Dublin for the 6Nations Ireland v Scotland Match

It feels like when it comes to travel for me, when it rains it pours. In this case, today is the first evening The Irishman and I will have to ourselves in our house since March 4th. Unfortunately, we'll probably spend it cleaning and doing laundry but at least that will be more of a normal routine than not. Anyway, those of you who follow me on Twitter know that the day I got back from Doha, I turned right back around and got on a flight that evening to Dublin. We had a three day weekend with The Irishman's family to attend the RBS 6Nations tournament game between Ireland and Scotland. I've mentioned before that The Irishman's dad is quite high up in the rugby world in Ireland and this year is his big-time-big-deal year. If you watch the games, you might have seen him on TV during this year's Ireland matches, and he wanted us to share his honors with him in person. 

The match was on Saturday which gave us all day Friday to hang out and do a bit of relaxing and sight-seeing. I have sort of a love-hate relationship with Dublin; I want to love it like a second home, get to know it with the intimacy I know London and New York. But I never get the chance to really explore Dublin the way I want, to learn its ins and outs the way I want, because we can never quite approach it that way – when we go, we stay with The Irishman's family (why would we stay in a hotel? we probably wouldn't even be ALLOWED to stay in a hotel!) and our time is dictated by family obligations. So my desire to hunt out cool neighborhoods and lovely hidden shops and side streets is somewhat curtailed. 

So now when we go to Dublin I content myself with just trying to understand Dublin, understand its people and really engage with the culture and history. So this trip, I requested a visit to Kilmainham Gaol.

Visits are only in guided tours, which depart every half hour or so and give you a good understanding of the history of the building as well as its famous inmates. The tours are €6 per person, which we found really reasonable, and I was super impressed with how many Irish people were on the tour (rather than just American tourists).

Fun fact: this room has been used quite often in films as it is one of the largest, unused jails in Europe.

Oh look, The Irishman is in a cell! Quick, close the door!

The yard where the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising were shot.

Obviously it was a somber outing, but overall a really nice day out. I learned a lot and even The Irishman was impressed by the tour and the experience of the jail museum.

Friday evening we went out for dinner with The Irishman's brother and some friends, and Saturday we woke up to do a lovely 3 mile run down the pier. That's probably my favorite part of visiting The Irishman's hometown: its proximity to the sea. The air is so much fresher and when the sun comes out it is glorious.

After our run, I went for a manicure and then it was time to get all gussied up for the match. This is the second time we've been VIP guests for the pre-match dinner and let me tell you how hilarious it is to walk into a sports stadium wearing heels. On entry to the stadium lot, I saw this very lovely stand:

While inside the President's Ballroom, these ice sculptures greeted the guests:

 

Out in the stadium:

Because Scotland was playing, Princess Anne was in attendance as the patron of Scottish rugby. She had some very nifty sunglasses on for the duration of the game – despite the fact that it got dark pretty early on in the second half.

And after the game, we attended the post-match drinks reception before heading to the Four Seasons for the black-tie dinner. I know it sounds glamorous, but really it was exhausting. I've never eaten or drunk more over a 48 hour period than in that weekend. I have one picture of me all gussied up but I refuse to post it as I look, well, uncomfortable – and I was because my dress was too tight! Sadly, my discomfort distracted me from admiring all of the players in their tuxes and kilts. Meeeoooow – more than once The Irishman put an elbow in my ribs because I was gawking over the boys. Ooops.

Sunday after the match we woke up hungover and exhausted, but I made The Irishman and his brother go for a walk down to a local park with a food and craft market. We nursed our hangovers with coffee and tasty tidbits (dumplings after 2 days solid of eating? sure why not!) and got some supplies for a nice fry up to rid the rest of the cobwebs.  

And then it was time to go home. Another plane, and another flight and then it was back in our little apartment to rest up for the rest of the week to come.

Birthday celebrations at Viajante

As you all know by now, today is my birthday and I'm in Doha. So I'm spending it with neither my family nor The Irishman, but instead with work colleagues in a dry hotel in the Gulf. Whoop whoop.

But no matter! Since my birthday fell on a Tuesday this year, I had already planned for a big birthday blowout over the weekend before I even knew I had to travel for work. I booked myself into my local spa, Angel Therapy Rooms for the City Tonic pamper, and made reservations for The Irishman and I to go to Viajante in Bethnal Green. We've been meaning to go there for a while now, and as I wanted my birthday to be special but low-key after my epic 30th birthday celebration last year, so we decided to finally take the plunge. On the suggestion of my friend Kate, I made a special request for the chef's table so we could look in on the kitchen as they prepared our meal. What an amazing tip, because it felt like we were having the meal specially prepared just for us despite being in a dining room with several other parties. That's our view above.

We started our evening in the bar next to the restaurant; as it was feeling so springlike outside, we both decided to begin with Campari cocktails. I then made a rather fatal mistake of having a second cocktail, which in hindsight wasn't particularly clever, but I couldn't resist as it was called Shiso-lovely and had aloe in it. I had to try it! It was good, but not great, like a more fragrant mojito. I would like one in June.

When we were called to our table we had the choice of 6, 9, or 12 course tasting menus; we decided to go with 9 as 12 seemed like quite a lot and 6 maybe not enough. Our very charming sommelier then helped us pick 2 "interesting" bottles of wine to pair with the menu, and off we went! Nuno Mendes, the Spanish head chef, is from the school of molecular gastronomy, which meant we were treated to a series of delicious amuse bouches, fresh seafood, and fascinating flavour combinations. I was a bit sodden by the end, but enjoyed it all immensely and would definitely go back. As conceptual restaurants go, this one didn't break the bank that hard so I could easily imagine myself back at that chef's table fairly soon. 

The other reason to go back: the service. Everyone was genuinely happy to serve us, to explain the food to us, and to gauge our reaction. Because the food changes so frequently, there isn't a menu – you get the food that is served that day, no choice, and it's all explained as it's served. But at the very end, the restaurant gives you a menu with your wine selections and your courses on it as a souvenir: mine said Thank you for celebrating your birthday at Viajante. If that isn't service, I don't know what is!

A house update

Image courtesy of Flickr by jjay69

Hello from Doha! I've been meaning to update everyone on our house-buying process for a few days now but life sort of got in the way. Now I'm in the Middle East and there's no time like the present.


In a good way, my trip to Doha has put a much needed pause on our house search. We've let estate agents whip us up into a frenzy of viewings, offers, negotiation, and disappointment; what should be a joyous experience has become fraught with second thoughts and anxiety. To be honest, I think we're both relieved to get our heads out of the game for a bit.


We didn't end up getting the first house that I mentioned a few weeks ago, the full house in need of modernization. We put in an offer at the high end of what we could afford and it simply wasn't enough. Then a week after that, we saw a maisonette with a huge back garden – south-facing, so it got light throughout the day – and an interesting layout that avoided having the front door right next to the master bedroom. We put in an offer on that property last Monday, negotiated throughout the day and finally had it accepted – only to have someone else offer more a mere 5 minutes later. We actually think the estate agent called another interested party to say "hey, this house is going to go so if you want it, you should make an offer around £X." A few days later, more offers came in and they ended up going to sealed bids. Sealed bids is where you put together your offer, the final amount you want to put in on the property and any incentives you can offer (ie, no-chain, cash buyer, etc) and they all go, sealed, to the owner to decide who s/he wants to go with as a buyer. When they went to sealed bids for that maisonette, we decided not to participate because we knew it would go for much more than we were willing to pay.


So where does that leave us? Well, it leaves us in the exact same place we were a few weeks ago when I first told you all we were house-hunting: in our flat with a lot of hopes and dreams. But we now have a few more hard decisions to make. After seeing and almost getting a full house, we really want the full house over a half-a-house maisonette – yet we still want to be close-ish to central London, which means its questionable whether I can afford it. It really is a tradeoff between wishes and musts, and we're still uncertain about what we are willing to compromise on and not. So far, there hasn't been much on the market in our price range and everything that's decent that appears gets snapped up quite quickly; you feel like you see a property on Saturday and need to decide if you want it by Monday – that's really hard. But we keep hearing that the property market opens up in the spring, so there should be more for us to see as the year progresses.


Also, we're not really in a rush. Yes, we'd like a bigger home, to have a garden for when the weather warms up, and to just be THERE already, but there isn't any reason for us rushing to do it. I'm away until Thursday then we head to Dublin for a long weekend Thursday night, and next weekend we have house guests, so realistically we won't be able to fully re-engage with the house hunt until after St Patrick's Day. I think that's okay, and healthy – it gives us time to reassess our priorities and hopefully land on a few tactics that will help us move forward with more purpose and sanity. I am hoping our search will be less emotional, less highs and lows, and more targeted moving forward – and ideally end in success very soon. I'll keep you posted.

Great __ Bakeoff

Those of you who follow me on Twitter know that for the last week I've been excitedly preparing (freaking out) for my company's Bakeoff. Given that we're a bunch of enthusiastic participants (competitive control freaks) I knew I'd be up against stiff competition and have to give it my all.

I wanted to enter a cake that I knew and loved, rather than a recipe that sounded amazing but was just found on the internet. So I dug out a recipe for chocolate chip cake that a childhood friend's mom used to make and that I remembered fondly. It's meant to be baked in a tube pan, but let's remember that we're in England and of course I couldn't find one in time for the competition. Also maybe I didn't want to spend £25 on Amazon for one, and then spent the entirety of last weekend in pubs and not prepping for the competition. Annnnywaaaay. Monday night found me frantically searching the kitchen and homewares shops in Angel for said pan, or a suitable alternative, and I ended up coming up with a layer cake pan. The Irishman helped me test the baking time on a sample test run Monday and I was ready to go for the full bake on Tuesday.

The recipe I used is a cream-cheese batter with chocolate chips inside, and as I was making the layer cake I found a recipe online (ok so I cheated there) for cream cheese frosting. Only problem is, it wasn't stiff enough to cover the imperfections around the side and ended up pooling around the bottom of the cake. Wednesday morning I iced the cake before work and it looked pretty grim.

But some additional icing sugar in the frosting helped some, and once I got to work I spent a bit of time re-doing the frosting and decorating the cake. I called my entry "Choc n Cheese".

The rules for the competition were quite intense, as you can see:

And in the end, I didn't win. But I did enjoy the experience immensely and even better, the cakes were all sold by the slice to my colleagues to raise money for Sport Relief. 

For those of you who were interested in the recipe, here it is:

Chocolate Chip Cake

I c butter
8 oz cream cheese (sold in the UK as either Philadelphia or "soft cheese")
4 eggs
2 1/4 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 pkg chocolate chips (I used a 12 oz bag)
1 1/2 c sugar

Cream butter and cream cheese together.
Add sugar and beat until fluffy, add eggs
Separately, mix baking powder and salt with flour
Add flour mixture to butter mixture
Stir in vanilla and chocolate chips
Plop into a tube plan that has been greased and floured
Bake at 300 deg for about 1 hr 20 mins - check that both sides are slightly golden
Let cool 10 mins, and take out of pan.

For the chocolate cream cheese icing, I used this recipe from JamieOliver.com but added a bit more icing (powdered) sugar for stiffness.

Spotted: first daffs of the season

My apartment

Sunday, 26 February 2012

N1

My first Syrian dinner party

Some of you might know, or have read, that my awesome grandmother (who reads this blog) is a Sephardic Jew of Syrian descent. Though American (Brooklyn)-born, she grew up speaking Arabic at home and English in the street, and as the eldest of 5 was taught to cook from an early age. So my earliest recollections of going to Mom-Mom's house always revolved around eating amazing food. Her cooking, Syrian Jewish cooking, differs slightly from typical Middle Eastern fare (like Lebanese, Turkish, Israeli, Moroccan, even Greek) as most dishes were designed to work around Kosher laws. So while there is a lot of meat, it's never served with dairy products. And the few dairy recipes that exist are always served with vegetarian dishes. Syrian food overall uses quite a lot of fruit with sweet-sour flavors, and some interesting spice combinations that bring the sweet-sour balance into sharper focus. There is less garlicky-ness and more fullness to the food. Mom-Mom's family hailed from Aleppo, home of what some people claim is the best food in the Middle East; I just think it's my Mom-Mom's food.

Fast forward thirty years, and I'm mastering cooking her dishes by myself. Despite learning to roll grape leaves for Passover over a school holiday at age 8 and being the fastest pistachio sheller in the West, I really didn't do much Syrian cooking until relatively recently. I think it had to do with all of the dishes being so Mom-Mom that it was much better, and more comforting, to get my fix by visiting her. But now that I'm so far away, I have to take matters into my own hands and start cheffing the meals all on my own.

Luckily, Mom-Mom has embarked on an epic project of writing down all of her recipes – recipes that she has known by heart for years. I'm so impressed with her; at 84, she's typing them all up in Word and emailing them on to me. The most amazing part is that these are recipes that previously never had measurements or gauges; she uses her eye and the palm of her hand as a guide. Once when we had a lesson, she told me that because my palm was so small, I would have to add more spices to a dish – and that's just the way it is. But now nearly all of her signature dishes have been written down for me and the family.

So yesterday I hosted my first Syrian dinner party for my former roommates. We started with za'atar flavored pita chips, a really easy snack that you can make in no time. Za'atar is super hard to find in the US, mostly available only in Mediterranean or Arab food stores, but you can pick it up at Waitrose here. We then moved on to a main dish of yebrah or stuffed grape leaves. But these aren't sour, rice-stuffed grape leaves like you get in Greek, Turkish or Lebanese restaurants; these grape leaves are stuffed with a meat and rice mixture, covered in apricots and then cooked with a tomato-tamarind sauce. Side dishes were Syrian-style rice with spaghetti bits, peas cooked with allspice and kiftes (meatballs), and a sweet-sour sauce called hamoud. For dessert, I let The Irishman into our kitchen to make cardamom ice cream and together we made little cookies with semolina dough and a sweet nut mixture inside.

Happily, the food went down a storm and I was really pleased with the results. It's really rewarding to cook the food I grew up loving for others, and introducing them to something that is so familiar and comforting to me but sounds exotic and wonderful to them. If you are interested in this special type of cuisine, here are a few books you might want to check out – unfortunately, I'm under strict orders not to release Mom-Mom's recipes outside the family otherwise I would totally share.

Fistful of Lentils 

by Jennifer Abadi

This is a great primer for Syrian Jewish cooking, written by a girl like me who loved her grandmother and worked with her to write down all of her recipes. She then illustrated the book and published it, and the recipes are fairly close to Mom-Mom's.

Aromas of Aleppo

by Poopa Dweck

When you're done laughing, this is the coffee table book of Syrian cooking. I'm actually related to this woman through distant cousins, and Mom-Mom highly approves of this tome. It's a lovely book of lovely recipes.

The New Book of Middle Eastern Cookery

by Claudia Roden

Claudia Roden is the grand-dame of English cook book authors from the Middle East. Her book of Middle Eastern recipes is the bible when it comes to Middle Eastern cooking on this side of the pond.

The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand and Vilna to the Present Day

by Claudia Roden

If you're Jewish and/or interested in food, or both, Claudia Roden devoted a few years to researching and writing this tome of traditional Jewish cooking from both Ashkenazi and Sephardic regions. It's a great history book as well as a great cookbook. 

Follow Friday

I never really do that #FF thing on Twitter, mostly because I don't really *do* Twitter that well, but this week I am going to #FF here AND there to introduce you to my friends who just entered the blogosphere.

You may remember that I mentioned earlier about some friends who have decided to save up to throw it all in, quit their jobs, and travel across Asia for several months. Well, the dream is on its way and the one-way tickets have been purchased and the blog has launched! Head over to Banh Mi and You to read about their preparations for their big trip. PS: Their blog will soon have a sweet new blog look and feel, thanks to YOURS TRULY. When I get around to it.

I'd also highly suggest that you follow them on Twitter (@banhmiandyou) and join them as they embark for the biggest and most exciting adventure of their lives! Wheeee!

I declare this week a fail.

You know how they say "beware the Ides of March"? Someone should have said something about the ides of February this week. It seems as though everything I've touched this week has spoiled in some way, and staying positive has been rather trying.

I started the week by picking a massive fight with The Irishman about Life Priorities. Without going into specifics, I acted like a prat and he told me so. So I cried and didn't talk to him for 18 hours. Yes, prat.

The biggest fail of all was learning that our the house we put an offer on is being viewed seriously by a few other couples. One of those couples is taking a builder in with them to cost up doing a lot of renovations that could be done to the house before making an offer. It's a cruel blow, because, while this house has a lot of amazing potential, it is potential that The Irishman and I both dreamed about saving up for and doing slowly. So it feels pretty sad to think that some people with deep pockets might just be able to pay more for something we really want. It left me feeling powerless and depressed. But there is still hope, I suppose; we are still the only people who have actually made an offer on the house at this point.

But a close second was that same day, my anti-Valentines plans were completely dashed. At the end of last year, I spent a good hour scouring the National Theatre website for cheap tickets to see One Man Two Guvnors before James Corden left the cast. I finally found some for Wednesday February 15th, and The Irishman and I planned to use the tickets as an excuse for a night out – just not on Valentines. Until he looked at the tickets and realized they were for the 2:30pm matinee show, not the 7:30pm show. So I requested an emergency half day off from work and felt like a total fool.

Add to all that a pretty bad blunder at work and the fact that I haven't exercised at all since last Tuesday, and by yesterday I felt a little bit useless. But the upside is I've turned it all around in some way... I think. I made up with The Irishman, and feel like we are stronger than ever in our house search and life goals. I've reframed my expectations of the house, and made peace with the fact we may not get it. And our impromptu skive from work was actually really lovely; cocktails at The American Bar at The Savoy and dinner at Spuntino were perfectly timed instead of rushed before / after the show.

I wish I had a way to prevent weeks like this from getting the better of me, but sometimes, especially recently, I've felt like I drag myself across the Friday finish line just to sleep it off on the weekend. I do wonder whether being more consistent with running it would make a difference in my mood and how I handle stress (YES) but also how to make it easier to get out from under the dark clouds and onto the road to run. Running wouldn't have fixed someone else having more money to buy the house I want to buy, nor the fact that I booked tickets to a matinee show rather than an evening show, but it might have helped me laugh it off that little bit quicker.

PS This post is also dedicated to my lady friend who I ALSO had words with this week but whom is still  in my corner and who I'm lucky enough to have my back through all of this LIFE STUFF. 

And the winner is...

And the winner is…

 ASHLEY of A Hop, Skip & Jump Over The Pond

Double decker busses symbolize London for her, which I agree is one of the most iconic things about London. Congratulations, your print will be with you early next week!

Thanks to everyone for entering, and for following and supporting Bloody Brilliant. xx

The emotional ups and downs of expat home buying

Photo from Flickr courtesy of Limonada

So no progress I can report as of yet on the house situation. Offer is in and we're waiting.

Waiting in these types of situations opens the door to all kinds of thoughts: the good ones like "what type of bathtub should we install if we redo the bathroom" and bad ones like "oh my god I cannot believe I am contemplating spending this much money in one fell swoop."

It also gives a person time to self-reflect in quite a deep manner. Lately I have been rethinking my identity as an expat, what it means to buy property in another country and who I will be afterwards. The expat adventure is obviously alluring; just look at how many expat bloggers there are out there, people who dream of selling it all and moving clear across the world. It's a thrilling and illuminating, self-improving and horizon-expanding experience that I advocate to everyone. But at what point does it stop being an experience and begin to just be your life? Does buying property make you a local, or a resident, any more so than paying taxes? Does it make you less American? Or does it just make you a person who lives somewhere else? And what does that mean?

On a more personal level, buying a house changes priorities in a way that completely reframes the expat experience. At this stage, if our offer is accepted, there will be no more jetting off for city breaks, no more long weekends in Paris, no more extravagant meals in foreign lands, no more big holidays in the sun – at least for the first few years. Does that mean I'm going to miss out? Do I actually even want to buy a house? Or do I just want to travel more and live in a small flat to be able to afford that pleasure? And if I refocus my energies on building a home rather than exploring the world, will I realize that actually I don't want to live here anymore? What if I end up hating England?

And of course, there is then the big elephant in the room of me buying a property with The Irishman – I refuse to call him boyfriend, but he sure isn't my husband – and what that means for our relationship. We've already had a few corkers in terms of arguments, and, despite having a very equitable financial relationship, the idea of purchasing a property together is putting our relationship under a microscope. Everything he does I scrutinize, I'm sure he is evaluating everything I do, every penny we spend separately and together I analyze, and I'm feeling like at some point we'll either end up hating each other or self-implode. Or both! I blogged before about how buying a property together is the biggest commitment two people can make, and it's proving itself to be true on a daily basis. I've already demanded a declaration of trust so that neither of us can clean the other out if we split, but I'm also hoping that we can get through this period of doubt and tension so much stronger than we entered it. But if we do split up, and own a property, will I stay in England? Will it still be my home? Is my entire expat experience based on one man? Is that healthy? AM I HEALTHY? OH MY GOD WHAT AM I DOING?!

I guess what I'm trying to articulate is that while buying a property is emotional purchase regardless of where it takes place, as an expat it is even harder. It's surfacing all sorts of issues that I've either managed to bury or never knew I had, and in some ways they are harder to quantify than the figures on our mortgage spreadsheet. The only way to really deal with them is to just plow ahead, keep talking to The Irishman, and be honest with myself. Whatever will be will be and I will end up where I'm supposed to end up – whether it's London, New York, or somewhere inbetween.