Creativity Makes a Difference!

Some days I ask myself what on earth I got myself into when I answered the call to start a new fellowship in the Middle East with my husband.  In fact, I might have said no if I’d known ahead of time what a long, challenging road it would be. I’m not sure if it was love for God or plain ignorance that made me say yes!

Real Life Hospitality

This week I had yet another cooking-for-company fiasco.  I put two whole chickens into a hot oven at 5:00 p.m., and then for some reason turned the oven OFF without noticing. At 6:00, just a half hour before my guests arrived, I opened the oven door to take a look and found two stone-cold, raw chickens!  Panic! My husband saved the day by wrestling and cutting them up for quicker cooking. Waiting for the meal to cook made for plenty of time to chat with our guests.

Even though I’m a cross-cultural worker in the Middle East, I spend most of my time going grocery shopping, cooking, taking kids to appointments, cooking, cleaning house, home schooling, and cooking. Sometimes I ask myself, where does ministry come in here? I don’t have much time for preparing Bible studies or planning outreach events...

Celebrating Life Every Day!

My advent wreath, Swedish candelabra, and a quilt made by my mom, grandma and aunt.

Traditions from Home

My Texas mama, who spent all her life in the West Texas desert city of El Paso, is far away from Izmir-on- the-Aegean.  Mom calls her house Casa Rosa. It’s a beautiful place filled with Southwest art treasures and has a glorious view of the stark, cactus-dotted Franklin Mountain.  Casa Rosa is a far cry from Özgür 2 Sitesi, our 9 story apartment dwelling across the street from a strip of kebap restaurants, but nevertheless, I carry Mom’s presence with me here.

I hold many things I learned from her inside me, and one is celebration.  Mom decorated the house for every holiday. I remember valentines and gifts at the breakfast table on February 14^th, and clover on St. Patrick’s Day.

Favorite Turkish Soup

What is October like in your part of the globe? Is it fall or spring where you live? In our Aegean city, it’s pure joy to be able to spend time outdoors without dripping sweat now that summer is finally over. We're enjoying cool sunny weather and occasional rain.  Another thing I enjoy about fall is making soup again. 

Turks are masters in the art of slow food, and soup is an important part of their repertoire. I remember my Turkish “mother” 20 years ago in Istanbul. She spent 4 to 5 hours daily preparing food for her family.  It was literally her life occupation, one she enjoyed. As much as I loved her food, I don’t want to be in the kitchen for 5 hours! Labor intensive cooking every day does not fit my lifestyle, but I do share with Turks a love for soup.

Taking Hospitality with a Grain of Salt

Blessed is the man who can laugh at himself, for he will never cease to be amused. 

This proverb is one of my favorites. It reminds me not to take myself so seriously.

Last week I wrote about hospitality mishaps, and this reminds me to take things that go wrong with a grain of salt.

Being able to laugh at myself certainly helped me during a recent catastrophe. My husband and I had guests, and when I stood up to re-fill the tea glasses, the slip I was wearing under my skirt mysteriously slid down in perfect ring around my feet!  I won't go into that story now, but I'm pretty sure it broke the norms of hospitality in any country, not just here in Turkey. (I still can’t believe that really happened.)

On a more serious note, one thing I appreciate about living here is the chance it gives me to learn more about hospitality. Turks are some of the most generous and gracious hosts I've ever seen. Hospitality is a virtue and an art, whether it's a casual visit over Turkish coffee and a piece of chocolate or a dinner with 10 different dishes. I've learned a lot about how to receive guests in my home, but honestly I sometimes feel pressured to somehow live up to Turkish standards, and If I compare myself to them, I'll always fall short!

Here are some helpful lessons I’ve learned:

• Relax and be yourself

I'll never be the Perfect Turkish Hostess (P.T.H.), and that is okay!  Instead I try to relax in and be who I am. The P.T.H. is elegantly dressed and serves delectable treats while she chats effortlessly with guests. She probably only exists in my head. I'm much better at being myself than at striving to put on a show of elaborate hospitality that just leaves me feeling stressed.

• Keep it simple

Sometimes it feels like I’m forever in the kitchen preparing food for meetings or for guests.  This is a warning that I’m striving too hard to be a P.T.H., and I’d better simplify things instead. I've seen Turks get out a simple assortment of nuts, fruits and bought cookies for visitors. That’s a lot easier than baking a cake.

• Focus on your Guests

I can't prepare a 10 course meal and be happy and relaxed when my guests arrive. What I can do is a salad, main dish, rice and maybe a vegetable or soup. If I keep things simple, I'm more relaxed and able to actually enjoy time with friends.  

•  Find a Middle Ground

I want to be cross-culturally relevant, so that Turks can relate to me. I try to do some things their way. I can kiss my guests, offer slippers, pass around lemon cologne (if I remember) and make Turkish coffee. But on the inside, I’m still American, and I need to be myself as well. For example, a few weeks ago, I had to gently explain to a guest that I needed to leave, something that a P.T.H. would try to avoid. I find that most of my Turkish friends are extremely understanding and kind when I do things differently.

• Laugh at yourself when things don't go as planned

During the Classic Turkish Moment I wrote about last week, when I found myself serving a dinner I’d made for 4 to 9 people instead, I laughed.  What else could I do? Keeping my sense of humor helps me to continue enjoying cross-cultural life and time with my friends.

After all, isn't enjoyment what gracious hospitality is all about?

Still breaking the rules after 10 years!

I did it again. I broke a cardinal rule of Turkish hospitality: “Never, ever suggest to a guest that it’s time to leave.” How embarrassing. After 10 years here, I still break the rules, and it leaves me feeling like an Inept, Insensitive Foreigner.

Stand up my Husband or Kick my Guest out?

My friend Zühal was coming for breakfast between 9:30 and 10:00 a.m., so it never occurred to me that I wouldn’t have enough time to make it to a 2:00 p.m. prayer meeting. At 10:30 the breakfast table was set with eggs, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, cheese, and bread, but no Zühal! I began to feel uneasy. By the time she arrived at 11:00, I knew I had once again overscheduled myself.  Apologizing profusely for being late, she walked in the door with a huge, well stocked tote bag, and her daughter announced, “We’re going to stay here with you until it’s time for swimming class.”

During our breakfast I was torn.  Should I skip the prayer meeting to stay with my guests?  That’s what any Turk would do.  My husband, however, would expect me to make the prayer meeting a priority. 

In the end, I let her know I had to go. I wondered if she connected the fact that she’d been an hour late with our time together being cut short.  I doubted it.  I made a mental note to allow 5 or 6 hours in my schedule when I want to invite her over: one hour for her to be late and four hours for our visit.

Classic Turkish Moment

(How I learned to cook for a crowd even when expecting two guests.)

My blunder with Zühal reminded me of one of my Classic Turkish Moments, during a two year stint in Istanbul 20 years ago:  It was 8 o’clock, and my 7 o’clock dinner guests, Nesrin and her mother, hadn’t arrived.  I stirred the spaghetti sauce, tossed the salad one more time and called to see what had happened. 

“Taner just got home,” Nesrin said. “He has to take a shower, so we’ll be late.”

“All right, I said.  “See you in a little while then.” But inside my mind was spinning. Taner? Why would Taner come?  I’d invited Nesrin and her mother. As I hung up the phone, a light dawned.  Nesrin had invited her brother and his family as well.

I made a mental adjustment.  Okay, instead of 2 guests, we’ll have 5.  I can do that. I opened the fridge, scouted for more ingredients and realized there was no way to make more spaghetti sauce. I got out more salad fixings, found an extra bag of pasta, and put more water on to boil.

They arrived at 9:15, 2 hours and fifteen minutes late.  Nine people came through the door taking off their shoes as my roommate and I kissed and welcomed each one. Nesrin not only brought her brother and his family, but also her aunt, uncle and cousin.  Now the dinner that I had cooked for two guests was looking very small indeed.  As 10 of us gathered around the small dish of spaghetti sauce at the table, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

This happened 20 years ago, but things haven’t changed. 

I still meet with surprises and sometimes feel like I don’t quite measure up. Do things like this ever happen to you where you live?  How do you handle it? All I can do is accept that fact that I’ll probably never be the perfect Turkish hostess!  I’ll write more on that next week.

Cooking Bloopers and a Taste of Turkey

I had my share of cooking bloopers in my early days in Izmir.  (I still have them as a matter of fact.) The lasagna fiasco stands out in my memory as a time when I tried serving American food to Turks and could tell they didn't like it. Thinking therefore that I should adapt to their culture and serve them food they were used to, I tried to cook Turkish food. Only it flopped, and when you cook Turkish food for Americans, they can’t even tell if it turns out right, but my Turkish friends could tell, like the time my lentil balls (mercimek köftesi) were so soggy that they flattened out on the plate into one mass of goop.

My quest to learn some Turkish cooking began in earnest one Christmas when I wanted to host a party and realized, to my horror and shame, that I didn’t know how to make one main dish after living here three years!  In my defense, learning to cook a la turca is not easy because people don’t use recipes or exact measurements.  If you ask someone how to make something, instead of giving you a recipe, they’ll want you to come over so you can watch them and work on it together.  Everything is a pinch of this a pinch of that.

Still Learning

Turkish cooking is a work in progress for me.  I’m still learning.  For example,  I only make stuffed grape leaves two or three times a year, not often enough to remember how, so that the rice inside my dolma is either soggy and gloopy or dry and crunchy.  Not sure which one is worse.

This book has been a lifesaver for me. There may be others, but it's the only Turkish cookbook I've ever seen that uses accurate measurements and tested recipes.

My Favorite Turkish Cookbook

What about you?

Part of the joy of cooking is discovering new tastes, using new ingredients and combinations. If you live overseas, what is your experience with local cooking? Any cooking bloopers? What is your favorite local dish?  If you live in your home country, what is your favorite ethnic food?  (Scroll down to leave a comment after the recipes.)


I thought I’d share a few tastes of Turkey with you:


Zeytinyağlı Fasulye 
Green Beans in Olive Oil (My favorite summer dish)

1 ½ pounds of green beans, strung and chopped.

1 chopped onion

4-5 cloves garlic minced

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp sugar

¼ cup olive oil

2-3 grated or food processed fresh tomatos**

1 ½ cups water

Place the green beans in a wide mouthed, lidded pot.  Add the onion, garlic and tomato pulp raw.  Drizzle with the olive oil, add the salt, sugar, and water. Bring to a boil on high until the green beans turn bright green.  At this point, lower the heat and simmer 20 to 30 minutes. (Greenbeans in the US are more tender and should require only 15-20 minutes cooking.) Serve at room temperature as a side dish.

**Cut a tomato in half, then press the cut side to a grater and grate, until you are left with the peel in your hand.  I find this easier than peeling tomatos and dragging out my food processor. An alternative would be to 
food process the tomatoes with the peels, but don’t serve it to Turks that way!




Kısır 
Cracked Wheat Salad

1 cup fine grain bulgur wheat
1 cup boiling water

2 TBSP olive oil

1 small chopped onion

3-4 cloves minced garlic

3/4 tsp. cumin

3/4 tsp. paprika

1 tsp. salt

2 TBSP tomato paste

1/3 cup chopped parsley

2 cucumbers

2 tomatoes

3-4 dill pickles
1 large red or green pepper

3 TSPN olive oil

Juice of half a lemon

1.      Heat the oil in a medium saucepan, add the bulgur and onion and stir it until the bulgur begins to brown slightly.  At this point, add the garlic and seasonings.  Continue stirring a minute; add the tomato paste and stir one more minute.  Add the water, stir and cover. Let sit one hour. Chop the vegetables
.

2.      When the bulgur is cool, fluff it with a spoon and add it with the chopped vegetables and pickes to a salad bowl.  Toss with olive oil and lemon, add more salt to taste and serve.

Any comments about your cross-cultural cooking experiments?

Lasagna in a Karniyarik World

 

I was nervous and excited about my very first dinner guests in Turkey. Would they like my lasagna? I hoped so since I didn’t know how to cook Turkish food.

 We were eight people around the table: our neighbors Murat and Selin, their children Ceren and Necat, Jose, me and our two children. As Jose prayed to thank God for our visitors and our food, I looked doubtfully at the beef lasagna with basil tomato sauce and melted cheese. It looked great to me, but would they like it? I cut it and served it carefully onto each person’s plate. I felt butterflies rising in my stomach when I noticed Murat staring at his plate, his forehead furrowed over piercing brown eyes.

 “What do we do with this?” he asked, looking at the lasagna.

 “Well,” I said, “What do you mean? Um…we eat it.” My children Andres and Camille giggled and whispered to each other.

 “Oh, I just wondered,” Murat said, “How do you eat it? Do you put yogurt on top of this? Do we just cut it with our knives and forks? What is it?”

 Oh great, I thought. This evening is off to a brilliant start. Everyone at the table, including Jose, looked at me waiting for an explanation of what lasagna was and how to eat it. My face went red, and I felt irritated inside. Even if he’d never had lasagna before, at least he could be more polite about it. My enjoyment of the dinner I’d worked to prepare was spoiled.

 Murat and Selin managed to eat the lasagna, and they said how good it was, but I could see that their children had a hard time eating it. They looked relieved when the meal was over, and I poured glasses of familiar, steaming Turkish tea.

 When at last everyone left, I remembered Murat staring at his plate. Did he not realize how embarrassed he’d made me feel? What was wrong with me anyway? Couldn’t I even cook a decent meal that my new friends would like? My face flushed all over again with embarrassment.

 By the next day I was able to laugh about it, and after 8 years the lasagna fiasco has become a part of our family lore. My son will repeat, “What do we do with this? What is this?” And we all laugh, remembering Murat’s puzzled expression.

 I enjoy living overseas, and generally Turks are extremely gracious to foreigners. However, sometimes I struggle with being an outsider who always speaks and does things differently. I remember the old Sesame Street song, “One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just doesn’t belong.” Maybe the Turkish Sesame Street would have had three plates of Karniyarik (stuffed eggplant) and one plate of lasagna. Sometimes I feel like I’m that person or thing that doesn’t belong.

 During my 8 years in Turkey I’ve committed more cross-cultural blunders than I can count, like the time I showed up at an all women’s tea with my husband. I used to agonize over my mistakes and how silly they made me look in front of other people, but over the years I’ve loosened up. I’ve learned the following:

• Just be yourself.
• Relax and don’t worry about doing everything right.
• Don’t take things too seriously.
• Learn to laugh at yourself.
• Enjoy differences rather than be bothered by them.

 Since I’m here, I might as well enjoy being that lone plate of lasagna hidden among all the other plates of karniyarik.

If you live overseas, I’d love to read a comment about one of your cross-cultural fiascos.

My Gift to the King

When we moved to Turkey 9 years ago, we came with 17 suitcases, much to my husband’s chagrin. Travelling with so much luggage forced him into the role of superman, and we often joke about that trip saying that if he’d wanted a lower maintenance woman, he should have married someone else. I made quite a sight on the curb at the Izmir airport trying to keep the mountain of suitcases from toppling over while attempting to keep an active 4 year old boy and a two year old girl under control. We had to rent a little truck to drive our luggage across town to the place we were staying. Last week I took one of those suitcases down from its place on top of the wardrobe and unpacked its contents like I do every December.

My Christmas suitcase holds many treasures: a collection of nativity scenes; an advent wreath, and our tree ornaments, including those my mother has given me every year since I was a child. One of my favorites is a simple handmade angel made out of paper and felt that a dear family friend made for me when I was in elementary school. The angel’s pink felt face, sequin eyes, and bedraggled white yarn hair look dated now, but I love it because it reminds me of childhood Christmases.

Last Thursday while my husband did the dinner dishes, the kids and I got out our tree. To be honest, fluffing the branches, untangling the lights and stringing them on the tree with two children was stressful after a long day. I felt tired and irritable, but I did my best to put on a cheerful face. I made hot chocolate, turned on Christmas carols, and pretty soon I was enjoying watching the kids exclaim over each ornament as they put it on the tree. I remembered how my mother used to make cookies and set out party snacks for a family celebration while we decorated the tree. Now I wonder how on earth she did it; hot chocolate was all I could manage to crank out.

After the kids went to bed, I sat quietly looking at my Christmas treasures by the twinkling light of the tree. I stroked the red, green and white calico table top quilt that my grandmother pieced and my mother quilted years ago. I smiled at the wooden stable and clay figure nativity scene from El Salvador, and a miniature nativity set we bought on our honeymoon. How glad I am that I brought the blue Christmas suitcase with us 9 years ago.

My treasures connect me with my past even though today I live in a Muslim country where Christmas is not celebrated. December 25th is like any other work day; it goes by completely unnoticed. But as much as I miss my family, my church and the festive atmosphere at home during the holidays, I don’t wish to be back there. My favorite Christmastimes have been right here in Turkey. There is something powerful about celebrating Christ’s coming among people who do not recognize it. Away from the materialistic consumerism that threatens to overshadow the true meaning of Christmas in America, my family and I are freer to celebrate the birth of Christ. Being far from home makes establishing traditions with my own family important. My favorite part of December is reading scripture and praying with the kids every evening by the light of our advent wreath.

Several years I opened my home to celebrate with local believers whose families do not share their new found faith. I’ve wondered how to make Christmas more culturally relevant for Turks, who have no reason to connect a Christmas tree with Christ’s birth. I do not have any good answers, but one of my favorite Christmas memories is a dinner we had in our home for 20 people. I decided the least I could do was serve Turkish food, and I asked everyone else to please bring local style food. I slaved all day to make karniyarik (stuffed baked eggplant), but my exhaustion faded as I watched our brothers and sisters faces shining during the scripture readings and Christmas hymns we shared together after our meal.

This year on December 25th, we will host a party in our home for friends of another faith. Our goal is to share our celebration with them and explain Christ’s coming in a relaxed, friendly atmosphere. We will play games, eat together, sing some Christmas songs, read the Christmas story from Luke, and my 13 year old son will share about what Jesus’ birth means to him. Truthfully, I’m a bit nervous about the party. When you give Turks an invitation they say, “I’ll do my best to come,” so you never know if they’re really coming until the event occurs. I sweat bullets before every single event because I’m always panicked that no one will show up. However, this week I’ve decided to relax, enjoy the Holiday with my family, and rejoice in whatever God does through our party. What better way to celebrate Christ’s birth than sharing his coming with others who do not know him? This party is my gift to the Baby King.

Merry Christmas!