the past.

2. Our Father Zayed.
There is a giant billboard poster just at the end of the Corniche in Abu Dhabi, right before Emirates Palace Hotel, with a picture of Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, founding leader of the UAE as a modern entity.  It is placed at a busy intersection, just after an idyllic beach and just before the UAE's flagship uberluxury hotel, juxtaposing sand and city, past and present, today and tomorrow.

It is gigantic.  And glaringly white.  And the black and white picture is beyond the normal.  It is epic.  With a colored-UAE Flag flapping in the background and a pristine white khandoura, and igal.  He looks like a strange mix between Jesus Christ, Jafar from Alladin, and...well, Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan. And below the larger than life leader it reads, in giant black letters:

Join us in honoring him

OUR FATHER ZAYED

I'm gonna miss that. :)

** Note: For a selection of amazing pictures of the Sheikh, go to www.ourfatherzayed.ae **

1. The Middle Eastern Warmth.
On the obvious end of this one, yes, I'll miss the painfully wonderful weather the UAE gets from about November to April.  It's just so pleasant to walk out to your car, out of a non-airconditioned house, into a car that you could theoretically avoid the A/C in as well (if it weren't for the permanent presence of powder-like sand in the air).  It's wonderful to go to the beach in the middle of January with your two-year-old and not worry that he'll be cold.  It's wonderful to walk to the playground every night with Roman to swing and slide and not worry about huffing and puffing about snow boots or layers before going out.  Will I miss the summer? Nope.  Will I miss the no-eating-no-drinking in public of Ramadan?  Well, technically yes, because I will no longer be here by then.  Ha. :D 

On the less obvious end, I'll miss the warm welcomes of friends who were as eager to meet and know me as I was them.  It's hard to find people as in need for friends and support as a group of newly arrived expats in the Middle East, and I'm glad I had to the chance to both be a part of and contribute to the small, tightly-knit circle of culturally-diverse vagabonds residing in the capital of a tiny oil-rich country located on the Persian Gulf, in any small way.

  

* * *

Some dear memories and impressions from our time in Abu Dhabi

watering plants

Atlantis Hotel, Dubai

Aquaventure, Dubai

Iftar feast, Emirates Palace, Abu Dhabi

The Empty Quarter

Riding Camels, Qasr Al Sarab

Frangipanis

Casting a spell at the liquor license office.

Eating ice cream with his best friends.

Buying a carpet at the Blue Souq, Sharjah

His Liwa.

The Mosque from the Fairmont

El Sombrero Mexican Restaurant  & Obama

Meet & Greet the Camels, Ras Al Khaimah

A Date Palm, Abu Dhabi

Cornice Beach

The Grand Mosque, Abu Dhabi

Something to be Thankful for.

Don't hate me because my lattice work is beautiful.

This year we were in Abu Dhabi for Thanksgiving and we had the good fortune of being invited to a fellow American's house to celebrate, along with some Kiwi friends who were very much looking forward to their first Thanksgiving ever.  We had Native American headbands for the kids, Turkey coloring sheets and an abundant buffet line-up.  The dinner went off without a hitch and even though we celebrated on a Friday, there was no football, and we rounded off the evening with one child projectile vomiting all over her dad and half the table, there was still enough good cheer to watch a couple of rounds of hilarious SNL skits and gorge on delicious desserts.

I made the Turkey, stuffing and gravy, as well as corn pudding and a cherry pie (Matt's favorite).  Luckily there were no huge train wrecks in my food offering, and in fact everything turned out great.  As if wonderful friends and family weren't a good enough reason to be grateful, that definitely is. The cherry pie filling sold here is different from the one we like in the US (and fresh cherries are prohibitively expensive from what I can see), but the pie was still good and I am really proud of my crust and lattice work which is the best I've ever done, generally ending up with a wonky, anorexic looking version of Martha Stewart creations when I make pies.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.  We are headed to the states shortly but there is a forthcoming post on the culinary and aesthetic pleasures of Italy, I promise...

TGIFriday: The Day of Brunching

My favorite brunch fare - eggs florentine hollandaise.
Nothing like poached eggs, hollandaise sauce and sauteed
spinach to make you feel like laying around for the next 24 hours.

Photo credit: From a great food blog called My Salt is Maldon.

*NB: I meant to post this on Friday but the weekend and moving into our new house got away with me. Here it is, a day late!*

It seems like there is something intrinsically special about Fridays everywhere. People thirst for them in the West because they are the portal leading to the weekend. People revere them in the East because they are the Holy Day, a day of rest and prayer and family. I look forward to Fridays for many splendid reasons: because the radio always plays the best "ready for the weekend" songs, because in my synesthetic conceptual calendar of the week Friday is symbolized by a pretty summer's sunshine, because I still associate it with drinks at Jake's Dilemma on the Upper West Side, because it is the most exciting day of the weekend in the sense that you still have two "fun" nights ahead of you before the dreaded joykill that is Monday, because, in short, it's Friday.

Ironically, having just moved to Abu Dhabi, many of these traditional reasons to love Friday no longer apply. The weekend here starts on Thursday and ends on Saturday. It's a little bit of a mind-jerk to be honest, and I can't help constantly feeling jipped when I wake up on Saturday morning realize Matt goes back to work the next day. No Sunday brunch, no Mass as a family, and no lazy Sunday afternoons watching black and white movies.

But on the bright side, I now have a new reason to look forward to and enjoy TGIFridays as the "bread and butter" of the weekend... It somehow became known to us that in the UAE there is a certain pleasure reserved solely for Fridays and - no, it does not have to do with Mosques or worship of any traditional sort - it has to do with food.

Fridays are the day of Brunching in Abu Dhabi, and like with everything else in the UAE, when the Emiratis do brunch, they go all out.

* * *

Friday: It's the new Saturday
Or rather Sunday, in the brunch sense,

What is Brunch?
Brunch has meant lots of different things in the various places we've lived, but everywhere people agree and know it means good food - and lots of it - somewhere between breakfast and lunch. The idea is to stuff yourselves so you can cover two meals in one - breakfast and lunch.

This wonderful portmanteau conjures images of sweet and savory dishes, drinks hot and cold, and even unbreakable traditions depending on who you ask. Here are some of the meanings in some of the places we know.

Domer-Style: At the University of Notre Dame, my alma mater, brunch took place on Sundays, and for a Walsh-Wild-Woman like me that meant getting up at about 10 or so and walking across God Quad and South Quad with my 3 or 4 closest girlfriends to the legendary South Dining Hall. They generally had the full-gamut of traditional choices, buffet-style: scrambled eggs, eggs Benedict, and even hash browns. If you were a freak you could also get a full choice of 20+ different cereals or savories such as roast chicken and beef with veggies, or even sushi. The sky was the limit - as would make sense in God's brunch locale of choice. ;)

NY-Style:
You can't really say you've ever had Sunday brunch until you've had it in New York City.

Sunday brunch in the Big Apple is a tried and true, full-blown institution. Women and men alike crawl from their tiny apartments donning impossibly fashionable casual clothes and prerequisite designer sunglasses (both for effect and to help with last night's hangover), small dog alongside, and sit outside at one of the many cafes and international venues the city offers. In New York you are spoiled for choice - French, Italian, Spanish, Mexican, even Chinese Dim Sum - everyone does brunch. But if you want the real deal, you've got two choices: an American cafe or an American diner. (image: Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel don the typical NY brunch look, on their way to eat)

Any place with a brunch worth its weight in gold will have a brunch menu and special: your choices generally consist of coffee (American is traditional but it is also acceptable to indulge in an Italian or French variation), a cold drink (Mimosa or Bloody Mary are traditional), a starter (yogurt and granola, fruit salad or toasted muffin), and a main which is typically egg-based: eggs any style with home fries, toast and bacon, eggs Benedict, eggs with smoked salmon, or any kind of gourmet omelette. If you go all out you can get salads, sandwiches, bagels, pancakes and pastries of all sorts - the list never ends - but in NYC you always go a la carte, no buffets here.

London-Style:
Matt and I were even sadder (if that's possible) to leave NYC when we realized that brunch is all but non-existent in London. There is a negligible crowd that adheres to this tradition, and those who do generally do it in extremely expensive locales: Cecconi's, The Wolseley - you get the idea. If they don't go to posh British places, then they go to posh American ones - The Diner, Christopher's, or even Automat. The food is good-ish, but overpriced for what it is. Some local pubs have started offering brunch fair in an attempt to feed the growing demand (one of our Putney locals did a good one: The Normanby), but it just doesn't compare to any normal American diner. For the life of me, I could not find a good, normal fried eggs and hash in London! So I basically wrote American-style brunch off...until, that is, I discovered the British version of Sunday brunch: Sunday lunch.

It's later than brunch, but in England it's worth the wait: Sunday Roast, beef or chicken with roasties, veggies, a Yorkshire pudding and gravy to boot. My all-time favorite Sunday roast was had with Matt and his parents at a hidden-gem of a pub in Primrose Hill, just down the street from Primrose Bakery: The Lansdowne. All four of us ordered the roast chicken and instead of the typical, tired half-chicken with watery gravy and soggy roasties, what we got was a platter with a full chicken on it (!) surrounded by the necessary and perfectly-cooked accoutrement and au jus. Unforgettable, aesthetically pleasing, and almost worth passing on brunch for. :)

Abu Dhabi-Style:
In Abu Dhabi much of the culinary scene takes place in hotels. Because it is a Muslim country, hotels are the only places legally allowed to serve Alcohol, which means the truly-gourmet, Western institutions are drawn to them and their wealthy clientele (largely expats). Hotels also have enough man-power to produce a production such as what I am about to describe.

Over the past two weeks I have been learning to drive again: we rented a car on a monthly basis until we buy our own, and so I was essentially let loose in a city I didn't know, Roman buckled-up in the back, and told to find my way around. As I attempted to keep my calm in what is, or so I am told, one of the 10-worst places to drive in the world, I listened to the BBC radio. The chap on the other end kept blabbing on about "Friday brunch" and so I looked into this, as of yet, unknown phenomenon.

On Fridays, between the hours of 11-2, people in Abu Dhabi flock by the thousands to various luxury hotels where they enjoy the most sumptuous, international version of brunch I have ever experienced (outside of at the JW Marriott in Phuket, which does an un-believable daily buffet breakfast). Prices range from 125AED (about 40USD) to upwards of 300AED (about 100USD) per person, and can either include alcoholic drinks (usually called a "bubbly brunch" because of the traditional offering of champagne) or not. Your main choices for venue in Abu Dhabi are the Shangri-La Hotel, Le Royal Meridien Hotel, Fairmont Hotel (they have a Frankie's!), Sheraton Hotel or for a boutique-y feel - the One to One Hotel. We chose to go to a place very near to our new house: Al Raha Beach hotel, Abu Dhabi's first "boutique hotel." I would hardly call it "small."

The dining room at Sevilla, Al Raha Beach Hotel

It was not crowded because of its relatively out-of-the-way location, but the venue was beautiful, immaculate, and the service attentive and warm. The choice of foods left me, for lack of a better word (again), speechless. Perhaps a pictorial description and Time Out Review would do it all better justice.

My first plate of food: crab claws (pre-peeled), seared tuna on a papaya salad, shrimp ceviche and octopus salad.
Second plate included: full lobster tail, raw oysters, grilled shrimp, and beef wellington. Indulgent, I know.

The Asian / Seafood section, next to the carving station, "Arabic" corner and full salad bar, as well as the whole-lamb roast, whole turkey, whole beef wellington and Indian section.


A whole roasted Hammour fish.

Part of the dessert section.

Favorite new find: Umm Ali Arabian bread pudding made with croissants and pistachios.

Oh and as an added perk, many of the hotels offer discounted use of their pool and beach facilities when you eat brunch with them. Good thing - it can cost up to 80USD to use some of them!

Why Brunch, anyway?

Why bother with brunch? Why get up out of your lazy weekend slumber and venture into the cruel, cruel world rather than continue to hibernate in the relative safety and assumed comfort of your home? Because brunch as a concept and tradition reaffirms humanity's need and desire to commune, to be together, to share, to break bread (or toast, as it were) together and to relate life's happenings, for better, worse or hilarious.

There could be nothing more satisfying, in my mind, than a meal well-had and well-shared. And brunch, wherever one may be, is that perfect, almost cosmic, combination of comfort-food and friendship that makes it a tradition worth passing on to the next generation and the one after that.

the little prince, brunching away at Al Raha Beach Hotel

Goodbye London - Hello Abu Dhabi!

The English Countryside image credit

The Desert in Abu Dhabi image credit

* * *

Some things come so easily: one day you wake up and you realize you need to break up with him, or that you don't want to major in Romance Languages, or that you maybe don't actually hate Mayonnaise nearly as much as you thought. But then some things don't come so easily: actually breaking up with him, switching your major, and taking that final leap of faith and putting mayo on your ham sandwich.

Sometimes with some things every fiber of your being hesitates or even screams out in rebellion, and you have to positively choose to do something, go somewhere that is beyond your personal limitations.

Luckily for me, those types of decisions have always been, ultimately, both the most satisfying and the most exciting. While they may be excruciating for a moment, they usually result in a revelation and a great adventure - not to mention increased confidence and experience. Those are the things worth doing, worth risking for.

Mayo? Not exactly. : )

It took almost 5 months of interviews, phone conferences, a weekend trip to the Middle East (for Matt, at least), frenzied googling, and numerous late-night discussions regarding the pros and cons involved in leaving London and going to a place that is about as foreign as most Westerners would ever be able to conceive of, to finally establish and affirmatively decide that yes, we actually will move to Abu Dhabi.

And now that we've decided and really known for about a month and I have settled it in my mind and in my heart and in my queasy-sometimes-secretly-uneasy-gut, I am really excited.

We're moving to Abu Dhabi!

It's hard to emphasize that phrase in the way I do inside my head. It's excitement and wonder and slight incredulity wrapped up in one. I can't tell you how many times I've dreamed of the day we'd leave London. Not that I hate London...anymore. But seriously, the undying hope always rested in my heart that someday very soon I'd be turning in my Oyster card and looking for a car somewhere back in the good old USA. Instead, I'm going to the Middle East, which is unexpected but fortuitous in and of itself. It's a wonderful, unique opportunity - especially in this day in age - and one that I hope will make us all grow and understand the world in a deeper more well-rounded way. Le sigh...

Goodbye London! Hello Abu Dhabi!

* * *

For those of you who, like me, know very little about Abu Dhabi, here are a couple of aesthetically pleasing images (of course) that might make you change some of your immediate and naturally biased, but somewhat press-driven impressions when I say "Middle East."

Abu Dhabi skyline, at night
photo credit

The Coffee Pot Fountain, Abu Dhabi
photo credit


Abu Dhabi's Grand Mosque
photo credit


Louvre Abu Dhabi:
a projected image of Jean Nouvel's finished museum
photo credit

Beach in Fujayrah, a sheikdom near Abu Dhabi
photo credit