Iraqi Gourmet

The food here is the best I've had in the military to date. I don't know how much that really says about it, but it's not too bad. The chow hall is a basic buffet line- a hot food line as you come in the door, an island with salad and other things that food eats, another station with sandwich materials, pasta, and some variety of other hot courses, and a desert bar.

The main line has a rotating menu selection. Sunday is steak and seafood, and I don't care enough about the other offerings to pin down what days they appear. I'm usually bored by the first line anyway. Sandwiches are great to make and take along to eat later on mission (which is against the rules, but who's counting?). The rest of the menu on the auxiliary station is what interests me. Occasionally, it's "picnic food" such as mac&cheese, hot dogs, or other such boring offerings, but usually it's ethnic food of one sort or another. Picky eating was bred out of me long ago, and it's at this station I usually head in search of something good to eat.

A few days ago, I started with a breakfast of Indian Sheikh Kebab- small seasoned sausages with grilled onions and tomatoes, wrapped in naan flatbread. For lunch I had parts of an MRE because we were out on mission and I forgot a sandwich (Okay, so that was a major low point). Dinner was French Beef Provencale, pork and shrimp stuffed pepper, and spinach salad that I threw orange slices and walnuts into.

There's enough diversity in our diet to keep me mostly happy. The thing that bothers me about eating here, and one of the things that I miss most about home, is not being able to cook anything myself. One of my favorite pastimes at home was cooking, preferably something exotic, and here I'm reduced to thumbing through old issues of Bon Appetite at the rec center.

Home feels so near I can taste it.