Mr T says I must allow him to be of more help in the kitchen. According to him, it is not a pleasant environment in there when I'm ordering him around.
We came to a compromise: I was stuck at work and unable to prepare four Arabic mezze dishes that we were tasked with bringing to a potluck dinner. I planned to make tabbouleh, baba ganoush (roasted aubergine salad with pomegranate syrup), hummus and batata harra with kuzbara (spicy coriander potatoes).
I had less than an hour to get them all together after work before we had to head off to our dinner, so Mr T decided to step in. This would be his moment to shine.
"Just give me a grocery list and a task list of what I have to do to prepare; everything will be ready when you get home from work," he assured me.
I tried to be as precise as possible with my grocery list:
• Two large eggplants; key word: LARGE!
• One small plastic carton of pomegranates - the ones that are already seeded. "They are tiny little red things," I said. "You like them on frozen yogurt."
• Lemons! Let's say around six. Do NOT call me to ask me how many lemons - I mean it.
• One small lettuce thing. NOT a bag of lettuce, NOT iceberg lettuce, just the original lettuce that we never buy because I told you I hate washing it.
That part went fairly well; he had no inquiries and he stuck to the list.
Then, less than two hours before I was due home to assemble the dishes, he texted me to say he was washing his car and then stopping off to visit with his family. I did some fast calculations. That would give him less than 10 minutes to do things that would usually take me an hour, and would probably take him two. Roasting the eggplants alone, then letting them cool to scoop out the insides, would take more than an hour.
I tried not to sound too flabbergasted on the phone when I explained to him that he needed to get home a little sooner than he'd planned.
"Hey, I'm not backing out, I mean it, I'm gonna do it all," he promised.
And he did try. He really did try - as evidenced by the sight that greeted me when I walked into our kitchen that afternoon. He had chopped up most of the vegetables, squeezed the lemons, minced the garlic, done an all around excellent job. The eggplants, however? They were a sorry, raw sight, barely cooked through. According to Mr T, it wasn't his fault. My directions were "not clear enough" as well as being "too complicated" and "a little scary". So he gave up halfway through, and tried a different route - one he calls "the next best thing".
He got a Lebanese restaurant to deliver two of the four dishes - tabbouleh and hummus - and then he plated them in two of my favourite platters and greeted me with a "ta da!" Never mind that I had already made the tabbouleh the day before; it was chilling in the fridge.
"That's OK, now you have so much tabbouleh, you can just forget about those other two dishes," he said to me.
He could not understand why in the world I was not impressed by his so-called "genius" solution, or why I chose to rage and rant instead of thanking him profusely. Needless to say, we showed up sans baba ganoush to the dinner and with enough tabbouleh to feed a hungry football team.
hkhalaf@thenational.ae
The specs: 2018 Dodge Durango SRT
Price, base / as tested: Dh259,000
Engine: 6.4-litre V8
Power: 475hp @ 6,000rpm
Torque: 640Nm @ 4,300rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Fuel consumption, combined: 7.7L / 100km
The past Palme d'Or winners
2018 Shoplifters, Hirokazu Kore-eda
2017 The Square, Ruben Ostlund
2016 I, Daniel Blake, Ken Loach
2015 Dheepan, Jacques Audiard
2014 Winter Sleep (Kış Uykusu), Nuri Bilge Ceylan
2013 Blue is the Warmest Colour (La Vie d'Adèle: Chapitres 1 et 2), Abdellatif Kechiche, Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux
2012 Amour, Michael Haneke
2011 The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick
2010 Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Lung Bunmi Raluek Chat), Apichatpong Weerasethakul
2009 The White Ribbon (Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte), Michael Haneke
2008 The Class (Entre les murs), Laurent Cantet
Company%20Profile
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Three ways to boost your credit score
Marwan Lutfi says the core fundamentals that drive better payment behaviour and can improve your credit score are:
1. Make sure you make your payments on time;
2. Limit the number of products you borrow on: the more loans and credit cards you have, the more it will affect your credit score;
3. Don't max out all your debts: how much you maximise those credit facilities will have an impact. If you have five credit cards and utilise 90 per cent of that credit, it will negatively affect your score.
FORSPOKEN
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Starfield
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Citadel: Honey Bunny first episode
Directors: Raj & DK
Stars: Varun Dhawan, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Kashvi Majmundar, Kay Kay Menon
Rating: 4/5
Thank You for Banking with Us
Director: Laila Abbas
Starring: Yasmine Al Massri, Clara Khoury, Kamel El Basha, Ashraf Barhoum
Rating: 4/5
Cricket World Cup League 2
UAE squad
Rahul Chopra (captain), Aayan Afzal Khan, Ali Naseer, Aryansh Sharma, Basil Hameed, Dhruv Parashar, Junaid Siddique, Muhammad Farooq, Muhammad Jawadullah, Muhammad Waseem, Omid Rahman, Rahul Bhatia, Tanish Suri, Vishnu Sukumaran, Vriitya Aravind
Fixtures
Friday, November 1 – Oman v UAE
Sunday, November 3 – UAE v Netherlands
Thursday, November 7 – UAE v Oman
Saturday, November 9 – Netherlands v UAE
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Qyubic
Started: October 2023
Founder: Namrata Raina
Based: Dubai
Sector: E-commerce
Current number of staff: 10
Investment stage: Pre-seed
Initial investment: Undisclosed
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Jawab Iteiqal
Director: Mohamed Sammy
Starring: Mohamed Ramadan, Ayad Nasaar, Mohamed Adel and Sabry Fawaz
2 stars
The biog
Age: 23
Occupation: Founder of the Studio, formerly an analyst at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi
Education: Bachelor of science in industrial engineering
Favourite hobby: playing the piano
Favourite quote: "There is a key to every door and a dawn to every dark night"
Family: Married and with a daughter
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre turbo
Power: 181hp
Torque: 230Nm
Transmission: 6-speed automatic
Starting price: Dh79,000
On sale: Now
How tumultuous protests grew
- A fuel tax protest by French drivers appealed to wider anti-government sentiment
- Unlike previous French demonstrations there was no trade union or organised movement involved
- Demonstrators responded to online petitions and flooded squares to block traffic
- At its height there were almost 300,000 on the streets in support
- Named after the high visibility jackets that drivers must keep in cars
- Clashes soon turned violent as thousands fought with police at cordons
- An estimated two dozen people lost eyes and many others were admitted to hospital
The specs
Engine: Dual 180kW and 300kW front and rear motors
Power: 480kW
Torque: 850Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh359,900 ($98,000)
On sale: Now
If you go
Where to stay: Courtyard by Marriott Titusville Kennedy Space Centre has unparalleled views of the Indian River. Alligators can be spotted from hotel room balconies, as can several rocket launch sites. The hotel also boasts cool space-themed decor.
When to go: Florida is best experienced during the winter months, from November to May, before the humidity kicks in.
How to get there: Emirates currently flies from Dubai to Orlando five times a week.