VEGETABLE MAHSHI ( MIDDLE EAST)

INGREDIENT:

• 200 gm short grain rice • 120 gm onion • 70 ml tomato sauce • 40 gm fresh local parsley • 40 gm fresh coriander • 40 gm fresh dill leaves • 3 gm cinnamon powder • 3 gm allspice powder • 20 ml sunflower oil • 4 pcs baby marrow • 4 pcs baby eggplant • 8 leaves white cabbage • 4 pcs baby peppers • 4 pcs baby tomatoes • 8 pcs vine leaves • Salt and pepper to taste

METHOD:

Sauté 60gm of chopped onion in 10 ml oil until it starts to brown. Add the tomato sauce, salt, pepper and spices. Simmer for around three minutes.

Rinse the rice thoroughly and drain. Finely chop the herbs. Add the prepared tomato sauce and herbs to the rice and mix well.

Core the vegetables. Try to remove most of the core leaving only a thin outer shell, taking care not to break or pierce the vegetables.

Using a teaspoon, stuff each vegetable with the rice mixture pushing down the rice as you add more with the handle of the spoon. Leave ½ inch unstuffed to allow the rice to expand when cooked.

Add 10 ml oil to a non- stick pot. Arrange the rest 60 gm of thick sliced onion to cover the bottom. This is to avoid the bottom of the vegetables being charred if the water dries out ( it also gives a nice flavour to the meal). Arrange the stuffed vegetables on top of the onion in a standing position to avoid the rice spilling out. Add 60 ml of water. Bring it to a boil, and then simmer on a very low heat until rice is cooked. It will take about 25- 30 minutes. Let it stand in the same pot off the fire for five minutes.

To serve, discard onion slices, and arrange the vegetables in a serving dish.

Perhaps you’ve heard the stories that the cast of Suicide Squad bonded. Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Jared Leto, Cara Delevingne, Jay Hernandez and Jai Courtney, et al, reportedly trained en masse, endured grouptherapy sessions, played together in a recreation room requested by Smith and …

“We all got the same tattoo,” Kinnaman said, laughing, during a recent conversation. “It says ‘ SKWARD.’ Actually, everyone got one except Will. He did mine and then flaked. He bailed on it when he was going to get his done. So we all got suckered by him.

“But it was an amazing group,” he continued. “We’re all friends. We hang out. We’re in touch almost daily. It just became special. It’s rare where you have a show or a film where there are so many actors who are in it that much. Usually there are one or two lead actors, and there are three or four others that come in and out. But here, because we were a squad and we were on set every day, there was a lot of bonding.

“I think the preparation also reflected

that,” he added. “So we were all together the whole time, and everyone kind of got used to hanging out in a big group. It’s a very positive bunch, a wild bunch.”

Suicide Squad is a massive movie based on a popular, if not quite brand- name, DC comic book. Directed by David Ayre, the film gathers together an array of villains and other unlikely figures — among them Deadshot ( Will Smith), the Joker ( Jared Leto), Harley Quinn ( Margot Robbie), Capt. Boomerang ( Jai Courtney), El Diablo ( Jay Hernandez), Enchantress ( Cara Delevingne) and Killer Croc ( Adewale Akinnuoye- Agbaje) — who are forced to join forces for the greater good. Kinnaman plays their leader, Rick Flag.

Kinnaman is the Swedish star of Easy Money ( 2010), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo ( 2011), The Killing ( 2011- 2014) and Robocop ( 2014). He admitted, during a recent telephone call from his Los Angeles home, that initially he knew nothing about Suicide Squad, but said that he’d been keeping tabs on the project nonetheless and wanted in on it.

“I was seeing new cast members added, and I was a fan of David Ayer,” Kinnaman explained. “It just seemed like a very cool and interesting movie. It popped out to me, the whole concept, that it was about villains. Once it came together, I read the comics, and you get inspiration from different parts of the comics, but I felt that the script had the most flesh for me.

“And then I just dove into the reality of the character,” he said. “I thought about what he’d be like if he were real, and what that would mean.”

So who is Rick Flag? What makes him tick as he tries to corral this group of unruly criminals? “It’s a tricky situation,” Kinnaman replied. “Rick Flag is one of the most seasoned and hardened military operators in the United States. A person in his position operates in a moral gray zone, where you do some very bad things to hopefully do good. But when you’re at home at night, trying to close your eyes, the distinction may not always be that clear.”

All of that appealed to Kinnaman, as did spending time with many real- life Rick Flags. The actor trained with and picked the brains of actual retired and active black- ops soldiers in the course of a few months.

“It’s a fascinating world that they live and operate in,” he said, “and the decisions that they make with their lives are so interesting, because of the repercussions of what they do and how they do it. It’s a sacrifice, in many ways, what they do.

“And I have to say, it was really inspiring to be with these guys,” Kinnaman continued. “Their moral compass is very strong, and I think it has to be if you’re going to take actions that … if you’re going to kill people, in some cases a lot of people, and still be able to sleep at night and feel like you’re serving your country. So it was a very rewarding journey to get to know them, get into their psyches, and get to know the sacrifices and pain and the darkness that always lingers in their eyes because of what they’ve seen and done. Anyway, I took SUPER SKILLS : 1 & 2 Scenes from Suicide

Kinnaman acts as leader Rick Flag 3 As Gov. Will Conway in the Netflix series House of Cards 4 American audiences first got to know Kinnaman on the AMC series The Killing 5 As the police officer turned vigilante in Robocop

that and built Rick from there.”

Kinnaman unquestionably plays the film’s least- flashy character, a military guy who kicks butt. Given that he’s surrounded by larger- than- life super- villains, anti- heroes and sorceresses, one might think that Kinnaman would risk overcompensating on set, amplifying his performance so as to not let Flag get lost in the shuffle. Apparently, however, that wasn’t the case. “I felt very comfortable in there,” Kinnaman said, “and I thought my character’s story is kind