Where's Dara?

24 February 2007

I made a promise to Dominique before I came to Fayzabad. The promise was that I would bring food—good food—and cook.

The last time I was in Fayzabad, in October, food was an issue. It looked unappetizing; it smelled unappetizing; and it tasted unappetizing. Tired looking lamb with bones in an unrecognizable brown sauce and some tired looking rice at the guesthouse, where the staff lived. At one point, desperate, I asked Dominique if the staff could find something decent to eat. They came back with… strawberry pop tarts! Unbelievable. I have never even seen them in Kabul. We had them for 2 days until the cleaning ladies at the guesthouse absconded with them.

The guesthouse compound

I decided that this trip I was going to take cooking matters into my own hands. And Dominique was more than happy to oblige.

Having recently been in Kabul, I had done a PX run, even filling Dominique’s orders for “anything pork” (it becomes a luxury item in a strict Muslim country) and lots of V8 juice (vegetables are a scarce commodity in Badakshan). I lugged enough pasta, sauce, spices, olive oil, and meat products to last us the week. Plus, I brought the 'piece de la resistance', Betty Crocker brownie mix.

Brownie mix, though, was a compromise. It was in lieu of chocolate chip cookie makings.

The Badakshani Boys had received regular shipments of homemade Afghanized chocolate chip cookies. (They were Afghanized by the fact that our Pakistani gem of an oven, along with the halal margarine (no butter around Kunduz) appeared to render the cookies slow more crispy than my normal cookies.) The boys (Philbert, Dominique, and Hakim) had received relatively regular deliveries via plane and car. It got to the point where I was convinced that, when Dominique said, come out, that he really just wanted my cookies and not my smiling face!

Cookies, I told Dominique before I left, were not in the cards. I had seen the kitchen and it was just too dire to make cookies. Brownie mix was pushing it but would be procured.

After settling in, I pulled out the supplies and asked the food-deprived boy for his preference. Pasta with tomato sauce doctored with one of the treasured port products. So we headed to the kitchen.

The outside of the kitchen

Shiver.

It smelled like an amalgamation of hospitals and a garbage dump stained with meat flavouring. Ugh.

And the implements were coated with blackened oil, basted with a coat of grease, and usually only half functional.

Oh—and there was no sponge or soap. Gotta love Afghanistan.

The guts of the kitchen

More of the glorious kitchen

Dominique dug out some cleaning supplies from his room, and we set off to make ourselves dinner. Cutting onions, garlic, pork products, and boiling water on the greasy counters.

Dominique getting ready to assist the cook

30 minutes later, viola! All was done, except the parmesan. How to grate it? There was a grater but it looked disgusting. We went for shavings.

With our steaming pots and pans in hand, we went into the living room/dining room to eat. Sitting on the table was pizza (if you can call it that) made by the cook. “That,” Dominique said, “ has been there since yesterday’s lunch.” Lovely.

One of the things about being deprived is that even the simplest meal is heavenly. It was so for our Dominique. Easily pleased, I must say.

He was most delighted when I pulled out the brie and crackers. I had to ration them.

“Dominique, there are five days until we go to Kunduz. Pace yourself, man.”

We went to bed that night satiated.

The rest of the week we strategically ploughed through the meat, cheese, and other goodies until Friday, when we had decided we would do a nice dinner with the smoked salmon and veal roll and I had brought… and the brownies, of course. People from outside the organization(shocker for me) were invited over—though only one came.

The challenge for me was to figure out how to cook the brownies. There was no pan the right size. I finally decided on the “pancake method”, as seen below. It is quite involved, you know. Dump the batter and let the batter roll out as it may.

Pancake brownies

(There is also the "dam method", as it is known in posh mission cooking circles-yeah, right. The "dam method" is when you fold up a piece of aluminium foil to make a fake 'wall' and shorten the dimensions of the pan. Honestly, that one slipped my mind.)

Only problem with the pancake method, I discovered, is that it cooks really fast.

Didn’t help that the oven, if it could be dignified with such a designation, had no handles or indicators regarding on what temperature it was.

The problematic oven with the experimental brownies

In fact, we spent four days trying to figure out how to get the oven to work. Yes, a PhD, LLM, and various other degrees between the two of us and we could not figure out how to turn on the oven. It required pliers (or very strong fingers) and turning on the timer as well as the temperature. Who knew?

When the timer ran out in mid-bake (Oh, did I forget to say that, of course, the time was not marked nor were the few markings reliable), you had to battle with the metal remains of the knob to turn it back on. In the midst of roasting potatoes, the timer went out. Our guest had arrived but I was stuck for 10 minutes battling the metal rod with the grease dish towel (don't get me started on that!) until it finally gave way.

By Sunday, when we had to drive back (yes, again!), I must admit that I was gleeful with anticipation of returning to my mildly functional kitchen in Kunduz. Still, I had a happy Dominique, so all was right in Fayzabad.

Happy Dominique