Yeah, it was almost all transport and security and staff, not food. Although, they did have some good food (it ranged from public high school at worst to high-end corporate cafeteria at best; varied by base and time).

Surf and turf (although food safety required them to overcook steaks) one night a week. Ice cream. Generally a line with lots of choices for entree. Mostly it was frozen stuff from the equivalent of Sysco, but mid-range, not the absolute cheapest it could be.

An order of magnitude better than MREs or the meals at US bases.

Absolutely none of it was from Iraq or Afghanistan; there was some bought from approved vendors in Kuwait/UAE and trucked/flown in. Fresh fruit and veg for Afghanistan flew from Bahrain 3-5 days/week.

The big improvement was putting RO water purification in country, rather than trucking bottled water (used for all potable use) from far away. The standard unit of water was a 12-pack of 1.5L bottles, later a 24 pack of 20oz bottles, or one level up from that, a pallet (you could just call a guy and have him drop a pallet of water on base anywhere you wanted).