Koushary Quest

My husband had a hankerin’ for koushary the other night. Normally this wouldn’t be blog-worthy, but considering it sparked a 24-hour quest, it earned its blog-worthy-ness through sheer determination. To start, for those who are not familiar with koushary, it’s a typical Egyptian dish made with multiple types of pasta, rice, lentils or chickpeas, doused with fresh tomato sauce and topped with fried onions. It’s a carb-lovers delight and typically puts me into a happy food coma within minutes.

When he first mentioned his hankerin’ our instinct was to go to the online delivery service that serves most restaurants in the area. And when I say most, I mean it includes McDonald’s and PF Changs and Burger King and Papa Johns Pizza, not to mention all the Indian, Chinese and Iranian restaurants, and even some Lebanese/Middle Eastern restaurants. Knowing all this, it seemed a likely source. After some digging, he found a restaurant offering koushary, so we ordered and waited.

We haven’t ordered out a lot, but the few times we have, have taught us to settle in and wait comfortably. It almost always takes over an hour. This particular evening, however, stretched the bounds of waiting. After 90 minutes, they called to get directions; which my husband provided. Another 60 minutes passed and several more phone calls ensued, with my husband getting more and more annoyed. We live off the Gulf Road, next to a popular amusement park with a huge Ferris wheel and the name of our building is spelled out clearly on top in large well-lit letters. Even without a spotlight, we’re not that difficult to find. At the three-hour mark, my husband called them back and cancelled the order. We’ve never done that before and were curious if they’d still deliver it regardless. They didn’t. Part of me wonders if the poor delivery guy is still wandering aimlessly.

So dinner was leftovers and soup that night. However, having his hankerin’ unquenched, his quest for koushary continued the next day.

Our plan was to run some errands, go on a walk with the stroller, and then drive by a koushary restaurant and carry-out our dinner, thus avoiding three-hours of phone directions. But on our way out, we decided to see if we could find the restaurant first, since it was still daylight. After 30-minutes and multiple wayward turns, my husband announced that we were officially in “Wee Egypt.”

“How can you tell?” I asked

“Look, there’s ‘Cairo Pharmacy’.”

He was right, right next to Hadi’s Tailoring (a very Egyptian name).

Excellent, so assuming “Cairo Pharmacy” and “Hadi’s” were run by Egyptians and not by Indians or Pakistanis and further assuming that these Egyptians couldn’t live without koushary, we should be set.

It wasn’t quite that simple.

With a bit of prodding from me, my husband popped into the pharmacy to see if they were Egyptians who liked koushary. They were Indian. “But I know we’re in the right area,” he insisted. So we spent an hour driving up and down and around these back streets looking for any sign of koushary. The good thing about koushary restaurants is that they only serve koushary; that’s it, nothing else. So inevitably their shop sign will typically say “koushary” in it. Finally we were in an area that my husband was sure was near the restaurant (his koushary senses were tingling). So we parked and decided to whip out the stroller and stroll a bit. Easier said than done. As I’ve mentioned before, Kuwait is not particularly pedestrian-friendly, and this area in particular reminded me of the back streets of Cairo, which, while covered with pedestrians, were definitely not stroller friendly. Across the street from the parking was a bakery. Being too small for the stroller, I waited out side while my husband popped in. He not only got a lead on the koushary, he also managed to buy some of his favorite fresh-made date cookies.

“So, which way do we go?” I asked.

“Um, it’s like this way then right,” my husband said vaguely waving his arms about. Why can’t men ever get clear directions?

As I was eyeing the rubble-strewn alley he was indicating, a customer from the bakery was getting in his car and asked us if we needed directions. “We’re looking for Juha Koushary,” we told him.

“Ah, it’s just down the street here, turn left at the little circle and it’ll be about 30 meters down on your left.” Ahhh, clear directions (and I might point out that they were in the opposite direction of my husband’s waving arms). And in keeping with typically Arab hospitality, the customer even offered to drive us there. We declined, but thanked him profusely.

So we began our little trek, bumping and stumbling along with the stroller over rubble and broken sidewalks. At one corner we saw a whole gaggle of men sitting around little tables smoking shisha, “Definitely Egyptian,” whispered my husband. We knew we were close! And within ten minutes we were there! Juha Koushary, in all its minimalist glory with a few rickety wooden tables and plastic chairs outside, and a small galley-type counter area where my husband placed our order while watching them prepare it out of the vats of steaming pasta, rice, and lentils. Not wanting to deal with the stroller on the way back, I plunked my husband down on one of the plastic chairs with our daughter, the stroller, and our dinner and headed back to get the car. My decision in waiting versus walking didn’t have anything to do with concerns about my safety waiting alone, rather I feared that I’d never see my husband again (his sense of direction can be severely lacking and I didn’t want to wait for yet another hour for him to find the car and then find us again).

Without incident, I got back to the car, passing the shisha-smoking gaggle and the bakery, and returned to gather up the goods. By this point, our evening’s plans of errands, a walk, and carry-out were adjusted to, spend two-plus hours finding koushary and return home. Which we did.

I have to say that this was our first wandering, exploring, walking adventure in Kuwait and long overdue! We used to do this all the time in Cairo and they were inevitably some of my favorite outings. So I vow that this won’t be our last! And next time I’ll take more pictures, will bring the baby carrier and will leave the stroller, grocery list and any intentions of getting anything else accomplished at home.

Dating Difficulties

Dating was never exactly fun for me. Whether it was the pre-date stress of deciding what to wear, or trying not to sigh audibly when my date spoke of his robot factory in his mother’s garage, or pretending to listen attentively while another prattled on about his ex, the Duchess of Hades, my dating history was rife with more tales of woe, than tales of woah. But that all changed once I met and married my husband. Not only had I finally found the love of my life, but I figured I’d never have to worry about dating difficulties ever again. Apparently I was wrong.

We managed to have several years of difficulty-free-dating, however, our recent dating issues resulted from the arrival of our daughter. My husband likes to claim that we had our first date, post-parenthood, at the six-month mark. I disagree. Yes, it was the first time we’d gone out together without our daughter, yes, we had a specific date and time scheduled, and yes, we even had a driver. The fact that the reason for our outing was our long-awaited trip to the Kuwaiti DMV doesn’t seem to factor in to my husband’s thinking. Of course, I will admit that no where is it stated that a date cannot involve bureaucracy, cow-crossing road signs, a trip out to the edge of the desert near the new highway construction, three other people and a written test; so maybe I’m the one with the definition issues.

Having visited DMVs throughout the U.S., as well as in Egypt, and assuming that a Kuwaiti DMV was no different, we decided it was probably no place for a baby. So we asked a friend to watch our daughter for a few hours. Thirty minutes later, as we were racing along in the van, with our driver and three other eager wanna-be-legal drivers, my husband reached over and grabbed my hand. As delighted as I am typically with spontaneous gestures-of-affection, this time I merely smiled at him and said, “This still doesn’t make this a date. Now pass me the study guide.”

In the end, getting our Kuwaiti licenses was similar to that of getting our Egyptian licenses; you sit on a well-worn couch in some official’s office while people come and go and he stamps a lot of things; you drink scalding highly-sweetened tea (though in Kuwait, I was not offered any, only the three men were); then you shuffle in your group to the next office where another official with a desk-full of stamps proceeds to wildly stamp away as you wait. Then you’re done. No test, no questions, no nothing. License received. And not surprisingly, they managed to misspell all of our names.

Our real first date, according to me, occurred on our anniversary, almost two months later. Again, we asked our friends to watch our daughter, and dutifully dropped her off early with all her piles of accessories. Our plan was to go to dinner at Marina Crescent, grab dessert at the Chocolate Bar for an added layer of decadence, and then head back to pick her up.

Best laid plans and all… we neglected to fully comprehend one external factor: it was Eid al-Adha, the four-day Muslim holiday celebrating the Hajj and Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son. So, like us, the rest of Kuwait City (aside from our babysitters) also had designs on heading out for the evening.

So, for the next three hours, we crept along the Gulf Road, routinely being passed by motorcycles and teenagers on bicycles, even some strollers. We finally made it to the Marina Mall, and proceeded to get stuck in the parking lot. I actually started to have some mini panic attacks; there was no where we could go, there were parked cars on either side, and a line of awaiting cars that stretched out behind us and in front of us, leaving us truly and absolutely stuck.

We finally were able to reach an exit and promptly threw ourselves back into the non-moving traffic jam on the Gulf Road. After two-and-a-half hours (and about 20 miles) of this non-stop hilarity, we finally made it back to our apartment. By this point we were starving and in a complete fit of desperation, we parked and walked in to the Sultan Center grocery store, where I got a Taco Bell bean burrito and my husband grabbed something at McDonald’s. I wanted to leave and just go get our child and return home, but my husband wanted to eat there. So we perched on some white plastic chairs and ate our “anniversary” dinner while being surrounded by delighted screaming Arab six-year-olds. Rather surreal.

Over an hour later, we stumbled back into our apartment, sleeping baby in tow, put her to bed, and collapsed on the couch. We did manage to have a successful third-attempt at our first post-parenthood date. But this time we brought the baby, managed to pay our cable bill along the way and got our Chocolate Bar goodies to go. Not necessarily the romantic candle-lit dinners of our past, but there wasn’t one mention of robots or the Duchess of Hades, and for that I will be forever grateful.

Happy Fifth Anniversary, dear.

Christmas is Coming…

Christmas is coming to Kuwait… you can tell by the slight chill in the air (temps have dropped to the mid 80s), the dearth of powdered sugar on the grocery store shelves, and the ever-increasing piles of chocolate Santas for sale. But the key sign that Christmas is a mere six weeks away is when Ace Hardware stocks their store with rows of fake Christmas trees in such dizzying colors that even a four-year-old would stare in disbelief. I remember growing up and hearing all the adults bemoan the arrival of Christmas décor within seconds of the end of Thanksgiving. Then, as I became an adult, I, too liked my holidays separated, and would adamantly refuse to listen to caroling before the wee hours of Black Friday. So when I moved to the Middle East almost five years ago, I figured I wouldn’t have to endure the creeping ever-earlier Christmas season. But I was woefully wrong.

During our time in Egypt, I quickly learned that Egyptians love any reason to string up colored lights and twinkling decorations. Most of the boats bobbing around the Nile at night are so lit up they glow. I’ve even gotten into Cairo cabs that were draped in blinking neon lights on the inside. Aside from being seizure-inducing, it always added a bit of whimsy. So the arrival of the Christmas season, regardless of its Christian undertones, meant an added excuse to get that seventy-fourth string of blinking colored lanterns out (or stars or oranges or cherries or bows) and string ‘em up. So coming to Kuwait, I wasn’t sure what to expect. But after witnessing the explosion of gaudy decorations last year, I felt fully prepared. And yet, I still found myself doing a double-take at the Ace Hardware display this year. Maybe it was the pink neon tree, or the pale brown tree that brought to mind the Januarys of all my childhood Christmases where the live tree didn’t look so live anymore, or the blazing sunlight and the 90 degree temps, but apparently I wasn’t as prepared as I thought.

After adjusting to my initial surprise at Ace Hardware, I ventured over to the Avenues Mall where my Christmas cheer induction continued; from the crooning carols in Pottery Barn, to the Swedish Christmas décor in IKEA, to ordering my daughter’s first Christmas stocking at Pottery Barn Kids. It was all so wonderfully festive. I could have be shopping in Tysons Corner, Virginia, had it not been for the Christmas stockings monogrammed for Ahmed, Hala, and Fouad in Arabic. Even our grocery store, LuLu, is just as festive this year as it was last year. Although I think their neon rainbow of Christmas trees has surpassed last year’s collection. So, feeling already behind the Christmas ball this year, I shall drag out our decorations and thoroughly drape our home in festivity, all the while figuring out how to keep the baby and the cats away from the Christmas tree without resorting to chicken wire and “Caution” tape.

You know, maybe I’m finally getting the Middle East Christmas spirit; I'm feeling that our home may need a purple tinsel reindeer this year. We all need a touch of Christmas Kuwait-style, right?