We've Moved!

Gosh I don't even know what to write about that...we've moved to Abu Dhabi. I must say, first impressions I don't like it so well. We seem to be out in the middle of nowhere. We've found one gas station and one grocery store in this area, everything else is about 20 minutes away. Nothing is as convenient or handy as it was in Dubai. I love the villa, just don't care for the area. The villa is about 4000 sq ft with 5 ensuite bedrooms, a small maids room and bath, plus a nice laundry area, two half baths...now if you're counting, that's 8 toilets total, there are 3 showers and 2 tubs total. There are 2 family rooms, 1 formal living room, 1 formal dining room and a large kitchen with a huge center island. Why is it no matter how large a kitchen there are never enough cabinets? I don't get that. Quite honestly if there were more cabinets here I would likely never find anything. I might need a map now. We have a private garden and pool. This complex is on a golf course, it has a large community pool, sauna and steam rooms, gym with equipment, a small grocery store, a nice cafe that serves breakfast, lunch and dinner courses along with coffee and pastries. There are some meeting rooms in the clubhouse too and all of that is just 4 villas away from me. Very convenient just remember we're in the middle of nowhere! I've hired a maid service for 2 days a week and for the moment have a friends maid with me for a few days. So helpful....the floors and dust here are a constant problem and I'm too old for all of that...or at the very least my body is too old.
The move certainly pointed out a few things to me...one we're too old for this stuff! two it's a lot of work and three I really need to downsize. I've been doing my best to toss with wild abandon. As you all know I quilt, that seems to be the worst of the boxes and moving mess...sigh...I will definitely downsize all of that fabric and those books and supplies. I've begun the process. For now I need to concentrate on packing to come home for the summer...oh much to do.
This is the outside of the villa...a small garden is in front along with a garage, then two kind of narrow walkways to the back, one on either side, then a nice sized pool in the back...large enough to get some good exercise and thus far we've found early mornings and early evenings to be quite enjoyable...sort of like taking a warmish bath...the pool is about 5 strokes long...not bad.
So the maid service I have (never had that before) is a man and his wife...they are so sweet, Sri Lankans....he does gardening and odd jobs and will wash my car too. They have a 4 year old daughter who comes about 1 day a week. She loves to draw, she's at that age...so I've bought her an easel and thus far just the magic pens and a roll of paper...there is also a chalk board and one of those magic wipe boards on the easel...I can't wait til she comes again and plays there. She's the same age as my grand daughter and though it's not exactly the same, it's kind of nice just having a little giggler around now and then. Her parents are just marvelous, fast, efficient...lovely cheerful people. They will look after things while we're gone too...so nice. They were very highly recommended by a colleague of Tom's and they actually live with them, though they needed extra work...so they come here twice a week for about five hours...perfect for me! Also gives me company. Our other friend is in the states for a month so her maid agreed to come and help me for a few days...she's staying with us in the guest room though, those maids rooms are only about the size of a small walk in closet and would only hold a cot...I can't have anyone sleeping in my house like that! She's also lovely...very beautiful Ethiopian girl...she works at a nice steady pace. We have actually been working together to get us settled in here. I briefly showed her how to single crochet this am and told her once we quit for the day, after supper, I will help her begin a project...she's so excited, she's beside herself. How grand is that? Typically at the end of her day she just goes to her room...I don't know if she reads or writes or anything...some of these folks live such a sad sad life...this beautiful child is only 25 years old and has been here as a maid since she was 16, she sends all of her earnings home to support her mother, father and two sisters and a brother. We hear this story all the time...for us as middle class Americans it is just unimaginable how these folks live every single day! My heart cries for them. This weekend we packed her off to visit her cousin here and as we were preparing...I looked at her and just went and hugged her...then hurriedly walked away so she could not see the tears. Just giving her extra work makes a huge difference in her life, also the other maid/gardener/handyman couple...same thing. Most American's have no inkling how truly fortunate they are...these folks are a daily reminder for me and I treat them as I would want to be treated and i work right along with them...until I wear out then I quit and something in them just keeps them going...they are truly amazing.
A couple of books worth reading....The Help by Kathryn Stockett about maids in the deep South during the mid 60's...shame on those senseless folks who employed them, also The Island by Victoria Hislop about the Spinalonga leper colony off the coast of Crete the book goes from modern times back to WWII...amazing what those folks endured.
I have much to do....will post pictures as my progress increases...I'm done with three bedrooms, l/r d/r f/r 1 and all the bathrooms...am working on my sewing room. After the curtains are in I'll take some pictures and post them.

Oh let me see....memories of Gabatoni's pizza

Thursday evenings begin our weekend here in Dubai and about 3 weeks ago I tried these two recipes from this book I had bought Tom for Christmas. I got him pans too and a pizza peel. We had been so frustrated trying to find a decent pizza here, it's not easy to be sure. There is one restaurant called Il Forno in Mirdiff Mall that is not bad but they do not use proper pepperoni. They do however have this wonderful very thin and crispy potato strings they add to certain pizzas we rather like that. But if you're from Springfield, Ilinois, USA and we are, you should know Gabatoni's Pizza. We never miss a trip to Gabbie's on our trips home. We've gone there since high school days over 45 years ago. Of course we always go to Joe Roger's too...oh Marianne if you stumble on this silly little blog, we do miss you! Now if I could even come close to her chili my work here would be done...
We did notice last night that Dubai Mall has a new pizzaria, we must try that place, we noticed it has a proper brick oven with a live fire...oh wish we had one of those to be sure!
If you want the best pizza on earth please visit Pompeii, Italy...there is a medium sized restaurant just to the right of the entrance to the ruins...sort of back a tiny bit on the right, totally family run place, sadly I do not know the name of it. But the brick oven was first and foremost in the restaurant....and the place was so simple and the pizza was simply magnificent! I took pictures of that pizza but they're not on my computer...those authentic brick ovens the pizza gets little tiny burnt crispy bits on top...oh it's just marvelous. Worth the trip. We ate pizza all along the Amalfi Coast...wow what a trip!



Start with this book and pans like these. The book can be purchased at all major bookstores and is online at Amazon. I use the Sciilian pizza dough recipe it has lemon juice in it. The recipe will easily make four 10 inch thin crusts.. I lightly grease the pan with olive oil and a paper towel before putting the crust on it. Another wonderful thing is you can so easily divide this dough into rounds, refrigerate them in zip loc bags, use within a few days. I bet you could freeze it even though I have not tried that. When I did refrigerate it, I let it come to room temp, then rolled it out. I roll it up onto my rolling pin to put it on the pizza pan. Once the pizza is thoroughly cooked it slides off onto a cutting surface very easily. I think it is the lemon juice that makes this dough so perfect...it truly is perfect. At this point this is the best pizza we've had in Dubai, they don't know pizza here.


Bake naked pizza 3 to 5 minutes.

I make my sauce exactly like the recipe in the book for pizzaiola sauce except that I am rather fond of shallots so I add two finely chopped shallots to my sauce and I just used Green Giant brand whole peeled roma tomatoes and squeezed them into the pan, I do not strain etc as the recipe suggests as I rather like a small chunk of tomato here and there.


This pizza is mushrooms, sliced shallots and wonderful tangy green olives, they have nothing inside them. I use fresh mozzarella that you can buy in a loaf here in Dubai, they will happily slice it for you, so I get about 1/3 of a loaf sliced.
I have also made a white pizza, I brush the crust with olive oil, add finely chopped garlic toes, my fresh garden basil and cover with mozzarella...ummmm good. I can't resist these wonderful olives so I add them too.


This is half of Tom's pizza or nothing but pepperoni...in the states it would also have sausage but he's not fond of any of the sausages here in Dubai. I also sprinkle the pizzas with parmegiano reggiano before adding my mozzarella, it's a bit cheaper here than at home in the states, but now I'm spoiled by it and will always use it. I didn't post the actual recipes due to copyright issues...wouldn't want anyone mad at me. A friend or relative can email me and I will send it though. The book is nice and you will enjoy all the recipes. I'm making focaccia next. This recipe is so near to Gabatoni's that we feel we have that wonderful "taste of home" that we miss so much.

Backtracking

Well yes we did go home for Christmas...so lovely to be there with our family....the result is a picture with all our grandchildren, such a rare occasion that we're all together at once, for some reason we did not get in any pictures with our children...hmmm...
It was so grand to see them...and now we miss them and they're all busy doing stuff we're missing. I hate that part. I will be packed and ready to go home come summer!

Valentine's Day and Life Lesson #11

Happy Valentine's Day friends, neighbors and family. I'm missing home and family today and my heart is full of memories. How sweet my daughter sent me this big heart a little while ago and I just wanted to share it.
So what is life lesson #11...well it's simple really...don't plan on a romantic Valentine's Day with a sweetie who has the flu! Actually I knew yesterday he had the flu...so my gift to him today was to get up bright and early and make homemade chicken soup. We'll celebrate the day on Thursday, hoping of course, that the flu is on the mend. We're going to go see True Grit, it opens in Dubai then. We'll go to Pottery Barn to pick some pillows for our new couch, our gift to each other. We've gotten all the romantic gifts over the years so we decided we'd get pillows this year.


I'm working on a scarf using Bamboo yarn, it's about 2 feet long now and still growing, but I have a picture here of when it began so you can see the colors. It's keeping me busy in the evenings while watching tv. I went back and got a few more skeins, in fact all they had, and got a plain creamy white to add to it. More to come on that and I'll eventually post another picture of my living room with pillows added. The pale turquoise color yarn is for my daughter, it's called Rosemary, love that name for it, the creamy white is not pictured here.

Probably time to make my sweetie a cup of hot tea.

I checked and it's Life Lesson #9 and I'll add #10 too

I'm so sure there will be a great many more life lessons...well I could go right on into 10...and that would be find a better hairdo...oh my...I'm never in one place quite long enough to get into a good routine with my hair. My hair has grown so long it is reaching hag status...oh yes, HAG. It is accentuating the grey and the wrinkles! AAACCKKK! I must straight away make an appointment once I'm back in Dubai, for my hair! My hair has grown so fast that I look as if I'm wrapped in a grey blanket on my head! AAACCKKK! My husband says he likes it long...I honestly think he cannot see at this point. I think while I make a hair appointment I will have a massage for my weary traveling bones...bonus! Until then if you see a brown paper bag with eye holes cut out..that would be me under it!

Bible Study/Life Lesson #9 or is it 10?

So here are the lovely ladies, my new friends. Left to right Carol, Jenny, Lorene, Linda, Ruth, Sarah, Barbara. Ruth is my dear neighbor, my pickle friend. I'll explain that another day.
If one waits long enough one can experience yet another Life Lesson #9...that is, if one desires to spend time with one certain neighbor, the pickle lady, then one opens oneself up to a plethora of new friends and in my case the Bible to boot. I had never done any sort of Bible Study before, though I do think of myself as a Christian and I can pretty much name the books of the Bible by memory and even quote a scripture or two fairly accurately. Actually for me studying the Bible amounted to reading passages and figuring out, with the other ladies, what it really meant. Sort of like a Book Club except this book is the Bible. So it was a double bonus, new friends and a new understanding of parts of the Bible I had not explored before. Even a triple bonus as the entire experience reminded me of my grandparents and that is always a good memory.
And speaking of memory I so want to remember this group of ladies, they are each and every one so special.

so where did I go to escape the snow?

The beach of course! It was a tad chillyish there too however there was no snow. I did fall on the boardwalk to the beach as it was covered in frost, who knew? The sun had not yet hit the boardwalk and just where I fell there was a dip downwards and kersplunk I went! I survived but my arthritis is telling me daily for a couple of days now how much it did not like that jolt!
We're now back home in the mountains, enjoying it here while missing it there at the beach. I've been blog reading whilst drinking my coffee. I love OPB'S...or Other People's Blogs. I made several comments this morning and now wonder if I will ever hear from that lady, I bookmarked her, maybe I'll visit her again...her blog made my mind go spinning with even more ideas than it had before. Maybe that's why I love OPB'S. I shared a couple of ideas and quickie recipes. I'll do the quickie recipes here later, I want to add pictures when I do that so I'll wait on that.
This is what I witnessed after I finally made it down to the beach....one of God's greatest gifts, a gorgeous sunrise.
So what were my ideas? Hmmm...well last year I purchased a box full of hand drawn caricatures in frames at a "flea" shop at the beach, or maybe it was two summers ago...well anyway...I had planned to hang them all in my redecorated bathroom or have them transferred to tiles, making a border around the middle of the wall...well I didn't do that, but I also had thought of copying them on the copier, then applying them to muslin, embroider them, then add some patchwork around the edges and make pillows. Now those two were my original ideas, this morning I thought...oh wow...I could make piles of pillows for the bed I want my husband to build...I've seen two styles of single size beds that hang from chains on a porch, we could do our own version of that, pile it up with my caricature pillows and a cozy afghan...I'm always making one of those and how cute would that be?!!! A perfect quiet reading spot on the porch. It would also be a nice airplane project...stitching all those pieces by hand. We travel a lot. I could prepare several pieces to keep me busy and very soon I would have a bed full of fun pillows. I have over 30, maybe closer to 50 caricatures to choose from. Now to convince my hubby to build that enclosed porch on the back of our beach joint. I have the entire thing pictured in my minds eye.
It's good to daydream because sometimes they really do come true. Many many years ago I started collecting yellow casseroles and other kitchen items, all yellow from junk shops, TJ Maxx, garage sales, whatever I could find...for my beach house. My oldest daughter thought I was nuts, I carefully wrapped them all up and kept them in an old antique cupboard, once in a while day dreaming about my someday house...well someday came in 2006 when we bought our place...it was years coming but so worth the wait and there were all my little sunny yellow bits and pieces to go in my house. They were all $1 to $5 items and what fun! I had even bought a set of white with yellow trim melmac dishes I brought home from Dubai...again, they thought I was nuts. I brought yellow plastic glasses and serving dishes. All cheap things, and all look terrific in our beach joint. I love it!
So in conclusion, it pays to daydream...now I'll begin to make those pillows...and nurture that porch daydream.