The Lovely Ladies of AWA Qatar
Looking back over the terrible year of 2020, one lovely moment that did take place during this challenging time and ‘lockdown’ was my community experience with the lovely ladies of AWAQ – American Woman’s Association Qatar, who delightedly still are very much of my community life now we have entered 2021.
Let me explain…
After meeting the dynamic Elizabeth Yaw, President AWAQ, at the American food festival earlier in the year organised by my partner THE LULU HYPERMARKET QATAR, I was invited by Elizabeth to be the star speaker at a ‘foodie’ special with the delightful members who loved to cook. What fun and what an honour, I was thrilled.
So naturally with all of us in lockdown during this time, this ‘connection’ had to be by ZOOM and with a 20 minute speaker opportunity (or so I thought) I prepared myself on what to say, talk about and show. Elizabeth was a real gem and helped me to prepare by sending questions to discuss which predominantly were all directed at my career, experiences around the globe and of course, about my 20 years living in Doha, Qatar.
The date was set and all organised. I of course could not resist to bring some baking to the ZOOM show so was earlier busy baking in the kitchen and setting the scene for the show.
Getting ready!
I made my favourite Medjool Date Scones and had them on display on the welsh dresser, alongside my partners.
About to go LIVE. Hope I press the right buttons!
Lovely image LIVE of a few of the lovely AWAQ ladies, under the watchful eye of the President, Ms Elisabeth Yaw.
I also decided when Elizabeth informed me that the number of ladies to join the Zoom had grown to 25 (only 10 were expected) that it would probably be more fun if JULES organised a competition as a way to say thank you to these lovely ladies for supporting the show. Thus developed the Jules of the Kitchen Recipe and Photograph Competition 2020 (perhaps I should call it LOCKDOWN competition!).
The competition was really very easy, all I wished for was for someone to send me their favourite recipe accompanied by a photograph. The idea went down so well I thought, OK let me take the prizes to another level. So I invited my partners to participate and they wonderfully donated alongside my gifts of a JULES apron and Cook book the following generous items. Just for now I share description of their wonderful gifts and will post photos of it all in a following blog.
The LULU Hypermarket Doha https://www.luluhypermarket.com/en-qa/kindly donated cook book Asmars Indian Kitchen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asma_Khan
The Cooking Acadamy of Qatar gifted a Qatari cooking class https://www.facebook.com/thecookingacademyqtr/
Qinwan Dates – a beautiful gift selection box of their prestigious Medjool dates https://www.facebook.com/Qinwan-Dates-1810889125826178/
The response to the competition was amazingly positive and the winner was selected, but let me share this update in a following blog post.
