Thursday, December 10, 2009

Well I'm a-cookin in the kitchen of love

Shopping for essentials: I love visiting the food aisles in foreign countries and then experimenting with stuff. Jacky doesn’t. She misses the tried and true and I don’t at all – funny that isn’t it? You’d probably expect the opposite. Like my dad I’m a creature of habit but without his rabid adherence to set routines. When I say ‘experimenting’ I should be more specific – I don’t mean I go hollis bollis for the local cuisine – no way - more that I like to try out the different marmalades say, or different cereals. Not as exciting as you thought huh – I am my father’s son after all.

Imagine my surprise and utter delight when going grocery shopping for the first time in Doha to be confronted by food and produce from all over the globe. Last night we had NZ beef but we could have chosen Aussie meat or Scottish. My marmalade comes from Saudi Arabia (not sure where they get their oranges from though), as does Jacky’s honey, Jade’s Kelloggs Fruit Loops came from Germany and my peanut butter is American made. Very nice it is too.



The biggest delight though is to rediscover all the foods we loved in England – Hobnobs and Galaxy bars, Alpen cereal, McVities digestives and lots more. No Jammy Dodgers spotted as yet though. Or a decent plum jam. All of the cleaning products are of the British variety too. Easy off Bam!

Unfortunately, I’ve yet to find any kind of CD or book store but I dare say there’ll be somewhere I can snaffle a Guardian Weekly and Mojo. There better be! Jacky is on the lookout for a hair salon. There are about 30 men’s cutters in a row about 5 minutes walk away so I should be okay. Jacky may opt for the long hair look.

My sunglasses broke on the first day so we searched in vain for a replacement. There are tons of outlets but they’re all stocking Armani or Ray Bans style expensive brands. And I mean expensive. I wasn’t going to pay around 1,000 Qatari Riyals (QR) for sunglasses. Our local little Tesco Express style vendor had a knock off pair for QR14 (about $NZ7) and that’ll do me for a while.

Okay best go - we have drinkies with the boss and then off to get Showtime (local satelite TV) organised for the apartment to keep up with the football (watched Auckland City tear apart a team from UAE last night on a neighbour's TV!!!).

As salam alaykum and love - Wozza

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