10 minutes 38 seconds in Istanbul
In my last post I described my reading goal for 2020: each month, read a book about something foreign, and then translate some aspect of what I read into real life.
I was so excited about getting started with this challenge that I began reading Elif Shafak's 10 minutes 38 seconds in this Strange World on January 1st. I knew I wanted to try some different Turkish foods during the month, so I also checked out several cookbooks which included Turkish cuisine. And so, for much of this past month I have immersed myself in this foreign world.
The Book: 10 minutes 38 seconds in this Strange World
10 minutes is the story of a woman--Tequila Leila--whose body has died, but whose mind continues reviewing her life for 10 minutes and 38 seconds after her death. It was written in Turkish; I read the English translation.
As I began reading, I didn't expect to connect with the main character. The book flap describes her as a sex worker. I'm ashamed to admit that with that information, I started with the expectation that I wouldn't be persuaded to care for Leila. But I was wrong.
Part of this project of reading foreign books is to not only appreciate the differences between myself and the characters I'm reading about, but also to find the similarities. A recurring theme of the cast of characters in 10 minutes is that they are outsiders, pushed to the fringes and dismissed by society for a variety of reasons. One is only 4 feet tall. One is an African immigrant. One is transsexual. One has a working single mom.
The experience of feeling like an outsider is definitely something I can relate to. I've spent a lot of time reflecting on whether my feelings of being an outsider were overall good or bad for me as a human. In one way, it made me feel separate and stunted my ability to feel connected to the dominant society, but in another way it gave me practice with what Brené Brown calls Braving the Wilderness--learning to be vulnerable and having the courage to stand alone.
On Friday evening, I listened to Californian congressman Adam Schiff speak in the impeachment trial. Schiff quoted a 1966 speech from Robert F. Kennedy:
The Food: Purple Citrus & Sweet Perfume: Cuisine of the Eastern Mediterranean
My first foray to bring the book to life was with cardamom coffee which is one of the handful of sense memories which Leila recalls after her death. I read online that cardamom in coffee makes the effect of caffeine less pronounced, or helps reduce jitters. I'm not sure if that was the case for me as I rarely get jittery from coffee anymore.
I started by sprinkling a bit of ground cardamom directly into a cup of coffee. That was OK, but next I wanted to try whole cardamom seeds ground up with my coffee beans. Finding cardamom seeds was a little bit difficult--I searched at several grocery stores and finally found it at Namaste, on University west of 73rd Street. I bought the green, not the brown seeds. I added about seven seeds in with my coffee beans and ground them up. The coffee this made had a very strong, almost medicinal flavor which drowned out the flavor of the coffee (and which my husband refused to drink). I thought it was OK, but I think I should have used fewer seeds. The flavor lingered in the next several pots of coffee we made.
After that, I discovered that Turkish coffee is made by a different method. First, the coffee is ground to a very fine powder (or purchased pre-ground). Next, a full heaping teaspoon of the coffee is added to a very small copper pot and mixed with sugar and the water for one very small espresso-sized cup of coffee. The copper pot is held directly over a flame until it boils up, at which point it can be poured into a cup and served without any kind of filtration. This method creates a layer of foam at the top of the cup which shouldn't be disturbed by stirring (typically, no cream is added).
In addition to cardamom coffee, I tried a few other Turkish recipes this month. I made red peppers stuffed with rice and hamburger, mung bean salad with nigella seeds, a butternut squash and apricot tagine, and orange baklava. I wasn't a fan of the tagine, but I loved the other recipes, two of which came from the book Purple Citrus & Sweet Perfume: Cuisine of the Eastern Mediterranean. Next I want to try helva, a pudding made from semolina and milk.
I was so excited about getting started with this challenge that I began reading Elif Shafak's 10 minutes 38 seconds in this Strange World on January 1st. I knew I wanted to try some different Turkish foods during the month, so I also checked out several cookbooks which included Turkish cuisine. And so, for much of this past month I have immersed myself in this foreign world.
The Book: 10 minutes 38 seconds in this Strange World
As I began reading, I didn't expect to connect with the main character. The book flap describes her as a sex worker. I'm ashamed to admit that with that information, I started with the expectation that I wouldn't be persuaded to care for Leila. But I was wrong.
Part of this project of reading foreign books is to not only appreciate the differences between myself and the characters I'm reading about, but also to find the similarities. A recurring theme of the cast of characters in 10 minutes is that they are outsiders, pushed to the fringes and dismissed by society for a variety of reasons. One is only 4 feet tall. One is an African immigrant. One is transsexual. One has a working single mom.
The experience of feeling like an outsider is definitely something I can relate to. I've spent a lot of time reflecting on whether my feelings of being an outsider were overall good or bad for me as a human. In one way, it made me feel separate and stunted my ability to feel connected to the dominant society, but in another way it gave me practice with what Brené Brown calls Braving the Wilderness--learning to be vulnerable and having the courage to stand alone.
On Friday evening, I listened to Californian congressman Adam Schiff speak in the impeachment trial. Schiff quoted a 1966 speech from Robert F. Kennedy:
Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change the world which yields most painfully to change.Because of the practice I've had with feeling like an outsider, I believed myself to have this kind of courage--an ability to stand up and be myself in the face of ridicule and isolation. But as I read this book, I realized that I've always had something which made this courage less difficult--I've had a family who supports me, a home to return to where I am accepted. In the book, Leila didn't have that. She was forced into a more lonely wilderness with no one to depend on besides herself--what Brené Brown described as "one of the most dangerous hurts":
Even in the context of suffering—poverty, violence, human rights violations—not belonging in our families is still one of the most dangerous hurts. That’s because it has the power to break our heart, our spirit, and our sense of self-worth. It broke all three for me. And when those things break, there are only three outcomes, something I’ve borne witness to in my life and in my work: 1. You live in constant pain and seek relief by numbing it and/or inflicting it on others; 2. You deny your pain, and your denial ensures that you pass it on to those around you and down to your children; or 3. You find the courage to own the pain and develop a level of empathy and compassion for yourself and others that allows you to spot hurt in the world in a unique way. I certainly tried the first two. Only through sheer grace did I make my way to the third.Shafak describes Leila's journey through that pain--how she stands strong and rejects the "solutions" offered to her by her family, goes off on her own, and develops relationships with other outsiders who fill her life with meaning. She and her friends demonstrate true moral courage, the ripples of which change the world inside the story.
The Food: Purple Citrus & Sweet Perfume: Cuisine of the Eastern Mediterranean
I started by sprinkling a bit of ground cardamom directly into a cup of coffee. That was OK, but next I wanted to try whole cardamom seeds ground up with my coffee beans. Finding cardamom seeds was a little bit difficult--I searched at several grocery stores and finally found it at Namaste, on University west of 73rd Street. I bought the green, not the brown seeds. I added about seven seeds in with my coffee beans and ground them up. The coffee this made had a very strong, almost medicinal flavor which drowned out the flavor of the coffee (and which my husband refused to drink). I thought it was OK, but I think I should have used fewer seeds. The flavor lingered in the next several pots of coffee we made.
After that, I discovered that Turkish coffee is made by a different method. First, the coffee is ground to a very fine powder (or purchased pre-ground). Next, a full heaping teaspoon of the coffee is added to a very small copper pot and mixed with sugar and the water for one very small espresso-sized cup of coffee. The copper pot is held directly over a flame until it boils up, at which point it can be poured into a cup and served without any kind of filtration. This method creates a layer of foam at the top of the cup which shouldn't be disturbed by stirring (typically, no cream is added).In addition to cardamom coffee, I tried a few other Turkish recipes this month. I made red peppers stuffed with rice and hamburger, mung bean salad with nigella seeds, a butternut squash and apricot tagine, and orange baklava. I wasn't a fan of the tagine, but I loved the other recipes, two of which came from the book Purple Citrus & Sweet Perfume: Cuisine of the Eastern Mediterranean. Next I want to try helva, a pudding made from semolina and milk.
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