It's the little things...

Joy upon joy! I have my sexy red mixer. Hooyah.

I saw it a couple of weeks ago and, as is my way, um-ed and ah-ed over it for a week before deciding that I actually really do want it, that I’m not a student any more, that I am earning money, that I can actually spend it on things I want rather than things I need and it’s on sale anyway so I can feel that little bit less guilty.

So I dragged O along last week to be my muscle when it came to carrying it to the car. But! Woe upon woe – they were out of stock. My world was rocked to its very core and all my weekend baking plans promptly flew out of the window. A sad day for all, I think you’ll agree.

So, wiping a tear from my eye, I wrote my name and number in the sales assistants little book with the promise that he’d call me when they got more stock in, and that it would still be on sale.

I waited. As patiently as I could (not very), whinging as little as I could (at least once a day) about how I wanted my mixer and wanted it NOW! I trawled through websites and cookbooks listing all the things I wanted to make. I bought bundt pans and mini-muffin tins. All because I didn’t have my mixer. It was starting to become a bit of a problem.

Then yesterday! My phone rang and a lovely man told me that my mixer was in stock and that they’d hold it for me until I got there after work.

Since O is away this week I made my own way to Marina Mall, having been assured when I popped in to the shop last week that I’d be able to carry the mixer on my own. Once there however, the sales assistant had other ideas. Having persuaded him that I didn’t need one of the shop men to carry it to the taxi rank for me, we then attempted to get the thing in a bag. The biggest bag they had ripped. I tried to explain that I’d like to wrap the box up using the ripped bag and some tape and that I’d carry it by the handles in the box, but the sales assistant did not approve and insisted on someone helping me. The fella turned up with a flat bed on wheels for heaven’s sake! All for a little mixer! I felt very silly walking behind him as he weaved his way through the mall and we both had a laugh about it – I think he felt a little silly too.

I managed to wrestle it out of the cab and into the flat where I unpacked it with all the excitement of a four year old at Christmas. After oo-ing and ah-ing for a little while, I put all the removable gubbins in the dishwasher, read the instructions and spent the rest of the evening trying to decide what to make first.

So here it is, my sexy red mixer. Standing proud up on the counter and waiting patiently to be christened with some batter-delight or other. I’m thinking chocolate chip cookies.


I noticed, as I was putting it all together, that our kitchen has inadvertently become a Kenwood kitchen. Completely by accident we have a Kenwood food processor, hand blender, deep-fryer (not my purchase choice!), rice cooker and now mixer! No one would believe that we aren’t a Kenwood-loving couple and that it is completely accidental – but it is! Truly and honestly… now where was that Kenwood catalogue again?

The Kenwood Krew all lined up

On Kitchens

I've been thinking a lot about kitchens lately.

The kitchen always played a large factor in my childhood, our dining table was always in our kitchen (at least as far back as I can properly remember anyway) and was where my parents would feed guests as well as the family - unless it was a big event and not everyone would fit, in which case the big table in the living room would be brought in to play.

On holidays visiting family the kitchen was always the hub of everything, good food cooked especially for the visitors, unusual tastes, laughs, drama... kitchens are important places and I've been neglecting mine lately. I've been leaving O to do all the cooking and haven't baked anything (my real cooking love) in forever.

I had lost my inspiration and couldn't find anything that I actually wanted to make until I came across this recipe by Joy (check out her blog, it's all about baking with this being one of her few savoury concoctions) in which she uses the magic words "cheesy polenta" and "fennel". I did a little substituting - beef for beans and coriander for oregano - and the result was fabulous. I am also waiting for the re-stocking of a sexy red mixer I want to buy as part of my back-to-the-kitchen programme.

So in preparation for loads of time spent there, and because I'm off work sick today, I thought I'd take you on a little tour of my kitchen if you don't mind...


There are four doors leading away from the kitchen, I'm standing in front of door number one which leads to the bedrooms and you can see door number two which leads to the laundry room. Can you spy our basil plant by the window? Keep your fingers crossed that this one survives.


There you see door number three which leads out to the back stairs and rubbish shoot for our building, and our lovely cooker (more on that in a mo). There is also my shisha pipe there on the counter on the right.


Door number four on the left which leads to the front door and door number one there on the right. The fridge needs no introduction.

Now I'd like to take a second to point out a couple of my favourite features in this kitchen.


Let me introduce you to my oven - electric oven, gas hob, 90x60cm, 5 spider burners with one double burner in the middle. Oh and also the cute green-piggy tea towel that my mum gave me. This is a beauty and bakes nice and evenly, the only compliant is that the gas burners are a little too powerful for my liking. It's pretty easy to burn stuff.


My cook books and delicious. magazines, plus up on the counter - the remnants of a cheese pie I baked.

Mmmmmm, cheese pie.

Speaking of pie...

This is my baking cupboard. Pitifully bare right now because I'm not baking in earnest but we have measuring cups and spoons, baking powder and bicarb of soda, baking beans, two kinds of flour, two kinds of sugar, orange blossom water, cooking chocolate, minced dates and cocoa.


This is the tea cupboard. I'm not sure exactly how many kinds of tea I have any more, but I counted before we moved and there were over 20 so... yeah, not going to be counting - or buying tea - for a little while.


And to drink that tea we need mugs and cups and tea pots and saucers and a sugar bowl!


Last, but not least, our spice cupboard. Looking decidedly messy but I'd like to think that it shows how much it's used.

Thank you for indulging me in my little kitchen tour. I'm appreciating it at the moment and thought I'd share.

The art of delivery - part II

In April I was talking about how easy it is to get stuff delivered out here... the one thing I was lamenting not being able to have whisked to my door after a moment on the phone was sushi.

Well, lo and behold! My life is now complete (apart from the needing a new job bit) and I have some delicious delicacies speeding their way to me as I write.

O and I went to a Japanese restaurant called Samurai two nights ago. It was most fun. They do sushi, sashimi, teppanyaki - the usual fare - but the best bit was the Yakiniku! I'd never even heard of it before, and for anyone else who is similarly at a loss - allow me to explain.

Our table had a hole in the middle of it and that hole turned out to be our very own personal table-top barbeque! You turn it on under the table and there is a gas grill that heats up super quick. We ordered a mixed Yakiniku and got three different kinds of red meat (two different cuts of beef and one of lamb I'm sure) and some veggies all marinaded in a soy sauce based marinade which we threw on the grill and barbequed exactly to our liking!

We ate too much, but it was delicious and I will definitely be going back for more.

Oh! There's the door bell.

In Fond Remembrance of Solitude

I have a little grump on, which might explain the nature of this blog entry.


Having recently started working full time, after more than 8 years solidly spent at university, there are a number of changes and adjustments I have had to make in my life and the lifestyle to which I was accustomed. Most of these changes and adjustments are not quite as bad as I make them out to be at 6am when I’m struggling to remember how to work the shower, bleary-eyed with sleep and still a bit confused as to whether there really is a Nutella-monster that wants to turn me into a piece of toast.

One of these changes is having a routine. Nowt wrong with that. It’s nice to know where I’m meant to be and when, for a set time of the day. The fact that I wish my routine started a couple of hours later than it currently does is inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

In my previous life as a PhD student, I had no routine whatsoever (and yes, this was indeed part of the problem and definitely one of the reasons why it took so bloody long to finally finish the damn thing), everything was up to me. When I got up, when I went to bed, when I sat at my desk, when I watched Frasier re-runs, when I went for a look around the shops… It was just too much freedom for a champion procrastinator such as myself. That being said – I was a master of my own time, which I loved, although I didn’t have any money to do anything with that time, which I loved somewhat less.

Now that I’m gainfully employed I have much, much less free time. But I do have cash to blow on meaningless frivolities (like getting my nails done and buying coffee) which make that precious free time more enjoyable. I relish my free time now, rather than being burdened by it. Plus it is guilt free, which is something that your average, right-minded person (and by that I mean everyone who has not done a PhD) takes absolutely for granted. For 8 years I felt guilty when I was doing anything other than work. What is surprising is how the weight of that guilt didn’t a) crush me because I so often did so little work in my free time or b) inspire me to do more work. I refer you to my above statement about being a champion procrastinator. I could have won awards for my procrastination, except they’d never hold an award ceremony for it because everyone would leave making their travel plans to the last minute and end up not being able to go. Sigh.

What with now being able to relish my free time, one would think that make the most of it by embarking on adventures (mind you, look at what happened on my last adventure), expanding my horizons, exploring new avenues of all sorts… but I don’t. I tend to spend my free time sleeping, eating and vegged out in front of the TV with my laptop open, surfing various not-especially-enlightening websites (apart from a couple of special mentions such as this one, this one and, oh yeah!, this one) thus giving neither my full attention and gleaning far little from either than I would have if I had bothered! That and going shopping, which is always fun… especially when you actually have money.

Which all brings me to the final change that I want to talk about. Being alone. When I was doing the PhD (and living away from my home university) I spent cascading vast quantities of time alone. All day in fact. O would get up at stupid o’clock in the morning to go to work and then come home at some point in the late afternoon/evening, leaving me all that time by myself. I am fairly solitary by nature, I need alone time or I get even more grumpy than usual, but this was too much even for me. There were tools at my disposal to somewhat alleviate that feeling of being ALONE but really there isn’t much of a substitute for real human company – which is why I had a tendency to bounce up and down like a little Terrier puppy whenever O came home, demanding attention and to be taken out for a walk and then getting all downhearted and dejected if the cruel, mean-hearted, villain dared to even grumble that he was “too tired” after working for maybe 12 hours that day. Tsk.

So yeah, alone. Now I didn’t enjoy being alone, as I said. However I am now in the position when I look back fondly at certain aspects of that time and wish to be whisked back in a time machine for just a few precious hours of sweet, silent solitude.

I was not prepared for what it would be like to work full time in office in many ways, but definitely the aspect that is grating the most right now is that I am never, ever, alone! From the moment I arrive in the morning until the moment I leave there is always someone there. And even then that’s not the start or the end because O and I work in the same building and so drive to and from work together (but that doesn’t really count because I picked him to be the person who is always around and, frankly, I’d much rather he was there than wasn’t). So, yeah. Even on those merciful occasions when everyone else (all three of them) is out of the office and I have it to myself, the phone is ringing and people are stopping by to see the people who aren’t there.

There. is. no. escape…!

I go for a cigarette break and there is someone there, someone I’ve nodded to twice before and who now wants to have meaningless chit-chat about the same old stuff that I’ve had meaningless chit-chats about before because I’m the new one. Some days this is fine, and some of the people are very nice, but some days I just want to smoke my cigarette and play Sudoku on my phone without having to explain that I’ve been here X months, yes I like Abu Dhabi very much, I live in Y, yes it is getting hot now, blah blah AAARRRRGGGHHHH!

There is one place where one can pretty much always expect to be alone, no matter where you are (unless you have little children of the type that I was who are less sentient being and more semi-permanently attached tail) and that is the loo. Surely, surely, one can reasonably expect to be able to go to the loo in some semblance of isolation, right? WRONG! Ok, it’s not like anyone actually comes into the little cubicle with me and stands there watching, but both of the bathrooms that are within walking distance of my office regularly have the cleaning ladies in them – all the time! Chatting on the phone or with each other if there’s more than one. I can understand it, I really can. If there isn’t much work going on it’s not like they have an office to sit in like I do, but still! It means that you have to engage in even more perfunctory small talk just to have empty your bladder for heaven’s sake! Granted it’s little more than a “hello, how are you?” and a “goodbye” when leaving, but in a day when I have already had 100 other meaningless conversations that absolutely do not need to happen and when I’m at GRUMPCON 3 and rising, that is one more nothing interaction that makes me want to scream and long for the days when I would sit in desolate slump for hours on end, staring at the fake company on the TV screen and wishing with all my might for one little meaningless conversation or unnecessary, nothing interaction.