A Pleasant Evening

I had the opportunity recently to attend a dinner function at the local home of a man I'll term simply as an Iraqi dignitary. He is a very generous man and allowed eight military guests into his abode for a truly excellent repast and an evening of intriguing political discourse. Each of these is worth additional discussion.

First, the food. If you've had discussions with folks familiar with Iraqi food I'm going to guess they were really impressed with it. I certainly am. Our host greeted us in the drive and showed us to the living room, where we were served an awesome cardamom tea. I had to look it up when I got back to the office: the cardamom is a naturally sweet seed that can be introduced to different teas, depending on your tastes, to create an extremely satisfying drink. You tea aficionados out there are probably already keen to this, but it was a welcome surprise to me.

A little chai, a little chit-chat, and we were soon ushered into the dining room. There were just ten of us to feed, but it was obvious from the first glance that there was food for at least four times that many. I have no idea what most of it was, but it was delicious. There were several varieties of kabobs, very popular here. A massive dish of stuffed peppers, several varieties. Lamb chops. Heaping bowls of a stew-like soup with lord-knows-what kind of meat still on the bone. A particularly tasty little sweet, meat-filled rice-flour puff that I really need to track down a recipe for. Two huge bowls of a chicken/rice/other stuff salad, also a bit sweet and very popular to all around the table.

We ate for some time, a bit awkwardly since there was so much food piled on the table you couldn't gracefully maneuver your silverware. I feel bad that I can't tell you what all of this fare was, but I think it would have been a bit unseemly for me to use the table time for taking notes. Guess I'd be a bust as a reporter.

After dinner, we retire back to the living room where there was a very large platter of baklava in varied sizes and shapes and a big bowl of fresh melon. We noshed on this a bit while our host was on the phone with a High Ranking Iraqi leader and were pleasantly surprised when he returned with a new box of Cuban Cohiba cigars. We lit up (in the house! -- weird how reluctant all of us Westerners were), sucked down more cardamom, and talked shop, that being the state of affairs currently facing Iraq in terms of seating their new government and choosing their next key leaders.

I say choosing because, unlike the U.S., Iraqis do not elect their Prime Minister or President. They elect the individuals who comprise the Council of Representatives and they, in turn, determine who gets the top prizes. It is too complex to attempt to tack onto this bit of drivel, thus ensuring I have a topic for another day.

Since I'm deferring on the politics topic, I'm at the end of this tale. We shook hands all around, jumped into our Suburbans and motored on back to the compound.

I'd love to tell you we pass many pleasant evenings in this fine fashion, but unfortunately the many evenings are less than pleasant and the glow of an event such as this fades quickly. Our host did, though, send us off with the remaining Cohibas, so we'll get to re-live at least a bit of the experience.