Middle Eastern Chicken recipe

Posted on November 20, 2014 by Laurie Fraser

Crispy tasty chicken made with zakat.

Zakat is a popular spice combo used in the Middle East, often simply sprinkled on flat bread with olive oil and baked.

Buy Zakat at a Mid-East grocer or mix your own by combining sesame seeds, thyme, sumac and salt.

Sprinkle chicken pieces on both sides with olive oil and a generous amount of zakat. Marinade at least an hour (in the fridge). I used chicken thighs, but drumsticks and breast strips are yummy too.

Cook at 350 until cooked through and crispy outside, about 30 minutes depending on your choice of cut.

olives, cold Mid-East chicken and cottage cheese

Leftovers are mighty good cold.

Kurdish Culture

Posted on November 18, 2014 by Laurie Fraser

Shahram playing the tanbour.

Kurds are more than the fight.

How often did my husband hold his finger in the air and declare, “We want to speak our language without fear. We want the right to dance, to sing our music, to write and read our literature.”

85 + at the Ottawa Public Library

After all, what are they fighting for?

At this moment, in many places, they are fighting for simple survival, a peaceful place to live, clean water, a dry warm bed, a garden, a roof, a safe haven, a border. But more than that- they are fighting for Kurdish schools, Kurdish businesses, Kurdish culture.

Jaffer Sheyholislami

We gathered on Nov. 15, almost 100 of us, not to talk about the fight or the people dying on the mountains. We gathered to enjoy the talent of Shahram with his tanbour, the singing and film-making of children in Kobani, the poetry of Jaffer Sheyholislami and other Kurds, and the stories I had to tell about my time in Kurdistan.

reading about the 3-day wedding

It was a joyous afternoon. A reporter from Centretown News had interviewed me the day beforehand. I had been practicing my speech when she called, but I said with confidence, “I’m not nervous. It can’t go wrong with these people in the room. It’ll be all heart.” How could it be anything but?

Shahram

old friends who made the trip

Jeghir Jahangir, mc extraordinaire

signing

Kurdish poetry

Posted on November 15, 2014 by Laurie Fraser

Jaffer Sheyholislami, Words and Kurds, Nov. 2014

Separation  by Sherko Bekes

From my poems, if you take away flowers,

One of my four seasons will die

If you take away the wind,

Two of my seasons will die.

If you take away bread,

Three of my seasons will die.

If you take away freedom,

My whole year will die,

and so will I.

Translated by Jaffer Sheyholislami

as performed at Words and Kurds Cultural Event, November 15, 2014

Words and Kurds comes to Ottawa — Nov. 15, 2014

Posted on October 27, 2014 by Laurie Fraser

Dixie

Posted on October 10, 2014 by Laurie Fraser

Bright red turtleneck 
wiggles, trapped, 
“Down.” 
“Down!” 
She is lifted 
by the bib of her overalls 
and dropped to the ground: 
a bag of hard apples 
rolling rosy-cheeked 
through the autumn leaves.

Toilets ‘Round the World.

Posted on September 28, 2014 by Laurie Fraser

The fanciest toilet I ever found was in Hiroshima, Japan: a sit-down with 2 arm-rests full of controls. It was Japanese to me, but I pushed the buttons anyway and found I could warm the seat, deodorize the area, start a fountain similar to a bidet, blow dry air and play music. A faucet over the tank seemed awkward to me, so I used the regular sink instead.

Japanese Toilet

No, my hosts never knew I was taking pictures of their bathroom.

Some toilets, especially those equipped with a bidet, come with a remote control.

Kohler C3 Series Toilet Seats Offer Hands-Free Butt-Washing, American Style

(Courtesy of Gizmodo)

Japanese toilet, Tokyo Hotel

I found this Japanese squat toilet in a Tokyo hotel.

It played music automatically while I used it, and then as I stood up, it flushed.

It was a swanky hotel so I was surprised- I had always associated squat toilets with poverty.

Turkish squat toilet

This is the squat toilet in my Nevsehir, Turkey apartment. As described in The Word Not Spoken the toilets in an apartment building are attached to the same drain pipe. There is no need for a flush. The smells coming out of the small cement room are noted by Leigh more than once.

The toilet paper on a nail was my Cdn. touch, but the pitcher was there for family and friends who filled it with water and washed instead of wiped.

The simplest rest stop I found was near Alleppey, Kerala (India) on a backwater boat journey. When our boat stopped for a small thali on a banana leaf for lunch, I was directed to a nearby bamboo screen in answer to “Toilet please?”.

I walked down the beach and looked behind the bamboo screen but saw nothing there. I returned to the outdoor table where my banana leaf waited and asked again.

The tiny waiter pointed impatiently. “There!”

“I don’t think so,” I murmured to a travel companion. “There’s nothing behind it.”

“That’s it!” The more experienced traveller insisted. “Go in the sand and cover it up.”

So I did. I imagined they moved the screen periodically.

photo credit More backwater pics

The grossest bathroom ever: On a mountain for the pilgrims who journeyed to a remote temple in Northern India. I smelled it long before I reached the door of a small concrete building. Two stalls without doors or toilets. Simply a floor tilted slightly toward the front and a small trough where refuse was intended to gather and be removed by someone who had apparently quit this, the worst job in the world, long ago.

The floor within and without the stalls were slippery with waste. Some places quite deep. In fact, it seemed dangerous to wade into it and squat. The “sink” was a stone trough at waist height near the door filled with green stagnant slimy water. There were no faucets or water source nearby.

The place was quite desolate and I was alone there, so I chose an out of the way spot in Mother Nature rather than step into that concrete-boxed cesspool.

I first ran into floors used as toilets in a train station in Northwest India. The women’s bathroom was 3 stalls without doors. By habit, I chose to face forward when I squatted on the clean tiled floor that sloped toward a trough that ran in front of all 3 stalls. To my absolute dismay, a women with a broom rushed in to clean it as I was leaving. No matter how enormous, the tip I gave her couldn’t erase the shame I felt.

Still, as that train carried me to Jaipur, I saw men and women from nearby slums squatting on tracks parallel to mine, using the area as a long latrine. I turned my head to give them privacy.

I had to replace an old water-guzzling toilet recently. I chose a middle-of-the-line model that economizes water ($225). I am grateful when I flush it – always – but I wish it used river water instead of treated water…you know, when so few of us in the world have access to clean water and sanitation.

Goals and Gifts

Posted on September 14, 2014 by Laurie Fraser

Goals and Gifts

published by Tone Magazine Jan. 2013

Usually I write about using energy to heal physical and emotional symptoms but it is also useful to reach goals. For example, I’m publishing a book and energy work has helped me remove blocks that were slowing me down (anxiety, fears around success, letting go, etc.)

Female, 37, unemployed:

“I’m ready, willing and able to get the job I want” led (by muscle-testing through lists of options) to façade procedure (Tone, Dec. 2010). In this case, I cracked open the façade of “blocked” and stepped aside for Buddha to tend to her.

Afterwards, Buddha presented a black box (which I saw clairvoyantly). I opened it and saw a bracelet of small black obsidian beads. I was instructed to place this on her right wrist and was told that it would continue to clear blocks.

The client said she’d been “stuck” for several months with no interviews or real prospects in her field. Since then (a month ago) she’s received 3 short freelance projects. They weren’t well-paid, but they have resulted in networking and increased confidence. She found a picture of her bracelet online and posted it on her desktop.

Male, 42:

“David” was hoping for spiritual insights, in particular, the identity of his Ascendant Master.

His session started with purple-robed St. Germaine clearing the façade of “struggle”. St. Germaine stayed as I was guided to clear blocks in chakras and organs, most interestingly, a black mass from David’s third eye that had been getting in the way of his second sight.

David saw colours during the healing, especially purple. Of course, he learned that St. Germaine, Chohan of the violet ray is his Ascendant Master. There was great joy and gratitude from both of them as they connected.

Female, in an abusive relationship:

She was given a bullet-proof vest by St. Germaine.

Female, 27:

“Bev”’s grandmother showed up at her healing as a heavy short mass of love at the side of the treatment table. I felt her but didn’t see her. Muscle-testing told me that she had a message for her granddaughter. I was shown a brilliant formal bouquet of red roses and white lilies. It was offered to Bev with extraordinary love. I relayed the message: She was proud of Bev, awestruck by her development into a beautiful woman. I had the feeling that this was a bride’s bouquet.

The choice of flowers was meaningful to Bev, who later confided that she and her partner had discussed marriage recently.

Female, 56:

“Fran” is becoming a healer. We are both students of the Ascendant Master, El Morya.

In one session, El Morya “downloaded” light into Fran causing her squirm and stretch on the treatment table. When it was over, I was told this light would increase Fran’s psychic and healing abilities.

El Morya then presented her with a golden chalice. She sat up, held it in her hands (no, she couldn’t see it), and drank the contents. (She didn’t taste it, but the 3 times I drank from a chalice it was heavy and thick, like drinking barium.) She was told that this was knowledge and a congratulatory gift for achieving this new level.

All of the above sessions also involved procedures that I do all the time: B.O.S., Comprehensive healing, Reconnective healing and others, but more and more gifts and visitors are arriving during sessions. They are real blessings for clients and I’m grateful for these new developments.

I give thanks to my teachers and helpers.

As of 2020, I am no longer working with visiting entities. I think that a human such as myself is limited when it comes to detecting corruption in some of these beings. Unless it’s your Grandpa, of course. I’m fine with passing on messages with those visitors. I mean beings who want to help with healings. I didn’t have any bad experiences, I just think there’s a risk.

Stay

Posted on August 29, 2014 by Laurie Fraser

Ottawa River, Canada

This morning I saw a school bus on the move, the first geese honking overhead, a few leaves on the grass.

This evening I watched the sunset on the beach, shivering in shorts and t, the heat pulling away like a tide.

SUMMER! I beseech you: Linger! Linger with me. I cannot bear to lose you just yet.

delicate summer

Help Kurdish Refugees

Posted on August 18, 2014 by Laurie Fraser

August 13, 2014

It really feels like exercising my right of free speech to walk with sign held high around Parliament Hill (Ottawa) “In Solidarity with Kurdistan”, answering the megaphone and marching over to the American Embassy. The words were grateful for humanitarian aid, asking for more, the end of ISIS, and call for immediate help for Yezidi refugees in danger.

At the eternal flame. We’d been drenched in a downpour but the sun came out again.

I met a former student there. He’d received the text at 9:30 am, dropped everything to be downtown by 11 to march. It was spur of the moment for all of us, and spirits were high…hopes are high these days that the West will help this time.

Free Kurdistan. Stop ISIS.

Marching to the American Embassy. “Thank you!” we chanted outside. “Stop ISIS!”

I got the email the night before- the anniversary of my husband’s death- and couldn’t think of a better way to honour him and so many other persecuted Kurds, still dying as I write this.

A week later, I participated in a fundraiser for the refugees, donating book profits to the cause. “Kurdish in Ottawa” organized the event. They barbequed chicken and collected donations. We played soccer and drank tea- a very pleasant way to raise about $2,000.

Donations for the refugees are gratefully accepted by Anatolian Cultural Foundation (ACF)

How can you HELP?

When is Eid?

Posted on July 26, 2014 by Laurie Fraser

sunset is at 8:38 today

The Islamic calendar is lunar. This is why no one is ever quite sure when Ramadan starts and when it ends too- Muslims are looking to the moon. Some believe that the moon must be seen with the naked eye while others contend that a telescope or astronomical calculations are good enough.

I sat on the South Indian beach one sultry night watching the sky with Muslim friends. It seemed very romantic to me- waiting for the moon to tell us whether fasting would begin the next morning.

I was in Kerala, on Kovalam Beach. It’s a humid place with salt in the air, where the electricity goes off every day at 6 p.m., and I always kept careful track of my candles and matches. It’s a place with spiders as big as my hand and snakes as large as my body, a place where I had to walk down a jungle path shared by such spiders and snakes twice a day.

Kovalam is very close to the equator: sunrise and sunset were at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. every day of the year- a 12 hour fast. (In Canada, the fast varies widely depending on the month. This July has been hot, the fast being 15 long hours without drink, food or cigarettes.)

We sat in a crowd on the beach that night, in a deep enveloping darkness, watching for the full moon over the hard-pounding surf of the Indian Ocean. The locals had relaxed into a holiday mood, but I was concerned- it was cloudy and the stars weren’t visible. We didn’t see the moon although we sat for hours, and the light-heartedness of my companions did not diminish.

“But how will you know?” I asked my friend. “Who will tell you?”

“In Saudi, they will be seeing the moon.”

“What if it’s cloudy there too?”

He laughed. “They are not having clouds in Saudi.”

“Well, how will you know tonight?” There was no electricity, no radio or television. In fact, I was quite sure he didn’t have a telephone.

“I am starting now because maybe tomorrow is being the first day.”

“But how will you know?” insisted my Western personality.

He looked at me kindly. “Ramadan is being in the heart. It is bringing me closer to my God. If I am being early it is wonderful thing and I am not taking the chance for missing even one day. It is best days of all the year. It is happiest time for me: My heart is singing with the God every day in the Ramadan.”

I thought these Indian Muslims were quite different from the Turkish Muslims I had known. In Western Turkey, Ramadan had been announced by the imam at the mosque; the restrictions were resented but endured by the people I hung out with there. Appearances and judgmental neighbours were a real concern. I’d never heard anyone speak of Ramadan with this kind of excitement and devotion.

The arrival of Eid which marks the end of Ramadan is also washed with uncertainty. This year it may be Monday or Tuesday. Funny pie chart here lists ways of discerning the date including “My mom will tell me” and “Just keep fasting until the phone explodes with Eid texts”.

In every Islamic culture I’ve been in, and also in Canada’s Muslim community, Eid is greeted with euphoric celebrations. No holiday is greater in Islam. The joy (and even relief) is profound.

The phrase “Eid Mubarak” means “Blessed Celebration” or more loosely- “Happy Festival”, and so on Monday, or maybe Tuesday, it’s the the thing to say to your Muslims neighbours.

sunset on the beach