Things I have ate...

From Jayne with a Why? Not too bad - eight to go!


1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.

2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.

3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.

4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.


The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:



1. Venison (wonderful stuff, got a haunch in the freezer for Christmas…)

2. Nettle tea

3. Huevos rancheros (and cooked it too in a Tex Mex restaurant)

4. Steak tartare

5. Crocodile (smoked, from Inverawe Smokery in Scotland)

6. Black pudding (Val the Old Pole from Le Marche Noir made the best ever)

7. Cheese fondue

8. Carp

9. Borscht

10. Baba ghanoush

11. Calamari (best enjoyed at a table on the dock outside The Captain’s Cabin, Fiskardo)

12. Pho (not yet..)

13. PB&J

14. Aloo gobi

15. Hot dog from a street cart

16. Epoisses (and worse!)

17. Black truffle (fresh, new season’s, every year)

18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes (Moniack Wines headbanging bottlings!)

19. Steamed pork buns (favourites are from Lang Kwei Fong)

20. Pistachio ice cream

21. Heirloom tomatoess

22. Fresh wild berries

23. Foie gras (even as a dessert – Micheal Goodman’s foie gras crème brulée at Napa)

24. Rice and beans

25. Brawn, or head cheese (also known as potted hough)

26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper

27. Dulce de leche

28. Oysters
.
29. Baklava

30. Bagna cauda

31. Wasabi peas (wasabi paste and wasabi powder, yes)

32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl (on arrival at Boston Airport)

33. Salted lassi

34. Sauerkraut

35. Root beer float

36. Cognac with a fat cigar

37. Clotted cream tea

38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O shots

39. Gumbo

40. Oxtail (and braised hearts, tongue, ox cheek, kidneys…)

41. Curried goat (not curried, but grilled and stewed on Greek islands)

42. Whole insects (does the agave worm from the bottom of a bottle of Mezcal count?)

43. Phaal (after 17 pints of lager, of course!)

44. Goat’s milk (and sheep’s, and camel’s)

45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more (favourite tipple!)

46. Fugu

47. Chicken tikka masala

48. Eel

49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut

50. Sea urchin

51. Prickly pear

52. Umeboshi (plums – only known cure for dysentery!)

53. Abalone

54. Paneer

55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal

56. Spaetzle

57. Dirty gin martini

58. Beer above 8% ABV

59. Poutine

60. Carob chips

61. S’mores

62. Sweetbreads

63. Kaolin (for medicinal purposes)

64. Currywurst

65. Durian

66. Frogs’ legs

67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake

68. Haggis (take one sheep, turn inside out, cook)

69. Fried plantain

70. Chitterlings, or andouillette

71. Gazpacho

72. Caviar and blini

73. Louche absinthe

74. Gjetost, or brunost

75. Roadkill

76. Baijiu

77. Hostess Fruit Pie

78. Snail

79. Lapsang souchong

80. Bellini

81. Tom yum

82. Eggs Benedict

83. Pocky

84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant (1 and 2, but not 3 yet!)

85. Kobe beef

86. Hare (and rabbit)

87. Goulash

88. Flowers

89. Horse

90. Criollo chocolate

91. Spam

92. Soft shell crab

93. Rose harissa

94. Catfish

95. Mole poblano

96. Bagel and lox

97. Lobster Thermidor

98. Polenta

99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee

100. Snake (again, smoked)


92/100. Must try harder...

Seasons

Before I landed in Dubai, I had not been further south than the Canary Isles, nor closer to the desert than a Greek beach. Plenty of preconceptions about what lay in store, but not the faintest real idea. I spent the night before my flight watching the Dubai Gold Cup on television, trying to figure out what people were wearing as an indication of what the climate might hold for me. Anoraks and flowery hats, apparently.

And on the morning of my first day, our company driver came to pick me up from the hotel. It was raining, which seemed to make him inordinately pleased and upset at the same time. Little did I know then that the next rain we would see would be eight months later.

But on those regular morning drives, I did come to understand some of the layout of Dubai, the changing landscape, the flux of the traffic. And the most surprising scent, the air full of the most unexpected tang of new-mown grass, an aroma from childhood, and all the more evocative for being encountered in such a strange context. This was a city built on sand, or so I thought.

Fast forward, and I now measure the seasons by changes in shirts. As we approach the end of April, the days are getting sporadically hotter, though recent wind has been dry, bearing improbably fine dust from Iran and furth of the Gulf. Being from that quarter, it is also relatively dry, though last night my suspicion was that the air was unseasonalbly cool. Confirmation this morning, in a blanket of fog.
And so, a slow commute to work, through steadily lifting fog, and the scent of fresh grass clippings filling the air at the end of the Creek. It is a pleasure to watch the seasons advance in a series of small changes, to see the landscape greening and then retreat again in summer's onslaught, to relish the shamals and the sand sprites driven across the road like drifting snow.

Time to dig out the cover for the barbeque...

Summer's coming!

Summer

Yesterday, some time around 3.30 in the afternoon, summer returned to Dubai.

For weeks, the weather has be growing steadily more idyllic, hot, dry days softening into balmy nights, perfect for sitting under the stars with a cold beer in hand, for gathering friends old and new around a table and a barbecue.

Yesterday started little different, already warm at 6.30 when I took the dog out for her morning ablutions. Still, dry air, portending a glorious day to come.

Even the drive to work seemed easier, the usual blanket of smog largely absent, and all of Dubai’s burgeoning skyline glistening in the early sun.

No change at lunchtime, a hot day, the car temperature indicator surging to 43C and reminding me I really, really must get the A/C serviced…

And then it all changed.

This was the first wave of tropical ocean air of the year to come rolling across the Emirate, fitful gusts of steamy damp, making shirts and jeans cling like wet rags, and the wearer want for breath.

Everything is clammy and slick, clothes no longer dry on the line, but the garden thrives. There will be another couple of months of this, getting progressively hotter and more humid, before the full force of summer arrives and we all retreat into the temperature controlled lifestyle that is our annual inversion.

All at sea in the Musandam

For all its aknowledged (and denied) problems of congestion, construction and contempt for road users, Dubai has many things to commend it. Not least of which is the proximity of some truly spectacular marine ecology. The gang recently escaped for a weekend afloat, and it proved to be refreshing, exhausting and reaffirming in turn.

It all started at unspeakable o'clock on Friday morning, when we had to drag ourselves bleary from the warmth and comfort of bed, drive through three countries and clear across a continent to catch a boat. Which was late, of course.

In fact, our journey was from Dubai on the shores of the Gulf to Dibba, in Oman, on the Indian Ocean side of the Arabian Peninsula. We took the familiar Sharjah/Dhaid/Masafi/Dibba route, despite the presence of newer and perhaps faster roads. Once clear of the west coast's urban sprawl, this is a starkly beautiful journey up into the mountains, and one of the most breathtaking views in the Emirates - as you decend towards the Dibba, the road twists through a cleft in the mountains, and then, perfectly framed between two butresses of rock, in the midst of a sweeping, fertile valley dating back millenia sits the Fujaiah National Cement Factory, belching its suphurous effluent into the pristine air.

Honestly, you have to laugh.

Once past this excresence, Dibba is a bustling, traditional village with an important fishing industry. Once we had found the harbour, and identified our Dhow (the yellow one, as it turned out) we set about loading all of the kit and clobber that seems to accompany any contemporary weekend. Those diving amongst us went to sign the many and mandatory disclaimers, absovling the operators of any and all responsiblitiy for our wellbeing, and we nosed gently out of harbour. Azure sea, clear skies, and the sort of gentle swell that seemed calculated to cause maximum pitching on our little hull. Clearly, serving coffee on boats causes turbulence as well...

Our route took us from Dibba north to the fjords of the Musandam, passing Liwa, Ziggy Beach and various tiny, deserted coves along the way. Onwards to our afternoon's destination, and the first of several dives, pausing only to admire the pair of Wright's whales half a mile off our port side. Beautiful sight.

The afternoon was spent in north of Liwa rock, the party split into expert divers, beginners and landlubbers like me. I just don't get it - why jump off a perfeclty comfortable boat into all that wet stuff if you're only going to swim around in circles and get back on board again later??? Still, they all seemed to enjoy it.

Later the same day we motored back to a small overnight anchorage, a cove surrounded on three sides by sheer cliffs, affording us calm water and the most spectacular view of the night sky, untrammeled by any form of artificial light. It is a humbling experience to contemplate the splendour above when it is revealed in such extraordinary detail. One of the gang claimed he could see twice as much as the rest of us, but we suspect he had been sampling the Glemorangie 12YO with a little too much dedication...Saturday dawned way too early and bright, but after the application of suitable quantities of Irn-Bru and coffee it started to look better. After breakfast, more diving and snorkelling and chilling out in the sun, we weighed anchor and started the journey back towards Dibba and sailed straight into the heart of a phenomenon. All around us were patches of turbulence in a calm sea, with furious flocks of diving seabirds and equally active fish leaping beneath. Turned out what we were watching was a feeding frenzy - tuna were there in countless numbers, chasing shoals of smaller fish. And all this activity caught the attention of rather larger predators too. During the day, almost every boat capable of reaching the sea was pressed into service in pursuit of this bounty. All day it went on, all over the ocean, and the harbour that night was crowded with locals haggling enthusiastically over the price of fish.All in all, an enthralling and exhausting weekend. It only remains to thank the people who booked our intended dhow ahead of us - the yelow one we ended up on was brand new and much nicer, thanks!

Summer's over, Part II

Still waiting for that second sandstorm...

There have been a couple more harbingers of better times to come - the hot water out of the cold tap is now only just warm enough to shower in, so the roof is definitely cooling at night. You can feel a marked freshness in the early morning air, too, which is now a much crisper 25C.

Spotted some impressive dust devils on over the weekend as we were driving around - rising to several hundred feet, and showing strong rotation, so more than just a little flurry in the sand. Cyclogenesis and tornadicity. Good fun!

Got an invitation to the first BBQ of the season next weekend, too. So things are definitely hotting up. Errr, cooling down.

Roll on winter!

Getting twithchy...

Out for a stroll enjoying the late afternoon sun, and was pleased to spot a number of interesting new visitors (or possibly residents) in my kneck of the woods.

We have a large and talkative population of mynahs, the usual mob of red-bum and yellow-bum bulbuls, gangs of marauding parrots and the occasional iridescent sunbird. On the pond are a couple of gangs of mallards, and the occasional heron. Hoopoes abound.

To this yesterday we can add some very welcome newcomers. First up (or down) is what I think is a 'little grebe', a very small duck-shaped bird that behaves like a northern cormorant, diving below the surface of the water for long periods of time, only to resurface a considerable distance away.

Then something new - a flash of bright turquoise, and there on the fence is what I assumed was a large kingfisher. Later searches suggested it might be a 'european roller', but I'll have to try and get a closer look.

Another exotic was a small sleek sportscar of a bird, obviously evolved for speed and maneuverablilty, which I think was a variety of bee-eater. Its colour was striking, merging from deep green around the edges of its dart-like plan, to a deep terracotta on its back.

More twitching tonight, with a camera to hand!

Ramadan Kareem

Though I seem to be in a constituency of one, I actually enjoy the holy month of Ramadan. True, the traffic is awful, decisions take longer and supermarkets are misery, but it is also the month which truly reminds me of where I am blessed to live.

Truly, the pace of life changes. There's a tangibly different feel to crowds, a real sense that this month of austerity, reflection and prayer actually means something. As a western expat, I am impressed by the depth and universality of faith evidenced by the crowded mosques and teeming Iftar tents. Simple things like water and dates dispensed at petrol stations, the sunset cannon, the muzzein's call to prayer, these are now as familiar and comforting to me as were church bells in the UK.

So to all my reader, colleagues and friends Muslim, agnostic, Arab and expat, may I wish a peaceful and profound Ramadan Kareem.