Meat, cheese, beer, and then more meat please

I had the most shocking realization today- I’m practically a vegetarian. No, not even that, I’ve essentially, and quite inadvertently become a vegan! My favorite foods are: Meat, cheese, fried meat and cheese, beer. This was not a pleasant realization. There’s a paucity of meat here; I expected to be feasting on lamb and kabobs galore here, but they don’t really have much lamb going on. I met and surmounted that little disappointment. “Meat” in Yemen means mystery, greasy goat. Actually it’s completely delicious but unbelievably expensive. I only had it once because it’s outrageously overpriced and also because goats eat GARBAGE, ALL MANNER OF ROTTEN MATTER, AND EVEN FECES. Goats are nasty. There aren’t any grazing lands around here so the goats just roam free around town and “graze” on trash and bottles and newspaper, the invariable giant mounds of litter, and whatever happens to be lying on the ground next to them. Gross. Initially I ate a lot of chicken (and longed for a rare steak) but now I cook at home most of the time and just make whatever I can from the ingredients I can get at the local shop near work. There is NO cheese here except kraft-wannabe-singles and unrefrigerated cream-cheese squares, I don’t drink milk (because my mother shamed me once when I tried to drink some as a child..) and the eggs are sold in crates out on the sidewalk. In the sun. In the well over 100 degree, miday, Yemeni sun. Can’t that kill you?!?! Why don’t they refrigerate their dairy products?!

Yemeni Staple Foods: tomatoes, onion, chili peppers. I’d say 90% of Yemeni cuisine largely consists of these main ingredients and of course, carbs. Other main food items include cucumbers, parsley, potatoes, bread, rice, ships (French fries), and beans. Lottttts of bread, rice, and beans. For every meal. Bet you didn’t know that beans cooked with onion, tomatoes, curry powder and chili is breakfast food! I recently had the joyous moment of discovering a vegetable clearly in the zucchini family, super exciting!
I have my favorite fruit/vegetable seller. He has a little stall across from the school, and I am fiercely loyal to him. Yesterday when I came by he was sitting up on the roof of a big van sifting through some big cardboard boxes. Upon seeing me he reached into a box and grabbed an unfamiliar and oddly proportioned piece of fruit. It kind of looked like a porcupine (like needles! Is needles still alive?!) with blunt spikes. He tossed it down to me and I eyed it dubiously. When opened it was filled with a mushy, white substance and looked extremely rotten. He motioned for me to eat some of it and I was all listen… I’ve been sick a lot lately.. I’m good on the rotten fruit, thanks though. He was insistent, and I acquiesced (damn you peer-pressure!) it had a sweet almost milky flavor but had these huge, hidden seeds in it and I almost lost a tooth. I broke it up into a few pieces and shared it with some of the kids crowded around me. We really had a moment there.
I saw some of them for sale at the big market in crater today and they had the most absurd English translation for them, something like “creamy, white, filled apple” I was just cracking up by myself in the produce section.

And speaking of cracked teeth, this is practically the longest I’ve ever gone without cracking or chipping a tooth because I don’t have Dave “LDB” Bender CRUSHING grounders at me from and extremely close range when a) my back is turned b) I don’t have my glove on or c) I’m just not bothering to pay attention to practice

So I’m getting pretty adept and creative cooking with vegetables. I’ve got some great recipes to use if I ever, clearly because of situation not by choice, have to practically become a vegan again.