Shopkeepers and Turkish food
Last night I made granola at Emma's house and it tasted soooo good this morning. (Hint for care package idea here. Maple syrup, unavailable here, is my favorite.)
I spent a majority of the day planning lessons, but I managed to get a fair amount of walking in as well. The Turks have an amazing ability to built seemingly random streets that somehow connect to each other. Keeping my sense of direction has been challenging, but I have one thing working for me: the mountains. Down a hill is always north. Even so, when the area is relatively flat, finding a direction is near impossible due to all the buildings sqeezed into small areas. Even though Trabzon has only 50,000 more people than Madison, it feels like a much bigger city. Traffic is always busy, shops are always packed, and city noise is constant. The only exception is Sunday, when about half the shopkeepers take the day off. An interesting thing about shopkeepers, they often be seen hanging out in the doorway of their shop, sweeping or mopping the walk in front, or sitting somewhere relatively close by outside. I have developed good relationships with a couple shopkeepers here, even though I hardly speak Turkish. The place where I buy my beloved baklava (and her cousins) is called Ren. Muzafer is the owner and has pledged to me that he will sign up for English classes where I teach. I buy room tempertature water every day at a shop next to the school, and it is there where the shopkeeper taught me the words for cold, warm, and hot. I want to make friends with two girls who work at another pastry shop who wear pink blouses and pink hats and serve you whatever delicacy you pick out. On my fourth day here, I went there and as I was deciding what pastry I wanted, they giggled and smiled in my direction. Huddled close together, I could tell they were talking about me. One girl said to me, "very beautiful!" and pointed to my nose ring. Every time since then, I have not seen them.
Walking around Trabzon, I have met many shopkeepers. They are all very understanding and patient when I try to speak Turkish with them. In fact, many of them are eager to speak English with me, so our conversations end up being formed of broken language bits on both sides. It's quite fun!
Yesterday I had lunch at a place the made only pide, and I got to watch the guy make it. "What's that?" you may ask. Allow me to enlighten you. (wink) It's a bit of yeast dough padded out into an oval shape. (The guy I saw didn't use a rolling pin. He hit it and padded it with his fingers.) Then one of several menu items can be scooped on it and spread out: cheese, bits of meat with tomato, sheep cheese, fish with peppers and tomatoes, or other combinations of other things. Then the sides are folded up (the cheese ones are closed entirely), eggs painted on the dough part, and put into an old bakers oven that all the bread companies put on their label when you know they don't do it that way anymore. You know the kind I speak of, where the item to be baked is put on a wooden paddle and inserted into a brick oven. There the pides bake for about 10 minutes or so and are taken out. The extra flour is dusted off with a little broom, and then the pide receives a generous dollap of homemade butter, and served. I didn't know which one to order (I couldn't understand the menu) so I took the waiter's reccommendation: pide with small bits of beef with tomatoes and peppers. It was yummy.
Have I failed to mention that I am not pretending to be vegetarian here? Last time I came to Turkey, I nearly made myself crazy trying to cling to American ideals of diet and politics. The Turks are much more connected to their food than most of the people in the US, so the meat tastes unbelievably heavenly. That said, I still have trouble convincing my brain (and sometimes my body) that eating meat is okay.
Oh! I forgot to tell you about the "surprise" the school had for John and me. It was a BBQ, as Emma let slip out, but rather than lots of people that I had expected to be there, it was just the school staff and their spouses. It was lovely, really. We had barbequed horse mackere and regular mackerel. (Horse mackerel is half the size of regular mackerel.) It tasted really good, but I had to eat slowly because of all the tiny bones. Those things can seriously cut up your gums, as I found out when I got a bone stuck in my thumb! We ate on the roof of the school, from where we can see the Black Sea and the sunset. Aaaah. For the next 12 hours, however, my fingers smelled like fish no matter how much I washed them.
I spent a majority of the day planning lessons, but I managed to get a fair amount of walking in as well. The Turks have an amazing ability to built seemingly random streets that somehow connect to each other. Keeping my sense of direction has been challenging, but I have one thing working for me: the mountains. Down a hill is always north. Even so, when the area is relatively flat, finding a direction is near impossible due to all the buildings sqeezed into small areas. Even though Trabzon has only 50,000 more people than Madison, it feels like a much bigger city. Traffic is always busy, shops are always packed, and city noise is constant. The only exception is Sunday, when about half the shopkeepers take the day off. An interesting thing about shopkeepers, they often be seen hanging out in the doorway of their shop, sweeping or mopping the walk in front, or sitting somewhere relatively close by outside. I have developed good relationships with a couple shopkeepers here, even though I hardly speak Turkish. The place where I buy my beloved baklava (and her cousins) is called Ren. Muzafer is the owner and has pledged to me that he will sign up for English classes where I teach. I buy room tempertature water every day at a shop next to the school, and it is there where the shopkeeper taught me the words for cold, warm, and hot. I want to make friends with two girls who work at another pastry shop who wear pink blouses and pink hats and serve you whatever delicacy you pick out. On my fourth day here, I went there and as I was deciding what pastry I wanted, they giggled and smiled in my direction. Huddled close together, I could tell they were talking about me. One girl said to me, "very beautiful!" and pointed to my nose ring. Every time since then, I have not seen them.
Walking around Trabzon, I have met many shopkeepers. They are all very understanding and patient when I try to speak Turkish with them. In fact, many of them are eager to speak English with me, so our conversations end up being formed of broken language bits on both sides. It's quite fun!
Yesterday I had lunch at a place the made only pide, and I got to watch the guy make it. "What's that?" you may ask. Allow me to enlighten you. (wink) It's a bit of yeast dough padded out into an oval shape. (The guy I saw didn't use a rolling pin. He hit it and padded it with his fingers.) Then one of several menu items can be scooped on it and spread out: cheese, bits of meat with tomato, sheep cheese, fish with peppers and tomatoes, or other combinations of other things. Then the sides are folded up (the cheese ones are closed entirely), eggs painted on the dough part, and put into an old bakers oven that all the bread companies put on their label when you know they don't do it that way anymore. You know the kind I speak of, where the item to be baked is put on a wooden paddle and inserted into a brick oven. There the pides bake for about 10 minutes or so and are taken out. The extra flour is dusted off with a little broom, and then the pide receives a generous dollap of homemade butter, and served. I didn't know which one to order (I couldn't understand the menu) so I took the waiter's reccommendation: pide with small bits of beef with tomatoes and peppers. It was yummy.
Have I failed to mention that I am not pretending to be vegetarian here? Last time I came to Turkey, I nearly made myself crazy trying to cling to American ideals of diet and politics. The Turks are much more connected to their food than most of the people in the US, so the meat tastes unbelievably heavenly. That said, I still have trouble convincing my brain (and sometimes my body) that eating meat is okay.
Oh! I forgot to tell you about the "surprise" the school had for John and me. It was a BBQ, as Emma let slip out, but rather than lots of people that I had expected to be there, it was just the school staff and their spouses. It was lovely, really. We had barbequed horse mackere and regular mackerel. (Horse mackerel is half the size of regular mackerel.) It tasted really good, but I had to eat slowly because of all the tiny bones. Those things can seriously cut up your gums, as I found out when I got a bone stuck in my thumb! We ate on the roof of the school, from where we can see the Black Sea and the sunset. Aaaah. For the next 12 hours, however, my fingers smelled like fish no matter how much I washed them.
posted by nicole @ 11:13 AM
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