I just wanted to say that I just registered for a duathlon scheduled for a week from Saturday. This will require me to RACE people on my BICYCLE. I regretted registering as soon as I had done it, but I'm in for $80 now, so it's on. Stay tuned for the inevitable humiliation and, I'm sure, valuable lessons.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Spooky
I don't do suspense. In any form, really, if I can help it. I hate watching live ice skating competitions; every double toe-loop stresses me out. When Matlock episodes send their title character uninvited into someone's empty office to snoop around for clues, I have to leave the room. I "watch" suspenseful movie scenes from the kitchen, pleading with Mark to narrate a play-by-play for me. Because I love and respect books, I try not to read the end before I get to the end, but I will often flip ahead and skim to see whether an endangered character's name continues to appear.
And then there's themoviespoiler.com.
I love this website, which catalogs long, thorough synopses of the plots of current movies, and I've become pretty dependent on its services. It has become a real rarity for me to watch a movie--ANY movie--without reading the spoiler first, so I generally walk into the theater (or turn on the tv) knowing exactly what is going to happen and when and to whom.
The movie-spoiler habit offends my husband. I'm not sure why; I never, ever tell him what I've read, so it doesn't affect him in the least. He maintains, however, that I'm ruining the movie somehow by reading the plot ahead of time. I disagree: once I've read the spoiler, I can relax and enjoy whatever else the film has to offer (crisp dialogue, rich characterization, soaring score, cinematic artistry) that I would likely miss if I were squirming in my seat and watching through my fingers, bracing myself for something to jump out at me.
Case in point: Super 8. We went to see this one for Mark's birthday, and I loved it. I have a thing for ensemble comedies, and this suspense movie functioned like that on many levels, but I would have hated every minute of it if I had been all locked up by wondering what the heck is the thing that escaped and where is it hiding and oh my GOSH what's going to happen to that girl?!?!?
Still, I understand that this quirk of mine betrays a pretty serious weakness: the anxiety that I often allow to take over my life. And so when I took "get a passport" off my list (expensive! maybe on the list of 50 things), I added "Watch a suspenseful movie without reading the spoiler first." Because anxiety is not the boss of what I watch.
Last week I browsed through the Netflix instant-watch catalog under "Thrillers" and looked for movies featuring themes that wouldn't give me nightmares for months. I decided a vampire movie might do the trick, since I don't believe in vampires but can't say the same for serial killers, home invasions, and escaped lunatics. The only vampire movie on the Netflix list was From Dusk Till [sic] Dawn, a 1996 movie starring George Clooney. Two nights ago Mark and I settled down to watch it.
Let me say from the outset, so as to avoid misunderstanding on this point, I am not recommending this movie. The language descends into atrocity within the first few minutes of dialogue, and it's pretty extreme in its squishy, campy violence. Quentin Tarentino co-starred in it and was the driving force behind the movie (a fact I hadn't realized), and he's a gifted but strange and maybe sick individual. We waded through about 40 minutes of the grossness of this film, which in that interval offered me many opportunities to be frightened, before we got to the main setting of the vampire part of the movie. It was a strip club. At that point we realized we were going to have to abandon it. (SEE? This is what we get when I don't read the spoiler.)
We flipped through some more titles, looking for something scary but less offensive, and realized that that is a tall order. In the end we landed on Dial M for Murder, hoping that Hitchcock would give us a modicum of suspense and a little more decency.
It worked like a charm for me. Mark was unimpressed and kept asking me, "Are you seriously scared of this? At all?" You have to remember, though, how low my threshold is. I'm afraid of everything, so yeah, Hitchcock did the trick.
The experience was definitely affected by its juxtaposition with the vampire debacle. Dial M for Murder tells a pretty chilling tale of cold-blooded deceit and heartlessness but maintains a really, really high level of propriety. So high, in fact, that its incongruity with the levels of evil it portrays was disarming and creepy. And while I do think Quentin Tarentino is good at what he does, I also think it's more impressive that Hitchcock was able to tell an engaging, suspenseful story that made us want to keep watching without green slime, foul language, or topless vampires. What a difference.
And man, Grace Kelly was GORGEOUS. No wonder she was such a big deal.
So I did it. In the end it didn't feel like all that much of an accomplishment, honestly...it lacked the satisfaction of finishing a 10k or changing a tire. :) But I'm going to claim it as a victory anyway on the theory that there is value, considering all my issues, in simply doing something that scares me. Even a little.
And then there's themoviespoiler.com.
I love this website, which catalogs long, thorough synopses of the plots of current movies, and I've become pretty dependent on its services. It has become a real rarity for me to watch a movie--ANY movie--without reading the spoiler first, so I generally walk into the theater (or turn on the tv) knowing exactly what is going to happen and when and to whom.
The movie-spoiler habit offends my husband. I'm not sure why; I never, ever tell him what I've read, so it doesn't affect him in the least. He maintains, however, that I'm ruining the movie somehow by reading the plot ahead of time. I disagree: once I've read the spoiler, I can relax and enjoy whatever else the film has to offer (crisp dialogue, rich characterization, soaring score, cinematic artistry) that I would likely miss if I were squirming in my seat and watching through my fingers, bracing myself for something to jump out at me.
Case in point: Super 8. We went to see this one for Mark's birthday, and I loved it. I have a thing for ensemble comedies, and this suspense movie functioned like that on many levels, but I would have hated every minute of it if I had been all locked up by wondering what the heck is the thing that escaped and where is it hiding and oh my GOSH what's going to happen to that girl?!?!?
Still, I understand that this quirk of mine betrays a pretty serious weakness: the anxiety that I often allow to take over my life. And so when I took "get a passport" off my list (expensive! maybe on the list of 50 things), I added "Watch a suspenseful movie without reading the spoiler first." Because anxiety is not the boss of what I watch.
Last week I browsed through the Netflix instant-watch catalog under "Thrillers" and looked for movies featuring themes that wouldn't give me nightmares for months. I decided a vampire movie might do the trick, since I don't believe in vampires but can't say the same for serial killers, home invasions, and escaped lunatics. The only vampire movie on the Netflix list was From Dusk Till [sic] Dawn, a 1996 movie starring George Clooney. Two nights ago Mark and I settled down to watch it.
Let me say from the outset, so as to avoid misunderstanding on this point, I am not recommending this movie. The language descends into atrocity within the first few minutes of dialogue, and it's pretty extreme in its squishy, campy violence. Quentin Tarentino co-starred in it and was the driving force behind the movie (a fact I hadn't realized), and he's a gifted but strange and maybe sick individual. We waded through about 40 minutes of the grossness of this film, which in that interval offered me many opportunities to be frightened, before we got to the main setting of the vampire part of the movie. It was a strip club. At that point we realized we were going to have to abandon it. (SEE? This is what we get when I don't read the spoiler.)
We flipped through some more titles, looking for something scary but less offensive, and realized that that is a tall order. In the end we landed on Dial M for Murder, hoping that Hitchcock would give us a modicum of suspense and a little more decency.
It worked like a charm for me. Mark was unimpressed and kept asking me, "Are you seriously scared of this? At all?" You have to remember, though, how low my threshold is. I'm afraid of everything, so yeah, Hitchcock did the trick.
The experience was definitely affected by its juxtaposition with the vampire debacle. Dial M for Murder tells a pretty chilling tale of cold-blooded deceit and heartlessness but maintains a really, really high level of propriety. So high, in fact, that its incongruity with the levels of evil it portrays was disarming and creepy. And while I do think Quentin Tarentino is good at what he does, I also think it's more impressive that Hitchcock was able to tell an engaging, suspenseful story that made us want to keep watching without green slime, foul language, or topless vampires. What a difference.
And man, Grace Kelly was GORGEOUS. No wonder she was such a big deal.
So I did it. In the end it didn't feel like all that much of an accomplishment, honestly...it lacked the satisfaction of finishing a 10k or changing a tire. :) But I'm going to claim it as a victory anyway on the theory that there is value, considering all my issues, in simply doing something that scares me. Even a little.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Handwriting on the Wall
I love words. I don't know whether you've already discerned that by virtue of my inability to shut up, but it's true. Language amazes me; the complexity of concepts we can convey by forming sounds or scrawling squiggles boggles the mind. I taught English for 5 years (long, long ago), and that process cemented once and for all my love affair with language.
So when evaluating the bareness of the walls of our home over the last few years, I've repeatedly thought about painting some kind of quote up there. Paralysis always set in, though, when I had to actually settle on what the words would be. I love too many writers.
I considered lots of options. Some of the frontrunners:
In the end I landed on Galatians 5:22-23. That's the passage where Paul lists the character qualities that are fruit of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. I formatted the verses on a PowerPoint slide (after obsessing about fonts and ending up with Optima and Zapfino), projected it onto the wall via a borrowed VPU, traced the letters in pencil, and filled them in with a black paint pen. It took several hours over the course of two days. Here's how it looks now.
A few visitors have mistaken it for vinyl transfers, but close investigation reveals a host of small errors and bobbles. I kind of like that it isn't perfect. Fits the sentiment.
I chose this passage because it's about walking with the Holy Spirit...allowing Him to gently nudge, correct, direct, and empower us. I firmly believe that once you establish a relationship with Jesus, the whole rest of the journey is about walking in the Spirit. Every single struggle, each obstacle and difficulty, eventually boils back down to this discipline.
"What do you want me to do, Lord?"
"That. Right there."
"I can't do that."
"I know. Let me do it."
"Ok. I'll follow."
The wall pictured above is almost the first thing you see when you open our front door. It's the last thing I see when I scan the place for lights left on before I go. It bounds the pathway from the bedrooms and the kitchen to the living and dining areas, and it sits at the top of the stairs that lead down to the office, family room, and garage. I walk past it hundreds of times a day, I imagine. It is literally at the center of our home.
I hope that it will be just as firmly planted at the center of our lives. Trying to manifest these qualities in a lasting way on our own power inevitably leads to frustration and failure. (I speak from experience here.) My prayer, then, is that each member of our family would be yielded enough to the transforming work of the Holy Spirit in us that when people look at us, this is what they would see: Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Goodness. Faithfulness. Gentleness. Self-control. Not because we are so amazing--we are all five of us unbelievably selfish by nature--but because He is all of these things and He is replicating Himself in us.
Honestly, I fear that people will open the door to our home, read these verses, and raise a skeptical eyebrow at the incongruity between these words and our lives. But the resilient optimist in me (let's call it faith) hopes that they'll read and think, "Is that where they get it? I was wondering."
I may squeeze some C.S. Lewis or Dickinson in there yet. But this feels right.
So when evaluating the bareness of the walls of our home over the last few years, I've repeatedly thought about painting some kind of quote up there. Paralysis always set in, though, when I had to actually settle on what the words would be. I love too many writers.
I considered lots of options. Some of the frontrunners:
- C.S. Lewis times a billion. Most often "He is not a tame lion," or some manifestation thereof.
- "You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body." This quote, which I love, is widely attributed to C.S. Lewis, and I almost painted it on the wall and attributed it to him, but it apparently comes from Walter Miller, who is NOT C.S. Lewis on multiple levels. That was close. Still love the quote, though.
- The Emily Dickinson poem from which this blog takes its name.
- Excerpts from Shel Silverstein's stuff.
- Various lyrics from Nichole Nordeman ("Legacy," "Brave,"), Chris Rice ("Missing You," "Hallelujahs"), and Rich Mullins ("Land of my Sojourn," "I'll Carry On").
- Most of the other writers you'd expect from an English teacher, including Shakespeare, Dickens, Frost, Langston Hughes, Browning...you get the idea.
In the end I landed on Galatians 5:22-23. That's the passage where Paul lists the character qualities that are fruit of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. I formatted the verses on a PowerPoint slide (after obsessing about fonts and ending up with Optima and Zapfino), projected it onto the wall via a borrowed VPU, traced the letters in pencil, and filled them in with a black paint pen. It took several hours over the course of two days. Here's how it looks now.
A few visitors have mistaken it for vinyl transfers, but close investigation reveals a host of small errors and bobbles. I kind of like that it isn't perfect. Fits the sentiment.
I chose this passage because it's about walking with the Holy Spirit...allowing Him to gently nudge, correct, direct, and empower us. I firmly believe that once you establish a relationship with Jesus, the whole rest of the journey is about walking in the Spirit. Every single struggle, each obstacle and difficulty, eventually boils back down to this discipline.
"What do you want me to do, Lord?"
"That. Right there."
"I can't do that."
"I know. Let me do it."
"Ok. I'll follow."
The wall pictured above is almost the first thing you see when you open our front door. It's the last thing I see when I scan the place for lights left on before I go. It bounds the pathway from the bedrooms and the kitchen to the living and dining areas, and it sits at the top of the stairs that lead down to the office, family room, and garage. I walk past it hundreds of times a day, I imagine. It is literally at the center of our home.
I hope that it will be just as firmly planted at the center of our lives. Trying to manifest these qualities in a lasting way on our own power inevitably leads to frustration and failure. (I speak from experience here.) My prayer, then, is that each member of our family would be yielded enough to the transforming work of the Holy Spirit in us that when people look at us, this is what they would see: Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Goodness. Faithfulness. Gentleness. Self-control. Not because we are so amazing--we are all five of us unbelievably selfish by nature--but because He is all of these things and He is replicating Himself in us.
Honestly, I fear that people will open the door to our home, read these verses, and raise a skeptical eyebrow at the incongruity between these words and our lives. But the resilient optimist in me (let's call it faith) hopes that they'll read and think, "Is that where they get it? I was wondering."
I may squeeze some C.S. Lewis or Dickinson in there yet. But this feels right.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Catching Up
Less than three months left until I cast off my thirties!
I'm back to the place where I'm avoiding blogging because there's too much to say, so let's clean house a little (not literally--that's what I probably SHOULD be doing right now) and get up to date.
How am I doing?
Weight Loss: Okay, look. I've been up and down over the last 10 pounds for like 5 months. And more and more I'm faced with the spectre of becoming that girl who's trying for the rest of her life to lose five more pounds, who can never have a milkshake or skip a workout without pangs of guilt. I don't want to be that girl. So I'm drawing my line in the sand. My birthday is it. I've come a long way...90 pounds could possibly be enough. Whatever I weigh on November 16 will be what I weigh. Then I'll have to learn how to maintain it, which will be challenge enough. An entirely different kind of weight has been lifted off my shoulders since making this decision, which tells me something.
So it's a race to the finish line. We'll see how I can do if I push it for just under three months. I got to a super start today by eating multiple handsful of Swedish fish. :)
Some Kind of -lon: There's a duathlon in NY state on September 10 that would require me to spend a chunk of change and get up stupid early in order to pull it off. Haven't decided yet. I toyed with the idea of a tri-, but then I tri-ed swimming. I'd found a race that had a really short swim--300 yards, which is 12 lengths of our YMCA pool. I gave it a trial run and made it a total of one and a half lengths of the pool before stopping in order to avoid drowning. Not good. But hey...it's something to put on my list of 50 things!!
8 books: So far I've read Eight Secrets to Highly Effective Parenting by Scott Turansky, Flower by Wayne Stahre, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, Christ-Centered Preaching by Brian Chapell, Crazy Love by Francis Chan, and Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ by John Piper.
The Road bears some commenting...it is by far the best book I've ever hated. It's a Pulitzer winner, and my husband read it after loving the movie (which I have not seen and now refuse to watch). He is not normally inclined toward literature, so I figured I'd better enter into this experience, since we don't often connect over books. It is incredibly well-written and perhaps the bleakest, most depressing book I've ever read. Blech.
I'm in the middle of several books right now, so we'll see which of them I finish first. (One about leading worship, the second Harry Potter, one about whining and honor and parenting, and a book of imagist poetry.)
Galatians 5:22-23 on the wall: Done. I'd like to give this its own post, though, with pics.
Throw out 100 pounds of clutter: Done. I was up to about 40 pounds cumulatively, but then I threw out 108 pounds of junk in one day. There was TOO MUCH STUFF in my house...I couldn't put away everything we brought back from Colorado. So Mark took the kids out for a day or so, and I threw things away like a maniac. So far the kids haven't missed anything, knock on wood. :)
Zumba class: I tried this in Colorado, and I realized while I was there that it was not only my first Zumba class, but my first group exercise class ever. Those environments completely intimidated me. Honestly, they still do. I suppose Zumba was an ambitious beginning. The cute little instructor clearly had joints in her hips that I am lacking...mine do NOT move that way. But it was really fun, and I had a good time as long as I was able to avoid looking at myself in the giant mirror.
3 months of attention to my abs: Had to start this one last Wednesday if it was going to happen. I've started and abandoned it probably half a dozen times, so we'll see. My friend Jen, who is a personal trainer, kindly showed me some things I can do at home without expensive equipment, since I will not...repeat, not...be laying on the mat in front of everyone at the Y and doing abdominal exercises. My current strategy is to try to do them with the kids in the mornings. Maybe that will whip me into shape.
Clean out all my closets: Just the office closet to go, but it's a doozy. Still, it's fun to open the others and look at all the order! Available space is a wonderful thing and a rare commodity in our home.
I'm looking critically at this post now, thinking that it's sorely lacking in both wit and photos. But I'm going to eschew perfectionism and post it, paving the way for future wit and photos, I hope. Onward!
I'm back to the place where I'm avoiding blogging because there's too much to say, so let's clean house a little (not literally--that's what I probably SHOULD be doing right now) and get up to date.
How am I doing?
Weight Loss: Okay, look. I've been up and down over the last 10 pounds for like 5 months. And more and more I'm faced with the spectre of becoming that girl who's trying for the rest of her life to lose five more pounds, who can never have a milkshake or skip a workout without pangs of guilt. I don't want to be that girl. So I'm drawing my line in the sand. My birthday is it. I've come a long way...90 pounds could possibly be enough. Whatever I weigh on November 16 will be what I weigh. Then I'll have to learn how to maintain it, which will be challenge enough. An entirely different kind of weight has been lifted off my shoulders since making this decision, which tells me something.
So it's a race to the finish line. We'll see how I can do if I push it for just under three months. I got to a super start today by eating multiple handsful of Swedish fish. :)
Some Kind of -lon: There's a duathlon in NY state on September 10 that would require me to spend a chunk of change and get up stupid early in order to pull it off. Haven't decided yet. I toyed with the idea of a tri-, but then I tri-ed swimming. I'd found a race that had a really short swim--300 yards, which is 12 lengths of our YMCA pool. I gave it a trial run and made it a total of one and a half lengths of the pool before stopping in order to avoid drowning. Not good. But hey...it's something to put on my list of 50 things!!
8 books: So far I've read Eight Secrets to Highly Effective Parenting by Scott Turansky, Flower by Wayne Stahre, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, Christ-Centered Preaching by Brian Chapell, Crazy Love by Francis Chan, and Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ by John Piper.
The Road bears some commenting...it is by far the best book I've ever hated. It's a Pulitzer winner, and my husband read it after loving the movie (which I have not seen and now refuse to watch). He is not normally inclined toward literature, so I figured I'd better enter into this experience, since we don't often connect over books. It is incredibly well-written and perhaps the bleakest, most depressing book I've ever read. Blech.
I'm in the middle of several books right now, so we'll see which of them I finish first. (One about leading worship, the second Harry Potter, one about whining and honor and parenting, and a book of imagist poetry.)
Galatians 5:22-23 on the wall: Done. I'd like to give this its own post, though, with pics.
Throw out 100 pounds of clutter: Done. I was up to about 40 pounds cumulatively, but then I threw out 108 pounds of junk in one day. There was TOO MUCH STUFF in my house...I couldn't put away everything we brought back from Colorado. So Mark took the kids out for a day or so, and I threw things away like a maniac. So far the kids haven't missed anything, knock on wood. :)
Zumba class: I tried this in Colorado, and I realized while I was there that it was not only my first Zumba class, but my first group exercise class ever. Those environments completely intimidated me. Honestly, they still do. I suppose Zumba was an ambitious beginning. The cute little instructor clearly had joints in her hips that I am lacking...mine do NOT move that way. But it was really fun, and I had a good time as long as I was able to avoid looking at myself in the giant mirror.
3 months of attention to my abs: Had to start this one last Wednesday if it was going to happen. I've started and abandoned it probably half a dozen times, so we'll see. My friend Jen, who is a personal trainer, kindly showed me some things I can do at home without expensive equipment, since I will not...repeat, not...be laying on the mat in front of everyone at the Y and doing abdominal exercises. My current strategy is to try to do them with the kids in the mornings. Maybe that will whip me into shape.
Clean out all my closets: Just the office closet to go, but it's a doozy. Still, it's fun to open the others and look at all the order! Available space is a wonderful thing and a rare commodity in our home.
I'm looking critically at this post now, thinking that it's sorely lacking in both wit and photos. But I'm going to eschew perfectionism and post it, paving the way for future wit and photos, I hope. Onward!
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Eating Brave, part 2
We're home. Settling in has turned out to be a maelstrom of visits with long-missed family and friends, errands that have sat dormant for 6 weeks, and the endless detail work of trying to get the house back in order. Not there yet. But tonight I actually have a minute to get back on this blog, so I'm going to try to finish up my thought from...what, like two weeks ago? Sheesh.
So near the end of our time in Colorado, my dear, dear friend Dawn (the kind of dear that makes me shake my head and sigh when I think about how much I love her) agreed to go on a little food adventure with me. We went to check out this place:
Note: my photos are on my camera, which has not been re-assimilated into our household yet, so these were all lifted from the web.
It's a tiny little place called "Indulge," with sweets and coffees and teas from places like Turkey and Morocco. The menu includes delicacies that sound exotic and intriguing...Persian tea infused with Bergamot oil, Mango nectar, Turkish coffee with cardamom, and things with names like Zaatar, Maamoul, Nammura, and Zalabia. These sound either like characters from a fantasy video game or like rare treats that a food adventurer should relish. And remember, in my imagination, I am in fact a food adventurer.
So Dawn, who is much more self-aware than I about her culinary hesitancies, agreed to go with me to Indulge because she loves me. We got in there and determined that it would probably be better for dessert than for lunch, so I, with far more confidence than is really warranted, suggested that we go to Taj Mahal, the Indian buffet across the street.
Dawn, who is fun and brave, hesitated only for a millisecond before enthusiastically agreeing to this plan.
My poser-foodie status was not exposed during our visit because the approximately 3 dishes I like from the Indian buffet near our home in NJ were also on this buffet. I also got to confidently identify the flat bread in the basket on our table as Naan. The only thing missing was the crazy soda thing with the confetti-looking stuff on top that the chuckling old woman at our NJ buffet made me drink. I would DEFINITELY NOT have tried it had I known that the stuff on top was chopped onions, but I have to tell you, it was pretty good.
So anyhow, I was enabled in my feigning of sophistication as I casually commented on the excellent quality (as if I have any idea) of the tikka masala, the potato stuff, and the curry. I didn't say much about the rest, mostly because if you held a gun to my head I couldn't tell you what any of it was, and I was scared to try it. I did venture out and try some kind of soup. It tasted like dishwater. So I may be sticking with my 3 dishes for the duration.
Dawn liked it. Or at least she said she did. She's nice.
After Taj Mahal we headed back over to Indulge. We told the guy behind the counter (who does not speak Turkish, we learned, but does speak Arabic...he seemed like a genuinely interesting person) that we didn't know much about Turkish food (I, at least, know less than nothing) and asked him for some options that were...I think I said "authentic." He steered us toward three little treats, and I also ordered a cup of tea.
The first was a "Maamoul": a butter cookie filled with dates. Here's one.
I generally distrust dates, as they kind of look like big bugs to me. Plus they always make me think of that scene in the first Indiana Jones movie where the cute/evil monkey dies eating poisoned ones. I doubted that these issues would sound reasonable to the Arabic-speaking guy, so I nodded and thanked him for the suggestion. And guess what? It was pretty yummy.
The second was a "Nammura": a "honeyed semolina [which means pasta to me, so that's how much I know] and coconut cake." Here's a pic:
It was sticky and sweet, and kind of coarse. The flavor was pretty delicate...definitely coconut, but not overwhelmingly so. Nice. Dawn thought it was the best of the three.
She had ordered the pistachio baklava:
...which was fabulous. Flaky and nutty and sweet and salty and exotic but not scary.
My peppermint tea was not exotic in its own right but came in an awesome cup that looked sort of like this:
So there you have it. Turkish food. Exotic sweets and interesting people and dear friends...so, so much fun.
I have two more new ethnicities to try before I can cross this one off. I'm thinking of trying out an Ethiopian place near our home, and then if I can get my friend Annette to make me something Syrian, I'll be good to go. Closing in on three months left!
So near the end of our time in Colorado, my dear, dear friend Dawn (the kind of dear that makes me shake my head and sigh when I think about how much I love her) agreed to go on a little food adventure with me. We went to check out this place:
Note: my photos are on my camera, which has not been re-assimilated into our household yet, so these were all lifted from the web.It's a tiny little place called "Indulge," with sweets and coffees and teas from places like Turkey and Morocco. The menu includes delicacies that sound exotic and intriguing...Persian tea infused with Bergamot oil, Mango nectar, Turkish coffee with cardamom, and things with names like Zaatar, Maamoul, Nammura, and Zalabia. These sound either like characters from a fantasy video game or like rare treats that a food adventurer should relish. And remember, in my imagination, I am in fact a food adventurer.
So Dawn, who is much more self-aware than I about her culinary hesitancies, agreed to go with me to Indulge because she loves me. We got in there and determined that it would probably be better for dessert than for lunch, so I, with far more confidence than is really warranted, suggested that we go to Taj Mahal, the Indian buffet across the street.
Dawn, who is fun and brave, hesitated only for a millisecond before enthusiastically agreeing to this plan.
My poser-foodie status was not exposed during our visit because the approximately 3 dishes I like from the Indian buffet near our home in NJ were also on this buffet. I also got to confidently identify the flat bread in the basket on our table as Naan. The only thing missing was the crazy soda thing with the confetti-looking stuff on top that the chuckling old woman at our NJ buffet made me drink. I would DEFINITELY NOT have tried it had I known that the stuff on top was chopped onions, but I have to tell you, it was pretty good.
So anyhow, I was enabled in my feigning of sophistication as I casually commented on the excellent quality (as if I have any idea) of the tikka masala, the potato stuff, and the curry. I didn't say much about the rest, mostly because if you held a gun to my head I couldn't tell you what any of it was, and I was scared to try it. I did venture out and try some kind of soup. It tasted like dishwater. So I may be sticking with my 3 dishes for the duration.
Dawn liked it. Or at least she said she did. She's nice.
After Taj Mahal we headed back over to Indulge. We told the guy behind the counter (who does not speak Turkish, we learned, but does speak Arabic...he seemed like a genuinely interesting person) that we didn't know much about Turkish food (I, at least, know less than nothing) and asked him for some options that were...I think I said "authentic." He steered us toward three little treats, and I also ordered a cup of tea.
The first was a "Maamoul": a butter cookie filled with dates. Here's one.
I generally distrust dates, as they kind of look like big bugs to me. Plus they always make me think of that scene in the first Indiana Jones movie where the cute/evil monkey dies eating poisoned ones. I doubted that these issues would sound reasonable to the Arabic-speaking guy, so I nodded and thanked him for the suggestion. And guess what? It was pretty yummy.The second was a "Nammura": a "honeyed semolina [which means pasta to me, so that's how much I know] and coconut cake." Here's a pic:
It was sticky and sweet, and kind of coarse. The flavor was pretty delicate...definitely coconut, but not overwhelmingly so. Nice. Dawn thought it was the best of the three.She had ordered the pistachio baklava:
...which was fabulous. Flaky and nutty and sweet and salty and exotic but not scary.My peppermint tea was not exotic in its own right but came in an awesome cup that looked sort of like this:
So there you have it. Turkish food. Exotic sweets and interesting people and dear friends...so, so much fun.
I have two more new ethnicities to try before I can cross this one off. I'm thinking of trying out an Ethiopian place near our home, and then if I can get my friend Annette to make me something Syrian, I'll be good to go. Closing in on three months left!
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