The Yum Yum Factor

Normally, Shack's "weekend" here in Jordan falls on Friday and Saturday but, as luck would have it, this week he had Thursday and Friday off but had to work on Saturday, the day before The Kid and I hightail it out of here to return home to the cold and snow. Because we didn't really plan on suddenly having his weekend move up a day, we rented a car and spent Thursday in the Wadi Rum but it was too last minute to book an overnight camp out so that left us without definite plans for Friday. We woke up, the sun was shining and we just decided to do what we always do. We hopped in the car and drove north, towards the Dead Sea. Instead of taking the main highway (#65) we took the smaller, two lane #65 highway that runs north towards Amman and runs along the Israeli border. It's also the road that Shack takes every day to work in the mountains so he was pretty comfortable with the route up to a point. The scenery is not as dramatic as it is on the other ...

I arranged for a trip to visit Pharaoh Island, located a couple hundred meters from the coast of Egypt, in the Red Sea. For this trip, you have to book at least 24 hrs ahead because the tour company takes your passport to  the Egyptian Consulate to get you cleared to visit, so keep that in mind. I don't think anyone is totally comfortable with the idea of handing over their passport for a day or so, but it was fine and we got it back about a day and a half later. I am glad that I didn't have much time to mull it over because I am not sure I would have actually just handed them over to the cute Jordanian desk clerk at the Hilton if I hadn't been kind of caught off guard. 

You  can't come all this way to Jordan and not go into the Wadi Rum. Wadi means valley in Arabic so It's the Rum Valley but it is nothing like any valley I have ever experienced before. We all watched Lawrence if Arabia before Shack left to come to Jordan to get everyone excited about this trip and now, as our two week visit draws to a close, we finally spent an afternoon in the desert. 

They say it doesn't rain this time of year but it rained today

We are in Aqaba, the South Beach of Jordan. Aqaba shares the northern tip of the Red Sea with Eilat, Israel both enjoying the hot, arid climate, beautiful beaches, hummus and sea breezes.

Shack's photo of the final reveal of The Treasury Last night we ripped it up a little so we were a bit slow going today but we finally got ourselves together and started off to Petra. 

Today we set the alarm for 8 am so we could get an early start. I was really excited about seeing our driver from yesterday again so he could squire us around but, unfortunately, there was a different guy waiting for us this morning. Mohammed was a very nice, young man but he didn't speak a word of English so I have no clue what we were seeing on the drive to Jerash, about 45 minutes north of Amman. I am not sure if it because we are Canadian, but he was also cranking the Celine Dion and I was really not ready for my heart to go on.  I am never ready for that.

the lovely and talented Paula Costa I was a lucky lady this weekend because I scored two spots at Paula Costa's Ottelenghi Inspired Dinner at The Depanneur on Sunday! Because Shack is in the middle east eating actual Ottelenghi style food at the moment, I took my friend, the female half of the MVPs. Because I am a total idiot who has nothing on her mind but her impending trip, I made my friend pick me up to get me there for 6:30 only to find out the doors opened at 7:30 and dinner was not until 8!  DOH We had some tea at Starbucks and killed an hour so by the time we were in there and seated, we were starving. From the hummus to the olive oil and apple cake dessert, everything we put in our gaping mouths was delicious. We both lost our minds over the fennel salad and the chicken was perfect. My friend doesn't really drink so we were the only people who didn't bring wine but you are welcome to bring a bottle or two for yourself.  roast chicken with sumac, ...

It's throw back thursday and so I am sharing this recipe that I made back in March of 2011 for NoReEats and decided to make again tonight. I have made a few changes since I started making this dish in an effort to lighten it up without sacrificing any flavour because if that can't happen, I will always go with the original, full fatty creamy dish but, in this case, I am happy to report that it's every bit as delicious as the original version that sported a full cup of 35% cream. It's bad enough that we are putting bread crumbs on our pasta - we might as well just throw in a bowl of rice and some mashed potatoes, really. Think of it as an ode to carbs and just don't eat it every day. In the end, this pasta is everything I think pasta should be: quick, easy, flavourful and filling. Since we are leaving for our two week Jordanian adventure in a day and half-ACK- I am just trying to use up the food in the fridge and my fridge almost always contains arugula and b...

Delicious cortado at Soma on King, just west of Spadian I don't usually have to do this but I have to update my opinion on a restaurant. A couple of weeks ago, we had brunch at Wood Fire Pit and I wrote about it here . We were really happy with our brunch and so we went back this past Sunday with the VIP's because The Wren was packed and we couldn't get a table.  This time it was a different experience. First of all, there was no coffee and the waitress, god bless her, told us not to order since she was just making instant. A restaurant that is out of coffee during brunch service is a restaurant that should run over to Starbucks, a block away, and buy a couple bags of coffee beans, am I right? After that it was just kind of one little thing after another. Our very nice waitress left and a guy took over. After ordering tea instead, we were not given anything to put our teabags on and were kind of forced to lay the wet tea bags on the table until we c...

I love Lamesa. I wrote about it after my first media dinner there, here , and have been back a few times since. I attend lots of media dinners and there are only a handful of places that I return to on my own, and this is one of them so when the call came to try out their Kamayan dinner, I was all over it. Kama, being the Filipino word for "hand" means that Kamayan roughly translates into "eat with your hands" and this is a traditional type of dinner that every Filipino will be familiar with. Served family style, the meal is placed on banana leaves at your table without cutlery or dishes. Keep in mind that it is a communal meal, so you want to make sure you are dining with people you like. If are you really squeamish about sharing food, I guess you could ask for utensils but that takes all of the fun out of it and you are probably better off skipping it. This meal is tailor made for people like me, who want to taste at least a bite of everything on the table ...