A Nice Day

I overslept, as usual. I had taken the ipod dock I use into the bathroom to shower, but when I took it back into my bedroom, the time was wrong, obviously. I figured I'd reset it later. So this morning, after going back to sleep a few times, I was pleased to see that I had woken up at 7:30 a.m.! If only. It was already something like 1:30 p.m. I've been sleeping so late! Too busy writing my blog, I guess.

Today, my anne and I walked to a few different markets and bought food for Bayram cooking. Bayram, as I've mentioned, is the big celebration at the end of Ramazan, the month of fasting. It is comparable to Easter after Lent, but is probably a bigger deal. It is just three or four days of major eating and visiting and partying. Everyone travels to their home towns and goes around to the houses of all their family members and is given candy and food and has a really good time. Or so I hear, and will soon experience, as tomorrow is the first day of the festivities! Tonight was the last time that my anne and baba had to wait until the cami (JAAH-meh, mosque) called for Iftar, or the end of daily fasting, to finally eat. They were not even allowed to drink water during the day, and it's been HOT!

Stores everywhere are advertising Bayram sales and there are all kinds of wrapped hard candies and chocolates laid out in all the stores for Bayram. The usual greetings I get have gone from mostly good day (iyi günler, EE-yee GOON-lair) to iyi Bayramlar (EE-yee BY-rum-lar, which is like saying "happy Bayram").

My anne and I made tatlı kurabiyesi (TUHT-luh KOOR-ah-bee-yeh-see, sweet cookies) with fındık (FUHN-duk, hazelnuts) pressed into them. As soon as they come out of the oven, you pour a sugar water syrup over them. They absorb the syrup and get really sweet and moist. Delicious. I should note that usually, in Turkey, most kurabiye (cookies) are actually not sweet. They are more like little savory/buttery biscuits. My favorite are the little sesame twists my anne makes so well. But for Bayram, everything is fancier, so we made sweet cookies. The recipe we used called for powdered sugar, so anne broke out her little food processor thing and put a few little cups of granulated sugar into it and made her own powdered sugar! Amazing. Also, she doesn't use standard measuring cups. Instead, she used a regular spoon and one of her nice little Turkish kahve (KAH-vey, coffee) serving cups, approximating almost all of the amounts. They came out great! Our neighbor from across the hall brought us some of the same cookie that she had made, only hers were with almonds on top.

I'm having some apple tea right now, a pretty common Turkish drink. It is really just little bits of dried apple that you steep to make a mild, hot tea. My Latin teacher, Ms. Chabot, had brought back some powdered apple tea from her trip around Turkey this summer. It was delicious, but considerably stronger than the real thing. I should bring back some dried apple bits to make it with at home.

My baba brought home a really cute t-shirt for me. It has a logo on the upper-left chest area that says "Turkey," but the "T" is a little kid in swim trunks spreading his arms and grinning. Adorable.

OH, while we were in one of the little grocery stores, my anne was buying some red peppers. I told her in very poor Turkish that my mom and I like to make roasted red peppers. She went right back and grabbed some more, and I used four of them to make roasted red peppers that we had for dinner tonight! I had to look up the Celsius conversion for the Fahrenheit temperature I usually use, and I had to look up the Turkish word for garlic (sarımsak, SAH-rum-sahk), but they came out just like we make them I home! I used fresh parsley that my anne grows on our balcony and I cut them very long and thin and stringy, like I prefer them. I was very proud of my first solo cooking efforts in Turkey. Incidentally, and not surprisingly (as I think roasted red peppers are Mediterranean), anne had some SHE had made in a jar in the fridge. They were cut into square rather than strips, and instead of parsley, she had them marinated in a light vinegar. Also delicious.

Gulia and her Russian daughter-in-law and her Russian daughter-in-law's mother and her half-Russian granddaughter a came to visit at our house tonight. Gulia always sings this really great lullaby to the baby ("deen-deeny deen-deeny deeny-deeny-deen"). I realized after the ninth or tenth rendition that it was the exact same song I had found months ago back home when I was exploring the Turkish music scene. I had no idea that this cute animated traditional lullaby I found was really so widely known and employed. This is the link I looked at originally: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x95dff_turkish-lullaby_music *. The bit at the very end is also a very popular part to sing. Anne and Gulia knew all the words, easily. It was so cute. Asia (the 13 months old girl, not the whole continent) loves it, and jiggles around like crazy every time Gulia sings it.

*All of my links are from dailymotion or some other site because youtube is blocked in Turkey. Very strange.

Also, Turkey handily beat Serbia in the basketball tournament in Istanbul tonight!

I am going to go to sleep now, as it's late, like usual.

Iyi gece!

Natalie