Eat brains

Three hours ago, I wouldn’t have had much to add to any conversation concerning the taste of fresh goat brain.  Had I ventured haplessly into a social circle at a cocktail party and found the topic to be fresh goat brain, I would have quietly nodded in agreement with whatever was being said and then stared tranquilly into my glass hoping nobody would notice what little input I had to add to the dialogue.  Then, I’d discreetly back out of the circle, pretending I needed to go grab a handful of mixed nuts.  After all, what would I know about eating goat brain?  I’m a vegetarian from a country where a goat is a tuft of hair on your chin, not a meal.  But that was three hours ago. 

Three hours ago, I had never sat Indian style on the floor and shoveled mounds of rice into my mouth with my bare hands.  After all, I hate messiness, and I’m not exactly a fan of its cousin insanitariness either.  So why, when you scroll down, will you see pictures and videos of me sitting next to a group of guys as we excavate food from the same spread of rice topped with greasy goat gravy and garnished with a gaping goat skull?  Why will you see me break my vegetarian streak with panache by popping a piece of goat’s brain?

Hospitality.

Emirate nationals are famous for their hospitality.  They love to host parties, entertain, feed, and socialize.  So on Monday when my student, Mohammed, came to me with a friend who interpreted for him and explained to me in broken English that Mohammed would like to have my English colleagues and me to his home for a meal on Thursday, what was I supposed to say?  There was Mohammed sincerely patting his chest above his heart, and pleading with his piercing brown eyes.  He grabbed my hand and verbally pleaded that I acquiesce with his sole English word.  Goodt? Goodt? Little did I know that this meal would be my one way ticket out of vegetarianism aboard the goat brain train.

Back in America, if a student asked me to his home for a meal, I would politely decline without hesitation.  But this is different; to decline an invitation here would be rudely analogous to showing up for dinner, uninvited, back in America.  So, I patted my chest above my heart, and answered Mohammed the only way he would understand.  Goodt, Mohammed.  Goodt!

When we got to Mohammed's house, this is the spread his father had laid out for us.  That plate in the center is roughly the size of a kitchen table. 

 

No shoes, no forks, no problem.

Below you will see our host, Mohammed's father to my right.  He grabbed the goat skull and began methodically breaking it up to expose the brain.  He pinched off a piece between his thumb and forefinger and thrust it into my face.  

Down the hatch...I break 2 years of meat-free living with goat brain.

After I consumed brain, Hannibal Lecter style, Mohammed's father cut me out a piece of tongue.  This is the first tongue-to-tongue action I've gotten in the UAE, and it did not disappoint.  You can hear my fellow teacher Mr. Robert in the background claiming it's liver, but I know a tongue in my mouth when I feel it.

Hey, you gotta want it.

Let's play catch up

Let's play catch up, yes?  After my lengthy stay in Abu Dhabi, I was assigned to a living quarter an hour away from Abu Dhabi on the greenest patch in the Emirate desert - the oasis-town of Al Ain.  It's a modern city, and although it's not as ambitious as Abu Dhabi or Dubai, it bustles with a population of 400,000.  

I can zip around Al Ain in my rental car and feel like I'm in Abu Dhabi or Dubai only without the architectural playfulness and ocean view.  My teaching position is, on the other hand, in Al Wagan - a rural village nestled quietly in an endless patchwork of golden sand dunes.   My one-hour commute from Al Ain to Al Wagan happens on a concrete line that knifes through a sea of sand. It's simultaneously barren and beautiful, spartan and elegant.  

Out my car window on the way from Al Ain to Al Wagan

The school where I teach is called Bin Ham Secondary School.  It's an all boys high school with about 100 students.  I have two separate sets of 12th grade classes.  One class consists almost entirely of immigrant students from around the Arab world who are living in the UAE for one reason or another, and have a descent grasp of the English language. 

They are so respectful and so eager to learn English.  Teaching them is about as difficult as shooting fish in a barrel (as we say in Missouri).  A couple of anectodes to help you understand just how great these kids are: Every time I enter the classroom, they all stand up and say good morning.  They will not sit until I ask them to.  One of the students noticed I was running out of paper about half way through the week, so he brought me a fresh notebook labeled, "To Mr. Adam From Sufian," the very next day.  Below is a video of to-good-to-be-true-crew. 

So my job is perfect right?  Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves.  The other classes are not immigrant students.  They are Emirate nationals who speak no English at all, and while they are wonderful young men they do not exactly go about this whole school business in the same fashion I'm used to seeing it done.  Their histories are rooted in rural beduin culture, so they wander into class late, if at all.  They have difficulty sitting, they are ornery, they are spoiled by their parents, they are loud, they don't care as much about learning etc. etc. 

This little anecdote should help you understand them.  I asked one of the Arabic teachers what the kids liked to do for fun out in Al Wagan, and he answered thusly, "They take their Range Rovers out into the desert and try to flip them on the sand dunes.  I'm not joking," he continued, "That's their hobby.  They race camels and flip expensive vehicles on purpose."

It goes without saying then, that I just love them.  Just the challenge I was looking for.  And as if I needed another reason to love them, a group of them invited me out to their camel farms at the end of our first week so that I could see what makes them tick.

They picked me up after school and chauffeured me, in a caravan of Land Cruisers, deep into the desert to see the camel race track and the camel farms.  Seeing the students in this context helped me understand why it's difficult for them to engage in a classroom setting between four concrete walls.  They are used to open spaces, wild animals, expensive SUVs,  deadline-free days, and being treated like men.

I'm not sure I'll ever teach these guys as they're teaching me, but I can already tell, after only a week, that it's going to be a fun challenge to try.  Stay tuned...

Maharaja Palace Restaurant Review

I know I’m in for a delightful dining experience when an ornate plate, topped with four palm-sized saucers loaded with a puzzling array of colorful goop, arrives at my table.  I’ve had this goop before at Indian restaurants, but never has the goop been so colorful.  Never has it been so goopy.  The green goop is a neon-er color than the previous green goops I’ve been served.  The orange one has more orange clumps of opaque gummies, and what’s this?  I’ve never been served this before.  It’s a saucer full of mysterious vegetable balls, deep red and firm to the touch. 

No hesitation.  I appetize with the mystery balls, and I’ve curiously consumed them all before I identify them as some variant of onion - perhaps a distant cousin?  Perhaps the scrotal portion of a male onion?  Whatever it is, it’s delightful, and especially so when topped with the goopy orange gummies.

“Abu Dhabi’s most renowned Indian Cuisine.” That’s how Maharaja Palace is billed on its website.  Having eaten Indian at least four times since my arrival in the Middle East, and having christened myself a bit of a connoisseurs, I’ve decided to try this renowned cuisine, and write my first ever food review. 

Although I have zero negative feedback for the foodstuffs, I must, regrettably, decry the “renowned” portion of the restaurant’s slogan unless, of course, by renowned we mean: Your-INDIAN-cab driver-will-only-be-able-to-pinpoint-the-restaurant’s-location-by-taking-you-to-every-other-Indian-restaurant-in-the-city-first-and-he’s-Indian-for-God’s-sake!  If Maharaja is the most renowned Indian restaurant in the city, an Indian cab driver should be able to find it without using the process of elimination. 

I spend 20 minutes, prior to calling a taxi, preparing to properly pronounce the restaurant’s moniker to my cab driver. Moo.  Ha.  Jar.  Uh.  Moo.  Ha! Jar.  Uh?  Over and over again, I recited the name, only to have my articulation returned by a deeply meaningless Indian-cab-driver stare, and a broken-English retort of, “No hear of Moo.  Ha.  Jar.  Uh.” 

I tell him it is up there on the right and point my finger to a startlingly accurate up and right direction.   We take off in an up-there-and-on-the-right direction.  Two hours later, my enormous cab fare makes my wallet look ghastly thin, and I’m ready to fatten my belly.

Upon first glance, The Maharaja Palace décor is just as we Indian-Cuisine connoisseurs have come to expect – cheap wood painted to look deep and rich, gaudy golden trinkets pinned to the wall, ornate red tablecloths.  A trickling fountain that was surely purchased with  the utmost care from the Lawn and Garden section at Lowes rounds out the ambience. 

The true attention to ambient detail, however, is in the centerpieces.  A lighted tea candle that sits on a small red flower riding on a bigger yellow flower that floats on dyed red water in a golden bowl is sure to wow even the most skeptical eaters.  The architectural engineering it must have taken to create this kind of floating splendor is humbling. It reminds me of the song Hole in the Bottom of the Sea.  “There’s a candle on a flower on another flower in the water in the bowl in the center of the table.  There’s a candle on a flower…”

The only gripe I have with the atmosphere is the sole plasma TV on the wall. ESPN2 seems as out of place at this restaurant as my blonde hair and distinct lack of body odor.  A Strongest Man Competition is airing, and a Swedish man, who has traded his neck in for the ability to bench press a Redwood, is heaving beer kegs over his square head.  This distracts me from what I should be looking at, which is the food that’s been brought out in dishes and then scooped out onto my plate.

Makhni nann, vegetable biryani, and chana masala!  Just like Grandma used to make. 

Now, I’ve had vegetable biryani before, but this biryani is in a class all its own.  The vegetables are much wetter, and the occasional bite of tree bark seems more intentional at Maharaja Palace – less like the result of a careless cook.   The aesthetic value of The Palace’s biryani must also be acknowledged.  When my waiter shovels it on to my plate with a ice cream scoop, all of the rice grains - be the red, white, yellow, or orange - stick together in their globular mass.  In appearance it looks rather like a day-old baseball after being batted, fielded, and slobbered on by little leaguers. My mouth waters just looking at it.

The nann is fluffy and buttery.  Just like I like it.  It is served to me piping hot and when I dip it into my bowl of yogurt before I eat it, I am reminded that I still haven’t a clue what I’m supposed to do with the bowl of yogurt.  I’ve already eaten more food than even the Redwood-pressing, keg-tosser could, and I haven’t even dug into the masala yet. 

The chana masala is a spicy vegetarian dish made of chickpeas, according to the menu.  And who knew you could serve chickpeas on a bed of spicy mashed chickpea?  It’s brilliant really.  “You know,” I can imagine myself saying, “These chickpeas aren’t really chickpea-y enough…”  That is, I might have said that had the chickpeas not been properly basted in chickpea and served on a soft bed of spiced chickpea. 

“Mmmm..Chickpea,” I say aloud, amidst my culinary excitement.  My waiter, without hesitation, brings me my check and places it gently on the table, which I find odd considering the mountain of food I’ve yet to devour.

I take a few more bites and nod at the waiter, who eyes me from an eerily close proximity, waiting for something it seems.  I smile, chew, and point my fork approvingly at my plate.  “The chickpeas,” I say again, to indicate my endorsement of chana masala.  He is still way too close to my table, and what is he waiting for?

He looks at me and thoroughly furrows his brow.  Does he not understand me? I retry my dish endorsement and point to the Chana Masala again.  “Mmm.  Chick.  Pea. ” I annunciate with slow deliberation.  

“Yes sir, I put check on de table, sir.  Already sir.”  He points at the ticket on my table, and it is only then that I realize that words chickpea and check please are perfect homonyms to a non-native speaker. 

 To avoid further confusion, I go ahead and pay my tab only 3 bites into my main course while my disappointed waiter walks away with my chana masala, grumbling I suppose, about how wasteful westerners are. 

Maharaja Palace.  It’s a great restaurant.  And I’ll go back, if for no other reason than to have more than 3 bites of the main course.  

Shawshank Retention

I no longer make “mental notes.”  Mental notes, for my aging brain, have all the staying power of an ice cube in my armpit. If I have a meaningful thought and I make a mental note, I will later amble back into the cells of my brain to retrieve it – and it will have escaped.  I call it my Shawshank Retention – my mental notes are a cerebral Andy Dufrane.  Hey, that thought was here, but now it’s gone.  Nothing left but a Rita Haywood poster.  Typical male brain functioning.  You start out with a profound thought and end up with a half naked lady.

So now I make real notes - with words on ink and paper.  I take my intangible observations and give them a tangible representative.  I write them in little Mead notebooks.  Mead memos, I alliteratively call them.  Paper and ink exist in the physical world, so they make my whimsical thoughts real.  They bring them into physical existence so they cannot, as the warden would say, “Up and vanish like a fart in the wind.”

Often my Mead memos do have a tinge of profundity.  I will read one days after I wrote it and think to myself – Self, you are a keen observer; I’d gravel at your feet if they weren’t my feet too.   But just as often they are simply questions, and usually the kind that have no answer.  Sometimes, however, I am able to revisit a question I’ve written later, give it some thought, and come up with an answer that, if not right, will at least appeases my brain enough to relieve it of its analysis. 

Example Mead memo I ran across today:  Why is the mosque this big and elaborate?  Why do we have churches or mosques at all?  Not exactly the kind of Mead memo that will bring my knees to my forehead, mid summersault, in an effort to gravel at my own insightful feet, but a good question still, I think. Especially when put into context.

Context.  I recently took a trip to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque here in Abu Dhabi.  It is the world’s most elaborate Mosque.  It cost billions of American dollars to build; the 3 chandeliers alone are worth 10 million dollars and weigh almost 10 tons each.  It houses the world’s largest single piece of carpet, which took thousands of Iranian women 7 years to sew.  The carpet blankets the floor in a room that could easily house a Par 4 with ornate green and yellow padding. (Incidentally, when I asked my tour guide to see the Holy Vacuum used to sweep the carpet my inquiry was ignored – brushed under the rug so to speak). 

Following my tour, I Mead memo-ed my questions:  Why is the mosque this big and elaborate? Why do we have churches or mosques at all?  I guess my question stems from my personal belief that any God worth being worshipped would probably prefer people spend their energy and money pursuing acts of charity rather than ordering pricey, custom, stained glassed windows or posh rugs.  I have a hard time imagining God as a trophy wife bragging to Her friends about the gorgeous house people were building Her.  Seriously girls, wait 'til you see the chandeliers!  Why do churches or mosques always need all this stuff?

I suppose, also, that my question could have stemmed from my inadvertent Spanish interpretation of the word Mosque.  Mos meaning “more,” and que meaning “why.”  Ergo - Why more? Why do these religious communities need buildings with architectural splendor?   Wouldn’t less be better, really?  Don’t gilded spires and towering steeples intimidate and keep some people away? 

When I read my question today, the answer hit me; fell on me rather, like a 10-ton, 10-million-dollar chandelier. We humans need tangible items to represent abstract concepts.  Marriage, for instance, is an abstract concept, but couples wear tangible, concrete rings to represent it.  To make it real. 

Similarly, the monotheist concept of God is too intangible to hold in just our minds.  Capital-G God is like one of my mental notes.  You try to house the Celestial Concept in your nugget, and it melts away like ice in my armpit.  A God Thought is too intangible to work in your mind because it doesn’t exist in the physical world.  It’s a Celestial Andy Dufrane rock hammering Its way out of your brain.  A Divine Escape Artist. 

The churches and mosques, however, exist in the physical realm.  They are concrete.  They are more like my Mead memos, with their existence in the physical realm and their superior staying power. A thought can evaporate (another allusion to ice in my armpit); a building can’t.  Erecting an extravagantly tangible structure makes the Intangible Deity it represents seem much more real.  It helps people hold on to the thought.  

So that’s why people need churches or mosques.  But why must they be so elaborate, so ornate, and so extravagant?  Why must they be built with such a great deal of fufaraw?  I suppose because the intangible-capital-G God Concept they represent is so elaborate, ornate, and extravagant.  It’s such a weighty concept that it needs a weighty representative.  Hence the Sistine Chapel.  Hence the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. 

I reckon if I had a thought, a mental note, that was as universally cosmic and divinely profound as the monotheistic concept of God, I’d want to write it down in something a little nicer than one of my Mead notebooks.  Maybe a leather-bound tome with gold embossing and a silky red bookmark that dangles regally from its lavish spine.  A weighty representative to accommodate my weighty concept.

So, just like I need Mead memos and marriage needs rings, monotheism needs elaborate buildings.  Simple.  Now that I’ve got that riddle solved, on to the next question in my Mead memo pad.  Seriously, how do they vacuum that 7 acre carpet?