Saturday, October 02, 2010

Things I Miss

Besides friends and family, there are some things that I really miss. The gigantic lifestyle changes that I had to make require all sorts of adjustments, substitutions, and even just doing without. Still, here is a short list of what I miss the most. You'll see that most of my list is comprised of food!

Breakfast food with meat. The Saudis and the huge South Asian population that serves them have pretty limited breakfast options: flat bread with zataar or flat bread with cheese (or labneh). I'd fall on a McDonald's Sausage Egg McMuffin like a starving dog if you offered it to me.

Pork. Sure, visiting the Pork Store in the Al Osrah grocery in Bahrain does get me pork. But the selection there is limited. I miss pork sausage the most (see Egg McMuffin above). Some days I'd even eat bologna if you offered that to me.

Fresh mozzarella. Some stores carry a great selection of imported cheeses but I have yet to see mozzarella in any form. The commissary carries 8 or 9 different kinds of feta, a relatively paltry selection compared to stores in town. But feta just ain't cutting it.

Plain, unflavored, unsweetened yogurt. Getting a hold of good, plain yogurt is nearly impossible. If it has any fruit flavoring at all, the first ingredient on the label is sugar. Labneh is yogurt but they add sugar to it. Why? Why?

(The Saudis have among the highest, if not the highest, rates of diabetes and kidney disease in the world. Do you see the connection? Because apparently they don't.)

Whole grain bread. For that matter, add whole grains to the list (because I can already hear you saying, why don't you make it yourself? I would if I could.) Bread labeled as "whole grain" is mixed with white flour and loaded with sugar.

Soymilk. You can find it in all of the big grocery stores but Saudis don't drink it (maybe it's too healthy?). It's very expensive, around USD 6 for a quart of the stuff. Sometimes I buy it as a special treat but it just ends up making me sad that I can't drink it more often.

Stores where you can shop for toilet paper, bedding plants, a hammer, and towels all under one roof. If shopping in Khobar were more of a European experience, I could probably make do. But Khobar is...well, it's a third world mess. Most streets have either no name or three names and buildings don't have addresses (you'll get directions based on major landmarks or well known streets). There are "pharmacies" but they don't carry rubbing alchohol or ibuprofen. There are "bakeries" but they carry flat bread and sweet bread marketed to the gigantic Philippine population. There are "butchers" but after confronting a few goats hanging headless by the door (accompanied by lots of flies), I think I'll stick to the grocery stores. Anyway, the local butchers only sell goat and lamb and don't carry other meat or fish. There are "hardware" stores that sell crumbling cardboard boxes of nails but no hammers or devices to use the nails. There are electrical stores but those are useless to me. A legacy of the American origin of Aramco is the 110 voltage on camp. The rest of KSA is 220 volts. There are plant nurseries but they are on the highway to Ras Tanura and not on any shopping bus route. I'd have to hire a driver to get to them. There are stores that sell things like sheets and towels but the quality is surprisingly poor. I've tried to find clothing (shoes, sports bras, shorts, even just Tshirts) here but even in Bahrain I can't find items in my size. The chaos makes sense when you consider the culture. There is little for Saudi women to do but shop (their maids take care of their children; their only responsibility there is to have them) so there is no demand for efficiency in supply of goods. Sometimes I go to Ikea (yes, we have an Ikea in Khobar--the Saudis love it, the place is packed cheek to jowl on weekend evenings) just to walk around and look at the array of goods organized so neatly on the shelves, everything clean and sparkling.

Wine. Our attempts on camp to make do with grape juice and yeast are pretty pathetic. But I'm on the bandwagon now. I expect to bottle my first batch of red in a couple of weeks (I decanted it off the yeast yesterday and it's settling now). It might be drinkable when I return from repat in December! I've got a second batch going that I'll bottle just before I leave in November. I plan to experiment with a sparkling rose (got a great recipe for it at the book club meeting last week) and I'll attempt to make some pink whine using white grape juice with a liter or two of red. My rate limiting factor now is green glass bottles!

3 comments:

Rover Mom said...

sounds like we have a grocery list for France!

seniormoments said...

Germany has McDonalds, so we'll treat you to a few sausage McMuffins!

FiberGeek said...

Plain Yogurt is very easy to make if you have milk and any yogurt to start your batch. Google for a recipe or let me know and I can email you one.

You can make bread - check out Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day or better yet see if you can get a Breadmachine that works over there.

I can't help with the McDonalds request though.

Liz A from PAWS