Haba Kahnook

The traffic is a nightmare in some parts of the city. Well, at least it’s not like that everywhere and I’m beginning to learn which parts of the city are most congested. Traffic isn’t as bad as it is back home. It’s a lot worse in Phoenix. Today we had to go through some really congested areas. I was trying as best as I could to get these people to pull over to the side of the road but they just seem to keep wanting to go forward. It just makes it worse when they all start bottlenecking up at an intersection or checkpoint. But I don’t think they get that. We even had to bump a guy because he was ignoring our warnings to pull over. I think it suits him right and who cares if he gets pissed off. That’s what he gets for not pulling over.

I had some more Iraqi food for lunch today. At least time it looked better even though I didn’t get to see how they prepared it. In fact, I didn’t want to know. It was basically a simple meal, nothing fancy. Pitas are really big over here. I had some chicken kabobs with an appetizer they call Haba Kahnook. My terp, code name George, told me to try it out. He mentioned that it was made from eggplant. I guess it was ground into a white creamy substance. He was so interested in eating some native food that I went ahead with him to eat.

Tomatoes and cucumbers also came on the plate of chicken kabobs. I’m getting the impression that they like tomatoes and cucumbers. Either that or there’s plenty of them grown around here. I asked George where they grew them and he said that they grow them here in Iraq. They also like their pitas, which they call Shamoot if I could remember right.

I tried eating the Haba Kahnook by itself but it tasted too strong. It was too bitter or something. It was perfect on the chicken pita I created. George said, “How did you know to do that? You’ve eaten this before? That’s what you’re supposed to do with it.” It was probably my Chicano heritage coming out. We’re always pouring stuff on our food like salsa, lemon/lime juice, or guacamole.