About 2 weeks ago, when I was in france, I found out that we were having ummawash o hasho rebyan for dinner. I wasn’t really surprised, coz that day it was cloudy and raining, and Kuwaitis can’t be Kuwaitis if they do not eat ummawash or m3addas when its raining! its an unwritten rule.
I asked about the history of this Kuwaiti dish and learned the following:
Kuwaitis back in the day didn’t have refrigerators and they had to be creative and mix it up a bit when it came to cooking. They ate mostly grains with rice, dal (3adas) with rice and other stuff. Sheep were available and was a step up from plain rice, or rice with dal and fish dishes. Chickens weren’t widely available as it is now, chickens were expensive and most of the time a chicken dish would be cooked only for a sick person within the family (morale boost ). In the summer they had all sort of sea food: Fish, Shrimps, Crabs and so on. But in the winter it was harder, and I think more expensive for people to get fishes and sea food in general, and thats why they started drying fishes and shrimps. The dried shrimps proved to be more resilient to the invention of refrigerators, whereas dried fishes are no where to be found on the Kuwaiti menus (and thank God for that! imagine coming home from work to find an ugly dried fish on the table..).
This place is probably one of the worst looking shops and most unsanitary place to pick some food or drinks at, But amazingly it’s extremely crouded at every single hour of the day. I love this place, The best Karak (Tea with milk/Chay 7aleeb) can be found there.
I came across the image above while on wikipedia and it reminded me of some images I took back in june when I was in Montreux.
The pictures are of the same view. The old one is a painting, obviously, a 200 year old painting of Montreux and it’s lake by an artist named Joseph Mallord William Turner. It was painted in 1810. The picture on the other hand was taken in june of 2008. Almost 200 hundred years ago Mr. Turner sat somewhere close to where I was taking pictures and made that painting. Two images of the same place that are 200 hundreds years apart.
“The Tiger Woods Dubai, a member of Tatweer, is a private residential community and resort that will include the world’s first golf course designed by Tiger Woods – Al Ruwaya.
Embodying Tiger Woods’ vision of creating a spectacular, challenging golf course, Al Ruwaya, will be a 7,800 yard, par 72, 18 hole championship course with dramatic elevation changes, lush landscaping, stunning water features and an overall design that will challenge and entertain golfers of all playing abilities.
Luxurious residential and hospitality components will include residences, a boutique hotel, a well-being spa, a fine dining restaurant, a professionally staffed golf academy and clubhouse.” Read the rest of this entry »
My Mother and I were in the car the other day. An old guy with black clothing and a black hat wanted to cross the road and i stopped for him. Mom then pointed out that this guy is a jew.
This got me thinking about how we’re always taught to hate the jews, never talk to them, not be friendly with them..etc.
Me: How come we’re taught not to like and interact with jews? Mom: No, there is nothing wrong with befriending the jews. Me: But we were always lectured on how its almost a national duty not to like them. Mom: We don’t like Israel. The country and the government but not the jews themselves. The prophet (PBUH) had jews connections and did trade stuff with them. Me: oh.. Mom: We were talking about the jews in Kuwait the other day and flana (a relative of ours) told me this interesting story about them living in Kuwait back in the 30’s.
There was a street in Kuwait that was famous coz a lot of jews were living there, they called it the jews street, “fereej ilyohood”. they lived among us till the 1930s. They used to come visit every once in awhile. They liked my mother’s mother. They left kuwait in the late 30’s to Israel. They were rich people; they did a lot of lending and saving, they also had lots of gold. When they decided to leave Kuwait to Israel (via boats to Basra, Iraq), the news travelled fast (back then everybody knew everybody else, literally) so some young men from various Kuwaiti families (young guys from the royal family too) wanted to steal the jews’ gold. They waited till it was dark and no one was around, then went to the jews’ boats and dug holes in them. When the jews set sail in the early morning the day after, the boats started leaking and eventually they started sinking.
Almost all of the jews lived in Kuwait and left with no harm and were treated nicely. Only a small group were targeted by an even smaller group of Kuwaitis (Sawwadallah wyoohom) and when their boats went down, they left a lot of gold behind.
I just discovered Oobleck! Its called Oobleck! When I first read the name I got curious and read some more then went on youtube and found many videos about Ooblecks! lol I don’t know whether this is old news or not.
This substance is solid AND liquid! it gets solid when you apply pressure, and when you don’t, it turns back to liquid! its freaky at first but then it gets so much FUN!
I tried it just 10 minutes ago. ALL you need is 1.5 cups of corn starch (nisha ilthora) and 1 cup of water.. I added some more starch afterward to have a thicker texture. This thing gets VERY sold when you grab it and squeeze it, but when you loose your grip, it melts right out of your hands and fingers. You can add color, any color, just for more fun.
You should all try this NOW!
Again, You need:
1 1/2 cup of corn starch.
1 cup of water
color, any color (mo lazim)
They did it first.. and 20 years later, we copied them. What a shame. I really liked our Liberation tower, I thought it was original. Couldn’t they think of something else?!
Anyway. I’m back from my little away time in Salzburg. I had a great time (the pictures are coming up). I really wanted to post while I’m there but the hotel’s wifi went down as soon as I logged in. No internet in the rooms, just in the lobby. They told me they’re gonna fix it soon but nothing happened till I checked out. I bet it’s back up and working right now. garada.
Forget the APM post we want this machine instead to be in every Mcdonald’s in Kuwait. I would’ve loved using the machine that day instead of waiting inline for over 10 minutes. I don’t get it, why was there a line and lots of people waiting when they could’ve easily used the machines? I would have, had I spotted them before placing my order.
The guy who is most probably going to get executed for being involved in the 9/11 attacks, is complaining about the courtroom sketch, and says that the artist made his nose bigger than what it really is.
GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba (AP)
The confessed mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America said a courtroom artist at his arraignment Thursday made his nose look too big.
No photographers were allowed inside the courtroom for the first appearance of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four alleged coconspirators on war crimes charges. So it fell to artist Janet Hamlin to provide the world with the first image of the al Qaeda kingpin since his capture in Pakistan in 2003.
Her rendering was reviewed to make sure it didn’t include classified information, and wound up in Mohammed’s hands when his defense team was given a look, said Pentagon spokesman Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon.
Mohammed wasn’t pleased.
“I heard he said I should compare it to the FBI photo of him,” Hamlin said, clutching a copy of the much-publicized capture photo that showed Mohammed in a T-shirt looking disheveled and unshaven.
Asked if Mohammed had a point, Hamlin said: “I agree totally” before rushing back to the courtroom to downsize his nose.
I saw this Automated Pizza Machine (APM?) the other day and thought its really a good and practical idea. You can select the kind of pizza you want then insert the money and in 4 minutes you’ll receive your order. The machine was attached to a Pizzeria restaurant and although the restaurant was closed at the time I passed by, it did not stop serving customers.
How come this machine is not in every corner in Kuwait yet?
Yeah its not a typo, the sport’s name is Bossaball (my mac is underlying it with a red line as i type I guess it is a typo afterall). I never heard of it but going by the video it looks like a really fun sport.
From wikipedia:
“Bossaball is a sport invented in Belgium. It is similar to volleyball, but also includes elements of football (soccer), gymnastics and capoeira. Each side of the court has an integrated trampoline, allowing players to bounce high enough to spike the ball, and a number of inflatable barriers.
Bossaball clubs exist in various countries including Brazil, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Kuwait and Ecuador.”
For more information about this sport take a look at Kuwait’s Bossaball site HERE.
I find this article very interesting! I always hear stuff and complaints (mostly I do the complaints) about the restaurants service and waiters attitudes but I never really heard the other side of the story. Turned out they do spit and sneeze into your food if you launched a personal attack!
Here we go, 13 Things Your Waiter Won’t tell You:
1. Avoid eating out on holidays and Saturday nights. The sheer volume of customers guarantees that most kitchens will be pushed beyond their ability to produce a high-quality dish.
2. There are almost never any sick days in the restaurant business. A busboy with a kid to support isn’t going to stay home and miss out on $100 because he’s got strep throat. And these are the people handling your food.
3. When customers’ dissatisfaction devolves into personal attacks, adulterating food or drink is a convenient way for servers to exact covert vengeance. Waiters can and do spit in people’s food. Read the rest of this entry »
“The device, a photonic integrated circuit, could overcome the gridlock that occurs when information travelling along optical fibres at the speed of light has to be processed by slow, old-fashioned electronic components. This would make almost instantaneous, error-free and unlimited access to the internet possible anywhere in the world, Professor Eggleton said. The market would ultimately decide which technologies were introduced to meet the skyrocketing demand for faster and cheaper downloads.”
“This is a critical building block and a fundamental advance on what is already out there. We are talking about networks that are potentially up to 100 times faster without costing the consumer any more”
Now I dare you to understand the following:
“Chalcogenide glasses combine a large optical nonlinearity with strong photosensitivity, making them ideal for studying nonlinear photonic effects. Chalcogenide glass photonic crystals are fabricated at the ANU by milling holes in chalcogenide glass films using a focused ion beam. We characterise these structures by measuring transmission and reflection versus incident angle and wavelength.”
This technology will be available in 5 years and possibly be implemented first in Japan.
I received an email today from Swisscom telling me the 3G iPhone is going to be released the day after tomorrow. I read their page and I think it says that I can’t buy one without subscribing with their service. How am I supposed to buy this thing without letting them charge my visa for 12 or 24 months? I know there must be a way but at the moment I just don’t get the whole thing. Read their subscription’s details HERE.
). In the summer they had all sort of sea food: Fish, Shrimps, Crabs and so on. But in the winter it was harder, and I think more expensive for people to get fishes and sea food in general, and thats why they started drying fishes and shrimps. The dried shrimps proved to be more resilient to the invention of refrigerators, whereas dried fishes are no where to be found on the Kuwaiti menus (and thank God for that! imagine coming home from work to find an ugly dried fish on the table..).
