Christmas in the Desert

Rob worked on Christmas Eve and I spent a very stressful day at the pool (a new Dubai Christmas tradition!) Feeling tanned and festive, I set about cooking Christmas Eve dinner.

Despite winter temperatures that seldom drop below 65 degrees in Southern California, my grandmother always makes a hearty goulash soup on Christmas Eve. I decided this would also be a good choice in a city where temperatures are equally as un-Christmasy.

After cleaning up the piles of paprika that exploded in a cloud onto our stove and floor when I opened the bag, then evacuating when the fire alarm went off (not caused by me as far as I know) the soup was finally finished. I have new respect for my Oma’s soup that she makes so effortlessly. The meat was so tough it could have been loaded into a bb gun and used to shoot a bird for our next dinner.

I also decided that we needed homemade Christmas cookies. Here's a snapshot of the process:

You’ll notice several things wrong with this picture:
1: No mixing bowl; sub cheap pot
2: No electric mixer; sub wooden spoon and very tired right arm
3: Flour all over the counter, floor, and my clothes, which thankfully is not as burdensome to clean as paprika.

I don't know how many grams of butter are in a stick. I still can't convert fahrenheit to celsius. I had to get resourceful when the recipe called for softened butter (shocker the fire alarm didn't go off here.) And the melted butter combined with the spilled paprika to create a very-difficult-to-clean paste.

Unfortunately the house didn't smell like homemade baked goods as I had expected, but rather a combination of burnt plastic and toasty paprika.

All hurdles aside, the cookies turned out perfectly and I am the world's newest believer in Christmas miracles. Because moving abroad has neglected us of the regular holiday party circuit and the calories associated with it, I think it’s perfectly fine that I ate more than a quarter of the cookie dough right out of the bowl pot. I am never to be trusted with a bowl pot of cookie dough.

For Christmas dinner, we ate in our favorite Indian vegetarian place (yes, we have a favorite Indian vegetarian restaurant. We're so worldly. Another Dubai Christmas tradition!) where we are always the only white people there and always surprised by what comes to our table but never disappointed by it.

I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday. Merry Christmas from the Bruces of Dubai!