It’s food? It’s good?

I landed in Dusseldorf, Germany on the last Lufthansa flight from Portugal. I was crisscrossing Europe conducting post-acquisition integration workshops and it was really late in the night by the time I reached the designated hotel in a small town in Germany, an hour’s drive from the airport.

My Turkish driver had just ripped me off 50 precious Euros claiming he had no change! He just took off without giving me the change. Felt more like an Asian experience in Europe for sure! As did his misogynous conversation in the cab with me, driving down from the airport, querying me on why an Indian woman would be gallivanting alone around in Europe late in the night. It had been a scary hour’s ride on the highway through thick forests. I was sure at the end of it that I may never want to visit Turkey and had a half-decent understanding of why Turkey may find it difficult to become part of the European Union. Oh dear, I was allowing a migrant taxi driver to build bias in me.

Anyway, I had an early 8 am start the next morning and needed some dinner. Quickly checked in, cleaned up, and headed to the restaurant in the hotel. Looking for vegetarian food on the menu in a small town in Germany, in the years before they had heard about vegetarians!

I lucked out! The lady who owned the restaurant had decided to become adventurous and was offering a Thai buffet. I walked to the buffet table and my hungry eye spotted pristine white steamed rice in one of the chafing dishes. I headed starry-eyed towards it and served myself two generous spoons of it. I continued to walk up and down past the buffet table, wondering what else could find a place on my plate and found many varieties of fish gently wafting the smell of fish oil past my hungry olfactory glands.

I quietly took my plate to a table, laid with a beautiful red and white checked tablecloth. My eyes sought out the manager. She walked over and I asked her if she by any chance had any Greek yoghurt that she may have put away in preparation for the breakfast buffet. It took a bit of convincing but she brought me a small carton of yoghurt. I ripped it open eagerly and upended it on to my rice.

She watched me wide-eyed. Stood by my side while I ate and kept asking me, “That’s food? That’s good?” I offered her my widest smile and told her she couldn’t have offered me a better meal. It was my comfort food and reminded me of my grandmother. “Oh, in that case, you are an easy to please customer!” She scooted back into her kitchen and brought me back two more small cartons of yoghurt and watched me eat with satisfaction. All that was missing was a little lime or mango pickle but I slept like a baby that night, even the feelings created by the experience with the Turkish taxi driver soothed.