MATHAF - Arab Museum of Modern Art

25°17'12N 51°31'60E   T. 35°- 42 °C

"Mathaf is pronounced Mat-haf and it means Museum.
We host exhibitions, programs and events that explore and celebrate art by Arab artists. We hope you will use us as an inspiring space for dialogue and scholarship about modern and contemporary art in the region and the Arab diaspora. Our story really begins more than twenty years ago, when our patron and founder H.E. Sheikh Hassan bin Mohamed bin Ali Al Thani first began to imagine what an Arab Museum of Modern Art might look like. He started to build a collection that could serve artists and public as a rich and representative treasure-house of modern Arab art. And he saw this collection as a starting point, to create more opportunities for artists and for art-lovers in Doha and around the world".

At the heart of Mathaf is the original collection of thousand of paintings, sculptures and works on papers brought together by the founder, H.E Sheik Al Thani.
The collection includes work by artists from every Arab country, representing major trends and sites of production in the region. The earliest modern works are from the 1840s, and the most recent contemporary works bring us up to the present day.
It was H.E. Sheikh Hassan Al Thani’s personal mission to build a collection that would highlight the significance of Arab art and would become a public resource. He also collected books and periodicals and began an artist residency program, which created a wealth of archival materials documenting Arab artists and artwork.
Mathaf is now working to ensure that this collection will be available for artists and scholars to visit and study in person. The collection will also ultimately be documented in an open online database for our global public.

                                         Current exhibition - 30th Dec.2010- 1st Oct.2011
                                             SAJJL - A CENTURY OF MODERN ART

The exhibition creates a space for many different stories and experiences and helps set Arab modern art in its historical place within a larger art-history tradition. It also emphasizes the several common moments and concerns that make it possible to talk about a shared identity in the region.

Sajjil is divided into ten themed categories: nature; the city; individualism; form and abstraction; society; family; history and myth; struggle; huroufiyah (’abstract letterform art’) and Doha. Many elements of the art recur across time, space and historical interruptions.

Whatever open-hearth.

ESEDRA - Italian Cultural Association

25°17'12N 51°31'60E   T. 35°- 43 °C

The first Italian Cultural Association is newly born in Doha. In the last few years the Italian community in Qatar has experienced a strong growth showing the need of a gathering place and an association able to fulfil its needs. This is the idea behind ESEDRA.

The Association has two main objectives. On one side it will organise events, conferences and exhibitions for Italian citizens living in Qatar; on the other side it aims to engage the local community by promoting Italian culture, spreading Italian language thanks to the organization of language courses and facilitating relationship with Italy.
The main promoted activities include a multimedia library, events, children's activities, travels to italy, cooking classes, and language
courses.

MULTIMEDIA LIBRARY
Esedra will organise a space dedicated to host the library, video library and all the materials available to the member of the Association.
The sections will be:
- Classical and modern literature from all over the world in italian and other languages;
- Children classical and modern literature, cartoons and comics in italian;
- Documentaries on Italian landscapes, cities, art, touristic destination etc. ;
- Collections of classical music, opera, operetta and italian pop music;
- Collections of Italian movies and foreign movies in Italian;
- Newspaper library including Italian magazines and newspapers.

EVENTS
The organisation of cultural events will be part of the bold activities' calendar that Esedra will offer to both adults and children.
Among others: temporary exhibitions, conferences, theatre pieces, musical events and typical Italian events.

TRAVELS
The Association wishes to spread the knowledge and the love for the beauty and aims to offer the opportunity to discover the unique Italian landscape. A bold travels programme to Italy will be organised for groups or individuals, divided by itinerary and themes: art-culture, natural, food and educational itineraries as well as study holiday.

"ART OF TASTE" - THE ITALIAN COOKING
Italy is renown for its food and Esedra aims to promote and build awareness of the Italian products and the Italian traditional cooking through a path of education of the taste.
Among others: cooking courses, tasting and events dedicated to the art of cooking.

LANGUAGE COURSES
Considering the high demand from the local community and foreigners who live in Qatar, the Association will offer his members the opportunity to approach the Italian language through language courses including group classes and private lessons.


Let me say "Era ora" !!! ;-)






Whatever open-hearth.

"MASTERCHEF DOHA" : Thai cooking class

25°17'12N 51°31'60E   T. 35°- 42 °C

It's cooking time!!! Yes, you got it right, today I attended a Thai cooking class at Alfardan's Tower.
Can you imagine me among stove, appliances and exotic ingredients trying to perform a great chef??
(For people who don't know, I'm definitely not good at cooking anything).
Fortunately, I was only asked to wrap a simple springroll...no big deal uh? Because after that, it was getting more and more difficult to deal with Tom Yum Soup and Pad Thai (especially considering that normally I can barely cook a scrambled egg!!!).
Anyway, the most interesting part was definitely the lunch!! Who do you believe ate all that stuff??? ;-)
I got home full to the bursting point....
I don't know if I will be able to recreate the recipes by myself  (the challenge would be also finding all those ingredients)....but, apart from that, I collected another story to tell, didn't I?

Guys, if you're interested in, here's one of the Thai recipes (with some personal suggestions).

Phad Thai

Phad Thai sauce
5 tbsp  tamarind sauce (dissolve 1tbsp tamarind thick paste in 1/4 cup water). Never heard of before but seems to be essential....
3 tbsp soysauce
2 tbsp lime juice
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tbsp chili powder, or to taste

Phad Thai
115 gr rice sticks, thin. Kind of rice noodles..
3-4 tbsp oil
1 garlic clove, large, minced
1 shallot, minced
1/2 cup tofu, firm, cut into bite size pieces
1/2 cup tofu, soft, crumbled
3/4 head baby bok choy or other cabbage, roughly chopped. I suggest you spinach...
3-4 tbsp peanuts, roughly ground, divided
3 cups bean sprouts, divided
1 spring onion, thinly sliced.

Garnish
1/2 cup coriander, chopped. If I were you I would avoid it...it tastes like soap :-/
Lime wedges
Strips of red pepper

Boil rice noodles for 4-5 minutes and drain them well. In a small bowl, mix all the ingredients of the sauce together. Heat oil ia a wok (or large frying pan) until it is just about to smoke, then add garlic and shallots and stir, letting it cook for about 30 seconds.
Add firm tofu, stir-fry for 2-3 minutes and push tofu to side. Add the bok choy and stir until it becomes bright green and softened, then push it to side of the pan.
Break soft tofu into the wok, let it fry for 1-2 minutes and add drained noodles, giving them a quick fold, stir-frying for 1 minute from the bottom up.
Add tamarind sauce and about 2/3 of the ground peanuts and stir. At last add 2/3 of the bean sprouts, all the green onions and take off heat.
Transfer noodles to a serving dish and top with the rest of the peanuts, the rest of the sprouts and some strips of red pepper. Stick a couple of lime wedges on the side and serve immediately.

Personal hint: that's a vegetarian dish. I'd rather add some meat or fish (like prawns for instance) to give it a more "mediterranean" taste.

Cooking evidences

Whatever open-hearth.

THE GREEN DOOR (Ghassan's) - olds and antiques

25°17'12N 51°31'60E   T. 34°- 43 °C

A "secret" place hidden somewhere near the C Ring...No panels, no sign, no lights...you'll recognize it as soon as you'll see the small green door...
I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to have his apartment furnished in a very particular way..
Actually it is a shop that sells handmade furniture, handicrafts and carpets, many antique, coming from Syria, Malaysia, India, Singapore and wherever...
The owner is from Lebanon and he's a very kind person who will explain you everything about the origin and the history of all the antiques you may find in.
And after your shopping he will suggest you to have lunch at Al Majlees, his favourite Lebanese Restaurant in Doha....and why don't trust him after all??

To me, discovering this place and the restaurant was totally worth the adventure of being lost in Doha.

The Green Door Shop

Whatever open-hearth.

FANAR's Coming soon: ISLAM IN KATARA - 1st July 2011

25°17'12N 51°31'60E   T. 34°- 41 °C


FANAR, Qatar Islamic Cultural Centre, is a charitable organization that works on motivating Non-Muslims to become more informed about Islam, by diffusing Islamic culture through multiple styles and means. It undertakes many activities to care for new convert’s affairs; enlightening non-Arab Muslims about all matters in relation to their faith and teaching Arabic to non-Arabic speakers. The Charity enjoys an independent administrative and financial organizational structure and assumes its own functions under the direct umbrella of H.E the Minister of Endowments (Awqaf) and Islamic Affairs.
Fanar is now proud to announce a new partnership with Katara cultural village. It will be planned several meetings in this beautiful ground to explain certain aspects of the Islamic way of life, in an informative, educational, interactive manner. The programme is designed to take in some parts of the amazing grounds of Katara, followed by a discussion about Islam in the mosque.

VISIT PROGRAMME - 1st July 2011
This new programme, entitled " Islam in Katara " is an interactive visit that explains the role of Islam and the mosque within the daily lives of the Muslim community. The tour starts in Fanar at 2:45 pm and it will continue at Katara cultural village. There, visitors will have a 30 minute introduction to the village of Katara, followed by an explanation of the mosque. Finally the return to Fanar to watch the live prayer and partake in a light meal.


It does worth it, doesn't it? It would be an oppurtunity to learn more about local culture and lifestyle and,
why not, my first time wearing abaya... like a real muslim woman.
But just for one day, uh? ;-)

I'll get back to you soon after with an amusing report of that rum experience, I promise!!

Whatever open-hearth.

JELLO-SHOT: US ritual before BBQ

25°17'12N 51°31'60E   T. 32°- 39 °C


Every friday night it's barbecue time at Tower 31 ... Anyone can come and bring meat, drinks or whatever just to have some good time together... And yesterday I was introduced to something I've never heard of before: the US "ritual" of Jello-shots.
Just before eating, everyone swallow this delicious one-shot jelly drink I definitely want to bring back to Italy.... and here's the recipe!!

How to make it:

One of the more creative ways to serve alcohol at a party is to work it into gelatin, and serve the gelatin in small cups, making what most people will recognize as Jello shots. It's pretty much like making regular Jello, except with some alcohol added instead of cold water.

To make Jello shots, you'll need a six-ounce package of your favorite jello-flavor (I went with strawberry), a cup and a quarter of liquor (vanilla vodka for instance), 3/4 cup cold water and 2 cups of boiling water.
Mix the Jello and boiling water and stir until the gelatin granules have dissolved; then add alcohol and cold water, and stir. Pour the mix into plastic or paper cups and put them in the refrigerator.
While the recipe's only a few steps, plan it in advance since the shots need almost four hours to refrigerate.

Jello Shots

And after dinner what's better than a dive all together in the swimming pool??


I think I kinda like Doha...;-)




Whatever open-hearth.

Doha's Angsana Spa - Love Ayurveda!!

25°17'12N 51°31'60E   T. 32°- 38 °C

Today I went to get my birthday present: a DAY-SPA treatments and massages at Grand Regency's Angsana Spa in Doha with Monique and Crystal.
Not that I was so stressed  as to feel the extreme need of it...but it's so damned beautiful to feel some peace of mind in an exotic relaxing atmosphere!!
And in Doha is even less expensive because, if you happen to join a spa-group of ladies, you'll get a 50% discount!! So...what else??? Just go in and leave outside all the rest!!

I chose the SUMMER SPLENDOUR package which included:

* Body Ayurvedic Massage (60-minute)
* Hydrotherapy Experience (60-minute)
* Steam and Sauna (15 minutes)
* Red Mud Scrub (20 minutes)
* Refreshment and Relaxation (30-minute)

And after all that, I swear, I was glowing and I smelt like an oriental mix of sensual fragrances... ;-)

Ayurvedic Massage

Angsana Philosophy 

The Angsana is a statuesque tree found in the tropical rainforest of Asia. It is best noted for its crown of flowers that burst into a fragrant shower of golden-yellow blooms unexpectedly. The glorious Angsana beholds the maxim to live life and savour time as it passes inexorably.
Angsana Spa places special emphasis on the use of aromatherapy and the sense of touch to pamper the body, mind and soul. Angsana Spa is conceptualised, developed and managed by the award-winning Banyan Tree Spa and promises to deliver standards of excellence that have become synonymous with the Banyan Tree brand. Angsana Spa embraces the contemporary, holistic and non-clinical tropical garden spa concept.
Designed for the outgoing spa enthusiast who believes in living life to the fullest, Angsana Spa presents a contemporary image with its vibrant look and refreshing hues of lime green, tangerine, yellow and red. The artistic décor and inspiring colours reflect and complement Angsana's vivacious outlook on life. Guest can enjoy their treatments in serene open-air pavilions or in the cool air-conditioned comfort of indoor treatment rooms. Each location features individual treatment rooms or pavilions so that guests can enjoy complete privacy and personal service.
So, just be delighted by the range of sensory treats delivered by the intuitive touch of Angsana Spa therapists who were formally trained at Spa Academies in Bintan in Indonesia, Phuket and Bangkok in Thailand and Lijiang in China.

 
 Whatever open-hearth.