On food

I think you'll find that when it comes to American women cooking in their overseas homes, their frequency of use of imported ingredients from their home country can best be classified as falling somewhere along a spectrum. At one end, you have people like (forgive my characterizations if they are imperfect, ladies) Amira and Sarah, who seem to be skilled at - and dedicated to - eating as "natively" as possible. Even when some essential ingredient isn't available, they find a great local substitution, or cope simply by not making that food anymore.

On the other end of the spectrum is my friend Ashley, whose skill at planning, buying, shipping, and unpacking a few years' worth of American consumables for use in Azerbaijan amazes me. She has everything she needs to cook her favorites, and it's thanks to her superior organizational habits, not the whims of the local grocery stores.

I've been at the native end of the spectrum before, mostly in Syria because western food was almost entirely unavailable there, and at the cushy embassy end, too, thanks to our access to the commissary in Moscow. Here in the UAE, I think I'm somewhere in the middle. I shop at Carrefour, which does have a wide variety of products available from all over the world right alongside the local stuff, but the selection is not skewed toward American tastes.

If I wanted to be completely true to my American cooking habits, I'd have to shop exclusively at Spinney's, specifically at the one in Mirdif, because it is the Mecca of imported-food grocery stores, at least the ones I've seen here.

But you can't get Tillamook cheese here, not even at the Mirdif Spinney's, and all of this is to say that when I ate my first slice of Tillamook Sharp Cheddar (brought to the UAE by my mom a few weeks ago), actual tears came to my eyes. It reminded me so much of my formative years, of my favorite foods, of the country I grew up in. I knew I loved the stuff; I didn't know I would cry at the taste of it.

I guess my cooking habits will always remain a little bit foreign, a little bit American. As much as I'd like to go completely native, there are certain foods I love too much to give up.

A new semester

I started teaching again today. I'm teaching two more sections of the same class I taught last semester. One of the things I love about teaching is that every once in a while - every year, or semester, or session - you get a fresh, new crop of students. You get to put away all the damage and history and drama of the previous classes and start all over again. Of course, you also have to start from scratch establishing respect, rapport, and understanding, too, so it's not always an entirely welcome changeover.

Today I had a few students from last year come into my office to say hello. It was so nice to know that they were glad to see me. Then again, those students who wouldn't be glad to see me aren't about to seek me out in my office...

This morning's new beginning went well. I met about half my students (the registration process is still ongoing) and I have the usual kids from KSA and the UAE, with a Nigerian, Cameroon/Gabonian, and Chechen thrown in for good measure. I can't wait to see what adventures I'll have this semester! I hope I'll even be able to blog about some of them.

Places where I've attended church worship services

Just because I got to thinking about it.

United States (Several congregations in Oregon, a few each in Arizona, California, Idaho, and Utah, and at least one each in Alaska, New York, Missouri, Vermont, and Massachusetts)

Japan (Kyoto, Tokyo)

Russia (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Krasnoyarsk)

Czech Republic (Prague)

Syria (Damascus)

Jordan (Amman, Irbid)

Israel/Palestine (Jerusalem, Tiberias)

Lebanon (Beirut)

Turkey (Istanbul)

Egypt (Cairo)

UAE (Sharjah)

Qatar (Doha)

Oman (Muscat)

Kuwait (Kuwait City)

Setting aside the platitude of "the Church (of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) is the same wherever you go," I have to say that Mormondom is a very small world sometimes. We have shown up at random branches in random foreign countries before and run into people we know. It happened to us in Kuwait, in fact, where we knew no fewer than four individuals in that congregation from previous years of our lives.

When we went to church in Oman, the speaker mentioned in his talk a story about a girl we knew in Amman.

In Egypt, I gave a talk in church about the Armenian Mormons in Turkey who were evacuated to Aleppo, Syria in the early 20th century. When I was finished, an American lady who was visiting church that day came up and said to me, "oh, my grandpa was one of those Armenians and you actually said his name during your talk."

SMALL WORLD.

In conclusion, the most beautiful Mormon chapels I've ever seen are the ones in Israel/Palestine. The Jerusalem congregation meets at the BYU Jerusalem Center. You can see the Dome of the Rock from the chapel. In Tiberias, one whole wall of the chapel is a glass window looking out over the Sea of Galilee. Of course, a close third place has to be the cultural hall in Moscow with neon green felt decor and gold balls on the walls. Or perhaps the car repair garage where we met for church in Kyoto. Not.

Blogorrhea re: Kuwait

Except for a momentary panic about the currency conversion for Kuwaiti Dinars - we were tipping the hotel dudes 1 dinar and there was some confusion after the fact as to whether that was a couple of bucks, or a couple of cents - our vacation in Kuwait has been wonderful. It's our first time traveling without the kids and while we are enjoying doing what we want, when we want to, with no regard for the whims and fussing of children, we are also finding ourselves pointing out all the little things they would enjoy if they were here, and wondering what they would say at certain times. Sigh.

We went to church in Kuwait.

February 3rd, outsourced

Three book-related links: first, a cute video showing what books in a bookstore do after closing time. [HT Ashi]

Second, this amazing illustrated relationship algorithm for books (or whatever) on Amazon. [HT Matt]

And third, some children's books online for those of us without a kids' library nearby. [HT Nancy]

This happened to me only once during a piano performance, thank goodness.

Here's what the most annoying tweet imaginable would look like. Sounds about right.

I guess I should be glad that my kids have played on all kinds of dangerous playgrounds, with crooked, rusted metal slides and swings with jagged rocks underneath...?

I've never heard it put quite like this, but I think she's right: Mormons don't really believe in hell. (I have Ms. Brooks' The Book of Mormon Girl sitting on my Kindle, waiting to be read, by the way.)

I remember when we lived in Moscow we saw an ad with George Clooney in it and I was kind of surprised. Turns out that kind of thing is totally normal overseas.

The GFY girls' figure skating costume critiques have got to be just as fun as the figure skating itself. Keep a clear eye for a reference to The Cutting Edge.