Thursday Katrina, mom and LeAnna went over to Malbis to get their nails done and let me tag along. This is not my first time catching a ride with the girls for a trip to the mall. Took a walk over to Barns and Noble and picked up a few magazines. I remembered a new tool I needed for the kitchen and headed over to Williams-Sonoma. Last week I picked up some truffle mushrooms and truffle oil. I needed a slicer for the truffles.

While walking around Williams-Sonoma I found some risotto near their truffle oil and truffle salt. I have seen Iron Chef cook risotto so many times I picked up a box. There is very few rice my lovely wife does not like.

This morning we got up late. After wandering around the apartment for an hour or so I went up to the house to see if mom wanted me to cook lunch. She was getting ready to leave for Chandler’s soccer game. I went back to the apartment and started getting some ideas for lunch. I decided Katrina and I would have panko crusted tilapia and risotto with truffle. Because this was my first ever attempt at risotto I checked a few web sites and put Katrina in charge of stirring the risotto. Risotto is not like other rice that just has the water added, cover and walk away. You have to stir during the cooking. Once the risotto hit the plate I sliced the truffle on top with my new little mandoline. The fish was perfect but the risotto was not what I was expecting. Katrina said it was all great so that is all that matters.

Tonight I asked mom if she wanted me to cook and went after the risotto once again. This time I grabbed our rice cooker cook book and found what I needed. I was thrilled that I had got some Italian turkey sausage last time I was at the store. I seared the sausage on the stove and followed the recipe 100%. Onion was cooked directly in the rice cooker followed by the risotto and sausage. This disk was much better than my first try. Over all I still do not see why risotto is a “go to” for some of the Iron Chefs. I was not that impressed.

It is fun to cook things that I have never done before.

Tonight I finally started my Mr. Beer batch of beer I purchased over 6 months back. I got the kit from Woot on a great deal. The kit has everything you need to make beer in one box. All the way down to the bottles. It takes right at 14 days to get a batch rushed to finish, but 30 days is best. Once you have the kit the purchase of a “refill kit” runs about $4 per six pack for premium beer (think dark import) and $3 per six pack for regular beer (think pale). It was fun to make and only took me about 30 minutes. I had lost the directions so my time included finding the directions on their website. I am look at an hour investment for 2 gallons of beer and some good fun. I think I might buy a few more kits and extra refills so I can have 3 going at once.

Two months back I was getting things ready to go to Bahrain and wanted to get a quick batch of wine going. I looked in my “purple book” and found “Coffee Wine”. I got the ingredients from my favorite brew store “The Shady Lady”.

Coffee Wine
5 gal. water
28 lbs Honey
3 cups instant coffee

Put all this in the primary fermentor and waited for 24 hours. After the 24 hours I added the yeast. Each day, for five days opened and stirred. This batch smelled terrible. I was able to get into the secondary fermentor before leaving for Bahrain.

Margo came over and racked my wine about 1 month after. Once I was back I smelled the batch again and found it had calmed down, but was still weird. Because I both wanted to keep the wine and improve it I started some research. First (as I had already tracked down) this batch was more of a mead than wine. This is based on the honey. Because of some other drinks I have had in the past month I looked up a recipe for vanilla bean mead. I found some great direction and found the last month was the best time to add the vanilla.

Last night I called Four Winds International Foods in Pensacola, FL and found he had vanilla beans in stock. Stopped by and picked up 15 sticks ($2.99 each). Tonight I split 9 beans, added 1 cup of honey to 9 cups of water and boiled beans for about 1 minute. I cooled this down and added to my mead.

Because I had another 6 vanilla beans I decided to try another experiment. Last month I came across Navan (Vanilla Cognac Grand Marnier). This was the source of my vanilla mead. To use the vanilla bean I dropped 2 in a 16oz bottle and 4 in a 32oz bottle. I mixed the following liquor from my bar.

16oz (2 Vanilla Bean)
¾ cup – Crown Royal Whisky
½ cup - Triple Orange Grand Marnier
¼ cup - Dark Rum
½ cup - Light Rum

32oz (4 Vanilla Bean)
1 1/2 cup – Crown Royal Whisky
1 cup - Triple Orange Grand Marnier
1/2 cup - Dark Rum
1 cup - Light Rum

I have a few weeks before I taste the Vanilla Liquor mix and about 1-2 months before the mead is ready. I will keep posting.

Katrina and I love to watch Iron Chef America. We also love chicken. Last week we saw a show with the mystery ingredient pheasant. Well I can’t get my hands on too much pheasant, but chicken I can get any where. I talked with Katrina about all the dishes I wanted to try and she was all for it.

I got home today and felt it was perfect to cook all the dishes. I called mom and found she could handle supper on her own. I let her know I was cooking some crazy food and she was happy to skip out.

I had three main chicken dishes that I wanted to try. Chicken skin – Katrina and I had this many, many times in Philippines, but you just can’t find it around here. The Iron Chef used a baked method that I had never seen. Next was chicken chips – I had made a sample of this last week, but wanted to try dark meat. The chips turned out to be a fail, but the chicken was GREAT. The chicken is pounded flat, but we could not get it flat enough for “chips”. Last was Scotch Eggs – before this episode of Iron Chef I had never heard of such a thing. The eggs are boiled then wrapped with sausage. I had some turkey Italian sausage in the freezer so I was covered. We covered the sausage with flower and panko and deep fried.

All the dishes turned out good. The pounded out dark thigh meat was the best. The Scotch Egg was a little strange, even for me, but Katrina said everything was perfect. The chicken skin turned out very well. Rounded out the meal with steamed rice in chicken stock and roasted garlic. Not a very healthy meal, but it was good.

Just over three and a half months ago I started some Fresh Blueberry Wine. This is the 2nd batch I have ever made. The first batch was my first wine ever and was mostly from frozen stock. I have improved my technique over the past year. This batch is a dramatic improvement from the first, but coming right out of the fermentor it is strong. My mentors over at The Shady Lady let me know wine should be in the bottle about 6 moths for the wine to "settle down". This worked out well for the first batch So I am hopeful this will turn out very good.

Jenni called and I let her know the wine was ready. She picked 90% of the berries that I used. At 36lbs that is a lot of picking. The color in this picture is just perfect. The wine is sweet like a port, but strong like Merlot. I am very happy with this batch.

It was a joy to be part of Zach’s Bar Mitzvah. It was very clear that he was taking this serous and has put an amazing amount of work into it. The blessing that he does not even yet know is that all that work cannot return void. His mother has caused him to dig in to the scriptures in such a way that his Bar Mitzvah will always be a point in his life he will look to with joy.

I was able to say a few words in honor of my dad. I felt a little inadequate to speak on my dad’s behalf, but very much desired to share with Zach. My dad was the greatest man I could have asked for as a dad. He made me what I am today. I find my self thinking about the things he gave to me more and more. But as I told Zach he was a very simple man. It was not that dad saw things in “black and white” or he took them down into simple terms. He saw most everything as a “principle”.

Dad had a gift of taking complex things and breaking them down so I could understand. The simple part of dad’s advice to me was to just do the right thing. If you do this all the time life is just easy. It does not mean that you will have an easy life, but it is easier to take it as in comes.

I bought this book 1-2 years back and it sat on my shelf.  I wanted to read it, but did not want to deal with the information in the book.  The book describes the United Nations with its foundation, History, supports and future goals.  The book has the obvious goal to lead the reader to a pre-drawn conclusion that the UN is evil.  I try hard, even when I agree, to be objective with these kinds of books.

The author is relentless with footnotes.  I checked into many and found no fault with the source, context or conclusions.  About half way into the book the author does a smart job of “telling what the very supports of the UN say about the UN.”  This is when things get very scary and disturbing.  I learned a great many things with this book.  One of the greatest things I learned is that most all American’s believe the UN is bad, but, like me, do nothing to educate themselves.

You may want to pick up a copy of this book or maybe check out the following two links.

http://www.getusout.org/
http://www.shirbrig.dk/html/main.htm

ISBN: 978-1-59555-053-8

I had set some goals for working out before I got to Bahrain. I did not meet the goals 100%, but I did a good job over all. One of the big helps was a very impressive gym in my hotel. The gym is on the top floor of the hotel. The elevator ride to the 15th floor has a good view of the city with a full window at the back of the elevator.

At least every other day I head up to the gym morning or night and try to get in about 45 minutes. Added to weekly PT on base and I have caught up on some much needed workout. Navy physical testing was this past month, but being in Bahrain I will have to take the make-up next drill in Pensacola.

I wanted to take some pictures of the gym mostly for the view. The hotel is on the North side of Manama facing South East. You get a good view of the Diplomatic district and the road leading to the Suq. They have TV monitors in all cardio machines with Fox News 24/7. The only way to make work out any more easy is to just skip it all together.

I have a real life experience that was so amazing to see I turned it into a little riddle to relay the story.

Question:
I was walking out of Al Jazira grocery store last night and saw a deaf man talking on his cell phone.  How did he do it?

Answer:
As I turned out the door down the sidewalk heading to my car I noticed a guy standing just off the sidewalk next to what I guess was his car.  He got my attention because he was holding his cell phone out in front of his face at eye level.  His other hand just off to the right of his face making motion.  It only took a second to figure the scene out.  The man was deaf and had a video phone.  He was looking at the other caller signing and they could see him both sign and mouth the words.  It was an impressive sight.  Cool that technology give people such access.

I finally made it over to one of the 3 Filipino restaurants in Bahrain. Got some good pictures on my iPhone. I wanted to make sure Katrina was jealous... hehe

The food was great. This place was much nicer than I thought it would be. Top service and they give you way too much food. I can eat most all the food on the menu which is something I could never do in Cebu. These guys have NO pork at all. Great to be in a country that has little to no pork.

While I am doing many uploads and sending lots of emails to my sweet Katrina I get to watch the fun progression of some local Arab guys flirt with a few Arab girls.  Very few of the girls and guys wear “westernized” dress, but when they do you know they are not religious.  Two girls came in the coffee shop, about 10 minutes apart, and the group of guys signaled the salesman at the register that they would pick up the bill.  When the salesman let the girl(s) know they gracefully declined.

It was fun to watch the shameless flirting of these guys and the situation it put the little Filipino sales guy in.  After he let each girl pay they gave him a hard time from across the room.  The girls’ laugh, the guys got back to their conversation and it was all over.  Very funny to see how people act all over the world.

Kilkenny is a great reason to come to Bahrain. Made in the town of Smithwicks (and a beer by the same name) they are very much the same, but Kilkenny is just a little better. Such a smooth rich beer. Years ago it was among my top two beers, but is going down on my list after discovering some truly great beers. Kilkenny still has a special place on my list because I cannot get it in the US. Each time I am in Bahrain I make a special trip to Crowne Plaza to visit the little pub called Harvesters. The music is one of the best Filipino bands in Bahrain. This is one of only 3 places on the island that I have found Kilkenny.

Two years back I tracked down sushi in Bahrain and it was so very bad. This year I was driving around and spotted this new place. Townsend never had sushi so we went out last night and tried it out. It was good over all. The sushi was not as good as Ichiban (Pensacola), but good. The smoked salmon was the best. Townsend jumped right in and loved her first sushi. The place was cool and they had one of those great carousels that rotates the sushi right in front of you (evil).

Last week we went to check out the new City Center (mall) in Bahrain and have some supper. We got back to the hotel and found Mickey in our lobby. I thought that was great and got my picture. Not very clear on my iPhone, but so cool.

Found out about this book from Rabbi (Navy Bahrain) and tracked it down.  I knew it would be a little hard to find when I could not find it by IBSN on Amazon.  Townsend and I headed over to City Center, Bahrain’s newest and biggest mall, last night to see this mall and find the book.  Townsend is a self proclaimed shopping expert and was great to have along.  She seemed to be able to navigate this 3 story 150,000 sq meter (1.6 million sq foot) mall with little effort.

We managed to trek from the parking deck to the Food Court with a little help from map stations.  The Food Court was massive and busy.  We grabbed our food and found a table.  Townsend regaled me with stories of her teen years.  She has some of the best stories.  We left the Food Court and found more maps looking for a camera store.  I needed to check on a UV filter for SKC’s new Sony DSLR.  We found that but did not purchase.  I will check with Chief if she wants the filter.

More directions quickly got us to Virgin Megastore.  This store took two floors of the mall.  The first deck had all the books.  I found a helper and showed him the details that I had copied from my Internet search.  He determined they had the book in the store.  It took us about 10 minutes to track the book down, but we found it (Townsend found it).

I had a great impromptu conversation with the sales guy about the book and the topic it covers.  From Our Beginning to the Present Day… by Nancy Elly Khedouri is the History of the Jews in Bahrain.  The sales guy said he knew about the Jewish families in Bahrain and they were very respected by all.  He explained that these Arab Jews were like American Jews and were kind and fair.  Our conversation was cut short because the store was so busy, but it was encouraging to hear his words.

IT2 is in charge of scheduling command PT each week.  He tries to rotate the PT activity to keep it fresh.  Last week he let us know Yoga was on for this week.  I made fun of him the best I could about this and he took it all in stride.

From workouts that I have studied I know that Yoga is a good “core” workout.  I talked with IT2 about the Eastern Spiritual influence that caused me to have some problems with Yoga and he let me know that he shared my concerns, but this was strictly for the workout.  I have no problem with this position (small yoga pun).

This morning it was determined that we had some schedule conflicts with all of the command getting to the yoga class.  I talked IT2 into going ahead with the two of us doing the class today.  We got in class just a few minutes after it started.  It was an AMAZING workout.  I was pushed to some limits in many ways and had to hold back knowing I would never last the hour.  Overall a great workout to start the week and I look forward to our next class.

Yesterday before service I asked Rabbi about the Jewish Community in Bahrain.  When I had talked with IT1 last he told me that Rabbi had told him there was a Synagogue in Bahrain.  Rabbi told me a great story about meeting one of the Jewish leaders here in Bahrain.  The meeting had been arranged by one of the Arab ladies here on base.

Rabbi was able to meet with him and see the Synagogue that they had.  With only 35 Jewish people left in Bahrain they did not use the building opting to meet in homes.  They still kept the building and maintained it at a low level.  Rabbi said there were some very interesting things about this group.  They traced their migration to Bahrain from Iraq about 100 years ago.  At that time the Jewish Community was strong.  Over the years the Jewish population had slipped away for many reasons.

The Jewish people here in Bahrain, Rabbi explained, seem to have a good relationship with the Arabs.  As a matter of fact the Bahrain Jews consider themselves Arab.  I found this to be an amazing concept.  I tried to get details about going to visit this group for a Sabbath, but Rabbi was not sure on the details.

Two other very interesting facts that Rabbi shared were about the Jewish connection in the government.  The American Ambassador to Bahrain is a Jewish man.  And I marveled to find out the Bahrain Ambassador to America is Jewish.  That is just amazing to me.

http://bahrain.usembassy.gov/ambassador2.html
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1212041427530&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

It was such a blessing to get the email that there would be a Rosh Hashanah service on base, but turns out G-d had even a greater blessing in store for me.  I planned my Friday off from Navy to be reading most of the day.  I slept in till about 8AM and had a great morning workout.  The gym at the hotel is one of the best I have ever seen in a hotel.  Lots of equipment and space.

I ate lunch/breakfast in my room and read a few chapters in my book.  I decided to leave a little early for service so I could wonder around Gudaiblya side of town looking for a restaurant PS1 told me about.  I have been near this part of town many times, but never looked around.  It is not as tight getting around as the Souq area, but almost.  People walking in the roads and it is common for someone to just stop in the middle of the road, get out of the car and run in a shop for what they need. Once you get use to this it is not so bad.

I found the Filipino restaurant I was looking for call Hot Pot.  It is much nicer than I thought it would be.  They were not open when I got there because it is still Ramadan.  Everyone that serves food or drink is closed until sunset (7PM) for the month of Ramadan.  I may stop by some time after work next week or wait for the weekend.  I hope they have no pork at this place so I can eat all the Filipino food that I was not able to have in the Philippines.

I still got on base early so I did Internet stuff until it was time to walk over to service. I had never been to this building, but was able to find it no problem over near the Singles Sailors Building.  Building 23 is the Small Chapel and the Base Chaplain’s office.  I was about 5 minutes early and walked into the office being greeted by 4 guys.  Two of the base office staff, one guy younger than me and the Rabbi.  We exchanged greetings and made small talk for about 5 minutes.

I was not sure how the Rabbi would take me being a Messianic so I just kept that to myself.  I noticed that the other guy had a Complete Jewish Bible that he slipped into his bag after service.  I was amazed that G-d had put two Messianics on the same base.  Once in the chapel area we were joined by another man.  Total in the prayer service were 5.  I found out, after the service, that the Rabbi was Orthodox.  He did more than half the service in Hebrew. 

Rabbi gave a nice little introduction to Rosh Hashanah before the service started.  The service went about 1 hour and we went in the next room for the bread and wine.  We said the blessings and also had apple (with honey) and pomegranate.  At the table we talked about Jewish Chaplains in the Navy and the regulations on the wearing of beards.  The Navy standard is VERY strict for a clean save, but Rabbi told us that just this past few weeks they were looking to change the rules for Jewish Chaplains.  It was cool that arguments had been made based on the Israeli military and the concessions they make for traditional Jews wishing to serve, but desire to keep a beard.

After the service I made sure to walk out with the guy I saw with the Complete Jewish Bible.  I explained I did not want to bring up anything in front of the Rabbi, but wanted to know if he was Messianic.  He said that he had been for 2 years now and was very excited to meet others of like mind.  We both gave very, very short history of how we came to Messianics.  I found out that this guy was an IT1 working over at N6 and knew my IT2 over at Triple C.  I asked that he send me over an email so we can plan to grab some dinner while I am here and talk.  What a great start to Rosh Hashanah.