Groceries

Anyone who knows me knows I love food. I love cooking, eating, and discovering new foods. I've even toyed with the idea of attending culinary school in the past. I touched on it already, but I was serious when I said before that I love going to grocery stores in new places. I think it's an interesting way of looking at people and how they live. What do they snack on? What are their desserts? What wildly different fruits and vegetables do they eat? What spices do they use to flavor their meals? And I could go on and on. It's another one of those curiosity things, I suppose. 

Anyway, we've been needing to go to the store for a couple of days now and just haven't gotten around to it. We made it a point to go last night and took our time wandering around. Because Bahrain is an island they import A LOT. I don't know that they produce much, if anything at all, on the island. So there are import labels from all over the world... grapes from the US (which were insanely expensive), onions from Spain, meat from India and New Zealand, fruit from Saudi Arabia, and on and on. 

In addition to seeing a whole host of countries represented, we saw fruits and vegetables we'd either never seen before or had only seen on food network! We saw bitter melon, fresh green peppercorns, weird squashes and roots, and loads of different types of dates. 

We even saw these weird things called black lemons. I had to look them up when we got back to the hotel and apparently black lemons are really dried limes and they owe their name to a translation from Arabic to English. They use them in soups and chutneys and the like for a sour-sweet element. I'm going to get brave and try them sometime! 

The store we went to last night, Lulu's, has a really good size bulk bin section with spices, dried goods, nuts, etc. They also have an entire spice aisle with things my little cooks heart has only dreamed of! Possibilities and ideas were running rampant! 

We got some basic things and then started to try and figure out dinners and what not. We're trying hard to get into some semblance of a routine (and failing miserably!) Well.... Christopher and myself drew blanks. I haven't been home to cook for the three of us since early June and with all our senses so overwhelmed we wandered aimlessly from aisle to aisle trying to figure out what on earth we used to eat for dinner. Kind of funny now, but frustrating last night for sure. Not to mention we're in a hotel with limited pots and pans and none of my normal stuff-- no spices or oils and vinegars or cans or anything to draw from. We're literally cooking from an empty pantry right now so my mind was just kind of all over the place... also throw in that it was the end of the day and we're still jet lagged as all hell and it was a recipe for disaster. Needless to say, we're going armed with a menu plan and a list next time!