Happy Times in the year 2015
Merry Christmas 2015 and A Happy New Year 2016
2015 Christmas arrived full speed followed by a joyful New Years Eve.
During the year, we laughed with joy; we cried with sorrow, we had hopeful days indeed sometime we felt sad!
Year went by with so many memories, achievements, new beginnings, yet some unfinished businesses.
However when we gathered with our family for the supper every night, we thank God for the food on the table and the time we shared with our loved ones!
This year our family Christmas Dinner was filled with Joy, Hope and Love and got even merrier with our little angels’ cheerful presence.
After all it was so worth witnessing the children carefully placing the cookie and the milk on the table for Santa and impatiently trying to fall asleep for the next morning!
See you next year Santa; we hope you had toys for every kid on the earth.
Merry Christmas 2015 And a Happy 2016!
December 25th 2015
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During the year, we laughed with joy; we cried with sorrow, we had hopeful days indeed sometime we felt sad!
Year went by with so many memories, achievements, new beginnings, yet some unfinished businesses.
However when we gathered with our family for the supper every night, we thank God for the food on the table and the time we shared with our loved ones!
This year our family Christmas Dinner was filled with Joy, Hope and Love and got even merrier with our little angels’ cheerful presence.
After all it was so worth witnessing the children carefully placing the cookie and the milk on the table for Santa and impatiently trying to fall asleep for the next morning!
See you next year Santa; we hope you had toys for every kid on the earth.
Merry Christmas 2015 And a Happy 2016!
December 25th 2015
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Happy Thanksgiving 2015
Living abroad changes you and your loved ones in time. The effort of trying to adapt to the culture you are living in now draws you away from the traditional routines.
Friends, family and relatives get a new norm living without seeing you regularly. All high-tech communication tools are not enough to feel each-others warmth. While you try to get used to your new life, they miss you a lot.
Indeed once you start feeling alone in your heart, they already have a mindset that you will not be around for a while and get busy with their life.
I was lucky to be able to keep in touch with most of them and I have been traveling back home for major Holidays.
Five years later, we still have our blessed Thanksgiving dinner with Love and Joy no matter how much we have changed over the course of time.
Certainly our dinner conversation subjects became more global now but the sprit remain the same, with the new additions in the family running around the house giving fresh essence to our souls!
By the way the bird was so juicy and delicious!
Happy Thanksgiving 2015 everyone!
November 24th 2015
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Friends, family and relatives get a new norm living without seeing you regularly. All high-tech communication tools are not enough to feel each-others warmth. While you try to get used to your new life, they miss you a lot.
Indeed once you start feeling alone in your heart, they already have a mindset that you will not be around for a while and get busy with their life.
I was lucky to be able to keep in touch with most of them and I have been traveling back home for major Holidays.
Five years later, we still have our blessed Thanksgiving dinner with Love and Joy no matter how much we have changed over the course of time.
Certainly our dinner conversation subjects became more global now but the sprit remain the same, with the new additions in the family running around the house giving fresh essence to our souls!
By the way the bird was so juicy and delicious!
Happy Thanksgiving 2015 everyone!
November 24th 2015
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Celebrations, Family ties, Sweet times of Summer 2015
Grilling Lamb Chops and Chicken 
Happy 4th of July
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2015 July home leave was full of fun.
We had a chance to grill for 4th of July Holiday first time after 5 years, just like good old times, gathered around the table and beside the delicious food we enjoyed being with our family. I also had a cutest Little Assistant Chef this time. Defne Her Spinach triangles and Chocolate cake was so delicious! Eid ( End of Ramadan) was celebrated in July. So we baked a traditional dessert called “Semolina Cookies in Syrup” August 2015 arrived with record high heat indeed late afternoon thunderstorms bring much wanted rain in to our area. We enjoy our refreshing Almond Green Smoothie starting to this hot day. My young Chef Defne in the house still enjoys baking while I cook Taco soup and since our goal is healthy eating we always have our salad on the table. Summer 2015 coming to an end! July - August 2015 Back to happy living page |
Defne is preparing spinach filling for the spinach pastry
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From the Authentic Cuisine of Asia
Cook2b's Royal Tofu
Aloo Gobi
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Today my husband was reading an article about living abroad.
Author was talking about one need to be prepared for essential matters for everyday living before making a big move to live another country. But he forgot to mention about different flavors of the cuisine might be quite challenging in different cultures. One of the very important aspects to live happily abroad is being open-minded for their cuisine. Nevertheless even second time living abroad, getting used to different cuisines around the world was not easy for me. But If you are willing to try different foods you may find them quite tasty in fact really delicious most of the time. It is rare but I still find myself not ready to try some local food, but hey! It is always your choice what to eat or not! Here are a few selections that we adapted into our kitchen and enjoy very much! 6/16/2015 Back to Happy living page |
Miso Soup
A wet market in Shanghai
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An Ordinary Dinner with an Extra ordinary Friends!
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I see that no matter how life prepares unfortunate surprises out of our power time to time, we still try our best to switch the channel and continue life like yesterday was the best day! Because since we still can breath without a pain nothing else matters!
That means we still can Eat, Laugh and Love! So these lovely ladies shared my joy of Happy Moments on one Thursday night! I am delighted that they enjoyed my cooking also. Thank you for visiting my kitchen Maxine, Jane, Kathy and Mary, stay well until next time.. 4/24/2015 Back to Happy Living Page |
From left Mary, Maxine, Jane and Kathy
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Happy Easter (April 2015)
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Easter comes with many flavors. After 40 days of lent Christian World indulge themselves with good variety of food. Although traditional Easter menu collection similar all around the world, each recipe has it’s local flavors and name.
The most common food is Easter Bread. A “sweet spiced bun” from which hot cross bun derived has a Greek origin.
Baking Hot Cross Buns is a common practice in England during Easter celebrations along the centuries.
Around the South West of Russia sweet Easter cake called “kulich” (Pashka) is made of very similar yeast dough. They used crystallized orange peals as a decoration on the bread and it is served with (curd cheese).
Colomba is a sweet dove shaped panettone is very popular Eastern Bread in Italy.
Today we will talk about almost all-same yeast dough to make Marzipan Easter Cake (Simnel Cake) traditionally made for mothers on mothering Sunday (the fourth Sunday of the Lent) as a gift to the mothers. Indeed it is a common Easter Fruit cake. Decorated with twelve marzipan balls at the top, this sweet cake partakes significance for Easter.
Marzipan Cane generally served with curd cheese.
Happy Easter everyone!
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The most common food is Easter Bread. A “sweet spiced bun” from which hot cross bun derived has a Greek origin.
Baking Hot Cross Buns is a common practice in England during Easter celebrations along the centuries.
Around the South West of Russia sweet Easter cake called “kulich” (Pashka) is made of very similar yeast dough. They used crystallized orange peals as a decoration on the bread and it is served with (curd cheese).
Colomba is a sweet dove shaped panettone is very popular Eastern Bread in Italy.
Today we will talk about almost all-same yeast dough to make Marzipan Easter Cake (Simnel Cake) traditionally made for mothers on mothering Sunday (the fourth Sunday of the Lent) as a gift to the mothers. Indeed it is a common Easter Fruit cake. Decorated with twelve marzipan balls at the top, this sweet cake partakes significance for Easter.
Marzipan Cane generally served with curd cheese.
Happy Easter everyone!
Back to Happy Living Page
Goat Year in China (February 2015)
Another Chinese year is approaching during our stay in China,
People, cheerfully getting ready to reunite with their families, after a year of hard work.
And grandmothers start the story to the little ones like " legend says!" that there was a little village once upon a time ago and Nian (a mythical evil spirit) would come to the village on the first day of the year and eat their livestock, corps, kidnap the chickens and even the kids. So the villagers found the solution to offer food for Nian to protect themselves.
They put food in front of their doors at the beginning of the year, so Nian would eat the food and never attacked them again.
One day one villager was advised that if he put red paper and a firecracker on his house Nian would be afraid of it and never will come again.
So from then on Nian never came to their town any more.
This is why firecracker and color red have an important role during Chinese new years celebrations.
People offer goods to each other and hang red lanterns in front of their house during the celebrations of the beginning the New Year. Nevertheless red is one of the luckiest colors in Chinese culture, standing for prosperity, loyalty, success, and happiness.
New Year celebrations become world wide eventually. Getting together whole family and feasting, letting go of grudges and wishing each other happiness longevity, wealth and good fortune became a noble tradition. A whole fish served as a symbol of prosperity, also eating fish will help the wishes come true in the year to come, not forgetting the orange is a prayer or wish for good fortune.
Indeed flowers bring longevity and wealth and plant with red flowers will bring good luck and happiness.
Speaking of happiness “ Coarse rice for food, water to drink, and the bended arm for a pillow - happiness may be enjoyed even in these." Says Confucius.
Happy Chinese New Years 2015 to all!
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People, cheerfully getting ready to reunite with their families, after a year of hard work.
And grandmothers start the story to the little ones like " legend says!" that there was a little village once upon a time ago and Nian (a mythical evil spirit) would come to the village on the first day of the year and eat their livestock, corps, kidnap the chickens and even the kids. So the villagers found the solution to offer food for Nian to protect themselves.
They put food in front of their doors at the beginning of the year, so Nian would eat the food and never attacked them again.
One day one villager was advised that if he put red paper and a firecracker on his house Nian would be afraid of it and never will come again.
So from then on Nian never came to their town any more.
This is why firecracker and color red have an important role during Chinese new years celebrations.
People offer goods to each other and hang red lanterns in front of their house during the celebrations of the beginning the New Year. Nevertheless red is one of the luckiest colors in Chinese culture, standing for prosperity, loyalty, success, and happiness.
New Year celebrations become world wide eventually. Getting together whole family and feasting, letting go of grudges and wishing each other happiness longevity, wealth and good fortune became a noble tradition. A whole fish served as a symbol of prosperity, also eating fish will help the wishes come true in the year to come, not forgetting the orange is a prayer or wish for good fortune.
Indeed flowers bring longevity and wealth and plant with red flowers will bring good luck and happiness.
Speaking of happiness “ Coarse rice for food, water to drink, and the bended arm for a pillow - happiness may be enjoyed even in these." Says Confucius.
Happy Chinese New Years 2015 to all!
Back to Happy Living page