Finally settling in my new home; still a lot to do but I am getting there! Some images from this morning.

I just love potatoes, in almost all the forms they come, except maybe french fries! My favorite must be “Kipfler”. I could eat them any time of the day with anything.

With Spanish sausage

With Crispy Pork Belly

The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family. Potato may refer to the plant itself as well. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species. Potato is the world’s most widely grown tuber crop, and the fourth largest food crop in terms of fresh produce after rice, wheat, and corn.

Wild potato species occur from the United States to Uruguay and Chile. Genetic testing of the wide variety of cultivars and wild species suggest that the potato has a single origin in the area of southern Peru, from a species in the Solanum brevicaule complex. Today, over 99% of all cultivated potatoes worldwide are descendants of a subspecies indigenous to south-central Chile. Based on historical records, local agriculturalists, and DNA analyses, the most widely cultivated variety worldwide, Solanum tuberosum tuberosum, is believed to be indigenous to Chiloé Archipelago where it was cultivated by the indigenous people.

The potato was introduced to Europe in 1536, and subsequently by European mariners to territories and ports throughout the world. Thousands of varieties persist in the Andes, where over 100 varieties might be found in a single valley, and a dozen or more might be maintained by a single agricultural household. Once established in Europe, the potato soon became an important food staple and field crop. But lack of genetic diversity, due to the fact that very few varieties were initially introduced, left the crop vulnerable to disease. In 1845, a plant disease known as late blight, caused by the fungus-like oocmycete Phytophthora infestans, spread rapidly through the poorer communities of western Ireland, resulting in the crop failures that led to the Great Irish Famine.

The annual diet of an average global citizen in the first decade of the twenty-first century would include about 33 kilograms of potato. However, the local importance of potato is extremely variable and rapidly changing. The potato remains an essential crop in Europe (especially eastern and central Europe), where per capita production is still the highest in the world, but the most rapid expansion of potato over the past few decades has occurred in southern and eastern Asia. China is now the world’s largest potato producing country, and nearly a third of the world’s potatoes are harvested in China and India. More generally, the geographic shift of potato production has been away from wealthier countries toward lower-income areas of the world.

A small pre-view of the Dubai Mall, the mother of all Malls here in the UAE!

Dubai Mall, one of the largest shopping malls in the world opened on the 4th of November with roughly 600 shops, half of them. You normally do not find me in the mall and if, then maybe in Mercato Mall on Jumeirah road. But of course, I had to visit the biggest attraction, the mother of all malls and its gigantic Aquarium and ice rink. Nothing new; the Hyatt Regency has an ice rink and the newly opened Atlantis on the Palm has an Aquarium.

Walking the mall I soon realised the size of this mall; and only half of the 1200 shops are opened yet! It took me the best part of an afternoon just to see some parts of the mall

Most of the food outlets I came for in the first place where not open yet but I am sure once they will it will be a new destination for me to purchase some great food. Waitrose from the UK was open and Dean & DeLuca will soon open. Eric Kayser, the artisan baker will open so is Paul on the lower ground.

I need to take another tour in about six month time and visit all the stores but for now I had enough as it is of shopping malls!

www.thedubaimall.com