Friday, December 12, 2008

Chestnuts and persimmons

Thanks for all the pumpkin soup ideas! I am definitely going to try adding some curry powder this week (getting more pumpkin at the market tomorrow) and I like the sound of adding some chilli and ginger. Yum!

Well I haven't been around here in a little while for a couple of reasons. This week is a national holiday here in Turkey for Kurban Bayrami - The Sacrifice Feast - where rams and cows are sacrificed. The traditions is that 1 third of the meat is cooked immediately, another third is given to the poor and another third distributed among relatives and neighbours. Of course I think that sharing the meat with the poor is a wonderful practice, and I like to think that I am pretty open to different cultures and practices, but...ah... I'm not so into the slaughter part. Don't worry - no photos here. In the morning we saw lots of cows in the back of trucks, but when Senol's family were calling me to see the slaughter in the backyard (a butcher came to the house to do it) I was like 'no way!' and hid in the living room with Yashar.

The other reason I have been MIA is that Yashar got a pretty nasty infection, and has been though a lot the last couple of days, including very high fevers, night time rushes to hospital, a blood test, cold baths (the paracetamol and ibuprofen wasn't working in getting his fever down) and generally getting poked and prodded too much :( He was such a good little trooper. Although he cried during the tests and cold baths, and even though his fever got as high as 39.6C, he soon gave us sleepy little smiles when we showed him the fish in the aquarium at the hospital. Poor little man. The doctor and nurses were fantastic and I am happy to say that he is recovering well.

So instead of taking photos of cows being sacrificed and an anxious visit to the hospital, I thought you would prefer some more photos of our neighbourhood that I took on a little walk and drive we went on just before all this. Warm chestnuts, winding narrow streets, the Bosphorus and persimmons hanging like lanterns from the tree.

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