Baking In When Its Baking Out & The Red Queen

Lately I have been attempting to improve skills I possess while stuck in Jordan with nothing much to occupy me. I know I can cook well; many reviews from friends and family confirm this. My baking skills however are lacking severely. I think it has to do with mathematics, my archenemy. With cooking entrees, many things can be "eyeballed" or to the taste; alot of things can be substituted, adapted or interpreted. With baking however, there really is no such thing as eyeballing the ingredients; doing so can ruin a perfectly good recipe. 1 cup, 1/3 of a cup, 2 tbsp, 3 liters, etc etc etc. All numbers, all exact... all plotting against me. The ingredients I had come to love in entree cooking hate me when I associate them with baking powder or eggs. Cornstarch, flour, sugar, milk (and wtf is cream of tartar??) In baking there is no substitution, or very little chance of it. Its even worse when you live in a country that has never even HEARD of some of your very normal ingredients that you took for granted back home.


Jordan, this is cream of tartar:

You have the brand, how come you don't have THIS?

Ontop of which, ovens here are not electric. Unless you make 2 grand per month, you can't even think of an electricity bill that could cover an electric oven (don't get me started on electric washers/dryers and AC). All are run on propane, and you can imagine trying to bake cookies on a camping stove. Its like that. Its even hard to make the classic entrees I'm an expert at making without burning it, overcooking it, undercooking it, or taking an hour when it should take 20 minutes. Its not just the oven, its the cookware. Unless you can shell out 80 dinar (which is 160 bucks in the US) when you only make 350JD per month, you are using the wedding cookery some family member got you that should only serve as decoration. Hence overcooking and burning by the ton. Even when you do have these, like at my mother-in law's house, we're missing one essential thing: mixing bowls. Now anything, you say, can be used as a mixing bowl. Yes, and nooooo. Yes when its a spoon or spatula; no, when its a hand mixer. Today was proof, when my sloppy lemon frosting was pit all over the walls and floor of the kitchen (the one I spent cleaning all day yesterday) Since last week I have been attempting lemon bars, one of my favorites. The first was a tasty disaster. The second attempt in Irbid at my friend Aubrey's house, though thin, was a great success. Last night they looked even better, but with the cream cheese additive to temper the sugar amounts, we lost much flavor. Younger bro in law wouldn't eat it, and I couldn't stop him from eating the 2nd batch before. I intend to, despite my baking history and missing items, be the bakerwoman from Drury Lane by the time I return to the States.

Miss you guys.... :-(

On a more somber note, every time I go to the store here I am painfully reminded of something that's missing or different. Last week it was corn meal; 2 days ago it was a martyr.

Victims and refugees from Duraa routinely make it to Ramtha for aid and asylum. Sadly, many of them only come here to die. 2 days ago Issam Ali Alfashtki escaped to Ramtha only to die later on that day. Residents declared him a martyr or "shaheed" and began a funeral procession the next day to bury him in the local cemetery as getting his body back to a bombed out Duraa was next to impossible. Having a shaheed buried near your relatives is like being buried in the holy land soil of the Sedlec Ossuary (Sedlec Ossuary) or Church of Bones, so naturally those involved considered it an honor. All except a few. In Ramtha there is a small tribe of people who identify as Shia, and as the Shia have been big supporters of Syrian Basha, especially Hezbollah, most of them do not celebrate the dead as martyrs but as traitors. As the funeral procession began, members of this tribe threw trash, stones, and excrement at the body and funeral party. The man was eventually buried, but the outrage caused a protest today at the town Capital building to insist upon the culprits being forced to apologize and make up for their behavior. My brother witnessed it on his way back from school today. In Ramtha, we hear fireworks every night since the spring started; its wedding season. In Syria, the exploding sound is greeted differently, and lights in the sky signal terror. My heart goes out to those suffering people, who could have easily been my husband and his family had the border been just a few miles further inland.

U.N. May Lose Ceasefire
Syrian Citizen Mass Exodus 

No One Likes A Censor

Shadi and I were watching "V for Vendetta" on MBC2, a movie channel owned by Saudi Billionaire and Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal, when I noticed a scene was missing. Beforehand some dialogue had been deleted, but since I agreed they lent nothing to furthering the plotline, they wouldn't be missed by people who'd never seen it. But this one, while not entirely shocking to me, was mildly insulting. The scene I speak of is when Gordon Dietrich shows Evey Hammond his rut-gut room behind his wine cellar that contains all of his banned and illegal items, including a poster of the leader dressed as the Queen of England (titled "God Save The Queen") , a Quran, and finally several photos showing homosexual fetishes. Now while its not entirely necessary to the plot; after all the reason he gets arrested initially is because of the parody of the President he aires, but we find out later he is killed in detention because of the Quran and homosexual desires he harbors. The reason it didn't shock me is because I live in an Arab country. For those who don't know this, Arabs are notoriously homophobic. Some claim its due to Islam, but then the Bible says things against homosexuality too, and yet in a christian nation, while under tough circumstances, we are legalizing gay marriages. But I digress. While I expressed my anger at the deletion of a scene like that, I reasoned that the next scene where Valerie tells her story would not be omitted due to its importance to the entire narrative. Wrong. While the remaining footage of Valerie's tale made some sort of vague sense, the omission of her sexual orientation completely confuses you as to why she was arrested in the first place, as all characters in this movie have a legitimate to the government reason.

This isn't the first time I noticed odd censorship, or what I considered to be odd. While on the plane to Jordan last August I watched "Tangled" on their movie list and noticed, though never having seen the movie, that all scenes where kissing or touching existed were entirely blocked out. Even in "You've Got Mail" the last scene only showed her crying and the sky at the end. The former was annoying, the latter set my eyes to permanent narrow as I have a great love for that movie and HATE when key scenes are "missing". Now Royal Jordanian airlines is a government airline, and the government is supposedly "Islamic" so I assumed that was part of an Islamic censorship that kind of sort of made sense. But on a channel like MBC2 and its partners MBC MAX, MBC3 and MBC ACTION where violence and somewhat woman to male sexually explicit scenes are at least hinted at, the deletion of a scene where no gay sex or etc was shown, merely the idea that the character was homosexual, is one of the most bigoted things I have yet to see in Jordan.


Another strange and somewhat out of place behavior I have noted, especially living in Ramtha, is how animals are treated. Livestock, like cows, chickens, goats, and sheep are treated with something bordering on reverence (being a large part of the economy here its no surprise) animals that lend absolutely nothing to the GDP or taste nice with bread are completely and utterly disregarded. Well, for the most part. Cats and dogs especially fit that criterion. Dogs are already viewed as unclean and vermin thanks to hadith, some weak and some affirmed that states say a black dog is a devil, that angels do not enter homes with dogs in them, that etc etc. Hadith Regarding Dogs I would mention that some of the hadith quoted on this page I would consider weak and not to rely solely upon it, but I know many people here who do so. A hadith is a statement of remembrance by a Companion of the Prophet, recalling an event or the answer to a question they put forth to him. We use hadith to vet parts of the Quran, and vice versa. Consider it a Spark Notes. These recalled statements are put through incredible scrutiny by Islamic scholars, both now and in the past. Many have been revealed as False Hadith, or statements that were incorrectly attributed to The Prophet. Others are weak, here meaning that the method of scrutiny this particular one underwent did not yield satisfying results as to its authenticity, but did not also render too much against it. Strong hadith are vetted and verified, most of which can be found in Sahih Bukhari, written by a scholar hundreds of years ago we still use today. The negative hadith regarding dogs, or at least a fair amount of them, I myself consider and many scholars also gave opinions on their lack of authenticity. The ones that ring true to me can luckily be found in Sahih Bukhari, like this one:

Hadith - Bukhari 4:538, Narrated Abu Huraira

Allah's Apostle said, "A prostitute was forgiven by Allah, because, passing by a panting dog near a well and seeing that the dog was about to die of thirst, she took off her shoe, and tying it with her head-cover she drew out some water for it. So, Allah forgave her because of that."

Dogs are even mentioned quite extensively in the positive in the Quran, such as Surat al-Maedah (The Feast) and Surat al-Kaf, the latter of the two we read on Jumaa (Friday is Holy) in its entirety. And so with so much evidence in their favor, I am shocked at their treatment in small towns like mine. Many Bedouin keep dogs to heard their cattle or sheep, as the hadith and Quran instruct, and I have seen many on the road.

And I've mentioned before, cats have it even worse. Although there is no negative mention of cats either in the Quran or Hadith (in fact its know that the Prophet had a cat of his own), they are one of the most mistreated creatures here.

 :( Young children are especially vicious. Young boys are the worst, treating them often like science experiments or experiments in cruelty. I will not relate the worst of what I've heard and seen. The nicest possible story I can tell you regarding the torture of cats happened in Ramadan last year; this tale I related in my  earlier posts. It was fajr time and Shadi had gone to pray in masjid; I stayed home of course. We slept on the roof in those days since the heat allowed for better sleep closer to wind. I was awaiting Shadi's return when I heard a heart-breaking set of cries (by that I mean meowing) so I got up to search for it from the rooftop. What I saw made me charge downstairs in my pajamas ready to fight tooth and nail. A12-14 year old boy was throwing rocks at a 3-month old kitten and its mother. The mother was ontop of a high wall, and the kitten at the bottom trying to ninja climb its way back to its mother after falling. The mother would try to jump down and grab him, but the boy would aim a rock and she would have to climb up again. He aimed rocks at the kitten, knocking it down everytime it made progress. Incensed I barreled out the door and straight into Shadi where, hysterical, I related the event that was going on and he followed on my heels. Not giving a crap whether he spoke English or not, I thoroughly berated him in the harsh words of my own invent, while Shadi stepped in and chased him off, threatening to go to his mother and father as he was a neighbor and we were well acquainted with them. We stayed until the kitten made it back to its mother and Shadi ushered me back to the roof. Needless to say my hero husband went up a few points :) But this is only the most innocent of things I've seen and been subject to. I've been told that cats spread disease to humans, pregnant women, that they are dirty because they eat trash (its all the have to eat since game is scarce and you throw your trash EVERYWHERE) and etc. My mother in law cannot stand fur on her couch and carpet, the cats sleeping with us for fear we might choke on said hair in the night, and other paranoid delusions regarding cats. Yes, cats can spread disease, just like humans who give each other diseases and viruses all the damned time. If you and your cat are healthy, then there's no worry. I don't hope to change the minds of everyone, but in working with Dr. Ala'a at Vetzone Veterinary clinic in 8th Circle Amman I hope to reduce the amount of suffering animals exposed to this type of mentality and behavior.


Speaking of cats, I believe the male cats in my yard are pedophiles. My youngest pet, Thakia, is a 4 1/2 month old kitten from Amman who has been subject to their persistent and unwanted attention since we moved here. We've witnessed 4 cats chasing after her and cornering her at one time; 5 this morning. They tried with Firdaus but she nearly took an eye out, so most of the attention has left her. Thakia runs to Momma every chance she can, and we can only throw so many hafaya (sandals/slippers) their way. My latest idea is to fill water guns with cat repellent and take pot shots from the porch. Report on that soon. Vaya con Dios.