Category Archives: Food

Weekend at Ripe

Posted on 27 November 2015 by Jocelyn

What else do you do when you are child-free on a beautiful Friday morning? Go on a Fridate, of course!

Bernie and I went out to Zabeel Park today for Ripe Market, one of the many farmer’s market type that pops up during the cooler months. Ripe Market has been going on for a few years and they have other events in Abu Dhabi and Sharjah too. They even have an evening market in Al Barsha Pond Park.

We made a beeline for the Raw Coffee truck and were both amazed at the never-changing quality of their coffee. Kim was at the till too! She is one of the owners of Raw Coffee and it’s great to see her being so involved.

Since we didn’t get to have breakfast at home, we walked around the stalls to decide what to eat. It was so difficult to narrow it down to just one choice! So many good food on offer, so little time. Essential, Book Munch, S’wich, Moti Roti, Fraiche, Taqado…and so many more food outlets offering amazing food. In the end, we decided on a chicken wrap with fries from S’wich and mini pancakes from Holland House to go with our gorgeous flat whites from Raw.

It was a beautiful day, a little windy but that was welcome. It does get really hot if you stand under the sun for too long. Thank goodnews for the trees in the park! We even found an area with table tennis equipment, free for anyone to use, so we played for a while.

Days like these are one of the best things about living in Dubai. The sun still shines strong but as long as you slap on an SPF50, you’re good to go. It’s also a waste of a beautiful day to stay indoors and not bask in the glorious winter sun.

I hope you’re enjoying the weekend. Belated happy Thanksgiving to my friends and family in America. Enjoy your turkey coma 🙂

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Posted in Dubai, Family, Food, iPhone photos and tagged family, fresh food, myDubai, organic, Ripe Market, weekend. Bookmark the permalink.

Farmer’s Market

Posted on 23 October 2015 by Jocelyn

Earlier this year, we visited the Farmer’s Market at the Terrace in Emirates Towers on its very last day. They were handing out leaflets stating that it was the last time the Terrace was hosting the event. In a few weeks, this market will open again in a new location, still unknown. Shame that I discovered it quite late but happy that it will come back.

It’s worth getting up early on a weekend for. You have a great selection of cheap, local-grown organic vegetables alongside artisan breads, pastries, coffee and a free cooking (and tasting!) class from local chefs.

Check out the link above to get notified when the new venue and the market opening is announced.

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Posted in Dubai, Food, Friends, Photography and tagged Canon EOS 60D, dubai, Emirates Towers, Farmer's Market, food, organic, photography. Bookmark the permalink.

The Bench @ The Pavilion

Posted on 5 April 2015 by Jocelyn

Living in the UAE for the past 20 years, some people we know assume that we know everything about this place. It has been steadily, sometimes exponentially, growing since we arrived here. It is darn hard to keep up with everything! There’s a new restaurant popping up every week and even more shopping malls at every corner. I exaggerate of course, but there is some truth in that.

And don’t even start with brunches! The entire country goes on brunches at the weekend! Some only go to boozy brunches and hardly eat so that’s a waste of food. I remember about 15 years ago when the biggest thing about brunch in Dubai was the 12-hour affair at the JW Marriott in Deira. Now that was a marathon brunch if there ever was one. We rarely do brunch now, and if we do, we try to find something which does not make it look like a waste. And that is what we did a couple of weekends ago.

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Posted in Dubai, Family, Food, Kids, Photography and tagged brunch, Canon EOS 60D, dubai, family, food, kids, photography, The Bench, The Pavilion. Bookmark the permalink.

Throwback Thursday 8.2015

Posted on 12 March 2015 by Jocelyn

Street food in high altitude – Joseph snacking on some “kwek-kwek” before going up the steps of the grotto in Baguio City. December 2013.

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Posted in Family, Food, Holiday, Kids, Photography, Travel and tagged Baguio City, Canon EOS 60D, family, food, holiday, kids, photography, Throwback Thursday, travel. Bookmark the permalink.

It’s that time of the year again

Posted on 24 September 2014 by Jocelyn

It’s Johann’s birthday – yay!

Feels like only a while ago when we attended his super cool airline-themed birthday party. This year’s theme, however, is bowling. Yay! So you can imagine, I brought along a pair of handknitted socks so that I could play too. I wouldn’t pass up a chance to knock down some pins whenever I can. For the knitters out there, this was the lucky pair I wore to the bowling party. Love me some STR and Cotty!

johann turns 6
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Posted in Birthday, Dubai, Food, Friends, Kids, Photography and tagged 85mm, birthday, Canon EOS 60D, dubai, food, kids. Bookmark the permalink.

Wordless Wednesday

Posted on 16 July 2014 by Jocelyn

01-merged

02-merged

03-merged

04-merged

Photo credit to Major Miles
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Posted in Awards, Dubai, Food, Friends, Photography, Wordless and tagged black tie, dinner, dubai, food, office, Okku, photography, The H Hotel, wordless. Bookmark the permalink.

Last few days

Posted on 16 June 2014 by Jocelyn

Warning: photo dump post.

The last few days spent by the teenagers here seemed to fly right by. One minute we were picking them up from the airport, and the next we were packing suitcases again. It’s only their second trip home since going to college but I think they’ve got this travelling light thing sorted.

Anyway, here are some of the photos of their last few days in Dubai. Joseph took these photos of the sunset while we were in the car on our way to dinner.
sunset
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Posted in Dubai, Family, Food, Photography and tagged Canon EOS 60D, dubai, Etihad Airways, family, food, kids, photography. Bookmark the permalink.

Carb Buster

Posted on 27 October 2013 by Jocelyn

My Gmail inbox gets every blog post from The Pioneer Woman. I love seeing her posts. Although I admit most of the time I scroll down to see the photos and skim through the ingredients and recipe. I like her sense of humour, but a regular dose of it is just too much for my liking. I can only take so much chirpy and perky and mildly sarcastic humour. I want the simple, easy-to-follow recipes please. Thank you very much.

So I won’t hold it against you if you just scroll down to look at the photos on my blog posts too.

One such recipe is her Carb Buster Breakfast. I bought one medium piece each of the green and yellow courgette the night before. The recipe is so easy to follow, no one can possibly fail doing this! Here is the first part of the breakfast cooking away. I added some sage (because I love the smell) and lots of freshly ground pepper.

The second part are the tomatoes. See I never waste anything, I included all of the tomato, the ends are just as good and still edible so why throw it away? I used some non-stick cooking spray and sprinkled basil and salt on either side of the tomatoes while they roast on the pan.

No photo of the eggs poaching as it looks awful. But here is the final product. It doesn’t look like much but it was a tasty and filling meal. I skipped the wedge of cheese which was in the original recipe. Let me tell you though that the temptation to grab a slice of toast was overwhelming. But a little voice inside my head, that sounded a lot like Paul, kept coaxing me on to just polish off my plate and know that I chose to eat healthy.

Thanks, Paul! And Ree for the wonderful recipe.

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Posted in Dubai, Family, Food and tagged dubai, family, food. Bookmark the permalink.

Wordless Wednesday

Posted on 2 October 2013 by Jocelyn

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Posted in Amiras, Dubai, Food, Knitting, Photography, Wordless and tagged amiras, dubai, food, knitting in dubai, photography, Wordless Wednesday. Bookmark the permalink.

Saturday at the Grand BelleVue

Posted on 1 October 2013 by Jocelyn

Ever since we started eating healthier, we have not gone to any brunches at all. It’s both easy and difficult. The three of us prefer simple things and, after re-introducing proper food into our diet, we now prefer a good meal rather than the smorgasbord of everything that’s not good for us. It’s difficult to avoid, however, because Dubai has 101 brunches happening on any given weekend. Okay, so maybe it’s not 101 but I bet you if you include the rest of the UAE, there are probably a hundred brunch events in total. Can you imagine all that food being prepared and consumed every weekend?! And that’s not including buffet theme nights at most hotels either.

Anyway, so we did brunch for the first time in a long time. It was from one of those Cobone offers which are really hard to resist because they are such good value. This one is for a lunch buffet at the Grand BelleVue in TECOM http://www.bellevue-hotels.com/en/hotels/1 including pool and gym access on the same day. Needless to say, it was the pool access that won my son over!

We arrived at a little after 10am on a Saturday which meant it was dead quiet. Just how we like it. But wait, the menfolk have a separate pool and gym from the ladies. Not exactly odd considering the hotel chain is Saudi-owned, but odd because it’s in Dubai. I didn’t stay long anyway because the pool was up on the rooftop and I didn’t fancy getting more colour on me. So I packed up and sat in the lobby with my knitting.

Patrick took this photo of me and Bernie. he had to take a few because he is not familiar with the 85mm lens. I should have taken my glasses off as that glare does not look good.

Me and my baby. After just under two hours in the pool/sun, he got a lot darker! I’m glad I didn’t stay out there longer than I did!

It doesn’t show but by this time, they were starving! The restaurant had not opened for lunch yet but we could see them arranging the platters of salads and the rest of the dishes. The salads, by the way, were the highlight of the buffet, specially the prawn salad. I pretty much stuck to the salad and the soup.

It was a good day. Parking was no hassle. The other hotel guests were still sleeping the previous night off so we had the pools to ourselves. The restaurant was very pleasant and the food was good. Every now and then, there are still little gems like this in Dubai if you looked closely enough.