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 ]
MATCH INFO
Manchester City 4 (Gundogan 8' (P), Bernardo Silva 19', Jesus 72', 75')
Fulham 0
Red cards: Tim Ream (Fulham)
Man of the Match: Gabriel Jesus (Manchester City)
DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, Emma Corrin
Director: Shawn Levy
Rating: 3/5
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Xpanceo
Started: 2018
Founders: Roman Axelrod, Valentyn Volkov
Based: Dubai, UAE
Industry: Smart contact lenses, augmented/virtual reality
Funding: $40 million
Investor: Opportunity Venture (Asia)
The biog
From: Upper Egypt
Age: 78
Family: a daughter in Egypt; a son in Dubai and his wife, Nabila
Favourite Abu Dhabi activity: walking near to Emirates Palace
Favourite building in Abu Dhabi: Emirates Palace
ROUTE TO TITLE
Round 1: Beat Leolia Jeanjean 6-1, 6-2
Round 2: Beat Naomi Osaka 7-6, 1-6, 7-5
Round 3: Beat Marie Bouzkova 6-4, 6-2
Round 4: Beat Anastasia Potapova 6-0, 6-0
Quarter-final: Beat Marketa Vondrousova 6-0, 6-2
Semi-final: Beat Coco Gauff 6-2, 6-4
Final: Beat Jasmine Paolini 6-2, 6-2
Tomb Raider I–III Remastered
Developer: Aspyr
Publisher: Aspyr
Console: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4&5, PC and Xbox series X/S
Rating: 3/5
Islamic Architecture: A World History
Author: Eric Broug
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Pages: 336
Available: September
WWE Evolution results
- Trish Stratus and Lita beat Alicia Fox and Mickie James in a tag match
- Nia Jax won a battle royal, eliminating Ember Moon last to win
- Toni Storm beat Io Shirai to win the Mae Young Classic
- Natalya, Sasha Banks and Bayley beat The Riott Squad in a six-woman tag match
- Shayna Baszler won the NXT Women’s title by defeating Kairi Sane
- Becky Lynch retained the SmackDown Women’s Championship against Charlotte Flair in a Last Woman Standing match
- Ronda Rousey retained the Raw Women’s title by beating Nikki Bella
The specs
Engine: 6-cylinder, 4.8-litre
Transmission: 5-speed automatic and manual
Power: 280 brake horsepower
Torque: 451Nm
Price: from Dh153,00
On sale: now
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
Fixtures
Opening day Premier League fixtures for August 9-11
August 9
Liverpool v Norwich 11pm
August 10
West Ham v Man City 3.30pm
Bournemouth v Sheffield Utd 6pm
Burnley v Southampton 6pm
C Palace v Everton 6pm
Leicester v Wolves 6pm
Watford v Brighton 6pm
Tottenham v Aston Villa 8.30pm
August 11
Newcastle v Arsenal 5pm
Man United v Chelsea 7.30pm
Uefa Nations League: How it works
The Uefa Nations League, introduced last year, has reached its final stage, to be played over five days in northern Portugal. The format of its closing tournament is compact, spread over two semi-finals, with the first, Portugal versus Switzerland in Porto on Wednesday evening, and the second, England against the Netherlands, in Guimaraes, on Thursday.
The winners of each semi will then meet at Porto’s Dragao stadium on Sunday, with the losing semi-finalists contesting a third-place play-off in Guimaraes earlier that day.
Qualifying for the final stage was via League A of the inaugural Nations League, in which the top 12 European countries according to Uefa's co-efficient seeding system were divided into four groups, the teams playing each other twice between September and November. Portugal, who finished above Italy and Poland, successfully bid to host the finals.
Frida
Director: Carla Gutierrez
Starring: Frida Kahlo
Rating: 4/5
The five pillars of Islam
Getting there and where to stay
Fly with Etihad Airways from Abu Dhabi to New York’s JFK. There's 11 flights a week and economy fares start at around Dh5,000.
Stay at The Mark Hotel on the city’s Upper East Side. Overnight stays start from $1395 per night.
Visit NYC Go, the official destination resource for New York City for all the latest events, activites and openings.
Sarfira
Director: Sudha Kongara Prasad
Starring: Akshay Kumar, Radhika Madan, Paresh Rawal
Rating: 2/5