Noelle Adam

Noelle Adam is a Dutch native, who practiced law for 10 years in the great city of Amsterdam before deciding she wants to be a designer.

She graduated with fashion degree from some sort of UK based institution and launched her first pret-a-porte this year at the Dubai Fashion Week.

Noelle Adam won Dubai Fashion Week 2009 Emerging Talent Competion.

I say her dresses are not bad for the former lawyer.

Also, all her designs are also available in mini-me format for the little girls!











Pix are from her website www.noelleadam.com

Roberto Cavalli Club Dubai

In case you didn't know, Dubai is clinically addicted to European luxury brands.
So here, now you know.

Bags, stores and cars are not enough for this city. It needs more to feed on.
It needs designer-branded real estate.

Roberto Cavalli (look at that precious face! just look at it and try to find one natural element on it!) opened club here past May.
This was his 1-st club, Florence and Milan locations were added later.

If you are interested, here is what inside:

Black quartz floors
Six-meter high walls dripping with Swarovski crystals
Entrance hall featuring exclusive Cavalli jewelry
Atolls in gold-colored glass and fur, suspended from the floor hosting a sushi bar and wine bar
A restaurant serving authentic Italian cuisine
Bottles of Roberto Cavalli Vodka
Cavalli-signed chocolates

Cavalli-signed chocolates in particular boggle my mind. How did he sign them?

P.S. In the works are Palazzo Versace and some kind of apartments by Armani.For real!

Curry Truffles

Well, i thought it was a particularly surrealistic combination, but then i googled it, and whaddayou know!

Apparently, tons of people are making it, eating it, and even serving it with their Thanksgiving dinners like it's an apple pie!

What?!

Am i living in culinary dark ages?

Here is a recipe from www.epicurious.com; it has 3 forks out of 4, so it must be good.

Mango Curry Truffles

1 1/4 cups heavy whipping cream
9 ounces high–quality bittersweet chocolate (70% cocoa), chopped, divided
1 teaspoon mild curry powder
1/2 cup mango puree (from 1 mango)
mango powder* or toasted finely shredded unsweetened coconut

For truffle base:
Bring cream to simmer in heavy small saucepan. Remove from heat, stir in curry powder; let stand 2 minutes. Stir in room–temperature mango puree (from 1 mango, pureed until smooth in processor).

Meanwhile, stir 7 ounces chocolate in metal bowl over saucepan of simmering water until smooth. Remove from heat. Add 2 ounces chocolate; stir until smooth. Stir in cream. Chill truffle base until firm enough to roll, about 3 hours.

Line rimmed baking sheet with waxed paper. Roll 2 teaspoons truffle base between fingertips into ball. Transfer to prepared sheet. Repeat with remaining truffle base. Chill until firm, about 1 hour.

For chocolate coating:
Line another rimmed baking sheet with waxed paper. Stir chocolate in metal bowl over saucepan of simmering water just until melted. Remove from heat. Cool slightly.

Scoop some of warm (not hot) melted chocolate into palm of hand. Place 1 chilled truffle in hand and roll in palm to coat. Transfer to prepared sheet. Repeat with remaining melted chocolate and truffles, rewarming chocolate if necessary.
Drop each freshly coated truffle (or just–formed, uncoated truffle) into bowl of mango powder or toasted coconut; turn to coat.

Eat up!

P.S. Pic is by someone named Scott Peterson, so, dude, don't sue.

Curry and Chocolate

Recently i came across rather bizarre dessert.
It's called Chocolate Samosa and it costs -don't faint-$30 US.

While i'm personally not a kind of glutton to spend that kind of moola on a single serving of some pastry, it's probably pretty good. It's created by Michelin star chef (actually, first indian chef to be awarded the star in 100 yrs) and it has quite a following.

Basically, Chocolate Samosa has a crunchy, sweetened samosa shell, filled with masala (!) spiced dark chocolate.

Well, I never!

Who puts masala in chocolate dessert?!

Would you try it?

HSY

Yeee-haw!
I got the Texas connection!

HSY is a Pakistani-based designer studio that is a brain-child of one Hassan Sheheryar Yassin (HSY, duh). Besides clothing, they carry jewelry line and are venturing into home furnishing.
HSY has stores in UK, Pakistan, Dubai and Texas!
I googled them and they have studio/representative in Sugarland, Houston!

HSY even has it's own wikipedia page.

That said wiki page proudly mentions that "current clientèle include royal families in the Middle East, social elites in South Asia, and more recently, social elite from the US and Europe."

Oh no, they didn't!

Just joking. They did.

But it's ok, because i like what they offer - yet another fusion, and from the looks of it, pretty dang interesting.
HSY is a recipient of MTV 2008 Style Icon award and a staple of Dubai Fashion Week.

Take a look-see:

Noel Duigan

Noel Duigan is an Australian expat, who works and lives in Dubai.

He designs and makes kick-ass chairs.

I call this particular style "Rock-n-Roll Baronial" - it is Rock-n-Roll in substance and old-timey Baronial in style.
Or vice versa; what do i know?

Check out his website www.noelduigan.com and if you happen to have $US 2 000 laying around, buy some of his chairs.
He delivers worldwide.

Nammoura

For those of you not familiar with middle-eastern sweets, lemme tell ya - they are S-UH-WEET!
I mean they are sticky sweet, cotton candy sweet, dentist's wet dream sweet. Their sweetness is overpowering, overwhelming and tooth-aching.
Finishing touches to the most of middle eastern pastry include boiling copious amount of sugar in some water and then drenching said pastry in this syrup.

Ain't no subtle.

But sometimes, the soul requires simple pleasures.

That's when i go for nammoura [N-A-M-OO-R-A].
Nammoura is a simple cake, made from semolina, or as it's called in the US of A, farina. If you are still confused, go open your box of Cream of Wheat.
Now look inside.
That's farina/semolina.

There isn't really a good comparison to nammoura among the western pastries. The closest i can come up with, is, perhaps a cornmeal cake, generously soaked in sugar syrup and decorated with almond halves.
Something like that.

Anyway, yesterday i decided to make my own nammoura.
After all, i have this brand spanking new, fancy-pants oven with sexy Italian name and i haven't used it yet.
For shame!

So, i skipped to my local Carrefour, picked up a red box of nammoura mix and read the instructions.
I only needed 2 more ingredients - yogurt and ghee (clarified butter). Also some almonds for culinary ambiance, if i wished.

Fair enough.

I brought the lot home, and followed instructions - mix 3/4 cup of yogurt, 1/3 cup of ghee and content of the box (about a pound of mix).
Spread in the baking dish and bake for 20 min @ 180C/350F.
Boil a cup of sugar in 1/2 cup of water (no joke!) and pour that over baked, still warm nammoura.

Well, first site of trouble emerged when 20 min passed and nammoura still looked pale like newly-arrived wife of British expat.
Eventually, it took me 1 hour to bake that thing.

I poured my sugar syrup, which i even flavoured with rose water and waited for nammoura to cool a bit.
Then i cut a tiny piece.

It was not delicious.

I don't know what i did wrong. It was my first culinary disaster in Dubai - rock-hard nammoura, which made me cough and gag.
Not a pleasant experience.

So, if any of you know how to make a decent nammoura from the red-box mix (i'm not naming names!), do, oh do let me know.
An inquiring mind would like to know.

Homa Qamar

Homa Qamar is Dubai born and based designer of Pakistani origin.
She holds a degree in fashion designing, unfortunately, i was not able to find out from what establishment.

There was not much more on this particular designer on the interwebz ( i miss my 30Rock fix), but judging by her pic, she is young and purdy.

Also, she won couple of local fashion awards.

Among other things,Homa Qamar does abayas. And boy, are these abayas OUT THERE!

I mean, they're pretty CRAZAMAZING!

Check'em out below:

Sex and the City - not in Dubai

Filming crew of SATC:Movie 2 applied for permit to film in Dubai.
Yesterday it was leaked to the press that they got DENIED.

Sads.

Since i live right across Dubai Studio City i would have probably caught a glimpse of the ladies coming and going, if they were here.
But they won't.

So here's some Patricia Field madness in form of SATC merchandise to cheer me up:









pix are from her site www.patriciafield.com