A Monday Moment with Whittaker’s Milk Strawberry

I finally got a chance to try out Whittaker’s latest offering today. This new flavour is yet another special contribution towards their New Zealand Breast Cancer cause (their previous offering was White Raspberry).

For those of you who haven’t heard of Whittaker’s chocolate, the brand is Kiwi owned and operated, and originated in 1896. It is New Zealand’s oldest confectionary company run by a family of the same name.  These chocolates are by far one of the most delicious on the face of this globe (trust me I’ve tried a lot chocolate!). It’s one of those things I love to take over for friends and family overseas, and definitely for Big Sis, a chocolate lover like myself.

 

The Politics of Weight

This incident got me thinking a bit...

TV anchor Jennifer Livingstone received the email below with the following header:

 “Community Responsibility”:

Hi Jennifer,

It’s unusual that I see your morning show, but I did so for a very short time today. I was surprised indeed to witness that your physical condition hasn’t improved for many years. Sure you don’t consider yourself a suitable example for this community’s young people, girls in particular. Obesity is one of the worst choices a person can make and one of the most dangerous habits to maintain. I leave you this note hoping that you’ll reconsider your responsibility as a local public personality to present and promote a healthy lifestyle.

Adding Ethnic Pieces to a Western Silhouette

Ideas for Mixing and Matching Indo-Western Style

Tom Ford experiments with bright ethnic hues

Big names of the fashion world have always drawn inspiration from ethnic tradition. From ikat prints, Indie-boho skirts and Palestinian print scarves hitting mainstream fashion, the mix and match of the exotic has helped lend a personalized touch to an otherwise ordinary wardrobe.

 

Here are some ideas on how to mix and match East and West without looking overwhelmingly ethnic. The trick is to keep a balance and let one key piece shine through.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Office Toilet Chronicles

A typical workplace has more bums than toilet-seats (logical really, as the odds of us all going at the same time are pretty bleak). Having had the privilege of sitting at an office cabin diagonally opposite the toilet corridor, I have been building up on my trivia on shared office toilets. For example, I can tell you men are remarkably faster at their business than the fairer sex, and people are creatures of habit and tend to go around the same time each day and to the same cubicle. I also have more disturbing trivia on people who seem to have the most efficient bladders, and a mental list of ladies who are more likely to leave a stench after their job is done in the 'Ladies' loo.

Ramada Beach Resort - Ajman



Our room at Ramada Beach Resort - the bed was super comfy

One of the best parts of living in the UAE is all the great bargains you can get through online sites and credit card offers. We were looking for a short weekend getaway, and hubby managed to score an awesome deal on Cobone for Ramada Beach Resort, Ajman. For AED 320 we got a one-night stay in a deluxe room with sea-views, got access to the private beach, the indoor pool and saunas, and got served buffet dinner and breakfast. The rack-rate for the deluxe room is AED 800 per night... not a bad deal eh?!

Zereshk - Dried Iranian Barberries

I first saw these beauties at an Iranian buffet. The lovely ruby red hues added vibrancy to the rice dish I later learnt to be ‘Zereshk Polow’, an Iranian staple for a gourmet meal.

Zereshk are essentially dried barberries, and is used extensively in Iranian cooking. I was delighted to find them at my local Iranian grocer’s. I’ve always been a fan for tangy treats, and these berries are pretty high on the tartness scale. They are usually used in cooking, and even found in traditional medicine, but I like to munch on them as is. 

Onesies for One & All!

Just when I thought I’d seen it all, out pops a new vocab into the fashion scene – the onesies!

These all-in-one romper suits are nothing new. Every new mum has invested in over a dozen… for her baby. Enter the new-age romper, the ‘onesies’ for adults!

Just like the baby counterparts, they come in soft, cuddly fleece and friendly nursery animal prints (loving the rubber-ducky print!).

 

Dessert Madness at Strawberry Fare

I have a crazy sweet tooth and love my desserts. So a weekend dinner catch up with some fellow sugar fiends is easily swapped for a dessert do.

Located in Mount Victoria Wellington, Strawberry Fare is a renowned dessert restaurant in the Capital. I hear they make all the ingredients on site, including the mascarpone cheese they use.

The desserts menu is priced between $NZ 16-$NZ 20 and includes tiramisu, sorbets, lemon meringue, baked cheesecakes, chocolate creation platters, pavlova, crème brulee, English toffee pudding etc. Like my previous visits I was as delighted with the desserts as before. The rushed manner of the service staff though leaves more to be desired.

The portions are meal sized and easily shared (if you choose to!). Here are some clicks from visits:

The Entrance Foyer

 

 

Banaffi Pie

 



Tiramisu

 

Devil's Dream Cake

 

Chocolate & English Toffee Pudding

-Lil Sis J

PS: Sorry Big Sis for the dessert-talk while you’re on the GM Diet!

My Attempt at the GM Diet

I've known about this diet for ages, but have never been able to follow it through. Call it a lack of motivation or will-power, but my husband swears by this 1-week diet and has lost upto 4 kilos in the short 1 week timeframe.
 
Dubai Municipality put up a challenge last month - win your weight in gold! You can read more about it here but in a nutshell, we have the chance to win 2 grams of gold for each kilo lost, great motiviation for a wannabe dieter like me! So hubby and I signed up on 29th July, and the final weigh-in is this Friday 30th August.
 
We started the GM diet last Monday 19th August. The GM Diet, or General Motors Diet, is believed to have originated from General Motors in a bid to keep staff healthy but the company denies such claims and it is fast proving to be an urban myth. However, its been around for ages and people who have stuck to it swear by it.
 
Given it's only a week-long ordeal, it shouldn't be too hard to stick to, and all that vege and fruit is great for detox too. For details on the schedule read this.
 
However, my hubby made me follow a more ridgid version of the GM diet:
- We didn't make any of the Wonder Soup, and on most days I drank up to 3 litres of water (kept me full, and all that exercise walking to the loo must count too!).
- We did cardio exercises every day (hubby went for jogs, and I did the one-hour cardio workouts from Shaun T 
- We also had 3 to 4 cups of green tea every day (no sugar added).
 
Day 1: Fruits
The diet tells you to stuff yourself with fruits of every variety (except bananas), but we stuck to watermelons alone. Lost 1 kilo by the end of the day!
 

 
 
Day 2: Vege Day
As per the diet, we started the day with one baked potato each, but didn't have any but didn't have the pat of butter. Instead, we seasoned ours with salt and a good dose of Tabasco. For snacks, I bought myself a bag of baby carrots and grazed on it throughout the day. For lunch, we had steamed vegetables (mainly cabbage and a mix of carrot, onions and tomatoes). Reprated the lunch menu for dinner. Tabasco really helped in making the veges more interesting.
 
 
*My hubby took the batteries out of the weighing scale today. He said I should stop obsessing on weighing myself everyday as this could be demotivating!
 
Day 3: Fruits & Veges Day
Watermelon for breakfast, baby carrots and a bowl of fresh blueberries for my midday snack, and the same steamed vege combo of yesterday for lunch and dinner.
 
Day 4: Bananas & Milk Day
I found this day pretty tough as I didn't feel as full. I read other people found it hard to eat all 8 bananas, but I managed just fine - maybe its because I didn't have any of that Wonder Soup. I had a banana smoothie for breakfast (a cup of milk with a banana whizzed in the blender), and a banana for my midday snack. Lunch was the smoothie again along with two whole bananas. Dinner was a repeat of lunch. By the end of this day, I felt quite bloated.
 
Day 5: Beef & Tomatoes Day
We limited our beef intake to 500 grams each for the whole day. I made a spicy beef and tomato curry in the pressure-cooker (no oil - I chopped 6 tomatoes and let them sweat. When the water was half dry, I added the beef with spices and let it cook). I also made a salsa salad using 6 tomatoes (we are allowed 6 tomatoes each for the whole day - so the curry had tomatoes, and we got the rest from the salsa). The salsa consisted of chopped tomatoes, onion, chillies and cilantro. We had this combination for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
 
Day 6: Unlimited Beef & Veges Day
Hubby made a delicious Chinese stir-fry with beef strips and lots of veges. He only used a spray of oil on the wok. We had this for all three meals.
 
Day 7: Unlimited Brown Rice, Fruit Juice & Vegetables
We decided to skip the rice and juice, but shared an apple for breakfast. For lunch and dinner, I made a soup (boiled together chopped cabbage, tomatoes, capsicum, onion). I have to confess I cheated this day. I was packing my daughter's lunch-box and ended up having a whole piece of chicken roast! Sshhh... don't tell my hubby!
 
Woke up this morning, and hubby had replaced the batteries in the weighing machine. Moment of truth...
 

 
 
Would he find out I indulged in that chicken? Would I see any significant weight loss?
 
I LOST 3 KILOS!
Hubby lost 3.5 kilos.
Pretty psyched! And no, I won't be celebrating with that cheese-cake! Gold, here we come!
 
Here is why I think I was finally successful at sticking to this diet:
- Doing it together: Knowing my hubby is in this as well kept me on track, and it also meant sharing meals and not having to watch my partner indulge in something decadent while I munched on baby carrots!
- Not weighing myself every day. Weight loss is slow and painful, and some days it might even spike up. Best to check at the end of the week.
- Having mainly watermelons for fruit. The high water content kept us fuller, and its a low-calorie fruit.
- Tabasco! Spicing things up kept the otherwise bland menu appetising. Also, spicy foods give the metabolism a serious kick-start.
- One-hour cardio daily = more calories burnt!
- Green tea kept me alert and all that antioxidising must be good too.
 
Remember everyone looses weight at a different pace. It all depends on your body and your lifestyle. One week is only 7 days of your time for a slimmer, happier you. Give it a go!
 

- Big Sis.

Being Left-Handed

August 13^th was Left-Handers Day. I was not aware such a day existed for me and my south-paw brethren till Lil Sis sent me a greeting. I’ve always been proud of my left-handedness, I feel it’s an extra something that makes me unique, makes me me. So when I researched more into Left-Handers Day, I was surprised that this day, which commenced since 1996, was created to bring light to all the problems lefties face.

Yes we live in a right-handed world. Given left-handers only make up 10%of the total world population, this is not surprising. And yes, my left-handedness has been a drawback in certain situations, but definitely not adverse enough to be seen as negative. I tend to be seated on the left when dining (to avoid the clash of the elbows), I dread can openers, and I hold my pen at an angle to avoid smudges when writing left to right. Being seated on the left not only lets me enjoy my meal, but can also be a conversational ice-breaker when dining with new faces. Speaking of can openers, my father once bought me one designed for lefties but I still prefer cans with ring openings. As for me holding my pen funny, some people, including my mother, often tell me it looks stylish, and one of my best friends who I grew up with picked up my trait even though she is right-handed!

Left-handedness has been of interest for centuries, yet they still haven’t got a definitive answer on what determines a person’s handedness. They say our brains are wired the other way round; righties are governed by the left side of the brain, and lefties by the right.

Being right-brained is believed to make us more creatively inclined. We tend to be more holistic thinkers rather than logical.

It’s therefore not surprising that a disproportionately large number of celebrities in creative fields such as music, drama and the arts tend to be lefties.

Famous Left-Handers:

- Of all the seven US presidents since Nixon, only Carter and Bush Jr. have been right-handed (so could this mean being left-handed increases your chances of presidency?!).

- The left-handed gene runs strong with the British royals. Lefties in this family include the Queen Mother, Prince Charles and Prince William.

- Oprah, my favourite celeb of all time!

- Screen sirens Marilyn Monroe, Demi Moore, Nicole Kidman, Sarah Jessica Parker, Angelina Jolie, Scarlett Johanasson

- Movie icons Robert De Niro, Amitabh Bacchan (and his son Abhishek), Bruce Willis

- Music maestro Beethoven

- Revolutionary artist Leonardo Da Vinci

- Famous authors Mark Twain, H.G. Wells and Peter Benchley (the author of ‘Jaws’)

- Pop-stars Jimi Hendrix, Celine Dion, Natalie Cole, Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber

- Funny people; Jerry Seinfeld and Tiny Fey

- Sought-after designer Jean-Paul Gaultier
 

- Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons (no wonder Bart Simpson is a leftie!)

- And infamous lefties include Osama Bin Laden and Jack the Ripper. Ironically, the gun was also invented by a left-hander (Berthold Schwartz).

Left-handedness is also attributed to genetics. Neither of my parents are lefties. Interestingly, when I was in school, my chemistry class consisted of 9 lefties out of 13, and we all had maternal uncles who were left-handed. Something worth researching? It is also believed that stress during pregnancy, low birth weight and mothers over the age of 40 tend to create lefties.

There are a lot of negative connotations associated with left-handedness:

- Lefties are clumsy: given our brains are wired the other way round, it is no surprise that the world we deal with on a daily basis can be a tad more challenging.

- Lefties die early: This can be attributed to the above; maybe we are more accident-prone. It is also believed lefties have lower immunity levels given our lopsided brain. Some scary stats suggest left-handers die a whole 9 years earlier than their right-handed counterparts.

- Lefties are more likely to be insane: only 10% of the world population is left-handed, yet 20% of schizophrenics are lefties. Scary stats.

- It’s a right-handed world: lefties need to deal with right-handed gadgets all the time. Can openers (my old nemesis), door knobs, potato peelers, knives, driving with ‘right-of-way’ rules, the list goes on.

There is also a lot of cultural stigma attached to being left-handed:

 

- In the East (including the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East and Africa), it is considered socially unacceptable to use the left hand for anything beyond ass-wiping! People take it personally if you wave, shake-hands or eat with the left hand. Almost like you have fecal matter permanently embedded in this paw.

 

- In Ghana, they believe sleeping on your left side calls in death, and across many cultures the Satan is often depicted to be left-handed.

- Left-handed phobia is not restricted to the East. An age-old Anglo-Saxon superstition involves throwing salt over the left shoulder because that’s where the devil lurks.

- In Scotland, if a person is unlucky, it is said he or she was “baptized by a left-handed priest.”

- Many major languages are also not left-paw friendly. The word "left" comes from the Anglo-Saxon word "lyft," which meant "weak." And "sinistra," the Latin for "left," is also where we get the word "sinister." "Gauche," which we use to refer to a social faux pas, is actually French for "left."

- Then there are phrases in the English language which suggest left-handedness is negative. A “left-handed complement” is an insult. A “left-handed marriage” is not at a marriage at all, but an adulterous sexual relationship. Why do they say your partner in crime is your "right-hand man?" Is it to say the left-hand man cannot be trusted?

But it’s not all doom and gloom for lefties. There are many positives too:

- Sports advantage: given most of your counterparts will be right-handed and used to coordinating that way, the left-handed trait gives you an added advantage to take them by surprise.

- Higher IQ: the average leftie has been found to have a higher IQ than the average right-hander. This could be due to the added need to having to use both sides of the brain in a right-handed world.

- Multi-tasking: having adapted to a right-handed world, lefties are more comfortable in multi-tasking.

- Better memory: research shows lefties have a better memory.

- More visual: we tend to dominate the world of art!

- Faster typist: this is an interesting trivia I came across on the web. The QWERTY keyboard allows for 3,400 words by the left hand, and only 450 words by the right! No wonder I type way faster than most people I know (and I never learnt to touch-type)!

- Less time in queues: another interesting observation. Lefties tend to go towards the left queue and righties to the right. Given we are a minority, it’s no wonder we have this advantage!

- Mouse and scribble: I am using my mouse with my right hand, and scribbling notes with my left, a great advantage while writing this blog! (Another example of our multi-tasking skills?)

- Ice-breaker: It’s a habit. I see a person using the left paw, be in the check-out clerk or a new face at a social event, and I start with ‘So you’re a leftie too?’ It always gets the conversation flowing!

 

- Big Sis

Adapting to the UAE

I only set foot on UAE soil after marriage. Yes I have been a transient passenger browsing through the impressive Dubai Duty Free stores some lifetime ago, but never had I ventured through the immigration gates that now stamp me as a resident. I have been a UAE resident for a little over 6 years now. In some ways, the UAE has become a friend and in others, she is still an elusive stranger.

UAE has a way of growing on you. They say time flies in this whirlwind of a city that never sleeps. Needless to say, the first few years were hard on me, a girl from sleepy rural New Zealand. I found UAE too chaotic, the glitz and glamour blinding and even threatening. I was homesick and missed the solace of fresh chilled air. I missed my loved ones and familiar faces and places. I even missed the biting cold which now seemed like a luxury in 50 degrees of humid desert heat. A part of me still longs to go back, but survival instincts have since kicked in and, in many ways, changed the girl I used to be…

My wardrobe has expanded

In New Zealand, my wardrobe could be described as ‘smart-casual’ and this saw me through social calls, idle window-shopping days, and even the office. In the UAE, I have office wear, smart-casual for casual dates with friends, cocktail dresses for more sophisticated dos, and an ethnic collection for Indian or culturally-reserved events.

The heat is almost tolerable

My parents came to visit the UAE this January, and they had to use the air-conditioning to sleep while I was blissfully huddled in my blanket. I am still no fan of the sweltering UAE summers, but the heat is slowly growing on me and perhaps the crisp Kiwi winters will not be as refreshing now.

I’ve improved my Hindi!

Hindi is not my mother-tongue, but Bollywood has taught me the basics. I could understand the language, but not get away with spitting out s sentence without squirms on my ‘foreign’ accent. Given my brown skin and Indian features, the Hindi people I have encountered here seem to find it almost insulting that I am not a fluent speaker. My office boy even said he cannot follow my English, so he manages with my broken Hindi which seems to be improving day by day.

I am spoilt with help

In the UAE, we really are spoilt when it comes to servicing. Since coming here, I’ve forgotten what its like to make my own morning coffee in the pantry. My ‘Office Boy’ dutifully serves me cups and cups of my caffeine fuel throughout the day.

In New Zealand, the concept of having a housemaid is very alien and conjures up zealous images of slavery and the like. Here most households have a maid who cooks and cleans and babysits.

I’ve become a rasher driver

One of the hardest things I found was adapting to the crazy traffic in the UAE. For most of my early years in the UAE, I was a Sharjah-Dubai road-rat averaging three to four hours of my life on snail-paced traffic that gave me knee-aches just from working the brakes as I braked and un-braked at each short move. Initially, my Kiwi courtesy would allow fellow roadsters a passage into the labyrinth of cars ahead of me, but now I’m a psycho b**** and often forget to ‘give way’.

I know a guy in New Zealand who would go to McDonalds driveway after work and order his meal items one round after another just to remind him of what a traffic jam is like. True story!

I visit salons more

In New Zealand, you have to be earning pretty big $ to be visiting a salon every month, and not just for haircuts. Here I get a facial, a body wax and massage, manicure and pedicure on a bi-monthly basis. Luxuries like these sure are cheaper here.

I am far less sociable

In New Zealand, I had a close-knit circle of friends, and I was even one of the organizers for the social club at work. I made friends from university, from the gym, from family gatherings. In the UAE, it is a different story. Everybody seems to be too busy, and everybody is very competitive. Perhaps relationships are more fickle here because we all know we are only temporary guests in the UAE. We are also more career-driven as job security is on the low side, and the idea is to take advantage of the tax-free income and save for a comfy nest when we are old and grey.

The UAE has done wonders to my career

Given I am into marketing, the retail jungle of the UAE has been a delight for my career. I have had the opportunity to work with some of the world’ most luxurious brands, experienced the trials and tribulations of very diverse industries including beauty and travel, and now have a colorful CV to prove it.

I know more about luxury brands than most of my Kiwi friends

When I was just a student in New Zealand, I could be forgiven for thinking Chanel only does perfumes, and that Louis Vuitton was one of the 101 Dalmatians. This is not to say that my Kiwi counterparts are not brand-savvy, they just don’t give a damn. In the shallow world of UAE who’s-who, big brands do the talking and everyone’s throwing a Gucci or Bvlgari item around. And if you can’t afford it, there’s always the Karama knock-offs.

 

I shop more

If you knew me back in my NZ days, you'd say this was impossible but here in the UAE, shopping is a lifestyle. We shop when we're bored, we shop socially in groups, and we shop to escape the humid heat (and enjoy the icy cocoon of massive malls).

As time passes on swiftly in the UAE, I come to terms with this arid country I have decided to call home, albeit temporarily. New Zealand will forever be my haven, but I have warmer days ahead and intend to make the most of it.

- Big Sis.

Green coffee (you read right, coffee not tea)

Nescafe’s Greenblend coffee

I came across an interesting find in the coffee aisle of the supermarket the other day: Nescafe’s Greenblend Instant Coffee. Having heard about this latest health fad combined with the appealing packaging, I decided to get a jar.

In the way green tea leaves are unfermented whilst black ‘normal’ tea are; green coffee refers to coffee where the beans are raw or have not been roasted compared to regular coffee beans.  

 

 

 

 

 

We all know coffee as a supreme source of caffeine. But glycemic control (that is blood sugar levels) and weight loss has been notably linked to many of the other components present in the seeds of the Coffea fruit a.k.a coffee beans. One such component is chlorogenic acid. Many studies have indicated that chlorogenic acid reduces slows fat absorption and activates fat metabolism. The traditional roasting of coffee beans is performed to remove the natural bitter taste of the same, but the process also removes a significant amount of this compound. Green coffee beans are hence supposed to be superior to their roasted counterparts. The extracts widely available as supplements contain concentrated levels of chlorogenic acid.

Unroasted (green) and roasted (brown) coffee beans

 

So with the current craze over green coffee for its benefits to weight loss, antioxidants etc (much credit to Dr. Oz ), it comes as no surprise that one of the world’s most sipped coffee brand Nescafe would also cash in.

The Nescafe Greenblend product consists of 50% regular roasted coffee beans and 50% green coffee beans, and claims that a cup delivers “70% more antioxidants than a cup of green tea”. An appealing fact. The taste I find is not distinguishable to regular Nescafe instant coffee. I was expecting an interesting colour but there was nothing green about it. Pricewise though it’s almost twice as much: $NZ11.99 compared to $NZ6.99 for a 100g jar.

So will I benefit from having a cup of this a day? Will it undo some of the cake damage? I type and ponder as I sip on my very own cup of green coffee.

Lil Sis J

5 Ways to Buy Happiness

Who says money can't buy happiness? It all depends on how you choose to invest your hard earned cash (whilst saving some for a rainy day).

1) Splurge on an experience: an expensive outfit might give you a momentary thrill, but a great holiday will give you memories you will cherish for years to come.

 

 

2) Look after yourself: health really is wealth. Invest in good health coverage, go for regular check-ups, indulge in a day at the spa, and put that gym membership into use.

 

 

3) Learn a new skill: try your hand at something new. Take pottery classes, buy a canvas and paint. DIY can be very therapeutic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4) Be generous: give to the less fortunate, and you will soon relish the satisfaction that comes with helping others.

 

 

5) Save for a rainy day: life is unpredictable, so cushion yourself for downfalls with a healthy saving. A little cash in the piggy bank will keep you confident even when times are rough. Got sacked? A little saving might be the differentiating factor between taking that next job offer just because you need a paycheck, or being able to wait for the real career you've been yearning.

 

 

-Big Sis.