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.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
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.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, November 7, 2011
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....
Friday, November 4, 2011
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.
*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.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
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.
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!
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 |
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!
Friday, September 30, 2011
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 |
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....