COMMUNAL LIFE MEMORIES TO COME TO LIFE
11.10.2013
Finally I make it home one more time, my fourth visit home this year, a first in 15 years. Most likely, I won't be able to come back until next fall for a full year. My entire family is home waiting for me, my mother, both of my brothers and their wives, my only niece and her husband to join us later on, after the opera they had bought tickets for ahead of time. I am pleased to hear that Melike, my niece has become an opera aficionada, dragging her husband down the same path. It looks like he has enjoyed it as much. After sharing memories of the months we have been apart, they all leave past midnight, I am exhausted and pleased. Alas, in 3 hours I am fully awake with jet lag not able to go back to sleep. Thus, my day starts at 4:30 am, a good thing in a way since I promised my family I’d prepare brunch for them, not so good for the evening I have been planning for my dearest of the dear friends, with whom I shared a full ten years together in the same neighborhood in such a way many people can never imagine sharing their lives with other human beings.
But I survive... By 6 am the cheese and spinach borek (spanakopita in other words in Greek) is ready to go in the oven. I go through all the vegetables in my mother's fridge and sort and rinse whatever I can serve to eat raw, and chop whatever I can mix in with the eggs to make a vegetable omelet for my guests. By 7 am, I am ready to go out to do more shopping for the missing items that I need for a festive brunch. By the time, I return and rinse the rest of the vegetables I just bought, I have a rich mixture of chopped dill, parsley, mint, spinach, red and green peppers, black and green olives and mushrooms as well as several herbs, some of which I brought from home (that is, my home in Iowa City): All of this will go on top of an egg mixture I will lay over a thin film of olive oil to make into an omelet. My brother Mehmet is on a diet consisting mostly of proteins and vegetables. He claims it is working for him for his weight, I hope not at the extent of his cholesterol… I call him around 8:30 since our rendezvous is at 9. I get a loving scolding from a voice that sounds like coming from a cave deep in a mountain. I chuckle to myself. For me, it’s been ages since the day started, for him, he is still deep in the night. Isn’t this what we do in most of our communications with others, seeing the world through our own experiences that shape and color our “lenses”?
Around 9 am they start trickling in, and boy, are they happy with what they see on the table: Gevrek (Turkish bagel, unique to Izmir), varieties of cheese and olives, greens (arugula, parsley, dill, mint), tomatoes treated with olive oil, salt, lemon juice, dried basil and fresh mint, cucumbers, red and green pepper slices and borek... My brother Mehmet brought a special fresh cheese called "lor" in Turkish, it is neither salted nor sweetened. We love eating it mixed with either strawberry jam or honey. I guess, I take this from my mom: I love bringing people especially loved ones around a table donned with lots of good and healthy food. I’ve done it all my life living in Turkey role modeling after her. I exported this tradition to Iowa City, I think in a way, I moved my mother with me across the ocean through this tradition. What I like about this the most is the smile this very act brings to faces. I savor that moment. Making people happy doesn't cost much, really, just a bit of effort invested into making them feel precious is all that is needed... I am happy, I can do that, and I hope I will be able to do that for a long time...
After brunch, my mother's helper starts cleaning up and my brother and I head toward the farmer's market. I get ecstatic when I go to farmer's markets in Turkey. Even the largest farmer's market I have been to in San Francisco is dwarfed by any major farmer’s market in Izmir, Turkey. They are so vast and rich. There are some vendors in each market, who move from one market to another along with their goods. Due to rapid turnover, even their merchandise is very fresh. But, what is best in these markets are the actual farmers, mostly female that bring their produce to select markets that I like visiting. Those are the ones that bring the greens that I like to steam into outstanding fresh, delicious and healthy salads that are treated with olive oil, lemon juice and salt. Nowadays, peasant women have started setting up cooking desks as well just like in American farmer’s markets. They cook their traditional pastries, some cook Turkish meat balls along with rice, some sweets. That has brought a different kind of life to the market I must say. To tell the truth, aside from my people, farmer's markets of Izmir is what I long for the most throughout the year, when I am away from Turkey in Iowa City.
My brother and I shop separately. He teases me with my "need for social interaction" when I chat up vendors or others I come into contact with as I roam the city. Most people do not converse with other people as much as I do either in the USA or in Turkey. However, I enjoy that thoroughly, this is the only way I get to know people to the extent that I do. This is the only way I can learn about politics in Turkey through real people roaming the streets. Perhaps, I have developed such interviewing skills based on the patient population that I see, who tell me the deepest secrets of their lives, I might be conveying some element of trust to people. No matter what, each attempt to converse with a person that I don't know pays off tremendously: a life story unfolds before my eyes, never fails, each time....
I load our market cart: every family has at least one large cart of this sort in Turkey, which is filled at least once a week, at times a second time midweek from a neighboring market. I buy 2-3 pounds of beets. Tonight one of my themes will be having a "beet panel" on the table. A lovely friend of mine gave me a bunch of recipes with beets being the main ingredient off of New York Times magazine the week before I left Iowa City. I would like to surprise my best friends with new recipes they’ve never tried before. The beets will be either graded raw or roasted or steamed before turning into novel salad dishes: I will surround the crystal candle holders that I will light to honor our friendship of anywhere from 25 to over 50 years with 4 dishes of beet salads.
The main dish tonight will be Hungarian chicken paprikash that I never served to my friends before. I will also make an international rice dish that I created splicing different elements from different cuisines: dill from an Iranian rice dish, parsley from Hungarian rice, chick peas from Cretan rice, orzo from Turkish and mushrooms and mint will be my improvisation out of nowhere. My friends will bring typical Turkish mezes/tapas to be topped with Gaziantep baklava that my friend Suzan, who is flowing in from that province will bring. I can feel already that it will be a phenomenal evening that will take us on a time travel. We will all feel young, recalling toddlerhood and school ages of our kiddos if not our own, too with some. Our children have all grown into remarkable adults, beyond their professional accomplishments, with their humanistic cores and skills. We know that Gulce and Ekin, age 24, both professionals, one a reluctant investment banker in London (she got in not quite knowing what she was getting into and is now waiting for her “term” to be done); the other a lawyer in Istanbul working toward international relations at an international firm will be coming. We know that Umut, a sales manager at Siemens in Austria, and my daughter, medical student in Iowa City, USA will not be coming. Baris, the last of our 5 kids among the four families may or may not come. My heart still desires all of us get together, some time, if not tonight, in the near future.
Finally, my cart all full, I call my brother to see what he is up to. He is done shopping as well. We head home to start cooking: of course, I will put both Firuza, my mother's helper and my mother to work with sorting and rinsing the vegetables. Poor Firuza, will clean after me the entire day as I create dish after dish, perplexed, in disbelief, not quite understanding why there is such fuss in the house right after my arrival, despite my jet lag... She doesn't know what they mean to me. She doesn't know what I mean to them. She doesn't know what we all mean to each other. At some point, she taps on my shoulder and stops me for a moment and says quizzically: “Abla (big sister in Turkish), you are a professor, how come you cook in the kitchen like this?” She cracks me up, in Kyrgyzi cultural mind-set, I guess (not quite different than rural Turkish culture, really), she believes a professor has to have maids serving her wherever she goes. She will learn though, what our little commune consisting of 13 individuals, 8 adults and 5 children created over ten years, perhaps the most important 10 years of our lives. And for that commune, this professor could do anything. My heart is light, full of love, excitement, and pleasant anticipation....
