Search This Blog

Saturday, December 4, 2010

#reverb10- Dec. 3 Moment


I've decided to participate in #reverb10 to jump start my blogging. I learned about it from another Revgal and it seemed like a good idea. I don't guarantee I will do it every day or that I will finish, but I will try.
So day one for me is:
December 3 – Moment. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors).
We arrived in Turkey. The first day and the second day are mixed up in my mind but the first evening that we had on our own, I think was actually the second night or at least we had a full nights sleep. Beloved and I walked out into an area with no vehicle traffic, just foot traffic. It was busy. People in western dress and in eastern dress, women covered and uncovered, that is in burkahs and in western dress. My godchild who lived in Turkey for 5 years told us that it had become much more conservative, but to my uneducated eye not so draconian.
The street had many vendors including men, all the vendors were men squeezing pomegranates for juice and selling the juice which was ruby red and the seeds were like jewels. There were men selling all kinds of things, jewelery, pashima scarves. It was noisy, but not worse than NY on a noisy day, but my eyes were full of colors and new sights, exotic, exciting but European at the same time. The smell of food, smoke, body odor was everywhere.
We came to an area with small alleyways and lots of restaurants and looked into a number of them, and chose one at random. It was a hole in the wall with tables outside for smoking-we though as there was a man out there smoking- and inside tables with no customers. I guess we were early.
We ordered using what English the owner/waiter knew and the food was delicious. I had BBQ chicken cooked over a wood fire. It tasted like the best chicken I ever had, juicy, yet a little charred on the outside. The man outside was eating cheese and pickles and drinking Rake poured over a spoon into water where it made the water cloudy. We asked about the cheese. The waiter said "you don't want that!" We persisted! He continued. Finally, Beloved said we would order some. The waiter brought us a small sample. It looked like a solid white cheese as if you could slice Ricotta, but the taste was slightly funky and not really pleasant. I have eaten many cheeses, so was glad to have had a taste, but then the waiter told us it was made from the intestine-of what I am not sure. Then I was glad to have had just a taste.
After dinner we went to a dessert cafe where they had so many wonderful desserts including one made from chicken breast shredded and made with a sweet custard. The man next to us said it was good but hard to eat because of the stringy texture. I loved Turkey.

1 comment:

Terri said...

Everyone I know who has gone to Turkey has loved it - I'm glad you did too!