Vol 34 Food

Friday night in Muscat and, strangely, I am alone. All friends are elsewhere. What to do? My friend Jessica today reminded me that she is waiting for a food blog. So here goes.

Tonight I decided to check out an Indian restaurant that had been recommended to me. I ordered plain rice, an egg masala, vegetable makurstani and garlic nann, to-go. Since I now have a lovely plastic table and chairs in my apartment, I can dine and write at the same time.

Something crazy like ¼ or 1/3 of residents of Oman are Indian expats working the unskilled labor jobs. Housemaids, construction workers, landscapers, plumbers, road workers. Same as the US with Mexican workers only more of them. You can have a live-in Indian housemaid/nanny/cook for $250 US a month and she’ll work from dawn to midnight. That’s if you are a western expat family. Omani families pay them half of that. My new Indian cleaning lady, Edna, is Katie’s live-in housemaid. I’m paying her $4 dollars an hour and she is thrilled. Living conditions are pretty damn basic for these workers and none of them own cars. Many of the women leave their young children behind to come here. Why? Why are they here? Because as bad as it is for them here, it’s better than home. So they come for a year or two or five and send all of their money home to their families. They have to have a sponsor to obtain a visa. Someone who offers them a job and takes financial responsibility for them. Sponsors for housemaids must make a minimum income but it’s not very high. I qualify for a live-in maid. Not all jobs are ideal. Sometimes these people are treated very badly. When a worker runs away from their sponsor their photo appears in the newspaper and they become an illegal alien.

Why mention all of this in a food blog? Because as a result of the high Indian population there are a billion Indian restaurants here. And Indian restaurants are good venues for vegetarian food. In fact many of the Indian restaurants here are strictly vegetarian. So I’m trying them out when I am dining alone. Many of my friends here don’t like Indian food. I try to always order things I’ve never tried before. Tonight’s egg masala is yummy. Hard boiled eggs and big chunks of fresh tomato in a richly spiced creamy tomato sauce with fresh curry leaves. I am now a big fan of fresh curry leaves. They are in every other dish and are fabulous. The other dish is mixed vegetables with chilies and fresh cardamom. I am now also a fan of fresh cardamom. I have loved cardamom for years but it has never occurred to me that it exists in a fresh state. Spices are dry things that come in a jar or a bulk bin at the co-op. But of course it grows somewhere and that somewhere must be close by because the cardamom pods in my sauce tonight are soft and green and incredible.

The Indian food here is way better than any I’ve had in North America, which is not surprising. The same was true of Thai food when I was in Thailand. It’s the ingredients. You just can’t get the things in the US that you can get here.

When I order masala chai at my new café hang-out, Mood, they sprinkle saffron on top. It is heavenly. The chai here is unlike any I’ve ever had. The spices are different, it’s not as sweet and it is creamier, richer. I think perhaps they use evaporated milk in it. I don’t know what half the vegetables are in the grocery store but Edna is interested in cooking for me too so perhaps I’ll start buying them and see what she does with them. She’ll package meals for me so I can take them to the office for lunch. Oh yes, life is good.

My favorite Indian restaurant is Mumtaz Mahal which is high on a hill overlooking the city. Gorgeous views at night, live tabla music and Tandoori cauliflower to die for. It’s a bit on the pricey side but I only go when I’m not paying :) I had dinner there a few nights ago with Firas, Katie and her husband Daniel and Petra’s husband Wayne. For those of you not keeping up, Katie is our practice manager, her husband Daniel works for the US Embassy and Petra is our German, part-time dental assistant. Her husband, Wayne, is English and is a big-wig in the British military. I love hearing Petra say her husband’s name. They have been married 25 years and she calls him Vayne. Her accent is awesome; I love it.

It vas Vayne’s birthday and the food vas exceptionally good that night. And the conversation was great. We talked about everything but towards the end Daniel and Wayne got into a political discussion of the Middle East. I learned so much. I’m not a very political person, but their perspective was so different than that of the US media and was very interesting and informative.

Petra was not with us as she is in England for the summer. We have hired a Filipino assistant, Emie, to help me out at work. As we have gotten busier my life at work had gotten crazier. My long hours got longer as I had to work late to catch up on all the sterilizing from the day. Now, with Emie helping, I can catch my breath between patients and leave at a decent time. I’m looking forward to Petra coming back; she is such a sweet, funny, generous woman. She lightens the day when she is around.

In the spirit of not refusing any invitations I also went to Quiz Night at the British Embassy the other night with Katie, Daniel and two other guys that work for the US embassy. We were the only non-British there. We arrived late, so missed the first round but still managed to not come in last place. They named our team the Damn Yankees, not knowing that Katie and I are both Canadian. A good time was had by all.

A bad thing has happened. I’ve come to Café Vergnano 1882, the love of my life, to post this blog and have made a terrible discovery. I was watching them serve vanilla ice cream to another customer and it occurred to me to order it and to ask them to put hot chocolate on it. Hot chocolate pudding sundae. I’m sorry, it’s official, I’m never coming home.

Looks like the food blog is going to have to be in parts…… Wayne told us about his and Petra’s favorite Indian restaurant so we agreed to go there next or to a fish ‘n chip place he told us about in Seeb (about 40 minutes from here).