I just moved from Pittsburgh to Doha, Qatar in the Middle East.  A move like this means having torn feelings, knowing you are leaving your loved ones behind, but offers adventure and new opportunities.  My assignment is only three years long, so it’s not forever, but at the same time it’s long enough for me to need to settle in and make Doha my home.

Feeling sad and lonely, I wanted some food that reminded me of home.  I had 2 bananas that were turning black, so I decided to make some homemade banana bread.  I haven’t bought any snacks while I’m here because I’m trying to lose a few pounds.  So this will be a nice treat.

I need…

2 cups flour

2 1/3 cup mashed bananas

½ cup butter

¾ cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 t baking soda

Mix and bake at 350 for 65 minutes in a loaf pan

I had the eggs and bananas but had to get the rest of the ingredients at the store.  Here they have a Carrefour’s, supermarket, the French version of Wal-Mart.

I am still a little intimidated by the grocery store and everything is in Riyals so I have to divide the price by 3.5 to see what the equivalent price is in the US.

I start to push my buggie (cart for non-Pittsburgh speakers) through the store.  All four wheels are going in 4 separate ways.  Hahahahah, no not funny.  The shopping trolleys here in Doha have wheels that truly go in 4 directions at once, you can easily move them sideways.  This is new for me, the trolleys kind of glide over the linoleum floor of the grocery store.

Okay buggie’s under control and I find the baking isle.  I find flour, the packages all have Arabic lettering and numbers and usually somewhere on the packages you can see the English version of what you are buying.  I see white bleach flour, this looks good, I think????

I could not find the brown sugar or the baking soda; there was a stock boy there so I asked.  He just looks at me kind of funny and walks away.  Hummmm maybe I stink??? Oh he’s back he didn’t understand what I said.  He brought other gentlemen with him who could understand me.  He directed me to the brown sugar.

Now in Pittsburgh, brown sugar is soft and comes in a one pound bag.  He handed me a 4inch x 4 inch box that was brick hard, I wasn’t so sure about this brown sugar.  Then he took me over to the baking soda and handed me soda bicarbonate in a can.  I put it back on the shelf, and said no, no Arm & Hammer baking soda….he picked it up again and handed me the can of soda bicarbonate.  We did this at least 3 times until he said this is it lady.  Okay if you say so.  I have my doubts. 

Off to the refrigerated section for butter, I usually cook with parkay or imperial margarine but any butter will do.  Okay did I say any; my choices were French strawberry butter, whole fat butter, lard butter or Danish cream butter.  I chose Danish cream based on the name alone. 

Okay back to my fancy uptown apartment.  I pull out all my ingredients and get my bananas and start to mix it all up first I have to cream together the sugar, eggs and butter.  Cracked two eggs, open the butter to find white stripes through the butter, it was the “REAL” cream in the butter, okay???? Losing faith in this bread.  I open the brown sugar brick to find out it is small cylinder cubes of pure brown sugar cane.  Thinking fast I took out some foil and put the little cylinders in the foil and beat the foil with a big metal spoon until I had granulated sugar.  I beat all of these ingredients together until I had a creamy, chucky mixture.  Not usually lumpy when I make it in Pittsburgh but what can I do?

I add the dry ingredients, the flour, hum it’s brown the label says it’s bleached.  I look for more English word but there are none.  I add the brown speckled flour in and open the soda bicarbonate and add 1 teaspoon.

Last I mix in the banana mush and put it all in a loaf pan!

Now the oven.  I have a fancy touch pad oven in the wall, just like Carol Brady on the Brady bunch.  I’ve never used this oven before.  I push lots of buttons and figure out how to get the thermometer on, its starts at 250 degrees, that’s how my knob at home reads, starts at 250 and goes up.  So I press the up button until it gets to 350 and preheat for 15 minutes.  I am feeling somewhat confident that I may end up with banana bread.  I walk away to answer the phone and the timer goes off for my 15 minutes.  I see smoke, lots of smoke, I smell FIRE!!!!!!!!OH SHOOT WHAT DID I DO?  I ran to the kitchen, like a crazy woman!!! There is smoke rolling not quiet billowing just rolling out of the oven, it’s not black smoke just white smoke, I open the door to find the oven instruction manual, smoking away inside the oven.  I threw the manual in the sink and opened the balcony door, and did that waving my hands motion trying to convince the smoke to roll out the window.  Phew disaster diverted.  I put on the stove exhaust fan as well trying to suck some of the smoke out of the kitchen so it doesn’t go near the smoke detector.

I finally put the loaf pan in and set the time for 65 minutes.  I walk away and decide to read a little.  I can smell the bread it smells right.  I notice that it smells like it’s burning, but that can’t be ….It’s only been in for 20 minutes.  I go out and check the bread and the outsides look burnt, so I take the bread out and try to see what I was doing wrong.  Then I realized I was cooking at Celsius not Fahrenheit!  It was only 175 C.  I was burning it.

I turned the oven down and watched the poor bread cook, as it cooked, it got taller and taller and taller and taller and taller, it was twice the height of the pan.  Uhoh, I bet that soda bicarbonate, is more powerful than baking soda. 

Well the bread is done, and I am afraid to eat it.  Here’s the thing, I am afraid it may kill me and no one would check on me until tomorrow, when I was late for work.  So I’ll just take an end piece with me to work, that way someone will notice if the bread kills me.