How's The Food?

Everyone always wants to know what the food is like in Afghanistan.  Are we eating M.R.E.'s and granola bars everyday? Is the chow hall any good?  The truth is, the chow has it's good days and it's bad days, but overall I leave each meal pretty satisfied.  Even if it's not restaurant quality food, the convenience of having every meal prepared for you, with a rather large selection of main, side, and dessert items, is something that makes Emily wish she could trade places me for the next 11 months.  

By far my favorite meal of the day is breakfast.  And I get to eat it twice a day!  Right now, and probably for most of the coming year, I'm on a night schedule.  I wake up at about 5pm and get to work at 6pm.  I "work" (I use the term loosely because I actually enjoy my job), until 6am, then I get to sleep usually around 9am before doing it all over again.  The chow hall, or DFAC in Army talk (short for Dining Facility) is open 24 hours to accommodate people who work nights like me.  After serving dinner in the evenings, they serve dinner leftovers and breakfast food for the midnight meal.  Then around 5 am they start serving breakfast again.  So that's two chances for fried eggs (medium), hashbrowns, bacon, sausage (links or patties), toast, french toast sticks with strawberries, oatmeal, grits, fruit, yogurt, and pretty much anything you could want at breakfast.

The great thing about breakfast is that you can always be sure you're going to get something you like.  Dinner on the other hand (like lunch, during which I am sleeping on most days), can be hit or miss.  There are always a few items to choose from but, sometimes you get a bland meatloaf and nothing else looks that good.  So I just use the meat as a vehicle for the Heinz57 or the BBQ sauce. Emily likes to tell people, while some guys are "@&$-men", or "8o0p-men", her husband is a sauce man.  Condiments make everything better.  But every once in a while (every Friday night actually), the chow hall pulls out the big guns and this is what we get...

The lower left dish there is scallops.  I'm sure you can figure out the rest.  Did I mention it's all-you-can-eat?  You want to know how corporations make money off the war?  They offer all-you-can-eat meals like this one and then let me loose on it.  The government never saw it comin'.

Most of the people who work in chow hall are either contracted civilians out of the surrounding areas, or they are recruited by a company in India and shipped here.  I noticed early on that neither the Afghan group, nor the Indian group, were eating what everyone else was eating at the midnight meal.  I discovered that these guys were making their own food after midnight chow was all cleaned up.  One night, the guy to my right in the next picture (below) saw me glancing... ok staring, at his food.  I guess he had an extra bowl of it because he held one out for me and I gladly took and enjoyed the chicken, curry, vegetable, something I can't even describe.  It was so good.  I learned his name is Khalid, and he runs this local smorgasbord for the guys on his crew.  A few nights later I met one of the guys from the Indian crew who shared some of his Indian curry with me, and again, I was happy to partake.  They all eat together and pass around the stack of toasted tortillas (as a substitute for flat bread), and plain yogurt that for some weird reason goes so well with this food.  

Instantly I remembered one of my best friends in high school.  Gautam and I, usually with several others, would arrive at his house late at night, sometimes very late, and we could always count on Mr. & Mrs. (Dr. & Dr.) Jayaraman to be awake.  His mom wouldn't hesitate to cover the table with dishes that she had either prepared earlier that evening, or was just putting together as we arrived.  I think of it as my happy place.  Most nights in the chow hall at 1am, it's a lot like that, just enjoying food with amazingly generous people, sometimes with the Afghan Crew, sometimes with the Indians.  Again, it's not restaurant food, and it certainly doesn't stack up to what Mrs. J. used to cook, but it's so much more than what I expected to be eating in the mountains of Afganistan.

The United States is not the only country with troops on the ground here at FOB Shank.  Jordan (among other countries) has a presence here as well.  Their group is large enough that they have their own chow hall, and it's open to everyone.  Great news for me.  Most folks, well, at least I, try not to miss dinner here on Monday nights and the 1st & 3rd Wednesdays.  I took this picture with my iPhone.  I did not take this picture to use on my blog.  It's more of pocket reference for me.

While we're talking about food, check out this pizza.  There is a restaurant here on base which has been open for a while now, and is run by locals.  I haven't tried that one yet.  I'm sure I will soon, but this picture was taken at a pizza shop that opened just after we got here.  Again, it's inside the wire, and locally run.  We paid $12 for this pie with pineapple, ham, olives, and some spices which I couldn't identify, but really enjoyed.  My buddy Isaac Lamb and I split it last week.  I see myself heading back here for special occasions.  Anyone who wants to support these trips is welcome to send cash or check to Emily :-)

So thats the food situation.  If you have any other questions please leave them in the comment section below.  I will answer them right here.

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- Jeff