Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

Gonna go to bed now. Hope everyone had a good day or is having a good day! Had fun chatting with everyone here. Hope to have more fun chats later today!

Planning out colors for next drawing. I can’t decide on a subject, so I’ll probably use a big piece of paper to draw more than one. I’m gonna use markers and experiment with different coloring…September is virus season and my throat feels sore and itchy, but luckily it’s only like that because I cleared it too much from something that was bothering me. I want it to go away already, it is seriously annoying me. Almost every time in September I get sick, but this time I won’t!

@Pastellioli yes, my friend. You can easily avoid it. Especially in cooking, and even in some kuwaiti food. While I wanted to talk about chicken and how you can just spice it with things like dry lime powder, cumin, termuric/kurkum, ginger powder, paprika powder, cinnamon poweder and whatnot, halfway through writing this I felt it may be valuable to discuss a common food here; Samoon Mushakal. It’s exclusive to kuwait as far as I can tell, when I drive to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, I couldn’t find it. It’s probably in Iraq but I’ve never driven to Iraq.
Samoon Mushakal is quite good. It’s a little specific, requiring Samoon bread which is a common Kuwaiti bread (but has similar breads in other countries that only share the name rather than features), if you can find any small fluffy long bread you should be fine. The ingredients are probably even more specific, but obviously common to us. It’s falafel, soft fried potatoes, eggplants and tahina sauce. Some people add cabbages, those people are losers (joking, of course. Nothing wrong with it but it can be a bit boring and risk making it dry). Some people like my dad and I are just content with the sliced fried potatoes and eggplants. Makes it juicier and easier to taste all the ingredients.

@Yousef- Interesting dish! I don’t really read into cuisines of other countries, the only ones I know the most is Mexican cuz I’m Hispanic and my grandma made a lot of popular dishes, plus I know a lot of Mexican candy as well. I’d love to learn more cuisines and super popular dishes, Mexican cuisine is the one I’m the most familiar with but also the only one I’m familiar with. I am a bit familiar with Chinese cuisine, but that’s the Chinese-American cuisine at places like Panda Express. Are there any other Kuwait dishes that you like? I’m really curious!

I have used paprika, cumin and some of the spices you listed when I’m preparing chicken. But, I never thought of using cinnamon and ginger with it. When I make chicken, I tend to use just salt, pepper, and maybe garlic powder or onion powder. There was this one time I tried to experiment and spice things up by using Tajin (a brand of Mexican spice mix) and lime to make spicy and sour chicken, but I don’t think it ever turned out well. There was a time when my brother made this sweet mustard chicken and it tasted so amazing. We do change things up with the spices and ingredients we use for chicken, but nothing too crazy. But, plain and simple can taste good.

The samoon you listed sounds like it’d be super tasty. I tried to search it up, but I only found recipes on how to make the bread and not the dish. It must be really rare in America! I don’t think I’ve ever eaten eggplants.

@Pastellioli how silly of you to ask me that. Because the only answer there is of me to give is that I like all of our dishes.

I’m not being stiff though, I understood the intention of the question was to just acquire about knowledge. I just like being silly and fixate on wording sometimes. It’s the writwr in me being a little gremlin so think of it. it’s in jest, and not a callout of any means, old bud.
Obviously what I really meant to say is that it’s difficult to mention all of them in detail as there’s too many to talk about off the bat, and would likely prefer to mention one at a time for easier informational digestion, pun intended. But also do give myself future conversation pieces of course. Can’t exhaust myself right away, right? Slow and steady wins the race.
In case you want the demonym though, it’s “Kuwaiti” with an I at the end, though you’ve likely knew that already. I’m just forgetful.

I love knowing you’re Hispanic, that’s super interesting to find out. I’ve always had a hunch Arabs and Hispanics would get along due to similar cultures, so it’s good you’re proving my words right. Latin American food and culture is something I’m very much invested in.

I prep chicken with liquid based marination sometimes, I typically use Laban; a yogurt based drink common to our region. The spices I mentioned are of course, also great and yeah. Ginger and cinnamon are also great. The more you know, right?

Y’know, I’ve never actually used regular lime for cooking. Only Dry lime. It’s super great, I recommend it. I use regular lemons though they’re great. Especially on Aish (Kuwaiti rice).

That’s because my wording wasn’t very clear, so let me explain again. “Samoon” I used in my previous was message was more akin to the context of which “sandwich” is used. And obviously, if you look up “sandwich” on its own you’ll find equally vague results. Difference obviously is that Samoon is more related to the bread, and isn’t just a vague word for sandwich. Hopefully that clears it up. Looking up something like “Samoon Batat” or “Samoon Naqaniq” should yield better results.

Tajin sounds interesting. We don’t find many Mexican spice mixes, especially since we don’t buy spice mixes in general but rather choose to make our own, but I’ll keep an eye on tajin next time I’m at a hypermarket, where I’m more likely to find foreign products compared to a local grocery market. Thanks for the tip!

Yeah, simple is sometimes best. No need to be super fancy. Also, garlic and onion powder? I knew I forgot to mention something so thanks for reminding me. I should mention I’m a gigantic onion and garlic freak.

I’m not sure how close it it’s to Arab culture, but Turkish soap operas were huge here in Mexico for several years.

It’s only winded down recently and that’s just because they’re running out of new ones to air.

@Yousef- I can tell you’re just being funny! I like it when people inject some humor into what they say

Yeah, my grandma and mom sometimes cook a lot of Hispanic dishes, my grandma especially, she used a lot of beans in her food and tortillas. The Mexican supermarket near us has a lot of good stuff. It has a small section of pan dulce and cookies that you can grab with a pair of tongs and put in a bag. Some American stores here also have small sections selling Mexican candies. Whenever I go to the pan dulce section, it’s so hard to pick! Usually I stick to only one.

Tajin also tastes super good on fruit. I need to search the recipe I used for the Tajin chicken that one time. They also have hot sauce too, that tastes amazing as well!

Garlic powder and onion powder are awesome. They can make any sort of chicken dish taste amazing.

I went outside and heard my cat crying and wailing like he was in some sort of desperate situation.

The issue? A small obstacle blocked the route he usually follows to enter the garden. Mind you this is not the only way in, and I’ve seen him jump over way taller objects (sometimes he remembers he is, indeed, a cat).

But he did not stop until I picked him up and moved him inside myself.

Guys. I did it! I beat The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom! It was amazing! The final battle was perfect!!

Oh, I guess @ThatZeldaNerd will want to hear lol...

@CaleBoi25 congrats, I just beat it last night lol

@Eel
During 90's era, we got a lot of Telenovela with Indonesian dub. Some titles such as Maria Mercedes, Marimar, Cassandra, Rosalinda, Carita de Angel, etc.

@Anti-Matter ah those would be the Mexican variety. They used to make a lot of them, but it’s winded down in popularity too.

@Eel
The Spanish trend during 90's era also included in the English songs such as Maria by Ricky Martin, No Me Ames by Marc Anthony & J-Lo, Could I have This Kiss Forever by Enrique Iglesias & Whitney Houston, etc.
Such a very short Spanglish era during 90's and we never get more like that nowadays.

@Kermit1doesmath In that case, congratulations to you as well!

@CaleBoi25 YOOOOOO! congrats!!! Im so happy u had a great time playing! hehe

@Pastellioli looking at the specs for the TV stand, it supports TVs up to 50 inches. But I e-mailed the manufacturer’s customer support team and asked if it can support anything larger. So we’ll see. And the lifespan of a TV is just what I briefly read online; I didn’t read into much more detail than what Google spat out.

@AstroTheGamosian Oh got it! Hoping that some good news comes out of customer support.

With the lifespan part of a TV, it’s actually usually 5-7, very close to what you said, but it can last for 10 or more if the TV is cared for and undamaged, but it can also depend on what type it is. It’s very interesting because the last thing I would hav thought of that has a lifespan is a TV, but I think all electronics have lifespans too.

@Pastellioli Hopefully they will respond to my query soon. And I do tend to take good care of my electronics. The one I have had for ten years is a 32-inch dummy TV (so no smart features), but the resolution only goes up to 1080p. It's the Insignia brand (Best Buy's in-house brand), and I bought it for about $160. It works fine still, but the new TV is Samsung, which I hear is a good brand.

@AstroTheGamosian I also try to take good care of electronics I have too. I try to make sure they stay away from liquids and don’t fall and break. I’m very cautious with my Xbox console and phone, though my phone is maybe around 5 years old and the battery is a bit degraded, plus I have accidentally dropped it a lot on the ground, though it doesn’t affect the phone significantly. There was also a laptop I had that someone lended me but I accidentally spilled water on it, I was so upset when it happened. Surprisingly it still worked, but several of the buttons were damaged and never worked, but I did get a new one. When my Xbox gets warm when I play, I get super worried that it’s going to break, so I always turn it off and give it a break, but that could just be me freaking out for no reason.

I also have an Xbox controller that drifts a lot, I’m not sure why, but my brother would play on my Xbox a bit, but it could be something like dirt. I wish I could fix the bad controller, but I don’t know how I can. Most of my electronics work but I have damaged a few on accident throughout the years.

Samsung TVs are great. They perform super well, and I am pretty happy that a super old model we have still works.

Yes I did

How’s everyone doing? It’s lunchtime here but I’m not really hungry. All I ate was some bakery bread with cheese on it. Tasted good, but I feel a bit unwell. My body is aching so much for no reason and I feel like I need to nap for a little. My sore throat is going away thanks to the power of cough drops, so I guess that’s good. I’ve luckily not shown any symptoms, good I’m not sick.

Need to go back to watching JoJo later, I am still stuck on the 14th episode because I’ve fallen asleep way too much and have been super busy.