The Guesting Experience

People in Azerbaijan pride themselves in being very hospitable. This is true. 9 times out of 10 when I ask for the price of one piece of fruit in the bazar (here most food stuffs are sold by the kilo), I get that piece of fruit (or whatever it may be) for free. I get invited to people's houses almost every day, even people that I just meet on the street or in a store. It is so common to be invited over to someone's house that here in PC they have coined a verb for it: 'to go guesting' or 'to guest'. I remember when I first got to Azerbaijan I would always be confused whenever I heard the current PCV's talk about how much they go guesting, or about that one time they were guesting and something crazy happened.... It didn't take me too long to get used to the phrase and now its part of my everyday vocabulary here. I go guesting A LOT.

So yesterday was my host mom's birthday, and the family celebrated by having a dinner party (Azerbaijani style of course). I'm not going to mention how old my host mom is because that doesn't seem classy to me, but I WILL say that I couldn't believe how old she was when she said it. I would've guessed she was at least ten years younger than her actual age. She looks goooood! So anywho I pretty much went guesting at my own host family's house last night. Here's how it went down:

I was in my room (I live in the downstairs part of the house) and my host mom tells me to come upstairs because the guests have arrived. I put on some decent looking clothing (pj's probably would not be looked upon very well) and go upstairs and meet the three other couples who are already sitting around the table. I introduce myself, we start talking, etc etc. (Oh btw the dining table is set up in the living room and the tv is on for some background noise. Also: everyone is talking in Azerbaijani. Except for a few words here and there in Russian.) The table is full of food. There were at least 5 different types of salads, including my fav the çoban salatı (which is just cucumbers, tomatoes, basil, and sometimes onions). There's tons of bread, and a selection of homemade drinks. And then the real food starts coming out. My host mom made yarpaq dolması, levengi chicken, goyun & mal eti kebab, and just when I thought I was going to have to change out my jeans and into some spandex, she brings out the plov. I ate so much food last night I may have actually grown out of all my clothes here, just in that one sitting. So anywho everyone at the table was chatting up a storm, cracking jokes, just all around havin' a good ol' time, and every 5 minutes or so my host dad would lift his glass and make a toast in honor of his wife. It was so sweet!

Fast forward an hour or so of more eating, talking and drinking: its çay time. The men stayed at the table continuing to eat/talk/drink while the rest of us cleared our plates and made our way to the kitchen to start the tea. Here at the other dining table was a wonderful spread of fruits and deserts. I can never turn down sweets and tea, so of course I continued to NUSH on all the çay fixins. I had about four handfuls of walnuts, like 3 mandarins, some nar, two of those powdered sugar covered pastry rolls filled with hazlenuts, and a slice of delicious cake. And of course like five cups of tea. I was in food heaven. I sat next to my host mom, eating and observing everyone's conversations, of which I only understood about 50% (but I did make sure to at least chuckle when people laughed to make it seem like I knew what the H they were talking about...it's the polite thing to do!). Then my host brother who is in town on holiday from university pulled out his laptop and logged on to Facebook, so naturally we started looking at people's pictures online. Nothing like stuffing your face while simultaneously facebook-stalking distant family members...fun! (that's not sarcasm by the way)

Basically what I'm saying with this long-winded mostly unclear description of last night's 'guesting' is that it's not much different from hanging out with people in the states. Food, Drinks, Conversation, Jokes, Gossip, and Cake = every family get together I have ever been to. The only real differences are the languages spoken and the kinds of foods being eaten. Bottom line: Guesting is awesome.

The Bucket List: Azerbaijan Edition

I recently passed the halfway mark of my Peace Corps service here in Azerbaijan and it got me thinking -- these past 13 months have gone by maaaaad fast, I should write down all the things I still want to do here! According to that movie with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, a bucket list is a list of all the things you want to do/see/experience before you 'kick the bucket' aka die. (FYI: Let me just clarify that I'm not planning on dying anytime soon, but there isn't really another catchy term for a list of crap you want to do besides 'bucket list'.)

So here's a list of the things that I still hope to do/see here in Azerbaijan before I leave next fall:
- waterfall in the mountains near Zaqatala
- Nar Fest in Goychay
- Fire Temple in Baku
- Qırmızı Qəsəbə in Quba
- jump over at least 3 fires during the Novruz Holiday
- learn to make plov
- learn how to dance the Avar or Lezgi traditional dances

That's all I have for now but I will keep adding to this list as I remember/discover new awesome things to do/see here. If anyone has any suggestions for this list let me know yo!

My Favorite Superhero

So I was guesting at a friend's house a while back, having the usual, some çay and a bit of food. We were watching tv in her living room and she happened to stop on a channel that was playing some cartoons. It looked like a bootleg version of Tom & Jerry... I think the cat and mouse were different colors than the normal Tom & Jerry. So anywho it made me think of that other cartoon they sometimes play here with the mouse that wears a cape and he's super strong or something like that, which got me thinking about superheroes, which got me thinking about what my favorite superhero is. (Yea, that's the normal flow of thought in my brain. I'm kinda weird.)

My two favorites (I can't decide on one) are Spider-Man and Wolverine. Not the crappy Tobey Maguire version of Spider-Man (he's awful), but the one from that cartoon series from the early 90's that used to play on Fox in the afternoons. Anyone know what I'm talking about? Because that one was awesome. Perfect combination of regular life Peter Parker and alter-ego Spider-Man action. I also like Wolverine because he's the badass of the superheroes. He doesn't really put up with people's ish and he has a temper. He has just the right amount of not-so-good good guy in him to make his character much more interesting than your run of the mill superhero. And those claws are awesome. (I would have counted Christian Bale's Batman as one of my faves but then I'd have to acknowledge the existence of the previous (George Clooney, Val Kilmer) horrible ones. Tobey Maguire I can look over, but a nipple suit? Nah chill...that's too much.)

Other random superhero comments:
- My favorite TMNT is Donatello.
- Jason, the Red Ranger, is my favorite of the Power Rangers.
- I used to like Underdog when I was younger, but I was definitely not a fan of the movie. Live action movies of cartoons are terrible, and usually a bit creepy.

It would be very interesting to see what people's favorite superheroes are here in Zaqatala...would they go for the box office hits (Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, etc.) or more cartoon/tv show based ones? Stay tuned for my findings on this.

Ay Platano, ¿a dónde te has ido?

Yesterday I had a dream. In this dream, I was sitting in my house in Zaqatala and was very hungry. I got up to look in my fridge and pantry, but I did not find any food. I went back to sit at my table, sad that I couldn't find any grub. I got up again and walked outside to my kitchen. And there on the counter, staring back up at me with its green little body - was a platano. I jumped for joy and, since it was a dream, a second later I was already eating some tostones.

And then I woke up. Very hungry. Except when I went to find something to eat in my kitchen there was nothing there. Ni un platano. I asked one of my friends here if she had ever heard of a platano, and when she said 'no' I tried to describe the amazingness that is a plantain. But words don't do it justice. Until you have eaten a platano you can't really understand why it is so delicious and wonderful. I mean just look at this face of pure joy:


Esa es la cara de una platanera. (Btdubs - peep the bonus Jessica face on my shirt. Yep, that's me when I was in kindergarten.) Look at all those platanos! I'm making myself hungry just by typing this. Azerbaijan isn't that far from tropical areas, I've seen bananas and pineapples here, can't the bazar help me out and get me some platanos??? If its a supply-and-demand thing, that's fine, I would buy as many crates of platanos as can possibly be supplied. (That's not an exaggeration either, I would eat platanos 24/7. Breakfast - Lunch - Dinner - Snack - I don't discriminate, I regulate every shade of the meal. I never ate mangu in the states but I would definitely throw down on a giant plate of it if I had some over here.)

I realize that I've been writing about food A LOT here, and its probably because I just miss food from home. Don't get me wrong I love (most) Azerbaijani cooking, probably more so than other PCV's (give me some kelem dolmasi any day of the week!), but sometimes you just want to eat a platano.

Mr. Bubbles

In the 7th grade, I did a science fair project with a classmate of mine entitled "Mr. Bubbles: What factors determine the strength of bubbles." We wanted to find out why some bubbles were more durable than others and if there was a way to make a recipe for a stronger bubble. Behold my 7th grade self:


SO anyway, for this week's science club we pretty much did the same experiment. The first time around I think we measured out just salt and sugar and added these to soapy water and compared the bubble-making ability of each substance. This time, we tried salt, sugar, baking soda and potato starch. Eleven years after the original experiment, the result was the same: sugar makes better bubbles. I'm still not sure why, (don't look at me I'm not a chemist!) but it might have something to do with glycerin being a chemical that fortifies the bonds in bubble structures. Or whatever.
Peep this:

(btdubs in Azerbaijani the word for bubble is köpük.) The kids really liked making the bubbles, and who wouldn't, they're BUBBLES! I think the best part of having this science club is that we get to have fun with everyday objects while at the same time looking at them from a different perspective. Sure bubbles are awesome, but do you know why they're awesome, and how to make them more awesome? Add sugar!

Friendo y Comiendo: Issue 02

I have leftover bread and milk. What do I do with it? El pudin de pan that Mami makes, duh! I could just give the bread to the chickens in the yard but then I wouldn't have a delicious snack with my tea every morning. And since I don't like milk I need to use it up somehow before it goes bad. Here's my adapted-to-Azerbaijan recipe:

Ingredients:
bread
milk
2 or 3 eggs
cinnamon
vanilla
sugar
pinch of salt

1) Take the stale bread you have (right now I have about 3/4ths of a loaf, but you can use however much you have left) and rip it into small pieces.

2) Spread the bread pieces in a baking pan (I have one that is about 12" in diameter). Unless you have a lot of bread I would suggest not using those huge round pans that go in the red ovens because it'll end up too thin.

3) Pour milk over the bread, making sure they all get coated. You want just enough milk so that every piece is soaked. Press the bread down into the pan to make sure they're all getting a piece of that milk action. It shouldn't be too liquidy, but if you think you may have added too much milk just add a couple more pieces of bread to it. Eyeball it. I think a rough estimate would be about 3/4 of a liter of milk per loaf of bread. (I use tendir or the Georgian bread, if you are using that Baku factory bread I'd use a bit less milk.) My AZ6 sitemate was over and left me some of her village milk so I used that in this recipe. This needs to sit for at least three hours so that the bread can soak up the liquid. I put this together last night before I went to bed and just popped it in the fridge.

4) Once the bread has been soaking for a while, its time to start smashing the crap out of it. Pour it into a bowl and use a masher to break down all the big pieces. It'll be easier to do the longer the bread has been soaking. If you're really having trouble mashing the bread, add more milk. The goal is a 'gloopy' consistency. (oh yeah, that's a true chef's vocabulary right there)

5) Once its all mashed its time to add the rest of the ingredients. Add in two eggs, some cinnamon (eyeball it. if you like a lot of cinnamon, add a lot!), about a teaspoon (or more) of vanilla, a pinch of salt, and add about 2/3 cup of sugar (or more if you want it sweeter, or less if you don't). Mix this all together. It should be a bit liquidy, if it seems a bit thick add in a third egg. Or don't. This is a trial-and-error cooking method here, folks!

6) Once that's all mixed up pour it into a lightly greased pan. (I'm using the same pan I used to soak the bread, except I rinsed it out and coated it with a little oil.) Pop this sucka in the oven! My oven has a top rack and a bottom rack, I turned on only the bottom heat and put the pan on the top rack. Check it after about 20 minutes. If its still jiggly, leave it in the oven. After another 15 minutes I noticed it wasn't jiggly anymore, a knife that I stuck in the middle came out almost clean, but it was still white on top. I put it back in but this time turned the top heat on as well. After about another 15-20 minutes the top had browned so I turned off the oven and let it hang out in there.

This is what it looks like when it's done:

Pudin de pan is one of those desserts that is best served room temperature or cold. I know it smells delicious and once its out of the oven you wanna just nuş, but it'll taste so much better if you give it some time to rest. I baked this in the morning and had a slice in the afternoon.

This is what a slice looks like:
I know, delicious right? This was my third attempt at making Mami's pudin de pan, and it has been the best so far! In my previous tries I didn't use enough sugar or enough milk. But this one looks and tastes exactly like it does at home! Some pudin de pan with some çay, yum-yum-yum-yum-yum-yum deliciooooso! You should totally try making this.

So clearly I made a big ass pan of this, which I can't really eat all by myself. And I'm here to share my culture anyway so I gave some to my host mom as well as to the lady who runs the shop near my house where I get my bread from. My host mom likes it, I'll find out tomorrow what the shopkeeper lady thought (inshallah she also liked it). So my suggestion would be to spread the wealth, people love getting/giving food, especially here in Azerbaijan!

Note: Usually Mami le hecha raisins when she makes pudin de pan. Well, usually she will make one big sarten de pudin de pan con pasas and one sarten pequeño for me without raisins. I'm not a fan but if you like raisins, they're great in the pudin de pan, just add them in when you add the other ingredients.

a walk around Zaqatala

Here are a few pictures I've taken around town:









I just noticed the first three of these were all taken looking towards the same mountain. Aesthetically it is like the polar opposite of New York City and yet both places are so beautiful! Here's a shot of the BX for some contrast: