The illusion of cooking

 The 100-Acre Sandbox is a self-contained city. We have a power plant, a water facility, road construction and the like. In addition to those things you just have to have to survive in the middle of a desert, we also have some fixins of a much nicer place, like a couple of gyms, pools and a wonderful corniche where people hang out at lunch and after hours.

We have a couple of little stores, but they’re not really grocery stores. One has a limited amount of food for sale, but that’s mostly for stuff like Red Bull and Copenhagen, which seem to be hot sellers. They also have toiletries and an ever-changing variety of “Embassy Baghdad” clothing and lots of booze.

There’s really no need for grocery stores because we also have a cafeteria and two snack bars that have food available from morning to late in the evening. Last time I was here, there was food available 24/7 but they’ve cut back, but boy, there is still enough.

So far this tour, though, I’ve tried to back off a bit. First, I was pretty much sequestering myself so that I could focus on the degree, but I’ve now gotten into the habit of doing lunch in my apartment. Since the portions are sized for He Man Security Team Members, there’s generally enough for dinner, too. Plus, since I was essentially jettisoned from Minsk, I wound up with lots of staples left from there. I’ve been cooking, in a limited fashion, rice and lentils for awhile now and just eating on it as the week wears on.

I’m nearing the end of the stockpile, though, and I’m kind of sad. There’s more satisfaction in eating when you prepare it yourself, but it’s hard to justify buying ingredients when there’s a cornucopia right in front of you. However, the food’s pretty routine, especially after the six-month mark, which I hit on March 15.  Since the cafeteria is halfway across the compound from me, I usually just go to the snack bar, and their menu hasn’t changed since I arrived. Although there are cold sandwiches and usually a boxed salad available, the hot dish is the same for whatever day of the week it is. I’m good with Sunday – chicken sandwich (not even close to Chick) and Wednesday, “fried rice” day, but other than that … meh.

Some days are worse than others. Tuesday is some kind of chicken day in all the facilities and I’m just not a fan. But that’s the one night where one of the snack bars – the one that has a Fred Flintstone-sized Buffalo wing-like drumstick – has carrot and celery sticks. So far, if I’ve run out of Minsk food for the week, I’ve gone and gotten a cup full of them and then a soft-serve ice cream for dessert.

But this past week, I got an idea. I’m going to start scavenging for ingredients and pretend to cook. One day had cream of mushroom soup. That’s not a meal to me – it’s something you put in rice. So I got a cup and came home and froze it. Then Tuesday rolled around and I snagged carrots and sautéed them and tossed in with the soup. (I got celery too, but I also got hungry and then the celery was no more.)

The next move is to head to the other snack bar, which is closest to me. It always has this dahl soup and unseasoned steamed white rice. It’s probably the plainest and flavorless rice ever, but the plan is to take a bunch, toss it in a pot, add some spices (which I have from Minsk) and then add the carrots and cream of mushroom soup. Then I can shred one of the Sunday chicken breasts and have a real meal.

It’s no exactly home-cooked meal, but it has the illusion of one, and that’s a nice change of pace.