Our Qatari Cuisine

A few weeks ago, I was knitting along with the ladies of the Doha Knitters' Club when my question about where to find baking soda and powder was met with quizzical looks. Having had trouble finding both ingredients everywhere else I have lived in the past 10 years, I automatically expected the same here in Qatar. Not so. It turns out that almost every larger grocery store offers such ingredients and more. Today, for instance, we had a fantastic Mexican meal courtesy of Old El Paso and fresh meat and vegetables.

We found a supermarket today that offered all kinds of "delicacies", but many at a very high price. Organic lactose-free milk? No problem, but it'll cost ya 65 Qatari Riyals (€12/$18). We passed on that.

Had we had the energy to make a Thanksgiving dinner, we would have had no problem finding a turkey (Butterball - I'm not kidding!). We will celebrate Thanksgiving a bit late with pumpkin pie since we turned the corner in the market to find...

I'm not a great fan of processed meats, but Erik was happy to find good 'ol Oscar Meyer bologna, in the beef variety of course, You won't find a bit of pork here and I fear for gelatin when they finally find out that it is actually made of pigs' hooves.

But beef and lamb is the thing. In fact we had lamb AND beef in our tacos today and anytime we want we can make some beef patties and buy a..

or two to go with them.

One thing's for sure. If you find something relatively rare that you can't do without, buy lots and call all your friends and tell them to buy lots for themselves (of course, AFTER you've bought lots for your own family). You never know if you'll find it the next day. Today we actually found spelt (Dinkelmehl), but again, at a price. That won't stop me from importing my allowed 3 kilos from our lovely DM-Markt in Cologne every chance I get, but it does mean that we don't have to ration it as carefully. Hey, they even sell chocolate chips.

So, culinarily-speaking (is that even a word?), we have it good. Maybe it's the..

...after all.