All Juiced Up

Summer has arrived early in Qatar. In reality we should still call it spring since we have a long way to go until June 21, which is considered the official first day of summer. But tell this to the thermometer in my car. The temperature often surpasses 100 F /38 C, in a few weeks it will exceed 120 F /49 C. This year is assumed to be much hotter than previous ones. Fortunately, we will be escaping this heat for 2 months when we go back home for a visit.

So how does one survive this scalding weather? Most of us will now voluntarily stay inside, and most activities will be indoor based. People will flock to bowling alleys, movie theatres, restaurants, and most importantly, to malls in greater numbers then usual. The evenings however are still cooler; it is perfect for alfresco dining in the courtyards of numerous restaurants, or picnicking along the much loved shoreline called the Cornish. In a few weeks however, even this simple pleasure will become a rarity.

In this heat, as all of us know, one needs to continuously hydrate and replenish lost fluids throughout the day. Supermarkets will commence to stock capacious arrays of drinks from all over the world. The expat community is exceptionally large and diverse, and all palates and tastes need to be pleased.

Fruit juices are enormously popular in this part of the world, and they come in an extensive selection. They come freshly squeezed and in bottles, cartons, cans, and in powdered and liquid mixes. The flavors are representative of the world. Fresh Tropicana orange juice from the United States, lemon barley water from the United Kingdom, lychee and durian from Thailand, tamarind from the Philippines, mango and coconut from India, pomegranate from Lebanon, apricot (called qamar el deen) from Egypt … I can go on and on.

A great assortment of other drinks besides juice is also available. Tang, which is now obsolete in the United States, is hugely popular here and is greatly enjoyed by my children as well. A combination of milk and juice (appropriately called juice-milk) is also well liked, especially among children. Flavored milk comes in a mélange of flavors. Along with the more common chocolate, vanilla and strawberry, we also see coffee, mango, guava, chikoo, banana and biscuit flavors. Soft drinks and sports drinks such as Gatorade are also available, but with such great choices of other products, why bother with these? Having said all this, I however, personally prefer the ultimate drink of all – good old water.

The Weekend Project

Despite the fact there is an extremely large expat community here and our social life is steadily improving, there are some weekends in which we feel lethargic, and are quite frankly, downright bored. These are the times when my children need to be coaxed out of their doldrums, so I sometimes come up with projects to break the monotony and engage them in something enticing. Most often, our activities revolve around the kitchen.

Last weekend we decided to make cheesecake. Often the cheesecakes we get in bakeries here are excessively sweet and eggy, or are of the no-bake variety. Neither of these appeals to us, nor do they hold a candle to the ones we used to purchase back home, namely the exquisitely sublime ones from my favorite bakery, The Prolific Oven.

In one of my earlier posts I had lamented on the unavailability of Philadelphia brand cream cheese. Admitting there are many other brands available, for a good cheesecake I believe only Philadelphia will suffice. On a recent visit to the grocery store I saw row upon row of them in the cheese section. Cheese is a fundamental part of the Arab diet; therefore the cheese sections are amazingly well stocked. I will write more about this in a later post, since cheese is an integral part of my diet as well. Upon spotting them I decided to purchase a few packages before they became extinct again. At 11 riyals for an 8 oz. package they did not come cheap, thus hastening my desire to use them without much delay, before they had passed their prime.

I also bought a crate of eggs, since after cheese they are the second most important ingredient. Prior to the Philadelphia scarcity, we went through a long period of an egg shortage. Due to the recent bird flu scare, the import of eggs had ceased from a few countries (Qatar imports most consumer items). This brought an increase in the price of eggs, if one was fortunate enough to find them. The price of baked goods also increased. We basically lived without eggs for almost a month. This deficiency ended a few months ago, yet the prices remain unchanged. We now actually have an abundance of eggs, so much so that I no longer can find packs of six that I once bought, only crates of 30 are available. Sometimes the eggs come with chicken poop still clinging to them, thus forcing me wash each and every one prior to storage. Just an interesting bit of information for you all who live in quality controlled sterilized environments!

Back to the cake making. Both N and A like to help in the kitchen. They crushed the cookies for the crust. They break the eggs (clean ones of course), measure the sugar and other ingredients, and gleefully assist in mixing all ingredients together. H, who does not have much interest in the kitchen activities, is blissfully content he will have something delectable to eat after all this madness. He is however, my ally in the massive clean up operation afterwards.

When using a western recipe here, namely American ones, one often needs to be creative and find suitable alternates. Since graham crackers are not readily available, I substituted them with the classic British biscuits called digestives, which are similar in taste and texture. Eggs come in one size only, which are medium – ish. I therefore used 4 instead of the 3 large ones called by the recipe. Due to the addition of alcohol, availability of most liquid forms of vanilla is scarce; hence I used the more commonly available vanilla sugar. Also, I have a gas oven with the temperature dial in Centigrade (something very foreign to me), so I keep a conversion chart to Fahrenheit nearby. After burning a few things I also found out that gas ovens have a temperament of their own and get hot at a much faster speed. On my upcoming visit back home an oven thermometer is high on the shopping list.

The following is a recipe for the cheesecake my children and I made together. I hope you enjoy making and eating it as much as we did.



Boredom Beating Cheesecake

Ingredients:
1-3/4 cups crushed digestive biscuits (or graham crackers)
1/4 cup melted butter
1-1/4 cups sugar
3 packages (8 oz. each) Philadelphia brand cream cheese, softened
1 cup sour cream
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
2 tsp. vanilla sugar (or extract)
4 medium or 3 large eggs


Instructions:
Preheat oven to 173° C (or350° F). Mix biscuit crumbs, butter and 1/4 cup of the sugar. Press firmly onto bottom and 2 inches up side of a 9 inch springform pan.

Beat cream cheese and the remaining 1 cup sugar in large bowl until well blended. Add sour cream, vanilla and lemon zest; mix well. Add eggs, one at a time, just until blended. Pour this into prepared crust.

Bake 1 hour to 1 hour 10 min. or until center is almost set. Turn oven off. Open oven door slightly. Let cheesecake set in oven 1 hour. Remove cheesecake from oven; cool completely. Refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight. Loosen cheesecake from rim of pan and remove rim. Store any leftover cheesecake in refrigerator.

Recipe courtesy of Kraft Foods.com, with a few of my own substitutions

Calorie or ... Calorie?

When we first arrived in Qatar, the abundance of food products from all over the world were both tantalizing and overwhelming. In the beginning we experimented quite a bit, and often indulged in purchasing an assortment of new, fascinating and often delectable items. Some things we liked and have since remained loyal to, some we did not. In the fervor of the moment we often overlooked the nutritional value of many of the products we purchased.

Now that the honeymoon period is over, I carefully watch what we eat and try to obtain healthier alternatives. I also regularly read the food nutrition and ingredient labels. I hardly see ingredients like ‘partially hydrogenated vegetable oil’ (also known as the much hyped ‘trans fat’) and various forms of ‘high-fructose corn syrup’ in much of the products here, except in the American imports. However, I often do see ‘palm oil’ which is high in saturated fats and equally unhealthy as trans fats, along with the highly undesirable ’monosodium glutamate (MSG)’ in many products, mainly in Asian imports. Even though junk food (snacks such as chips, confectionary items etc) from all over the globe is widely available in great profusion; my children are thankfully not susceptible to much of it. We generally stick to the things we enjoy, both our new finds and old favorites from back home. The fact we are developing brand loyalty is an indication that we have planted our roots in our adopted home.

I have a tremendous love for dairy products; therefore it is not unexpected that one of the items I was drawn to and now greatly enjoy is laban. It is best described as a subtler, creamier and less tart version of buttermilk. It comes unsalted so one can flavor it according to taste, though most drink it plain. Activia, a product of Dannon, is a brand of laban that I usually buy, since it comes fortified with probiotic cultures, which are beneficial to the digestive system. I usually drink it lightly salted with a bit of ground roasted cumin sprinkled on top. It somewhat reminds me of the popular Iranian drink called dugh (minus the club soda), something I used to drink once as a poor college student (they are great with falafels!).

Upon reading Activia’s nutrition label, I found that 100 ml (3.38 US fluid ounces) of the product has 62 kcal’s. Since I am not much familiar with the metric unit, I asked K & H to do some research at tell me how many calories it has. After a few minutes they came up with the number - 62,000 calories. So an 8 oz. glass has 146,3600 calories, enough calories to sustain an average person on a 2000 calorie a day diet for over 741 days!

This number seemed outlandish, to say the least. So I decided to do some research of my own and here is the outcome:

There are 2 types of calories, the first is called the gram calorie (aka small calorie) which is used in scientific context and is often written as cal. It approximates the energy needed to increase the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 °C. The second kind of calorie (aka large calorie) is called the nutritional calorie, the term North Americans are more familiar with. The term kcal is the same as what we commonly call ‘calorie’. So, both colloquially speaking and in nutrition and food labeling, the term "calorie" almost always refers to the kilogram calorie. Hence, 1 nutrition calorie = 1 kcal = 1000 gram calories.

So, K & H were both right yet (thankfully) wrong. I can also discuss how all this relates to kjoules, but I think I have now confused everyone adequately, including myself.