Compulsive reading – Lee Miller: A Life with Food Friends and Recipes

December 04, 2023 by Lisa Reinisch in art, anecdotes, books, food, history, photography, recommendations

When this book arrived on my doorstep, I held off on unwrapping it until the day’s work was done. I waited until I could finally take it all in, everything the promotional blurb had promised: a whopping 350 pages containing “over a hundred of her recipes and material from the cookbook that Lee Miller was secretly hoping to publish at the end of her life”. That evening, I, bona fide Lee Miller fangirl and collector or cookbooks, greedily devoured the book. Here is why I couldn’t put it down until late, late that night.

Follow the mangoes: Masafi's Friday market

December 10, 2017 by Lisa Reinisch in anecdotes, food, history, local culture, recommendations, travel, UAE

Two rows of open-front stores line a short stretch of the E88 where it cuts in between two cinnamon-red mountain ridges, somewhere along what used to be the main route to the East coast. To the uninitiated, the Friday Market, or Souq Al Juma’a, may look like nothing more than a collection of random roadside junk shops backed by low-slung tenements. The question of driving on certainly hangs in the air on first approach. But then, invariably, cars slow down as the people inside take in the scene and, metre-by-metre, become intrigued.

Desert vinyl

January 15, 2016 by Lisa Reinisch in music, UAE, recommendations, Dubai, Abu Dhabi

While copious amounts of red tape continue to stymie the opening of The Flip Side, the independent record store the UAE so sorely needs, I thought it would be nice to draw attention to something our nascent independent music scene already DOES have: two vinyl-only record labels. Yes, you read that right. Unbeknownst to many, experimental imprints Bedouin Records and Ark to Ashes have been releasing homegrown beats on 12" for over two years now.

Vampires and pomegranates, or: why my brain almost imploded with joy the other day

October 29, 2014 by Lisa Reinisch in Abu Dhabi, anecdotes, cinema, events, Movies, music, recommendations, UAE

Last weekend, two films at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival (ADFF) blew me away, although they could hardly have been any more different from each other: one was the 1968 Soviet/Armenian classic, The Color of Pomegranates, by Sergei Parajanov; the other, Ana Lily Amirpour’s directorial debut, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, aptly described in the catalogue as ‘the world’s first Iranian vampire Western’. Discovering a surprising link between them felt unfeasibly exciting and pleasantly short-circuited a whole bunch of synapses in my cultural grey matter.

An alternative breed of Dubai city guides

May 16, 2014 by Lisa Reinisch in books, Dubai, local culture, photography, recommendations, UAE, travel

Two new guide books take it upon themselves to reveal the hidden charms of Dubai, a city routinely dismissed by travel writers as artificial, crass and devoid of character. It seems both books (Uncommon Dubai, edited by Hind Shoufani, and Soul of Dubai, sponsored by the Dubai Culture & Arts Authority) have their work cut out for them. After all, the churn of ready-made write-ups about Dubai is thoroughly entrenched. But now an alternative breed of locally produced guide books is emerging, partly in response to incessant one-dimensional portrayals, partly as a result of a revival in the city's cultural and intellectual life. Their message to the world: forget everything you've heard about Dubai and look at the city through the eyes of its inhabitants.

Visit Palestine poster remixed by Larissa Sansour

September 10, 2013 by Lisa Reinisch in art, Dubai, events, israel, launches, recommendations, UAE

Last night I came across this poster at the eminently busy season opening at Al Serkal Avenue. It caught my eye because I have the original version, bearing the words "Visit Palestine" and the silhouette of the Dome of the Rock, hanging in my front room. With that random connection to my humble dwelling, I was captivated and, undoubtedly, so will be multitudes of others. Such is the power of pop culture references, which come in many shapes, most of them addictive. It's all very tongue-in-cheek, as was much of the art on display last night. Humour, it seems, is not just the safety vent of political and social subversion; it is also a sharp hook for the slippery attention span of the viewer.

Magazine movement: new mags from Dubai and Beirut

June 18, 2013 by Lisa Reinisch in Dubai, lists, local culture, media, recommendations, UAE, launches

Magazines in the UAE are not what they used to be and, unlike in some other places, that's a good thing. We now have access to a larger number of less predictable titles, as well as more interesting places to buy and read them. Case in point: The Magazine Shop in Dubai, pictured above. At the open-air pop-up shop in DIFC, stalwarts of the Middle Eastern mag pile, such as Canvas, Bidoun and Brownbook, now share shelf space with spirited uppers-and-comers like Watad, We Are Here, The Outpost and The Carton. I call them the 'Generation X of Mid-East Magazines' because they are experimental, exquisite and unapologetically expensive.

All booked out for summer

June 01, 2013 by Lisa Reinisch in books, history, journalism, literature, local culture, media, UAE, women's rights, recommendations, lists

I just noticed with horror that my last blog entry dates back almost a month. All the way back to the day after Abu Dhabi Book Fair, to be precise, which was also the day before a European holiday and about four weeks after the day I discovered the What are you reading? podcast. So there you have it, an explanation of sorts. As it turns out, the combination of fair (book launches!), trip (proper bookshops!) and podcast (book recommendations from interesting-sounding people!) has had a pretty disruptive effect on my blogging morale. To make it up, here is a snapshot of the month’s loot, a stack of brand new books now languishing seductively on my desk.