Why a great chef is the best person to wash the dishes

Once I moved back to Toronto from Oman in 2012, I immediately went back to the things I loved to do, which was planning events. And so for Valentines Day, one of the gifts I got my beautiful wife Penny was a voucher for The Chef on Two Wheels. For those who don't know, The Chef on Two Wheels is a service where a certified chef comes to your house and together you cook a romantic meal.

I bought the gift because a) Penny loved cooking b) it was an opportunity to do something together c) it was so cool to have a certified chef come to your home and cook you dinner.  Once we booked the appointment, Penny and I were both excited about our night out, at home.

To be frank, I don't remember much about that evening other than a few details. I know we cooked a delicious Italian meal along with desert, and that we were both happy with the experience. However, there was one important lesson I learned that evening.

How to wash the dishes.

Now you may be wondering what having a certified chef cooking in your house has to do with learning how to wash dishes. Well let me explain.

As a certified chef, Chef Padula probably knew a thing or two about washing dishes.  If you cook a lot, you need to clean a lot. Chef Padula showed the passion of dish washing with each piece of dinnerware. First he would lather every possible inch of each plate, both on the top, bottom and on the sides. Then he would rinse the plate out, following the same formula.

This taught me some very important lessons.

Chef Padula's skills showed me that you can't be a great chef, if you don't know how to do everything else well in the kitchen. A great chef can only be truly great if he or she is just as talented and passionate about every other aspect of his or her trade. Like dish washing. 

Second, it made me realize that we all have a variety of skill sets to offer, and that we always have to be willing to learn from others. Nobody will refer to Chef Padula as a master dishwasher, but I now know how to wash dishes like a professional.

In order to a great cook, you need to know how to make your plates shine.

Bon Appétit!

Way Back Playback #1 - Cover This!

If you read my very first entry, I talked about how I used to write online way back in 2002. So in order to bring some perspective into what I wrote, and how it relates to what is going on today, I've decided to re-post the articles, grammar mistakes and all. 

Written January 25, 2003

Throughout the whole anti-/pro Napster debate, one main issue never gets mentioned. Much of the music that is getting released these days by these music companies, (which they expect us to buy), is crap. From all the pop acts, to the rock bands that sound exactly the same, to the rappers, who rap in pig-Latin, the quality of music that is being released in 2001-02, is at its lowest since the early 80’s. The focus has changed from the music to the money.  One quick way to make a buck these days is to start an OCB “original cover band.” This step-by-step process provides a simple and easy way to start a band, get a #1 hit, and mooch of the success for ten to twenty years. What you do is form a band, group, etc, and make a record. When you come to the realization that the music that you have created is shit, you find a song, make a cover version of it, and put it out as your first release to your brand new album.

There have been many successful OCB’s that have bought into this step-by-step program and achieved universal success. For example, before they released “Faith”, a hard rock version cover of the George Michael original, Limp Bizkit were a bunch of white middle class punk rockers with little lyrical content, and even lower musical standards. Their first LP “Three Dollar Bill Ya’ll, which they made in 3 hours, had 12 terrible songs, and one cover. Limp Bizkit released that cover, and rose to mega-stardom. Today, they continue to fool their audiences. They just released a remix album of all their hit songs from their first two albums, which all sound the same, and have no reason to be remixed other than making a quick buck.

Another example of a successful OCB is Alien Ant Farm. Early on in 2001, rumors were beginning to swirl that Michael Jackson was attempting a comeback with a brand new album. This piece of news was ironic, because as the hype for MJ was starting to build, a band from California, released a cover version of “Smooth Criminal.” As the song rose up the charts, Alien Ant Farm, became an instant household name, MJ got added publicity, and everybody should have been happy. Well, this didn't exactly pan out. The one party who lost out were the people who were duped into buying Alien Ant Farm’s record. No explanation is necessary, but let’s just says that the album was one of the worst of 2001. However, Smooth Criminal topped the charts for several weeks, and has surely paid for Dryden Mitchell’s haircut.

A third example of a (Note: successful is a missing adjective for this group) OCB is Abba Teens. They have brought the music industry to a whole new low by not only covering another band but naming themselves after the band as well. It is little surprise that the original material that the ABBA Teens have released has had little success and the only reason why they are known musicians rather than supermarket clerks is because they were another outlet for ABBA to add to their fortunes.

So if you want to start a band and don't want to go through hard work of a real band than all you need to do is start an OCB. With the cover release, your band will become a commercial success, your name will be all over the papers, and you could even put your job experience on your resume (in case things don’t work out). Furthermore, after your single leaves the charts, its smooth sailing as you sit back, relax, and live off your royalties, until the “Behind the Music” special on your band gets aired, and you have to look for a real job.

Good luck.

The Wolf of Censorship

During the summer of 2011, I left Oman for my first trip back to Canada, to attend my aunt's funeral. Although the visit was very somber, I did get a chance to speak to my friends and family about my travels. Looking back, the very first question that people always asked me first and the most was, "How safe is Oman?"

Considering I had never witnessed any crimes or a single act of aggression towards another person in close to two years, I was surprised at why so many people would ask this. Oman was very safe. So safe that I was probably in more danger being in Toronto, than I was in Muscat.

But this brings up the question of, "Why do people think a peaceful and loving country such as Oman is so dangerous?"

The answer is simple. When it comes to the Middle East, everything is seen as all and the same. Because of media outlets like CNN, which glamourizes George Bush's mantra of, "either you're with us or against us," it paints the picture that the Middle East is one unit. All for one and one for all. And the reality couldn't be further from the truth.

When I started to work in Oman, I quickly learned that Middle East was a very segregated place. Whether because of religious or cultural differences, each and every country had their own set of identities, cultures and freedoms. Just because a women couldn't drive in Saudi Arabia doesn't mean she couldn't manage a multi-million dollar company in the United Arab Emirates. And more importantly, just because a woman couldn't drive in Saudi Arabia, doesn't mean that a woman in Oman agreed with this restriction.

So how do you gauge which countries are more conservative and or liberal when in the Middle East? After discussing this issue with a round table of friends, an interesting answer arose.

You go and watch a Hollywood movie.

It seems insane to think that a Hollywood movie could be a proper yardstick into the level of governance of a country. But if you think about it, it can easily be seen as the marker line that separates conservative values versus the desire to integrate modern culture into society. 

This was very apparent with the release of Martin Scorsese’s new film, The Wolf of Wall Street. Originally timed at 180 minutes, it was widely reported that the edited Middle Eastern version was cut down significantly.

But what was intriguing was that the more liberal countries cut less footage, while the  conservative countries cut more. The UAE was at 135 minutes, Qatar at 134, and Kuwait at 130. 

Although there was much debate on the film itself and the need for censorship, it was  interesting to see that the level of governance directly correlated with the amount of film footage cut. 

Whatever you do, do not call this a blog.

Call it a New Year's Resolution. Call it an expression of creativity. But whatever you do, do not call it a blog. It's not that having a blog is a bad thing, although the word is downright depressing. But when you work in the creative field, the absolutely last thing that you want to create is something that everybody else has already thought of. And to say the least, blogs are a dime a dozen.

So what do you do? How do you create something different? For the longest time the fear that I was facing was the realization that if I wrote something, everybody, including God, would judge me. What if they don't like it? What if an employer read it and didn't like my writing? What if a friend read it, disagreed, and unfriended me on Facebook? O.M.G.

I soon realized that there were a lot of "what ifs." And that life itself had a lot of "what ifs." And so if I didn't just suck it up and start writing, I wouldn't be in the position I am in.

Which brings us to the question of "where am I, and more importantly, who am I?"

I am Steve Salibian, a 34 year old Copywriter, working in Doha, Qatar. For those who haven't been on planet earth for too long, Doha, Qatar is a small peninsula in the Middle East. It is famous for winning the World Cup Bid 2022, as well as having the highest income per capita in the world. It's also infamous for its working conditions for migrant workers. More on all of these issues at a later date. You may think stating this is foolish, but when I first went to work in Oman in 2010, I had friends in Canada who didn't understand why I was moving to a "desolate African country."

Going back to, "what if." After months of debating whether I should write or not, I realized that the only real thing stopping me was fear, and this fear was out of my control. I knew that my postings would never be 100% perfect. There would be spelling mistakes and grammar errors. But after all that I had learned, I knew that sometimes you just have to climb the stairs at the community swimming pool, make your way to the end of the diving board without slipping, and dive head first into the chlorine infested waters of life.

Plus, to be honest, this was not going to be my first venture into blogging.

I hate to show off so soon, but I am actually one of the first  people I know to actually be ON the internet. My good friend, Mark Karabulut told me about it way back in 1998, when Savage Garden ruled the charts. I remember he told me how great it was and that I urgently needed to get it. At first it was a little cumbersome, mainly because I was using a 28.8K US Robotics Modem to view first generation content on a Mosaic internet browser. But once I upgraded to Netscape Navigator, and listened to tunes on my Winamp player, the world was my oyster.

Then in 2002, I actually started writing online when the internet was still just a Commodore 128. I wrote about Napster, advertising, the music industry, etc. Just like now, it was a way of expressing my creativity and creating a subjective, yet intriguing point of view. But at that point, there was no one watching in the digital world - only techs and nerds like me.

Fast forward 15 years and I'm back where I started - somewhat. I've now worked on 3 different continents and I'm married. Yet writing my first post for Observations and Obituaries feels like opening my duo tang on the first day of school. The plan is to share my thoughts on a variety of topics whether personal or part of popular culture. The opinions will strictly be my own.

I really have no expectations except trying to intrigue readers enough to read more. This reminds me of a question someone once asked Jerry Seinfeld, comedian and co-creator of the epic series Seinfeld. They asked him of his favourite Seinfeld episode. His answer was genius. It was the episode that got him to the next.

That's the epitome of what I want this to be. You can call it an endless journey of perspectives and perspiration. You can call it a delectable serving of Salibian souffle that we can enjoy together. But whatever you do, do not break the first rule of writing club.

Do not call this a blog.