TIME TRAVEL; A Waste of time !!

I’ve always loved the idea of time travel….

The chance to do things right the next time around, with the wisdom of hindsight, the chance to pre-empt events, the chance to look smarter to everyone as you seemingly guess life’s little events and grab at them as if you knew they were the right things to do…

Well today I went back in time, not far, but far enough.

I boarded a flight at 8am, fell asleep (or was I secretly transported in an unconscious state through a worm hole?) and when we landed the pilot said, we had fantastic tail winds and the time is now 7.59 am as we landed and hour later in another country…I had a full minute to make good on decisions and events. This new land that I was in, was in retrospect early civilization, albeit early only by one minute.

If only it had been one year and one minute I thought, or ten years and one minute…what exactly would my first processes of a new life entail with all my stored knowledge….

For certain I’d buy more Apple shares, I’d borrow money and buy everything I could in Apple shares, (people would warn me never to borrow to buy shares but in this case I’d throw caution to the wind and go mad.)

Anyway, today was just a little step back in time.

But it was an amazing feeling. Walking through the airport, driving the car to my other home , it all felt so vaguely familiar.

Like I’d done it all before. Then I approached the guards checkpoint near home and despite not having been there for so long, they recognized me and all came over to shake my hand and one to even welcome me in broken English as his machine gun scraped the side of my car !!! How do you yell at someone for doing that,  in this circumstance !! I chose to ignore the scratch, that’s how…ha ha ha..

Today it felt like I’d stepped back much further in time than a minute.

Even though I had achieved just one minute in real time, it was a stepping stone. One day I’d board a craft and go back further I’m sure. It is an amazing feeling.

I felt for the first time in months a feeling of belonging and a sense of being home, then, I guess as that minute passed, I realised my friends had not stepped back in time with me, and that I was alone…

At Trader Vics for dinner I ordered a Samoan Fog Cutter and a Rum Cosmo.

The bar looked the same as it did when my friend and confidante and I would meet here to discuss the world and its problems...But the bar was the only thing the same !!

I was told by the greatest friend in the world that the trick to avoiding intoxication was to eat the pineapple first from the Rum Cosmo. It was the pineapple mastication which prevented intoxication…

I guess it worked, but after the sixth Fog Cutter I don’t remember… I woke up at home and the car in the drive way where it was suppose to be, so it must have !!!

But the Rum Cosmo sat staring at me all evening, un-imbibed.  My friend had not travelled back in time with me…Next time I’d warn him in advance.

So even though I could go back in time, even though I could be wiser and richer if I did, friendships would be different because it takes "time" to develop strong unbreakable bonds of respect and admiration, to understand the other person, to know what they are like and what they feel and to develop a connection…Going backwards debilitates those bonds by lack of 'time" and makes them weaker or non existent.

Friendships are worth far more than any other riches....rich people can be poor in happiness you know !!

For that sake, I don’t want to time travel anymore.

 I may have felt at home and at peace for the first time in a long time. 

The feeling of stepping through the door into your own home is sensational but I was without my friends, and that made it less enjoyable.

It’s the little things we never think about when we dream of going back in time that make the difference. 

Anyway in the future, (last night) I had dinner in Dubai with an truly wonderful person and amazing friend.  I have never travelled 400 kilometers round trip for a single meal before, only to be so engaged and enjoy myself so much that I never ate until the last mile home at 2.30 am.  

It was a fairy book evening.  Water fountains, music, birds chirping and fans blowing cooling water spray….it was truly sensational along with the conversation and laughs. The evening did not just happen either, we had gotten to know each other over a period of "time",  traded messages and emails and become attuned with each others sensibilities and personae. 

That too occurs over "time", going backward would mean we had not met yet or perhaps never would..

 So today I time travelled backward  and for now I’m enjoying my minute in the past….I’ll drag it out for a few days, I can enjoy the best things I have here, visit places I know, and relax.

Relaxation is the one thing that hindsight can give us, a feeling of peace, safety and relaxation for we know what is before us, what is coming and what is around the corner for we have lived it all before…at least for a few days I know what is coming anyway.…lots of sleep, before a return to Hellsaffa?

But as for staying in the past or learning to time travel further back, I think I’ll leave that to the Higgs Boson scientists, because for me, time is nothing if it does not make close friendships, and I have at least two friends, one in Dubai and one in Australia who I never want to be without…

I can’t wait to return to the future and see them both again soon

See you in the future folks.

“If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh -

Breeze of Change, Droplets of Wonder

A friend of mine has been emailing all week from Dubai and praying for rain...

Ha, little chance as we receive nothing less than 40 degrees most days. 

Then yesterday in Dubai during a Sandstorm, they got rain..albeit a few sputtering droplets, it was none the less rain.

It's funny what we pray for....we want rain but when they received it, it was not as they had imagined...but on the back of a sandstorm, turning everything dirty brown and as todays email stated, "turned my car into something from a war zone"...

I guess my friend should have prayed for clear, clean rain , praying to be in another country at the time of it would probably help as well..

I'm down the road though in Abu Dhabi and we have not seen rain for....well all I can attest to is 60 long days....before that I'm not sure when they had rain but certainly not since my trip here this time....

and theres not much greenery growing in the dessert areas around Mussafa thats for sure.

But instead of praying for rain, which in any case would be about as successful as my friends request which ended in a mud bath for Dubai, I have a better plan ....

I'm heading home , back to Bahrain and back to the gorgeous oasis which is my home....The walnut floors, the teak cabinets, the three bathrooms, the private office where so many words have been tapped out onto laptops , the amazing pool which in summers heat will be an amazing relief and for everything else that that place holds dear for me....my sanctuary... 

I have one rule in my house and that is that phones remain off inside....It is zen quiet on my home...Unnerving for some...but I refuse to be bothered in this place of wonder...the views are all that one needs to take in and the solitude, the peace from a maddening world and sleep...yes long , long days of sleep.

Anyway's before I head back home, and onto the next adventure, I thought I'd post a few of this weeks amazing creations from the kitchens of BLOSSOM SWEETS in Abu Dhabi before I leave.... 

I M.I.Z. Abu Dhabi !!!

There is a point every morning as I breach the crest of Mussafa bridge at 16^th street where the peace of the accommodation center of this part of the world changes for a whole different world for the next 8-10 hours…

There should be a sign post at the top of the bridge….not of speed limits, not of the bumpy road ahead, but a man pulling his hair out with the notation, ”NUTS AHEAD”, welcome to CRAZY VILLE..

For Mussaffa truly is full of nuts and the next ten hours are about pulling one’s hair out….Crazy best describes the road system and the drivers.

Draw a  map of the Mussafa Industrial Zone (M.I.Z) and there comes a point where you just have a stack of lines veering off one another….there are no street names here….

I tried explaining to a supplier yesterday, go straight on 16^th street, turn left onto 13^th street then turn left into…well just turn left then right, then second right and well after that follow your nose….. We are the factory that smells nice…!!!

Moving to Abu Dhabi I had visions of the grand Emirates Palace, the modern structures of grandeur that fill the Internet, ideas of YAS island and so many glistening buildings of grandiose design that we have all seen and been impressed by in real estate magazines.

Mussaffa, well, it is like an arm pit …. Necessary , serves a purpose but not the kind of place you want to spend eternity….

And we won’t we are moving on within a year or so, currently working out a new kitchen plan and building the kitchen of dreams to take our endeavor ever forward…..

For now at least Mussaffa has one great asset…………………………………….. hang on, I’m thinking……………….oh yes……………....we get Radio 2 from Dubai, which is truly heaven on earth….

They play such fantastic music….and they have the greatest morning team to ever hit the airwaves...seriously funny duo that makes mornings worthwhile again.......after 7 years of radio dribble in another land....

There are days when I’m working long and hard and even tired I feel like I’m an apprentice once again working in the back pastry area of OSCARS restaurant on the Gold Coast, age 14 and just starting my apprenticeship… Don henley's Boys of Summer and Pharaohs by Tears for Fear, Vienna by Ultravox and U2 where all the big thing and to hear them again today….makes this maddening chaos all worth while…

Some days , living in the armpit of the UAE just isn’t so bad ….I close the doors to the kitchen, put on my chefs jacket and rock around the kitchen like a 14 year old…..and thus I join the citizens of NUTS VILLE , which we all  lovingly call the Mussafa Industrial Zone.... Being nuts has never been such fun....

Ying and Yang

“Cause and effect, ying and yang, butterfly wings and ripples in the pond, no matter how you phrase it, everything we do has a result, what you do now matters, what you don’t do know matters.”

I feel a change in the air this season.

Well why not? 

In a year that has been filled with strange changes;  good and bad, sad and happy. Relationships have come and gone , countries leaders have come and gone, disasters and their after effects have come and stayed with those involved.

What a year, and this is only June ….Half way!!!!!

In the  Middle East summer is baring down upon us fast. Some are already contemplating their departures for cooler shores from now till Ramadan and even beyond.  For those uncertain and not from our shores, summer here is very, very hot.

And so we enter summer.

What to call it?

I mean it has to have a name these days. Starting earlier in the year, around Valentines day everything became labeled for us. What began in late 2010 as the Autumn of Uprisings, soon became the  Winter of Discontent which lead to the Spring of Rage, which then lead to the Summer of ?

Well lets hope anyway it is the Summer of Peace and Contentment and nothing more. Life is tough enough without the added stresses placed upon us all this year.

And so I come back to the changes that are in the air.

A friend from Abu Dhabi asked me to come up with some HALWA flavored desserts and cakes. Halwa is not something I have had a lot of time for. Its not my kind of dessert. Well there you go, I was wrong again !!

Just looking at the stuff in its plastic containers and poking it, does not actually account for having tried it.

I have seen it made at where we work. It always mystified me. Few ingredients, strange colors and a finished product which , well, did not inspire me in the slightest.

And then I was given a challenge. Create from it. And so I did. And I have to say, it’s a pretty good source of inspiration once you get your head around what it actually is. To the un-initiated let me say HALWA is pretty close to Turkish Delight, less perfumed without rose water and less gelatinous, and considering it is heavily peppered with nuts, it is a very texturous product. Adding great substance to several of the desserts I made from it.

The Gateau Voyage Version with Halwa Centre

It makes a sensational mousse, if you follow a few tricks of the trade, and does not require gelatine to set. A plus for this region. Halwa is perfect by itself and suits fresh fruits due to its sweetness. (the tartness of berries and fresh peaches perfect for accompanying it) and truly comes into it's own when baked into a subtle moist coconut cake.

A sweet coconut cake hiding a sweet sticky surprise in its centre!!!

Take a look at some of the things created with this tasty, delicacy of the Moen Orient.

Sometimes its great to be thrown a challenge.

To create with an ingredient you could never have imagined working with and successfully creating something which inspires you.
Some days we seem to be nothing more than guinea pigs on a treadmill going no-where, other days, well they are filled with HALWA, and this guinea pig is thankful for that. 

Sensational Red Halwa Cakes

Ispahan Halwa Vert with Mahalabiyeh

Ispahan Red halwa with fresh peaches

Halwa Mousse Cake with Creme Brulee Centre

Red Halwa Mousse Cake, Inside