Le pain quotidien

In Manhattan, when I head to my hair dresser’s located on the east side, I subway to 72nd street (west side) and walk across the park, almost regardless of weather. As I walk east on W 72nd I pass by Le pain quotidian, one of a well-known number of restaurants meeting our daily needs. While here in Qatar, I may contemplate the proximity to Iran but daily life goes on, a very routine existence albeit in a different culture. North American friends routinely ask about eating here, what restaurants, what food selections. Earlier I commented on foodstuffs available in the supermarkets, choices and prices varying. Although Pepsi, for example, costs the same regardless of store as does most packaged foods. No joy in shopping around something for which I am pleased – releases me from comparison shopping.

Lunch during work days is generally in the college faculty cafeteria where I get an opportunity to chat with faculty and others. The menu is the same – each day of the week has a couple choices, from chicken or turkey or beef buryani (meat and rice) to many forms of grilled chicken, occasional meatloaf slices and fish. Potatoes and pasta as well as a number of salad and a dessert are also available. Depending on my choices (sometime two pieces of chicken, never dessert, always a diet pepsi), I’m charged between 7 and 12 QR. Since each QR is currently pegged at 3.41 to the US dollar, lunch is cheap. I actually make it my largest meal of the day: it’s healthier and I can eat lightly with far less effort at dinner. Breakfast – now on the balcony – consists of orange juice, an apple and a bowl of bran flakes and raisins and low fat milk, by far the healthiest meal of the day.


Occasionally some friends come by for diner bringing things they have picked up– I’m still researching which restaurants will deliver to this apartment building (see below re furniture delivery). Last week they went to Turkey Central, on a block just near cholesteral corner where the fast food places gather, and brought excellent chicken korma, breads and variety of dips (hummus, baba, and things I have no names for, some of which were far too spicy for my taste). I have been eating the leftovers all week-end. I made a cucumber/yogurt dish – easy: 6” cucumbers, 1” thick, sliced and covered in a mixture of Laban and Labneh, thin and thick yogurt, with chopped garlic and left to marinate for an hour.

A colleague will be cooking Thanksgiving dinner for her American friends – she is actually getting a deep-fried turkey from a local restaurant and providing extras. It reminds me of the Thanksgiving I spent at the American Academy a couple years ago, 80 people strong with roast turkey, homemade pies, wines and cranberry sauce flown in the U.S. Cranberry bogs are not an Italian feature. Entertainment that day included a wonderful reading of a recent obituary from the New York Times, of the inventor of stovetop stuffing: “Ruth M. Siems, a retired home economist whose best-known innovation will make its appearance, welcome or otherwise, in millions of homes tomorrow, died on Nov. 13 at her home in Newburgh, Ind. Ms. Siems, an inventor of Stove Top stuffing, was 74.” I urge you to read the full obituary, link provided above, which ends: “As a mark of just how deeply inscribed on the American palate Ms. Siems's stuffing has become, there are several recipes, available on the Internet, that promise to reproduce the taste of Stove Top from scratch, using fresh ingredients.”



I had mentioned recently that I bought outdoor furniture for my balcony and have displayed an image of the balcony with furniture here.
The furniture was to be delivered on a Tuesday evening; that morning I received a call indicating that they were about to deliver and that is was short one piece. I would have to go to the store and prepare paperwork to claim my refund. I waited through the evening and finally called the store. Eventually a manager returned my call and said it was company policy not to deliver if the order wasn’t complete. The next day after work I returned to the store and spent an hour getting the refund and preparing for delivery. A great deal of time was spent waiting for a woman (western but also spoke Arabic) who went into melt-down and when she realized that the manager attending me was competent, took him over. The furniture was scheduled for ca. 8:00 pm. Around 7:30 I started getting phone calls, never completed. Then shortly after 8:00 I heard from the two Indian drivers – they were close by (at City Center) and couldn’t find their way. They kept trying to deliver to another tower (Bilal). Despite my directions (follow the road to the right of Bilal and turn left at the water), after 1 ½ hours I called the manager who talked them through. The furniture arrived around 9:30, still in boxes, despite the promises I had had that it would be ‘fixed’ – their term for assembled, although I kept thinking of an animal, spayed.

A day later I opened the boxes and put the legs on the table and the pads on the chairs. Only the day after that, sitting at the table for breakfast, did I notice that of the four chairs, only three had arms. One was delivered without. Somehow I wasn’t about to argue this since the furniture, displayed only 10 days ago in the stores, was no longer available. We speak often of ‘Doha time’, an agreement for time which is met within a few hours. So this is ‘Doha delivery.’ And so it goes …

A final daily occurrence is my review of the construction between the road in front of the Twin Towers and the bay – promises of a park seem the best use of land yet, as pictures attest, there is enormous movement of dirt to no apparent purpose. Just this past week-end, I watched as a major machine moved dirt around, picking up and transporting and sometimes sifting the material. See the image where the scoop drops debris onto a mesh – reminded me of the years of archaeological excavation where we used old bed springs (or so they appeared) to drop our excavated material though so we could catch items of certain size. An image from Tufariello suggests the close association of the excavation 9 floors below my building (with dirt mounds, large volume sieves and earth movers, heavy duty trucks vs people with shovels) to the excavation in the early 1970s in southern Italy, absent the plastic toddler’s bike.

As the sequence of pictures from my current ‘front yard’ show, dirt is moved around, a mound is built, into which water (2 truckloads) is sprayed and then the water seeps through over night. To what end? Why? I assume all will be revealed eventually. Stay tuned – it is my morning and evening window on the mysteries of building in Qatar.

I am returning this week to NYC for a business trip which also allows me time to connect with good friends, either in person or by phone. I expect that the dislocation will be interesting. Shortly after I return will be a QNHG day looking for sharks’ teeth which I anticipate joining (end November). Some weeks back I had an email from a young technical person here in Qatar (French nationality) who had seen the blog and wanted more info on the QNHG – he is especially interested in sharks’ teeth and may join that group. Of course, more on that later.