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Summertime, and the livin’ is – - – well, not quite “easy,” but certainly full of love. I have seen each of my grandchildren at least once, and will get to visit more with some of them again, before we head back to Kuwait.
I am using some of this summer time to work on health issues again. In particular, I’m trying to improve my commitment to gluten free eating, though I also have to acknowledge milk and egg sensitivities or allergies as well. The road of denial is a very uncomfortable one. With that in mind, I have consulted with Tom Malterre, a registered nutritionist with a particular interest in using whole foods to build and maintain good health. You might want to check out his website at: http://www.wholelifenutrition.net/id3.html He and his wife have co-authored a recipe book that includes over 200 gluten free, egg free, dairy free recipes. The ones I have tried so far are delicious.
Here’s the Quinoa and Black Bean Salad, from their “Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook.” Everybody who has tasted it has enjoyed it. Perhaps you will, too.
Quinoa and Black Bean Salad
2 cups quinoa
3 ½ cups water
Pinch of salt
1 cup chopped cilantro
5 green onions, cliced
1 small jalapeno pepper, seeded and finely diced
1 small red bell pepper, diced small
2 cups cooked black beans
Dressing:
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
½ fresh squeezed lime juice
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 ½ teaspoon sea salt of Herbamare
- Rinse quinoa in a fine mesh strainer under warm running water. Place the rinsed quinoa in a medium pot with the water and a pinch of sea salt. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover, and let simmer for about 30 minutes, or until all the water is absorbed.
- Remove cooked quinoa from pot, place in a large bowl and let cool.
- Combine olive oil, lime juice, cumin, and sea salt in a small bowl. Whisk together and pour over cooled quinoa; toss well with a fork.
- Add cilantro, green onions, jalapeno pepper, red bell pepper, and black beans and toss again.
This is just the quick “check in” I’ve been meaning to post since we returned to Canada for our annual summer visit. I was “offline” for several months because my computer suddenly refused to accept the air card we use for our internet access.
I’ll resume my posts again. At the moment I have so many “random thoughts” rambling around in my brain that I’m having difficulty focussing on one topic. Let me think now . . .
 Enormous and Itty Bitty Radishes One of the places where we shop is the local “Jamiya” (Co-op Society) grocery store. Much of the produce is local, and often looks like it has come straight from the field or the “hothouse” (more likely air-conditioned in the summer). This bunch of radishes completely filled the plastic produce bag, with the largest one coming in at about the size of a golf ball. They each had such “character” that I just had to take a picture of them. The itty bitty ones are just a pop-in-your-mouth crunchy snack size. Although they aren’t as spicy and flavorful as some, they’re still nice as a crunchy, nutritious snack.
 MMMM! Keith's yummy (Brown) Rice Pudding! . . . and now for something sweet. Made with honey as the sweetener, and just the right amount of everything else, Keith’s rice pudding is AMAZINGLY flavorful. Rice pudding is a “comfort food” for both of us.
As a member of an elementary school community with a junior student council, I enjoy the projects and activities planned by the students. One of these activities is a series of “spirit days,” activities to liven up the school spirit. Today was “opposites day.” As often occurs, I thought up an easy idea on the spur of the moment and passed it by the Assistant Principal, who is the sponsor of the Junior Student Council. To engender a little challenge into the day, the first three students to identify three opposites on Ms. Bonnie (that would be me), would choose a prize from my assorted prize collection.
It took until noon recess to reach the three winners. The backwards T-shirt was pretty easy for them, with the fur-trimmed moccasin and non-fur-trimmed moccasin a second easy one, though for ESL students it was more difficult for them to identify the “opposite” nature of the moccasins than to simply point out the differences (e.g. that one has beads and this one has flowers). The tough part involved keen observation and awareness that I usually wear my wedding ring on my left “ring” finger, except today I wore it on the ring finger of the opposite hand, my right hand. I know, some might say that wasn’t fair, but the little contest would have been over in five minutes if the opposites had all been easy to identify. Even some of the adults whispered there answers to me, in the hope they would be able to identify that tricky third “opposite.” With kids lined up at my door to take their turn, I didn’t get a lot of my regular work done, but I had a fun day, and so did the kids who participated in the little challenge.
Living in Kuwait affords us the opportunity to travel to places whose ancient histories we studied in school, and often, whose rich civilizations were lost in our sanitized Eurocentric studies. Jordan, for example is the repository of the largest archaelogical site of ancient Roman ruins outside of Italy.
 We first visited the northern city of Jerash and its ancient site, strategically located atop one of the many hills, with an excellent view of the surrounding area. Originally part of the Greek Decapolis (a political and economic confederation of ten cities located throughout Syria, Palestine and Jordan), they were further developed during the Roman period. Churches and basilicas replaced temples during the Byzantine Era, leaving a legacy of mixed styles according to the various occupants of the time.
 Imagine the hundreds of thousands of feet that walked into the city through these gates at the southern entrance (of course, the scaffolding wasn’t there at the time).
Then, examine the huge paving stones to see the actual grooves created by chariots as the travelled across this ancient street that lead to the unusually-shaped oval forum.
Its unusual shape is attributed to it having been built over an older Greek agora.
We also saw a replica of a chariot, and I was tempted to pay to watch a chariot race. Instead, I took a peek through the piles of stone, and snapped a quick shot of the charioteers preparing for the race. If you visit the Jerash album you will see the spectator seats along the side of the arena, where you can imagine throngs of people shouting and hoping their favoured chariot driver will win.
 I was fascinated by not only the columns, but also the stone posts the lay across the tops. I jokingly commented that it would have been interesting to watch them use cranes to raise those rectangular blocks of stone. According to information we read at the Citadel, in Amman, they DID have simple cranes that WERE used. I didn’t get the details, but imagine they would have used a pulley system of sorts to do the work. In any case, the engineering technology of ancient times was enough to give us pause for humble reflection.
I also invite you to view snapshots of our visit to Petra, where caves, carved into the red sandstone walls of a long gorge, became the final resting place of members of many strata of society (except the poor) since the time of the Nabataeans. The treasury, believed to have held the treasures of a wealthy Pharoah, was probably a royal tomb. In any case, no actual record of treasures has been discovered.
Well, this is a much larger “up-close-and-personal” view than I’d intended, but my control of image downloading has far to go.
The point of all this is to demonstrate that it is NOT wise to grate one’s thumb while attempting to grate carrots, zucchini, cheese, or any other food. It really makes a mess and does not add to the flavor of the food.
This is just a short post to share with you the joy I experience every morning when I am greeted by a gaggle of little boys who flock around me every morning for the privilege of using the one or two soccer balls I carry out to the playground before the school day begins. As the boys arrive at school they start in small groups, usually passing and kicking a ball, but when a sufficient number arrive they sometimes form impromptu teams. The funny thing is, there are boys who bring their own soccer balls from home, so there are small groups and large ones kicking balls in all directions. It’s bedlam, but the boys seem to know which ball they are playing with, and when a stray one enters their play area, they take a break from their own game and give it a good boot, or a fancy backward kick. Some of the older elementary boys are quite athletic and proficient at handling the ball.
Here is the much sought-after treasure. Note the name in permanent pen.
This increases the likelihood of getting the ball back, if it happens to get kicked onto one of the many ledges around the play area.
Dec. 12 follow-up note: Sadly, the ball soon developed a couple of “hernias” when the seams split. Before surgery could be performed the ball exploded. It has since gone to the land of retired soccer balls, ever so deflated about the circumstances of its demise.
The Amaretti Cookies are always popular, and are relatively easy to make. They lend themselves to use with gluten free flours as there is so little used. The almond “flour” is really fun because all you have to do is put the blanched or slivered almonds into a small food processor and let them grind away until they become as fine a meal as you can get. It will never be like flour from grain, but it doesn’t have to be. I put all the ingredients into the food processor, which cuts down on clean-up, mixes everything quickly, and gets it to that stick-together phase easily. The original came from a vegan site that I visit often:
http://earthvegan.blogspot.com/2009/02/vegan-amaretti-cookies.html
Here’s the recipe. Enjoy!
Vegan Amaretti Cookies
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups almond flour (around 1 cup of almonds, processed to a powder in a food processor)
1/2 cup whole-wheat pastry flour (can substitute with all-purpose gluten free flour)
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
3 tsp EnerG egg replacer powder mixed with 4 tbsp water
3/4 to 1 cup confectioners’ sugar (I like mine a little less sweet but add a whole cup if you like them sweet)
Method:
Mix together the almond flour, pastry flour and baking powder. In a food processor, or by hand, add to the flour mixture the sugar, the two extracts, and the egg-replacer mixture. If using a food processor, pulse a few times to mix the ingredients. The dough will be sticky. With a teaspoon, place rounded mounds of the mixture on a cookie sheet greased well, or covered with parchment paper and then greased. Bake in a preheated 300-degree oven about 25-30 minutes until the tops are lightly browned, and the bottoms are a deeper, richer golden-brown. Place the sheet on a rack to cool about 10 minutes. Then, using a thin spatula, remove the cookies from the cookie sheet and place directly on the rack to cool thoroughly. When cooled, sprinkle tops with some powdered confectioners sugar.
The confectioner’s sugar (powdered icing sugar) seems to give it “professional” look. If you put it on a simple tray with a paper doily they’ll they you’ve bought it from a bakery.
A week ago we hosted an evening of sharing prayers from various Faiths. I am a Baha’i, so I shared prayers from my Faith, but also provided prayers from others for people to choose according to what they found meaningful. Our theme was “Unity”
Some prayers set to music provided a nice balance to those read. It was a wonderful evening. We always have to have food when we invite guests, so I used the harvest season in our home country of Canada as the inspiration for choosing treats; sweet potato pie, and a pumpkin roll, which I had never made before. They turned out quite well. Then there were the almond cookies, which my husband particularly enjoys. I thought we HAD to have some chocolate in the mix, so we got something from the shop across the street at “Le Patissier.” How could I forget the stuffed dates? We live in the land of dates of all sizes and textures. The grocery stores always have ready made trays for our special occasions.
   
So there you have it! Food for body and soul!
We hope to expand our circle of friends who join us next time.
Living in Kuwait means buying bottled water for drinking. We’ve been doing this for five years because the tap water, which is filtered and treated at the desalination plant, comes out of the tap full of chemicals. This year, we “took the plunge” and purchased an expensive multi-stage water purification system. Now, instead of storing boxes of bottled water in the back room of our apartment, or stacked in my office at school, we turn on a little tap, and fill our kettle, pot, or drinking glass with clear, clean drinking water. We still have to fill up our stainless steel thermoses and take water to school instead of cracking open a box full of 1.5 liter bottles stored in my office, but that’s a small price to pay. Now my husband no longer has to lug a heavy box or two from the car to our apartment every week, and listen to me say, “We should get a trolley to load the water and groceries on.”
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