We Are....

We are expecting a baby to join our little family around August 3! I am 8 weeks along.

You know, most people wait until the first trimester is over before making a public announcement like I just made. A lot of them do that because the risk of miscarriage is highest during the first trimester. I waited to announce my pregnancy with Ava, after telling only family and some close friends. I found myself doing the same with this pregnancy.

I got to thinking in the last couple of weeks. Why am I waiting? What am I afraid of? Our first pregnancy with baby Nikao ended in a miscarriage. That experience never goes away and can hang around like a specter in subsequent pregnancies. It hangs around in the back of your mind, coming to the forefront whenever something feels different, such as lack of morning sickness one day or a burst of energy another day, when the first trimester usually beats pregnant women down with fatigue and nausea. A previous loss makes you more careful, more paranoid. You avoid things with such undue diligence. Sometimes you're actually even thankful when a wave of nausea rolls over you because it's your proof that the pregnancy is still viable. With all of that comes the desire to wait to announce until the first trimester is over. Once you finally climb out of the first trimester pit and kiss it goodbye, you sigh a breath of relief as if all risk of the baby dying has disappeared in a poof.

But, you know, your pregnancy can end in a stillbirth in the second or third trimester. I don't mean to be gloomy, especially in the wake of our happy announcement. My point is that the risk of a loss doesn't stop in the first trimester. I could make the announcement at 12 weeks, only to lose the baby at 14 weeks. So what is it I am trying to avoid by delaying the announcement until the end of the first trimester if the risk, although low, is still present in the second and third trimesters?

I think that people follow the custom of waiting until the end of the first trimester to announce because if they do miscarry, then they can keep their pain private and to further avoid any more pain of having to explain over and over to many people that they've miscarried. It's understandable. I felt the same.

But, in doing so, I will have stolen the opportunity for the Father to be glorified. How is He glorified during a tragedy? With my miscarriage, I was walking through the saddest valley in my life and it was deep in that valley that I was paradoxically very happy. It was because I had such a tremendous, supernatural experience of walking with the Father closely, clinging to Him, and being infused with His comfort and strength. He didn't take the grief away but...I cannot put my finger on it...His brand of comfort somehow took away the bitter sting of grief. He is glorified because when I called to Him for help, He came through. He is able and faithful and will do the same for you.

This morning, as I was having my alone time with the LJC and my cup was overflowing, I was reminded - why are you afraid of another miscarriage? I remembered that the Father comforted me with our loss of Nikao. He can do it again but more than that, I know that He will do it again.

So, here I say: I am 8 weeks pregnant and I will not fear. In the case of loss, I will not hide my grief but will stand up and say, "The L-rd gave and the L-rd has taken away; blessed be the name of the L-rd," (Job 1:21). Let Him be glorified in me, in my life, in everything because He is good.

A Facelift

In October, I mentioned going to a city about a 2-hour plane ride away and posted pictures. This weekend, we went back to the same city. It started snowing the day we arrived (Friday) and it continued to snow all night. It was the first snow of the winter (and unusually early) so I didn't think it would stick. It ended up snowing 5 inches or so and the snow cover was still there when we left today. I thought the barren, rocky mountains were beautiful with the snow. I wish we had our fancy schmancy camera with us but this was the best we could do with our little point-and-shoot. Here are some different views:

The nighttime picture above is gorgeous. The cloud cover disappeared and the moon was just brilliant, making the mountains glow. You can even see some stars in the picture...

Turkey and Games

We had a great Thanksgiving! We spent it with co-workers at a co-worker family's flat. It was a spacious flat and able to accommodate a good crowd. There were 16 adults and 7 kids and two babies - only missing 4 adults. It was potluck obviously and there were many delicious eats! We stuffed ourselves full, talked a while, and then the men and women split to play games which was a lot of fun! :-) The kids played amongst themselves throughout the flat and we all just had a grand ol' time. We forgot our camera so no pictures to post - sorry!

I'd posted last time about going on a hunt for sweet potatoes and after hitting several stores, I only found one. Just a single potato. I was a little sad then I shook it off because there is a lot more important things to be thankful for! Then, I found out today that there are a bunch of sweet potatoes at an international supermarket chain store. Too late.

It was way past A's bedtime when we finally collected our dirty serving dishes and utensils and left. As G and I stepped outside, we both suddenly realized that we weren't in America anymore. It was just the oddest sensation because we never forgot that we were in a foreign country the entire day but we'd just celebrated an American holiday, ate American food, hung out with Americans, and played American games. I think we just enjoyed ourselves so thoroughly that our brains relaxed unconsciously and we forgot to expect foreign surroundings when we walked out the building. Oh yeah, we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto. And no, the odd sensation wasn't accompanied by homesickness so don't feel sorry for us :-)

Oh, G's birthday was on Thanksgiving and I made a gluten-free coconut cake for him with whipped cream icing and coconut flakes. It was really yummy. The texture of the cake changed after a day (that's the way it is with gluten-free baking sometimes) but we still chowed down on cake for a couple of days. I think G really enjoyed his birthday this year hanging out with our Sunday morning group - we loved the group and have couples our age in the group that we love and get along with.

We put up our Christmas tree just before Thanksgiving but left it bare since I had to hunt for lights to string on the tree (which I finally purchased yesterday). Both of our language teachers helped us hang the lights on our tree this afternoon so that was really fun. There are still no ornaments on the tree yet and I'm considering waiting until the next time my language teacher comes to hang the ornaments with me. That would be a lovely tradition to start, inviting nationals to put up the tree and hang the ornaments with us.

We will be hosting Christmas this year for our Sunday morning group and I am looking forward to that. They are such a great bunch and I will enjoy having them in our home.

Well, now that the Thanksgiving holiday weekend is over, we're back in the swing of things: language, end of the year administrative things, projects, Christmas shopping, and countless errands which are never-ending. G has school on top of all that, also - poor guy.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and I hope the Christmas season will be full of joy as we remember who the "star" of Christmas is and how he took on flesh and dwelt among us.

Lately

I like posting random stories here but I realized the other day that the blog probably needs a good comprehensive update now and then. Here's one:

Lately, we have been busy off and on. It's always something - language learning, work-related responsibilities, unexpected guests who tend to stay for hours at a time, long work-related meetings on video with people in different parts of the world, etc. 

Work: we continue to learn language and we're not very fond of the language program that we have to use. We do better learning from socializing with people. Our language program requires certain hours to be met each week and projects to complete in a timely manner. We are spending time with nationals as part of our requirements to practice our language and subsequently develop relationships. 

Culture: I am always learning interesting things about the culture here. Yesterday, I was reading about the honor/shame culture in this country (and Western cultures are mainly guilt cultures, with emphasis on right and wrong). Americans are highly individualistic and independent. People in this region tend not to be. They are more group-oriented. This influences the decisions and choices that they make. Also, I recently went to a baby shower of sorts which was pretty neat. I will have to post about it with some pictures soon. I am learning the superstitions in this culture - some makes me laugh, some makes me smack my forehead. It's not much different from America, though - we have our own urban legends and superstitions, too, whether we realize it or not. 

A: She goes to preschool three days a week and loves it. She has been sick this week with congestion and sore throat from which she ended up getting conjunctivitis. I kept her home last week from school and she's on the mend. Her vocabulary expands by leaps and bounds and she's forming good sentences. She's highly social and loves going places. She waves at random people on the street. On Saturday, we were waiting for a specific bus and A waved from the sidewalk to someone sitting on a bus that was being boarded by some people at our stop. He beamed and waved back. Yesterday, we walked by a restaurant and there was a couple sitting in the window. A waved at them and they also beamed and waved back. Friendly kid. 

Hearth and Home: We live in a bigger, spacious flat than we ever did since we were married. There is not a lick of carpet except for the rugs we put down. That's a lot of floor to sweep. I've come to a realization that since we have a guest (usually our language tutors) almost daily, it takes time to clean. And add a toddler to the mix and you get the idea. I'm still slowly making it a home. A recent touch was new curtains in our living room. I found a fabric store that leans more to my taste and was able to find bright and cheery material that I like for curtains. I had them made and now they're hanging. All I have left for the living room is to hang stuff on the walls. I still have to make curtains for Ava's room and hang a shelf and some pictures in her room. We also have a guest room that we need to outfit. I've been baking once a week, pretty regularly - mainly pumpkin muffins (which only last couple of days) and most recently spiced carrot bread. I ground brown rice to make rice flour for the first time over the weekend. It was a bit of work because I had to grind, then sift out the fine flour, grind then sift, grind then sift. I used the rice for that spiced carrot bread I mentioned.

Free Time: I get pockets of free time here and there and I read to de-stress a bit. I probably should be using those free time to accomplish more stuff but sometimes I just need to escape for a little bit. I usually read for about 10-15 minutes in bed each night before drifting off. It's my favorite part of my bedtime routine. Right now, I'm working through the Kathy Reich series and currently devouring the book, Bare Bones. I have not been able to sew much although I am expecting some Christmas fabric in the mail to make some Christmas decorations. I will have to get on the ball then! I'm not sure what G does for his free time - it's usually something on the computer. Sometimes when our brains have just ceased to function and we're exhausted, we will put in a movie and just disconnect for a little while. 

Upcoming Holidays: We will be celebrating Thanksgiving with our Sunday morning house group on Thursday. Sweet potato isn't really available here but I saw some in a store that import some things about a couple months ago. This week, I will be on the hunt for it because I really want me some sweet potato casserole. Yummy goodness. G's birthday is on Thanksgiving so I may attempt a coconut cake for him. Somehow, I'll have to cram in the time for that. We've put up our fake Christmas tree but it's bare of lights and decorations. I have to find some lights before I can hang ornaments. We will be spending Christmas here and will have Christmas dinner with our Sunday morning house group. A is at the age where she's understanding what Christmas is all about and is getting excited. It's definitely fun now. We don't do Santa with her but she's really excited about getting a star tree topper for our tree. Don't ask why...

Weather: It's been nice and nippy lately. We had some rainy and overcast days for a while and the sun has broken out in the last couple of days. It has mainly been in the low 50s during the day. Our flat stays pretty warm and sometimes too hot. I'm so accustomed to keeping the heat low and wearing a sweater in the house but in this flat, I can hardly bear long sleeves because it's so warm. We crack some windows to release the heat. I try turning down our radiators but I suspect apartments below us also heat up our apartment. The days are shorter, obviously, but I get surprised when it's dusk at 5 and pitch dark at about 5:30. When I pick A up from preschool, it's usually dark by the time we start our trip home. It just feels awfully late but it's not. I don't know why that's disconcerting to me - I forget that I don't live in the Sunshine State anymore. 

Visitors: After Christmas, we will have some dear friends come and stay with us for a little while. We will take them sightseeing around the city, let our kids play, eat some food and play games, and enjoy the fellowship. We are looking forward to that. 

It's lunchtime and I'm off to chow down.

Eerie

Have you ever seen the movie called The Happening, written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan? It was well executed and the idea was good but it was one of the worst I ever saw as far as gory movies go. It was so gory. I will do my best to describe some parts of the movie (which you will have seen if you saw previews for the movie) that relate to this post without spoiling the movie for you, if you haven't seen it.

The story is set in Pittsburgh, a bustling, teeming, busy city that never stops. You get the sense of people always moving; the parks full of people playing and walking, ongoing construction, heavy traffic on streets with blaring horns and sidewalks full of pedestrians headed somewhere, etc. Full of motion and noise.

Then....the wind blows.

A calm settles over the city.

Hurrying pedestrians are stopped dead in their tracks, motionless and staring vacantly ahead. Cars are completely stopped with drivers sitting deathly still in their seats. People enjoying the weather in the park stand where they are, also staring vacantly into space. Those reading books on park benches are sitting and staring expressionlessly ahead, unconscious of books lying in their laps.

It is too calm. Too still. It bodes ill for the folks, who became frozen as the wind blew over them.

At 9:05 am on Thursday, November 10th, I was living in a scene like that. Literally. We were in our apartment and we heard what sounded like a tornado warning siren. We walked to the windows to see what was going on. People on the sidewalk were stopped dead in their tracks. People looking out windows didn't move. Our doorman had been sweeping the stoop of our building and was also standing stock still with the broom in his hand, staring off into the distance. No cars were moving on what was normally a busy street. I saw a stooped grandma with her head covered by a scarf standing motionless. A group of young men stood together in a group on a corner, staring, motionless. One of them had his phone to his ear and as far as I could tell, he was not talking. It was a scene straight out of The Happening.

It was too eerie. But why the siren? Was something terrible about to happen? As far as we could tell, the weather was cold and overcast but calm with some gentle breezes. No signs of a storm. An earthquake? It's impossible to predict an earthquake and sound an alarm in advance. Catastrophe? No one seemed alarmed or running around in panic. The stillness was strange - I felt a little sliver of fear. What was happening?

Finally, after a couple of minutes, the alarm stopped and everybody suddenly went into motion. The doorman went back to sweeping. People disappeared from windows. The grandmother continued to the corner and around it. The gaggle of young men crossed the street. Cars started going by. Life resumed.

We were baffled. Hour and half later, G's language teacher showed up for their daily tutoring session. I asked about the siren and described what we saw outside our building - the frozen people on sidewalks and in windows. After he explained, he started laughing because how odd it must've seemed to us (I'd shown him the preview of The Happening on my computer). I was laughing because it turned out to be something simple as what I will explain below.

So, here's the story. At 9:05 am on November 10th of every year, everyone stops what they are doing and stands still to observe two minutes of silence in honor of the founder of modern Turkey, Ataturk. It was at the exact moment and day that he died in 1938. The entire country observes this moment of silence every year at this specific date and time. Today is basically Ataturk Memorial Day.

Ataturk was the first in the Central Asia and Middle East region to establish a democracy, back in early 1920s. They continue to be a successful model of what a Muslim society with a democratic government looks like. Many Turks love Ataturk for his brilliance, progressive views, his leadership and honor him every year.

Not The Happening, but a memorial. Whew.

Views

The building that we live in has only two apartments per floor. The stairwell and elevator shaft is in the center of the building so apartments occupy opposite ends of the building. That means that we have three walls to ourselves with windows all around. All our views are south, southwest, west, northwest, and north. So, I thought I'd post pictures of what we see out of our windows everyday. The pictures were taken at twilight so they're not the best. If I wait til bright daylight, I'll likely forget and keep forgetting so I figured I'd take the opportunity now and sacrifice quality.

North view

Close up of north view

Northwest view; from living room

The sun sets behind this building; west view from living room

Southwest view from living room

Southwest view

South view from Ava's bedroom

South view from kitchen; this is what I see while washing dishes below the window.

Not spectacular views. As urban as we are, we don't have views of an amazing skyline either. In fact, I'm not even sure there's many spectacular skylines in this city. Well, there you have it and now you can imagine the city life we live....

Hairstylists

As I walked around and saw more of the city, I started noticing the hundreds and hundreds of hair salons everywhere. Then I began to notice that that hairstylists are usually men. I've been checking almost every barbershop and hair salon that I pass by and men are usually cutting hair. So, it might be safe to say that a vast majority of hairstylists, if not all, are men. That's unusual by America's standards but perfectly ordinary here.

Then, something occurred to me. There are conservative women here who follow the majority way and cover their hair. Not a single strand peeps out. Males are not allowed to see their hair except for their own relatives. 

Okay, sooo....if all the hairstylists are men and men are not allowed to see a conservative female non-relative's hair, then where do the women go to get their hair cut? I know most of these conservative women keep their hair long, but surely they get their hair trimmed? Possibly the older women keep their hair short?

I asked my language teacher about it today. She is not conservative and doesn't cover her hair but her mother covered her own head. My teacher told me that women go to other women within their community to get a haircut. It wouldn't be a business open to the public, but a private service run in their homes. 

Interesting.

*Edit to add: I had a conservative friend and her family over for dinner a couple nights ago and I asked where she got her hair cut. She said she searched and found a place that has a woman stylist and they go into a private room to cut her hair, away from male eyes. 

Successes and Failures

Wow, I didn't realize it has been nearly a month since I last posted. A week later after I posted last, we went to another city for 10 days. It was warm and sunny there with low humidity. Meanwhile, it'd gotten downright chilly and rainy back in our city. When we returned, we were completely unprepared when we stepped off the plane and onto the tarmac. I froze in seconds wearing only a thin shirt and thin short-sleeved cardigan. As soon as we retrieved our baggage, I opened my bag and put on another cardigan and two scarves. It took us an hour and half to get home from the airport (we took the subway and then the metrobus) and we were freezing. The sad thing is, I didn't even own a coat yet. I got rid of my coat back in the States because it was 6 years old and the lining was getting shredded. After we'd been home for two days, we hustled out and I bought a coat on sale. I'm ready for winter now.

The city we were in isn't exactly a vacation spot. I'd originally described it as desert in my newsletter (just not the conventional desert with sand dunes) but I wish I could retract that. It's not a desert; it's simply barren. The mountains are barren, rocky, brown dirt. They're still beautiful in their own way. The view from the plane as we were coming in for landing was gorgeous with the cliffs, plateaus, gorges, and peaks. The valley that the city is nestled in is flat and wide with the Euphrates river running through it. It's not a lush green valley though, even with the river. There are groves of fruit trees everywhere but as far as I can tell, there weren't a lot of natural, indigenous vegetation. The climate generally stays dry. It was an interesting place. I think you should be able to click on the pictures below to enlarge them.

After we returned from this city, we hit the ground running by returning to language training, doing laundry, catching up on things, series of doctor appointments, etc. We were already exhausted when we returned to our city but we really ran ourselves ragged by the time weekend came rolling around. We shut ourselves in our apartment all weekend and did nothing but eat, sleep, nap, read, watch movies, etc. I think now we have recovered and we're back to our kind of normal. I say our kind of normal because what's normal about living overseas?

Did I ever tell you that we have a convection oven? Not gas or electric. I'm not quite sure I know how to use it. There are no words on the oven, just pictures which I am deciphering and trying out. The other day, I was cooking a pumpkin in the oven (no canned pumpkins to be found so I make my own pumpkin puree) for a couple of hours and turned off the oven when I was done. A little while later, I kept smelling the oven which has a slight distinctive smell when it's turned on. By nighttime, the smell was strong. I reached to open the oven door to check the interior and nearly scalded my hand. The handle, the oven door, and even the countertops were hot. The oven was still on even though the dials were turned off. The oven interior light and the indicator lights were off. We didn't know how to turn it off except to flip the breakers so G did. The entire kitchen was turned off - in other words, the refrigerator was turned off. We ended up running an extension cord to the refrigerator from the other room. After some false start with flipping the breaker back on (G managed to turn off the electricity to the entire apartment by accident and had to run downstairs to turn it back on in the, what I guess you would call the master electrical box), we found that the oven didn't turn back on. Problem solved. Or so we thought.

A couple days later, I decided to make pumpkin muffins. This is how it turned out:

Scorched tops and uncooked middle. I checked the temperature dial and settings. It was correct so the oven temperature must've been off. Obviously, the oven is not working correctly now. I managed to salvage the muffins by cutting off the tops and baking the rest of the muffins again. They were edible but...eh.

Last night, we had a couple of nationals over for dinner. They wanted to try American food. We racked our brains and G suggested black-eye pea stew over rice, a Southern dish. I'd meant to make cornbread with it but forgot. I decided to brave the capricious oven and make a gluten-free apple crisp (what's more American than apple pie?) and it turned out delicious, which surprised me because I'd winged it after looking at couple of recipes. We served it with vanilla ice cream, naturally. Our guests had second helpings of everything and the apple crisp was a big hit with them. G treated them to a Coke float which was a first for them and made us laugh with their reactions. We tried to describe root beer to them (for root beer floats) but they had no frame of reference for that.

Now, the apple crisp turned out well because I watched it diligently so the top wouldn't be scorched and bottom undercooked. I may try and attempt pumpkin muffins again and station myself in front of the oven to watch them.

Oh, I wanted to share about grinding almonds into flour for my gluten-free cooking (the pumpkin muffins required almond four). After searching for some time, we found a coffee grinder which people have said they successfully used for grinding flour. Coffee grinders aren't in abundance here and they are expensive. I finally put my new coffee grinder to use. I chopped up the almonds and dropped them in.

Flour came out. Sweet! So I put in more almonds. Nothing more came out. After working at it for some time, I realized that I'd ground the almonds so much that it turned into almond butter.

Almond butter stuck in dispenser

Almond butter smeared on cutting board

Fresh almond butter is quite delicious but that wasn't the result I wanted. I managed to get some finely ground flour and some meal (differences in fine and coarse) before I gave up trying to clean the machine of the almond butter. The machine may have died an early death but I've set it aside to try and clean it before I give it up for good.

Nonetheless, I wasn't deterred. I pulled out my food processor and ground more almonds into flour. It does the job but not as well. Fine flour is required for baking so I used my flour sifter to sift out the fine flour and save the coarser flour for coating, meatballs, etc. My first almond flour went into the disastrous pumpkin muffin attempt above.

So, my lovelies, I hope this post catches you up with us sufficiently!

How To Make Coffee and Tea

We learned how to make Turkish coffee tonight. Our language tutor went to a store and got us finely grounded coffee, a coffee pot (cezve), and cups and saucers (fincan). He was pretty enthusiastic about getting us the coffee cup set and teaching us to make coffee. You can see in the pictures below how tiny the pot is and also the coffee cups. The coffee cups are generally small and decorative. Can you see the legs on the cups? 

Let's say you're making coffee for two. You take a teaspoon and put two heaping spoonfuls of coffee grounds and two of sugar in the pot. You fill a coffee cup (fincan) with water and pour it into the pot and repeat since you're making coffee for two. Heat the pot slowly until it boils but don't let it boil over. The coffee pot has a lip on it for pouring so pour into each cup about a third of the way so each drinker gets equal amounts of foam. Then fill both cups up. I read somewhere that after you boil the coffee the first time, you fill the cups with a third of coffee and then return the pot back to boil. When it boils the second time and it will boil quickly, you fill the cups with the remaining coffee which will have extra foam. How you boil the coffee can make a difference in the taste. 

And no, there is no filter. The grounds go into your cup. You simply wait for the dregs to float down to the bottom before drinking the coffee. This is why Turkish coffee is grounded into very fine powder. 

Some coffee connoisseurs will argue that boiling coffee is the worst way to drink coffee. Percolators basically boil coffee, too, although grounds are filtered. Drip coffee is acceptable but French press coffee is best. I take it however I can...

Tiny coffee pot

Teensy coffee cups and saucers - cups are about 2.5 inches tall

This country is supposedly famous for its coffee and style of making coffee but oddly enough, it's not as popular as tea.

Teapots and loose tea leaves

Tea cup and saucer - cup is also 2.5 inches tall

Tea is served in glasses like above. They're about 2.5" inches tall and you may also see some tea cups slightly bigger. They're generally glass and can also be decorative with gold filigree or etched glass. Some have handles. 

Did you notice two tea pots stacked up? Here's how you make tea. Put water in the big teapot to boil on the stove. Once it's boiling, fill the little teapot with boiling water from the big teapot. Fill the big teapot with water again and set it to boil again. While the big teapot is warming up to a boil, fill the little teapot with loose tea leaves (a packed teacup of leaves per person drinking) and let the tea leaves absorb water and settle. Set the little teapot on top of the big teapot so it will continue to be heated by the boiling water below. This creates a "tea concentrate." When the big teapot has come to a boil again, take the little teapot and fill each cup about a quarter or third full of the tea concentrate. Then fill each cup to the brim with boiling water from the big teapot. You might get a little bit of tea leaves at the bottom of your cup but that's normal. Add a cube or two of sugar as desired - or a teaspoonful if you only have loose sugar. As people get refills, they pour a little tea concentrate from the little teapot and then fill up the cup with hot water from the big teapot. 

In the South, you would put a pot of water in the stove (or a cup in microwave) and drop in a teabag or two to boil. That's your tea concentrate. Once it's ready, you pour the tea concentrate into a pitcher and fill it with water to the brim (and add enough sugar to make tea more like syrup). It's the same idea as above.

We all drink tea but we drink it and make it differently in all parts of the world....

My Life Just Got Easier

Have I mentioned that I love my parents? I love them because they're my parents and I really appreciate their love, generosity, and support. One of the best things they can do from long distance is to send me gluten-free stuff, which they have done and they continue to do so as I am expecting packages any day now. I really feel loved when they do that for me because they ease my life here in a substantial way, all the way from the other side of the ocean.

So far, I've gotten GF Bisquick mixes for waffles, GF rolled oats which I use for granola, sorghum flour for baking sweets, brown sugar, dried herbs and spices, Crystal Light, M&Ms for A, etc. Somewhere over the Atlantic, a package is making its way to me, full of sweet rice flour, coconut flour, tapioca starch, potato starch, and xanthan gum (which replaces the gluten as acts as gluten does in baking). My pantry will be very well stocked and complete for all the GF cooking and baking that I need. I only need to grind my own brown rice flour and almond flour, for which I am on a hunt for a coffee bean grinder. Here, you can buy almonds in bulk, which is cheaper than in the States. I can make my own almond milk (great flavor to replace cow's milk with in baked goods), almond butter, and almond flour. Yep.

I found a magazine website called Vegetarian Times, and it has an excellent recipe search engine with several search options such as gluten-free, egg-free, dairy-free, etc. I can search by ingredient (for example, zucchini) and click on "gluten-free" and get plenty of recipes that are pretty simple (not requiring a lot of pre-made stuff from the States which may or may not be available here). My life just got easier! Whew.

I'm slowly learning how to substitute and make from scratch. For example, I have been wanting to learn how to make chickpea vegan burgers since there are chickpeas aplenty here. I also found a chickpea chocolate cake (very simple, no flour) recipe. G accidentally poured an entire kilo bag of dried chickpeas (2.2 lbs) to soak. I didn't think about it either until I realized that we were soaking more chickpeas than we needed. SO, it looks we'll be eating a lot of chickpeas this week! At least, it's healthy. Chickpea burgers, chickpea chocolate cake, and homemade hummus are on the menu this week. I hope we can use it all up.

Back to my original point about my learning to substitute and cook from scratch. Chickpea burgers require eggs and breadcrumbs to bind the burgers together. Since I am still waiting on the package that's somewhere over the Atlantic, I can't make my own breadcrumbs. The big supermarket may or may not have GF bread. So, I did research and found that I can use rolled oats as a binding agent to replace the breadcrumbs. Score! I have GF rolled oats! My life just got easier. 

I don't like to cook but I don't hate it either. I like to eat delicious food so that's what makes me cook. One thing I really hate is to think up what to cook every night. Doing meal planning for the week really saves me of the nightly hassle of staring into the pantry and refrigerator without a single idea of what to cook. Now, I'm trying to save myself even more hassle by planning for the month. It seemed really daunting until I found a tip on a random blog for planning a month of meals -  do themes. For example, salad every Monday, soup every Tuesday, ethnic every Wednesday, and so on. You only need to find 4 recipes/ideas for each theme. My life just got easier.

You can probably see the recurring theme here: my life just got easier. I am celebrating this. I am thankful for my parents who help me by sending packages and for the Internet for tips and recipes. Very thankful...

By the way, I posted on A's blog about her going off to preschool on her first day today. Check it out!

My Purse Is Famous

Two meetings got canceled this afternoon so I took a little time to browse different Christmas sewing ideas so I could go ahead and order Christmas fabric and still have time to make the stuff before Christmas. Then, I started getting sidetracked and looked at other sewing stuff. I stumbled onto a site that had a picture of my purse. I was so surprised to recognize my purse on a random site. So, what? you might say. See, my purse is an original. I designed it with my friend's Carrie's help or, rather, it's probably more accurate to say that Carrie designed it after I told her what I wanted. I ordered the bright green fabric and matched hot pink with it and begged Carrie to make it for me as I was in the throes of selling most of my worldly goods and moving to a faraway land. So, she did, and she posted it on her blog (www-dixiemango-com) with a free tutorial and called it "The Olivia Bag." A pretty name for a pretty bag. See the picture below:

It turns out that my purse appears on several websites. Carrie is now famous for her mad design skills. Now you can picture me gallivanting around the city with this purse.

Okay, I'm done wasting time. I made no progress on choosing Christmas fabrics today but hopefully soon. Then again, I have a list of sewing projects a mile long and have only sewn once since arriving here so maybe getting Christmas fabric is pointless....

Where We Live and Shop

I thought I would post a couple of pictures of what our immediate area looks like. Below in the picture, the tall building is our apartment building. It has 7 stories and we live on the 4th floor. Businesses typically occupy the first floor of apartment buildings and a luxury car dealership has the shop right below us. You're looking at the back and side of our building and it faces a side street off the main road that I was standing on when I snapped this picture.

In the foreground of this picture is a market where we shop. It's a small but pretty complete store and I like to run down for fresh produce whenever I need it. We also shop at a big supermarket chain about a 15-minute walk away for anything that is cheaper or what this little market lacks.

The picture above is our front door, on the side street off the main road. There's not very much green in these pictures, is there? Some buildings will have a patch of grass around it, a courtyard, or a pretty stone-paved driveway and parking lot (which may only hold about 4 or 5 cars). Sometimes I get some pangs of wishfulness for a patch of grass for A to play on. We have to walk about 20 minutes to the nearest park with all the greenery that we can handle. 

Well, there you go!

Mommy's Day Out

G was gracious enough to take care of A while I had about half a day (6 hours) to myself. I needed major alone time - a mommy's day out. Anyway, this post is about my day out and I've posted lots of pictures so click on each if you want a bigger and closer look at them.

First, I started off with coffee at Starbucks with a fellow mommy and dear friend, M. We met about 8 years ago overseas while serving in the same country but different cities. We became friends, eventually roommates back in the States during grad school. We each got married the same summer and had our first babies within 9 months of each other (she is now expecting their second!). Now, we're serving with the same company as 8 years previous and remarkably, of the entire world that we each could've been sent to, in the same city!

Me and M

I said goodbye to M and took the ferry to the Europe side of the city (we live on the Asia side).

Ferry

I like riding the ferry with the water, the views, and the breeze. Here are some pictures of the view:

You can just barely see the suspension bridge

After I got off the ferry and headed to the Spice Bazaar, I walked by this, one of thousands in this city:

Washing for prayers

Spice Bazaar

In the Spice Bazaar, there are tons of different delicacies, treats, herbs, and spices, dried fruit and nuts in bulk, and many different types of loose, fragrant tea leaves. Just walking by each shop treats you to an aroma of a candy or spice or flavored tea leaves. 

"Egyptian Bazaar." Sign above the entrance to Spice Bazaar

Spices

The Spice Bazaar is the oldest bazaar in the city and the center of the spice trade, built between 1597 and 1664. It was built to rent out shops and collect the rent for the upkeep of a mosque. It was called the Egyptian Bazaar back then because the spices were originally imported from Egypt.

After I left the Spice Bazaar, I started walking towards the Grand Bazaar and stopped for lunch on the way. I had a lamb kebap with fries and it was nothing to write home about. I've had better but it at least filled my stomach. Below, you can see a hunk of meat in the center of the picture, which is basically slices of lamb meat stacked up on a rotating spit, roasting. Meat is sliced off and served on a platter or in a pita wrap or in a sandwich; basically, any way you like it.

It's hard to see but I love the bright blue and green ceramic mosaics on this building 

I meandered through streets, heading in the general direction of the Grand Bazaar, window shopping. The Grand Bazaar was built and then opened in 1461. It has over 4,000 shops; in other words, it's pretty big and easy to get lost in - in a pleasant way with all of the interesting things to look at. It's a maze of shops selling a wide variety of things like lamps, candle holders, rugs, pashmina (fine cashmere shawls), colorful silk scarves, embroidery, pillows, decorated and painted pottery, carved things, wooden boxes with shimmery in-laid oyster shell, jewelry, etc. I can hardly list every single thing they sell here but that seems to be the majority. If it's pretty unique to the region, colorful, and shiny, they sell it here.

See the lamps in foreground, colorful lamps in upper right, Persian rugs in background

Lamps - tabletop and ceiling fixtures

One of many ceramic shops - the bright blue in upper left is my favorite

Hand painted pottery

Ceramics come in many shapes - plates, tiles, ashtrays, vases, pitchers, bowls, trivets, coasters, etc

Framed tile: I really coveted this for a wall in my apartment and had to tear myself away.

Pashmina and embroidered zipper pouches

Amulet against evil eye - see below

More pashminas

A shop entirely devoted to buttons.

After I came out of the Grand Bazaar to make a slow trek back to the ferry, I came onto this shop. It only sells buttons. Period. I was amazed; there must've been hundreds of different buttons! Then as I continued to walk down this street, I saw more shops with the same idea: a shop with only zippers, a shop with only rhinestone-studded notions (like buttons, bands, strips - anything that can be sewn onto clothes), a shop with only threads, etc. It seems to be a street for dressmakers although I didn't see any fabric shops.

So, I did come away from the Grand Bazaar with some loot. I bought two pillow cases which I immediately covered pillows with when I came home. Our couches are a taupe (warm gray-brown color, depending on how you look at it - it looks gray to me most of the time) and the pillows cases have a gray background so they go perfectly with the couches. I'd been looking for bright turquoise or teal for accent colors in the living room and fell in love with these pillow covers. They originally had tassels at each corner and I'm not at all fond of tassels so I snipped them off and you can see one resting on the couch in the picture.

I wanted to explain a little about the blue eye (scroll up). They're generally glass and come in every form - jewelry, keychains, eyeglass chain, accessories, pinned on babies' clothing, etc. It's printed on napkins, playing cards, cups, etc. Large ones are hung in homes - on the front door, welded into balcony ironwork, pressed into concrete such as thresholds or walls, etc. It's supposed to be a pretty ancient superstition that the evil eye wards off harmful, destructive forces. If you ever come here, you'll see it everywhere.

On the ferry ride back, the water was pretty sparkling in the sun and I snapped the obligatory sailboat picture.

My day out was too short and I already have plans for next time. Hopefully G will have a daddy's day out and take his big honking camera and take better pictures than me. I hope you enjoyed a bit of virtual sightseeing and shopping through these pictures :-)

Roasted Tomato Soup

Balsamic vinegar is one of my top favorite ingredients to cook with. The recipe below is one of my perennial favorites. I don't like sweet tomato soup or tomato soup that tastes like spaghetti sauce but the tanginess of this soup makes it a big hit with me. I got this recipe from someone else so I don't know who the original creator is. I made a minor modification in the recipe: it originally called for 1/2 cup of olive oil divided (for tomato mixture and for cooking onion) and I found that to be too much and reduced it to 1/4 cup, sometimes less.

12 large, ripe tomatoes, about 4 lbs (2 kg) total or 3 large (28oz) cans whole tomatoes, drained.
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
12 large garlic cloves, peeled but left whole
kosher salt and ground pepper
1 cup finely chopped yellow onion
2 cups water
1/2 to 1 cup lightly packed fresh basil leaves (based on how much basil you like)

1) Preheat the oven to 500 F (260 C)
2) If using fresh tomatoes: core the tomatoes and quarter them lengthwise. If using canned tomatoes: drain the juice and slice in half lengthwise. In a large bowl, mix the tomatoes, oil, vinegar, garlic, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Spread the tomatoes on a nonreactive baking sheet (a glass casserole pan or stainless steel pan is fine). Roast the tomatoes in the oven until there are very dark spots, about 35-40 min. Remove from heat and let cool.
3) In large saucepan over medium heat, cook the onion in 1 tablespoon olive oil until very soft, 8-10 min, stirring occasionally. Raise the heat to high and add the roasted tomatoes and water. Bring to a simmer and adjust the heat to maintain the simmer, and cook 5 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
4) Remove from heat and let cool slightly. Put in the basil leaves and puree in the pot with an immersion blender (or work in batches with a blender). Wear an apron!

Eat with croutons, side of salad, or grilled cheese sandwiches. Yum!

Note: I tried this with basil leaves one time and omitted it the next time and we prefer this soup without the basil leaves. It's up to you. The recipe says to spread the tomatoes in the pan to roast but I dump the entire mixture in a pan with sides so as to cook in the balsamic vinegar. I did say balsamic vinegar is one of my favorite ingredients, right?

Taking The Wrong Bus is Normal

I was chatting with my cousin, Wendy, online the other day and mentioned an ordinary foreigner experience, which she encouraged me to post online. I was hesitant because I didn't want to appear as if I was complaining. Today, I had another similar experience so I decided to go ahead and write about both.

When G came home from being out of the country, I took the opportunity to go to Ikea (an international chain Swedish home furnishing store) as a family. We needed some things for our apartment and I needed G's input. The last few times that I'd been to Ikea, people took us in their cars. This time, we took the bus but it was the wrong one. The only reason we knew was because we'd taken the correct bus for Ikea (but for a different destination close to Ikea) previously. Once we realized our incorrect bus was not making the turn it was supposed to, we got off at the next stop and walked.....and walked.....and walked back. A, who generally doesn't ride the stroller anymore, which is a pain to get on and off the bus anyway, was uncooperative and wanted to mosey along while we were all business. I wasn't in the mood to coax her so I carried a screaming pre-schooler down a busy street, sweating as we went. G's jaw was clenched in frustration because an irritable preschooler on top of a...what do you call taking the wrong bus? A mishap? So, an irritable preschooler on top of an annoying mishap was enough to get anyone in a bad mood. Just multiply that by 2 because we were also hot.

We finally got on the right (hot and stuffy) bus and it took about an hour until our stop. I had the job of containing A and sweating some more. She eventually settled and relaxed in my lap. Now, I was told that we would get off at this stop but not be able to see Ikea from there. I was to "walk over this hill and then you'll see it." Fine. After we got off at the stop, I led us on our merry way (ha!) in the wrong direction. G was sinking further into a foul mood and I wasn't doing so great myself because we were hot, hungry, tired, and A was being uncooperative -- of course -- and stopping at every flower, every tree, every ledge to walk along, etc. I asked G to stop someone on the street to ask for directions but he was busy keeping A out of trouble. That fell to me (it's hard for me to understand English with thick accents) so I asked a lady who ignored me completely. The next pedestrian spoke English and was kind enough to direct us in the right way. We followed the directions, sweating in the sun and A wanted me, and not her father, to carry her. Ikea was like an oasis in the desert when we saw it. What a relief. We eventually pulled out of our bad mood only to fall back into it when A got tired and fussy and I wasn't done with shopping yet. It took a tremendous effort to get there and I wasn't about to stop shopping; I wanted to get everything on my list and be done with it. Suffice to say, the next time someone offered a ride to Ikea, I took the offer and shopped alone. It was absolutely wonderful.

Another experience that happened today involves a taxi. A and I went to a bazaar near my home in a taxi which is inexpensive when it's close (I didn't know how to walk there yet; after today, I now know). When we arrived, the enormous lot was empty. I realized - duh, it's called Tuesday Pazar, meaning it's open on Tuesdays! Today is Monday. We sat in the taxi looking at the empty lot and I made a spur of the moment decision: go to a hardware store where I'd spied some brightly colored braided rugs that I liked. So, I told the driver to take us there and man, I didn't realize it was so far! The fare was high. I wanted to kick myself but again, chalk it up to being new. A and I shopped and I picked up some pretty braided rugs, which I have to say was almost worth the high taxi fare. I might take a picture of them for you.

That's not the story, though. This is where it starts: after we were finished, a customer service lady helped us into a taxi and told the driver where to go. This lady spoke some English and she understood where we lived (I know hearing people can butcher a foreign language when they speak it but I do it worse so I was glad she could understand my pronunciation of my destination). It turned out the taxi driver spoke English also but his accent was too thick for me to understand. After riding along the highway, the driver took a different exit than the customary one. I was concerned and told him; he said, "Yes, yes, this is (name of my area)." I didn't recognize it so I sat back and waited. Then he came to a stop in front of a building and looks at me expectantly. I was like, "NO!" Long story short, I was in an area that I didn't recognize with a taxi driver who thinks we are at the correct address. I had no idea how to direct him back so I started naming off names of things close to my home. He started driving slowly and took a turn that didn't seem correct. I stopped him, called a co-worker and handed my phone to him. After a minute or two on the phone, he handed it back and got back on a road (which eventually came to my apartment - only I'd never been on this part of the road) and dropped me off at the right location.

This wasn't an awful experience but imagine your taxi driver thinking he knows where you need to go and takes you somewhere else. Imagine not being able to speak the language and not being able to tell him how to get there because you don't know where you are yourself! It wasn't scary but I was just at a loss at how to tell him where to go until the idea of calling my co-worker popped into mind, who could explain better the location where I lived.

I'm a foreigner. These experiences are the ordinary part of a new foreigner's life.

Gluten-Free Challenge

I have to say that it's a bit frustrating to cook here. Well, more than just a bit because of the celiac issue. I know eventually I'll get the hang of it and have a collection of recipes to cook from which won't require so many ingredients either unavailable here or unavailable as gluten-free (such as soy sauce). On top of that, it's been frustrating to feed a stubborn, picky 2-year-old. I have been spending hours researching recipes, substitutions for ingredients, and finding recipes to make ingredients from scratch like worcestershire sauce, evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk, brown sugar, vanilla extract, etc.

There aren't a lot of gluten-free flours and other GF ingredients available here. I can find GF pasta, hazelnut meal, all-purpose GF flour, bread (which is dry and hard to swallow), corn starch, and maybe some other products that I never used in the States anyway. I need a lot more than that, namely xanthan gum. It acts like gluten does and provides the elasticity needed for soft, spongy bread.

I ran out of gluten-free oatmeal that I brought from the states so that left me with very little to choose from for breakfast. It's challenging to find breakfast foods that can last me a long time. Fruit and yogurt doesn't always cut it and I end up needing a snack before lunchtime. Fortunately, I was able to buy a crockpot last week from a family here so now I can make porridge from brown rice for breakfast.

A couple of weeks ago, I tried to make ranch salad dressing from scratch with fresh ingredients. It wasn't terrible but the recipe wasn't worth keeping. I used what is basically sourish watered down yogurt for the tart milk-based liquid ("ayran," a popular drink here) for the dressing but it was too runny. It wasn't until after the dressing was made that I realized that I could've used plain yogurt. What I didn't like was the tons of veggies left over:

The small pile closest to the knife was all I needed for the dressing. The green onions are bundled together in such a single, large item so I had to buy the whole thing. I ended up chopping the rest of the green onions and freezing them. The white container to the right was filled to the brim. It'll be good in omelets and as toppings on salads.

I also learned how to make crepes which can be a good breakfast (with scrambled egg stuffed in it - if I could eat eggs) and dessert with jam inside the crepes. I just found a recipe for raisins and bananas in crepes with vanilla ice cream scoops on top. Delish.

Anyway, for now, I will just have to make simple dinners like steamed veggies and rice. My mom is mailing me a couple of packages of GF stuff so life might get a little easier once the packages (hopefully) arrive.

**EDIT**
After hours of reading and searching, I finally came up with a menu plan for the next 5 days or so. Take a gander:

Ratatouille
Balsamic Veggies with Pasta (a variation of my friend's recipe at scarbroughkitchen-dot-blogspot-com)
Mediterranean Chicken with Vinegar Roasted Peppers
Zucchini Fritters with something else on the side
Curried Tomato Lentil Soup
Lemon Yogurt Cake

(Recipes are from kitchenparade-dot-com, glutenfreegoddess-dot-blogspot-dot-com, allrecipes-dot-com, cookitallergyfree-dot-com. Let me know if you want to know where a recipe is specifically from).