Monday, June 29, 2009

Something Fishy is going on :D

I loved this piece of news when I read and and I missed looking at the design so I cam to see it on my blog but I discovered this post was never published! so here it is in case you missed it :)




I really admire the artist who designed this beautiful Jellyfish

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Sunday, June 28, 2009

Presenting Arts on a Tray

She spreads her imaginary wings and flies to her own glittery world, where the cause of her effect seems just normal, with a trick of magic of different colours, she flies and takes thee off to her Fairyland.

An Iraqi mom, inspired by the cute smiles of her little ones; Moved by their sweet laughter and paralyzed by their tiny tears. My friend, Nadia, decided to join the blogsphere and present you her arts on an artistic virtual tray. I leave you my friend to take an adventure in her world, to enjoy a taste of The Neverland on her Art Tray.

The sleepy moon goes rounds and rounds
Colored with rainbow; shyly smiles

Burdens with worries yet it hopes
bright your sky and bid you good night



That's all for now

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Friday, June 26, 2009

Heal The World

Everybody was crazy about Michel Jackson and how he was phenomenally talented in whatever he did. I wasn't to know him if it's not for the big fuzz they made about his music and dancing.

The only album I had was HIStory. It wasn't really mine but my sister was a big fan that time. It was around 1996, I guess. I don't remember much of the songs and even though he made a good material for news, magazines and gossips but when I hear the name Michel Jackson I only remember the good things about him; Heal the world, We are the children, and the Earth song.

Heal The World
Make It A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Entire Human Race
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me


Maybe the world would stop talking about if he was white or black, good or bad, Muslim or not.

That's all for now
and... Let's heal the world

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Thursday, June 25, 2009

My Arabic Calligraphy Homework Notebook

Ladies and gentlemen,

I'm proud to present to you the first set of alphabet of Arabic Calligraphy - Diwani style. This is the first movie I make from photos using Picasa 3. I don't have a scanner so I was using mobile cam, and my camera. Bad lighting and lazy me :)

Enjoy :)



I thought making a movie is better than posting 20 photos or more. if you can't view the video then check this or try the following online album:

Arabic Calligraphy




That's all for now

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Tuesday, June 23, 2009

A tip for Lazy lonely Selfish People

Well well well! I'm bloging again (thanks to the fake crowds out there for embarrassing me to post). It's been hectic lately; sleep-deprived, disorganized, lazy and... Well, not really sure what else.

After postponing the laboratory investigations whether the "5 minute Microwave Chocolate Mug cake" is a myth or a truth, I decided to reward the awaiting-bribed-crowds with chocolate cake. I thought it takes 5 minutes so why not give it a try! And a try it was, yes indeed.

But alas, I ended up with failure due to overexcitement and carelessness.
Here is the recipe so you can understand where I messed up.

5 MINUTE CHOCOLATE MUG CAKE!! (the recipe was emailed to me with photos but I'm posting my photos. You can google it to find it)

4 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)
A small splash of vanilla extract and your favourite tipple
1 large coffee mug


Add dry ingredients to your largest mug and mix well.

 

Add the egg and mix thoroughly. Pour in the milk and oil and mix well. Add the chocolate chips (if using), vanilla extract and a drop or two of your favourite tipple, then mix again.

 


Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts (high).
The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don't be alarmed!


I made sure that I followed every single step and set the microwave on 5 minutes and kept watching. It really went high over the top of the mug and here I got really excited and started to jump up and down as the smell was very promising! The excitement lasted for few seconds because the cake was starting to shrink! the smell was revealing that something is being burnt! So on the 4th minute I decided to stop the microwave. the smell was horrible and I ran in disappointment to my laptop to re-read the recipe only to find out that it should be cooked for 3 minutes only! OH.MY.GOD. then why it said 5 minutes chocolate mug cake!

 


Looking at it I thought it's not that bad :)
 



Not that bad at all!
 


Oh My God! wait a minute! that's where the burning smell was coming from!
 
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I spent the rest of the day and evening burning candles to get rid of the smell.

To tell you the truth, when I read the recipe I wasn't that interested. I thought this suits selfish lonely people who don't care to bake a whole cake and share with others. and this reason was the curse as I believe. If it works great for you, cut it into two halves and share it with someone else :)

If next time the recipe works better I'd share at least the photos with you

.............
Update:
A friend just sent me this healthier version of same recipe

That's all for no

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Sunday, June 14, 2009

An Open Window to my World.. Have a Peek

First of all hi everyone
I miss blogging. I miss sharing (but not food). I miss writing poetry. I miss a lot of things but somehow 24 hours per day is very little and I'm wondering again if we could add 8 hours for sleeping to the 24 hours.

A lot happened during May. Many things took place apart than Bu Qtair experience my sister's airplane. But I'm not sharing everything :)
After celebrating my sister's birthday and hospital visit and checkups; I had the chance of meeting a group of Iraqi female bloggers. It was different from other meetings for we had an exact purpose for the meeting other than just to get to know one another (I'll think of sharing later).

A couple of visits to our relatives; they are leaving back to Germany for good. I'm going to miss those five little ones horribly. Whenever I see them I take bunch of photos knowing they are growing up so fast (mashaAllah) but never thought I see them off so soon. Yes, we Iraqis always travel, and yes we have to leave and say goodbye (as touta says) but the bad thing about it is that we never know when, where to, why and how.

As for my atelier, the unwelcomed visitor disappeared and I'm glad for that. Hopefully I won't see him again on the walls, ground, TV or anywhere else. As for my work, I've been working on a collection of letters as per N's request. She wanted me to make the initials of her little ones. If it turned out cute I might share some photos.

My sister Sana left to Amman and I have no one to annoy. The house seems so calm lately. I'm thinking of flying her airplane now but there's a missing battery.
Another reason for being busy, as if I don't have enough reasons, is that I joined the institute of Arabic Calligraphy and Ornament. It's something me and my friend R were thinking of since we were done with the Art institute. After about a year the plane was executed and it feels like we're back to kindergarten. Now I'm sharing photos but please NO laughs.

This is Diwani and you can read about it here. or just write Diwani in Google Images to see the beautiful photos available on the net.


 
Alf

 
Ba'

 
Dal

 
Ra'

Any my favorite so far, ladies and gentlemen, the Seen
 
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That's all for now
and stop laughing at my handwriting

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Friday, June 05, 2009

Bu Qtair Cafeteria

"There's a child inside of all of us" is a phrase that expressed the childish behavior all of us do every now and then but when it comes to my little sister, it's a whole different story. The other day her colleague asked her what does she want for her birthday and my sister innocently said "an airplane". My sister became 24 years old a couple of weeks back.

She came home with gifts and flowers from her colleagues but she was mostly excited about The Airplane! Actually both of us were. But after a couple of hours I got bored and its sound became annoying and forgot about it.

My sister keeps recharging the batteries and keeps annoying me with its sound. I shouldn't have given her the rechargeable ones.

Anyways… to celebrate her birthday, I made some sweets and bought a cake. Then she only wanted us to spend the rest of the evening at Bu Qtair, a seafood restaurant. I don't know what words to use to describe the place and if the word restaurant is applied to such places. This is our second visit but since the place was dark it was hard to get a good photo. Everything was blurred. So let me try to describe.

First of all, we heard about the place from mom's colleague who been there and said it's The place where you taste the Best Fish Ever. She heard of it from an article in one of Dubai's Luxury Magazines and shared the article with mom.

We drove for two hours to get there, only to be disappointed about the bad lighting, seating and the horrible smell of the neighborhood, since it is in Jumaira Beach area. If you happen to walk in Main Street of Jumaira, you'd feel like walking in Cannes Street; it's the best neighborhood in Dubai people dream of living there. But back to where we dined; It was literally a cabin that was located in a Kharaba (abandoned land with remains of a building and usually a lot of garbage here and there). On the same piece of land there were handmade small boats and fishing nets. The only light of that kharaba are the avenue lamps.

The plastic tables and chairs are scattered on the sand of the kharaba. Some people are sitting at tables and others are waiting to be seated. Some are waiting in their cars and others are standing and waiting for their takeaway meals. With this inconvenient setting, it is not easy to get a table. There are no reservations, mind you.

In our first visit we were accompanied by my brother-in-law. After the two-hours-drive, expressions of disappointment were visible on my sister's face as well as mine. He whispered to us "just pretend it's alright and let's wait and see. If you didn't like the food I'll take you to another restaurant". Mom and dad went inside the cabin to order. After about half an hour, a man came out of the cabin and called my Dad's name and took the plates to a different table. We were in a shock! Why he's ignoring us if even if we're saying we're here!

The man disappeared and came after a while. He called a different name but came to our table and to place our order. That was hilarious. In our second visit, we saw a family who looked shocked just like us in our previous visit when his name was called and the food went to a different table.

The plates are plastic but the second time they were disposable. They serve you salad that's made of white cabbage, onion and lime slices. In addition to that, they serve you a spicy red sauce that I have did not even dare to taste. The shrimps made fire comes out of my ears but the taste was too delicious to stop eating.

But the fish! The look was not encouraging but the smell… Oh. My. God. Never tasted such a thing before and I don't think there's a place that cook such delicious fish and now I'm sure if the kharaba was even darker and the smell of the shore way much more horrible, people would still come to taste Bu Qtair's seafood.


Bu Qtair :)


Bu Qtair kitchen inside the cabin


fish


the spicy sauce

That all for now...
Happy belated birthday sis

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