Food - very important

Hey everyone

Food in Doha

the good thing about Doha is that there are people here from all over the place and they've brought their food with them. The other good/bad thing is that there is a lot of cheap labour meaning they want cheap food, and it is cheap to prepare. A quick summary of some foods around here:

Cheap

- Shwarma - little wraps of chicken, tomato, onion, lettuce and garlic dressing in flatbread. Available at small Lebanese restaurants, Turkish places and occasionally on the street. Anywhere from about $2 to$5. The meat is done on those upright Turkish spits and is very tasty. NZ needs more of these!

- Chicken - (pretty common) there's an Indian place on the corner from us called Badriya Chicken. The chickens are smaller and less fatty than you get at home and they seem to be a bit healthier to eat. They have whole rotisserie chicken for $5 or spicy barbecue chicken (done over charcoal) for about $7. That covers the chicken, rice or bread and a little bag of salad (the salad is a little dodgy looking). There is a man in the front of the shop that shapes and bakes flatbreads in an oven, very skilled, tasty bread and neat to watch. You can buy the bread straight off him through a little window onto the street.

- Indian vegetarian - these places do a variety of things:

- marsala dhosa - a bread wrap with vege curry inside.

- pilau - rice and veges,

- spicy falafel with cumin etc on the outside

- chapatti

If you get any of these they are served on a plate with three sauces, a coconut one, a green curry type one and vege curry. They come around with pans of these sauces and if you've finished yours they top them up again. These are around $3- $4 for a main. Heaps of single Indian workers go to these places and families, particularly Western ones, are unusual. We get plenty of interest when we go there with Matija. A lot of the guys want to touch her cheek or shake her hand. These places generally don't have utensils, you eat with your right hand (left one is for hygiene).

All of these things are good and cheap and we haven't had any crook tummies yet.

Middle range

This covers a whole lot of food in Doha.

Middle Eastern restaurants generally start with meze. These are dishes like hummus (chick pea paste), tabouleh (parsley, mint, bulgar wheat and lemon), baba ganoush (egg plant dip), green salad (speaks for itself really) they come with fresh breads, either loaves or flatbreads and you can easily make a meal of these. Mains are a variety of things - whole split and roasted chickens, fish, kofta (lamb sausages), shwarmas (see above). A lot of places do tagines - stoneware pots with casseroles - usually they have the meat (chicken or lamb) with a little spice and a sweeter fruit, prunes, apricots, figs etc. They also do a desert called Umm Ali or Mother of Ali. Legend has it that a sultan was travelling, he stopped in a village and the best cook was asked to prepare a desert. She cooked up flatbread in milk with spices, cinnamon etc. She was the mother of Ali and the desert was named in her honour. Another theory has it that an Irish woman called Bridget O'Malley introduced bread and butter pudding over here and it was named after her.

There are plenty of great Indian eateries here that are a bit more upmarket. Andrea has been to one in a hotel and we went to one about 10mins walk from our apartment - a place I went past taking Matija to the bus stop. Matt Ford would think he had died and gone to heaven. We started with naan breads, then got into some fantastic curries from Kerala. I had one with prawns and coconut and awesome spices, Ande had a chicken curry in an amazing gravy. We got kofta (minced lamb sausage) for Matija, but it was hot and we had to eat it ourselves. It came with rice and more breads, yoghurt and raita (yoghurt and cucumber). We were the only ones in the place because we were there at 5:30 with Matija. We were next to a frosted glass wall into the kitchen and there were patches of clear glass. We could see about 6 cooks working in a large stainless kitchen, all with hair nets, white clothes etc. It was all very sanitary and they were cooking everything from scratch. Amazing food and it came to $30 NZ for all of us.

There are a few good Thai places around and plenty of Lebanese and Turkish restaurants as well. There are Phillipine places too, but haven't tried these out yet. There is a very good Chinese place just down the road too, but still have to get there.

The hotel restaurants are pricier, but you can go for flash or very, very flash. Our Christmas lunch was fantastic - anything from cold seafood dishes, to turkey, roast beef and 20 or 30 deserts.

Friday lunch is a big thing here in the hotels too. Huge smorgasboards that people go along to from 10am to 3pm, kicking back and chatting eating etc. Many places cater very much to families with entertainment for the kids too. These are more expensive - some of the flash ones charge a little over $100 per head, but kids are free and they include free drinks for the adults. We may go along to one of these things just to check them out - haven't been yet.

On another tangent - Ande is really enjoying work and Matija has just got back to pre-school. We've all had some colds and flus and things but it looks like we're OK now. Ande met a committee last week to decide if I could stay. If I was a woman and Ande was a working guy it would have been no problem, but as I'm a non-working guy they look a little harder at us. We were advised to say that I was just looking after Matija and the house, not writing. They couldn't understand why I would want to hang around to do that, but Ande must have been convincing so I will be allowed to stay. Unfortunately it meant we didn't get a company paid trip to Dubai or somewhere so that I could renew my visa.

I haven't got very much writing done at all, but I've done a hell of a lot of thinking. The outline for my next series (Scrap) is firmly in place and I'm very excited about it. I've thought a lot about what I really want to say and why I want to write these books. That's really underpinned the whole series and I'm looking forward to getting my teeth into the writing in the next few weeks. I guess I could have been really frustrated about not being able to get into writing yet, but I'm learning to wind back and really enjoy the things I'm doing, whether it's looking after Matija or even cleaning the house. I am making time to get to the gym - taking some time out for me and keeping fit and healthy. I suppose I'm living in the moment and making the most of each one. The writing will come when it is time and I'm sure it will be a lot stronger when I'm ready to focus on it (which is very soon). I'm also there for Matija, loving the time with her and Ande and generally a very happy camper.

love and hugs

V, Ande and Matija

photos are just some random ones from the park, the zoo etc.