Lost in Translation, Candies, and More!

It's customary to hire a gardener out here. They will plant whatever flowers and vegetables you want and tend to them throughout the year. They also wash your car once a week, move your garbage cans to the street twice a week for pick-up, and are around for any random maintenance you may need.

Daniel got very excited by the idea of having a green lawn; lawns in Albuquerque? Not so much. (But we still love Abq!) The climate and soil are perfect and the self-help center provides the grass seed. However, Daniel was warned that unless you specify, the gardener would simply throw the seed on top of the current lawn and the seed would then be eaten by the ants and birds. We forgot to say anything, and sure enough, the seed was just thrown on top of the weeds. So Daniel told me to tell the gardener to dig up the lawn and we would get more seed. Although he was extremely reluctant, the gardener said, "He's the boss." That afternoon, Anu opened the door to find three men with shovels tilling our front yard! Daniel had basically meant to aerate the lawn but he wasn't sure if they would understand the word.  So instead, the gardener took "dig it up" very literally! Well, hopefully we'll have the greenest lawn in the spring!

No, we're not planting corn!

Anu also stopped by a few shops in old Adana recently.  The streets are organized into shopping districts where all the bread shops are on one street, the dress shops on another, the jewelry stores on another, etc. Window shopping down there is just so much fun! However, pedestrians do not have the right of way here, so dodging traffic is part of the experience! As promised, Anu took pics this time around!
 
Below is a picture of a candy store Anu visited. That wall of sweets is mostly filled with Turkish delights, a specialty candy made with honey and nuts. They come in all different flavors like pomegranate, banana, and carrot and are sometimes coated in dried coconut or sesame seeds. The candy hanging from the ceiling is actually made with molasses.

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Candy store in Old Adana

Mimi and I ate ourselves silly with all the free samples of Turkish Delight!

Below is one of Anu's favorite shops. This man carves all these gorgeous chests, pashmina boxes and puzzle boxes by hand. He learned as a boy from his father and has been making these for 50 years! He has since passed the tradition on to his son who has his own shop around the corner. The pashmina boxes have glass sides so you can see all the beautiful scarves folded inside.

What works of art!

The women's Bible study from the base chapel went to a restaurant right off base where we learned how to make Turkish food! They invited us right into the kitchen where we saw them make cheese bread in a large brick oven and Turkish salad drizzled with pomegranate juice. Then we learned how to make Chicken Tava. They make them in individual dishes as they say that makes it more flavorful.

So fresh and delicious!

Chicken Tava

Chicken Tava
cubed chicken              cumin                                                   butter
mushrooms                  red pepper                                            cheese
minced garlic               salt and pepper
green peppers              tomato paste and pepper paste with water

Of course, no blog post is complete without at least one baby pic!

Time for some tummy time on our new playmat!