23 Oct
I am just back from Doha where I had a few days of intensive eating, although not camel this time! However, because I was in the region and because my hotel was packed with Saudi families, having crossed the border to celebrate Eid in Qatar, I thought I would post a Saudi recipe for camel kabab which is actually the best way to eat camel unless you are having the hump. The good news is that you can now get camel meat in the UK from either Exotic Meats or Kezie Foods. You can of course skip the camel meat and make the kabab with lamb or beef but you won’t have a fun talking point over your meal. The traditional recipe calls for millet flakes but I use millet grains because it makes for a prettier presentation as you can see in the picture above. The grains also give the meatballs a nicer texture. So there you go, a recipe for meatballs with a difference. Hope you enjoy them!
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25 Sep
Today, I start a new chapter in my present career by writing a bi-monthly column for a beautiful new website called Qulture, covering arts, culture, entertainment and food mainly in Qatar but also elsewhere. My first column is about how I started being interested in food and when I began to cook. There is a lovely picture of my beautiful grandmother and aunt in their kitchen. My grandmother was a fabulous cook. She taught my mother and I in turn learned from both of them, so, I thought I would post another family picture of my grandmother, mother, aunt and uncles on Palm Sunday with us girls in front — I am in the middle in front of my aunt who seems to be adjusting something; my grandmother is carrying my baby brother and my beautiful mother had yet to go back to her normal svelte figure! — before we all went back to my grandmother’s home for a feast although the big feast would have had to wait until the following Easter Sunday which is the big day for feasting for Lebanese Christians. Far more important than Christmas Eve.
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1 Nov
Just back from a week in Doha, Qatar where I spent much of my time going from one feast to the next, not unlike what I had done last year when I was filming Al Chef Yaktachef (the Chef Discovers) in the UAE. So, I thought I would post pictures of a wedding feast we’d filmed where baby goats were being washed (like babies) before being seasoned with spices and put to roast in huge pots over wood fires.
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24 Oct
I saw a wonderful film a few years back called The Story of a Weeping Camel, which was all about a baby camel rejected by his mother. And this morning I was reminded of it when I visited the live animal market in Doha where I saw a baby camel that had just been orphaned. As you can see from the short clip I took, he was crying for his dead mother. His keeper was doing his best to console him giving him his finger to suck on but it didn’t help much. Even the camel in the cage next to the baby’s enclosure was feeling his pain and was also crying. Perhaps they all cry.
