I don't have much to choose from, but now that I have 12 kilos of cabbage, we're going to eat cabbage. I've cooked with cabbage a few times. Usually the thick, pale green leaves were just garnish, or sometimes I used them as a wrap. Once I even made some spring rolls, and when I learned how to roll the damn things, I enjoyed the cabbage. But late this afternoon, when my 12 kilos of cabbage arrived, I was pretty stuck trying to figure out what the hell to do with them.
I didn't ask for cabbage. The list I made clearly said "cauliflower" and the guy who went to buy the stuff speaks pretty good English - good enough to ask "is everything I got okay?" when I arrived in the kitchen. It had already been a long day and the only response I could mutter out was that everything was fine.
Cooking in Iraq is like a game show because there's always a surprise. 3 minutes after finding the 12 kilos of cabbage, I found the frozen chickens. 4:30pm. Frozen chickens. Dinner at 7:00pm. Shit. Until today, I didn't even know how to defrost chicken. I buy my stuff fresh, and I'd kill it if I could (having someone else deal with the feathers and catching the headless bird as it ran around the room). But luckily I have a sweet fiance who knows such things. So I grab two big pots and hurled the cold, naked birds in there, and placed them under the faucets. The process was helped out by the kitchen not having cold water (water tank on roof, 110 degrees, and no clouds in Iraq).
Sometime as I was doing that, the IT guy stopped by. He was headed out for cigars and offered to get some cauliflower for me. Thereby, I was sparred a few more hours before having to come up with some brilliant ideas for cabbage.
I'm a cook in Iraq. Actually, I just cook dinner. The rest of the time, I'm an information officer and database manager for a humanitarian development organization. Can't say which one, can't say where, can't say who, because if I do, I might get my butt blown up and I don't want that. What I can say is this: I'm Brody, I'm in a Kurdish city in Iraq. And I can tell you about what I cook.
Today, the menu was chicken with two lemons, tomatoes stuffed with bulgur, pine nuts and dill, as well as an accompaniment of roasted cauliflower with garlic. Sounds pretty good, huh? Sounds like you want me to be cooking you some tastiness in your kitchen? Well too bad - you ain't paying me to cook. But here's one of the big themes you'll see in my writing: there's a lot that you can't cook here, because there's a lot that Iraq doesn't have.
Here's what I have to cook with: chicken, mutton, beef, cucumber, cauliflower, tomatoes, potatoes, okra, green bell peppers, some unknown kind of fish, anaheim peppers, yogurt, eggplant, zucchini, eggs, lentils, rice, some beans, pasta, tomato paste, lemons, raisins, nuts, apples, bananas, carrots, oranges, watermelon, cantaloupe, and cabbage (12 kilos, don't forget). For spices, I get oregano, cumin, pepper, salt, dill, mint, and some "parsley" that smells a whole lot like celery and not parsley. Two types of bread: naan and some puffed up tortilla thing that is usually close to stale. Anything else, and I'm very, very lucky. If I'm very lucky, I've been told I should purchase as much of that item as possible.
Try to think up how many recipes you can almost make with that list of ingredients. Just now, Hilary, my fiance, was bouncing dessert ideas off of me. I suggested ice cream and explained to her the awesome method my mom taught me back in boy scouts: use two tin cans and a mile of duct tape. "Sounds like a lot of effort.." not really, because we have this little six year old girl who hangs around the kitchen not knowing a lick of English or having anyone else her age, and 60 guards. My bet is on the guards, because all they do is kick it in the street around our office/homes, leaning on their AK-47's. Oh, and they like to water the street too. I'm thinking that they could hose down the street real well, make it nice and clean while making it feel a tad cooler, then make us some ice cream! 60 guards equals 30 quarts of ice cream, which would make me very happy. However, Hilary has been here much longer, almost a year now, and she was quick to inform me that Iraq has no cream, even though we drove past dairy cows this weekend. I will go, and I will get my some cream.
That's the sort of thing I'm faced with, and in this case, I'm lucky that I saw myself some cows. I don't know where they were, but they were black and white and I think I can get me some milk out of them. If I can't, I'll find the bull and just not eat the ice cream. Cooking in Iraq takes some ingenuity, among other skills.
So tomorrow's should be good: roasted leg of lamb, a raisin and almond pullau, and a sauteed eggplant and cabbage salad... all of which will be presented on a bed of cabbage. Heck, maybe the pullao will be served with each portion nicely placed on a cabbage leaf, so they can just pick it right up. Cabbage boats..
Oh, and 12 kilos of cabbage equals 26.4 pounds.
I didn't ask for cabbage. The list I made clearly said "cauliflower" and the guy who went to buy the stuff speaks pretty good English - good enough to ask "is everything I got okay?" when I arrived in the kitchen. It had already been a long day and the only response I could mutter out was that everything was fine.
Cooking in Iraq is like a game show because there's always a surprise. 3 minutes after finding the 12 kilos of cabbage, I found the frozen chickens. 4:30pm. Frozen chickens. Dinner at 7:00pm. Shit. Until today, I didn't even know how to defrost chicken. I buy my stuff fresh, and I'd kill it if I could (having someone else deal with the feathers and catching the headless bird as it ran around the room). But luckily I have a sweet fiance who knows such things. So I grab two big pots and hurled the cold, naked birds in there, and placed them under the faucets. The process was helped out by the kitchen not having cold water (water tank on roof, 110 degrees, and no clouds in Iraq).
Sometime as I was doing that, the IT guy stopped by. He was headed out for cigars and offered to get some cauliflower for me. Thereby, I was sparred a few more hours before having to come up with some brilliant ideas for cabbage.
I'm a cook in Iraq. Actually, I just cook dinner. The rest of the time, I'm an information officer and database manager for a humanitarian development organization. Can't say which one, can't say where, can't say who, because if I do, I might get my butt blown up and I don't want that. What I can say is this: I'm Brody, I'm in a Kurdish city in Iraq. And I can tell you about what I cook.
Today, the menu was chicken with two lemons, tomatoes stuffed with bulgur, pine nuts and dill, as well as an accompaniment of roasted cauliflower with garlic. Sounds pretty good, huh? Sounds like you want me to be cooking you some tastiness in your kitchen? Well too bad - you ain't paying me to cook. But here's one of the big themes you'll see in my writing: there's a lot that you can't cook here, because there's a lot that Iraq doesn't have.
Here's what I have to cook with: chicken, mutton, beef, cucumber, cauliflower, tomatoes, potatoes, okra, green bell peppers, some unknown kind of fish, anaheim peppers, yogurt, eggplant, zucchini, eggs, lentils, rice, some beans, pasta, tomato paste, lemons, raisins, nuts, apples, bananas, carrots, oranges, watermelon, cantaloupe, and cabbage (12 kilos, don't forget). For spices, I get oregano, cumin, pepper, salt, dill, mint, and some "parsley" that smells a whole lot like celery and not parsley. Two types of bread: naan and some puffed up tortilla thing that is usually close to stale. Anything else, and I'm very, very lucky. If I'm very lucky, I've been told I should purchase as much of that item as possible.
Try to think up how many recipes you can almost make with that list of ingredients. Just now, Hilary, my fiance, was bouncing dessert ideas off of me. I suggested ice cream and explained to her the awesome method my mom taught me back in boy scouts: use two tin cans and a mile of duct tape. "Sounds like a lot of effort.." not really, because we have this little six year old girl who hangs around the kitchen not knowing a lick of English or having anyone else her age, and 60 guards. My bet is on the guards, because all they do is kick it in the street around our office/homes, leaning on their AK-47's. Oh, and they like to water the street too. I'm thinking that they could hose down the street real well, make it nice and clean while making it feel a tad cooler, then make us some ice cream! 60 guards equals 30 quarts of ice cream, which would make me very happy. However, Hilary has been here much longer, almost a year now, and she was quick to inform me that Iraq has no cream, even though we drove past dairy cows this weekend. I will go, and I will get my some cream.
That's the sort of thing I'm faced with, and in this case, I'm lucky that I saw myself some cows. I don't know where they were, but they were black and white and I think I can get me some milk out of them. If I can't, I'll find the bull and just not eat the ice cream. Cooking in Iraq takes some ingenuity, among other skills.
So tomorrow's should be good: roasted leg of lamb, a raisin and almond pullau, and a sauteed eggplant and cabbage salad... all of which will be presented on a bed of cabbage. Heck, maybe the pullao will be served with each portion nicely placed on a cabbage leaf, so they can just pick it right up. Cabbage boats..
Oh, and 12 kilos of cabbage equals 26.4 pounds.
End of dinner;
Taking 5 chicken carcasses back to the "safe" freezer.
posted by B at 11:38 PM
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