Appliance angst

Many years ago, over Thai food in San Francisco, I talked to one of my best friends about her unexpected anxiety over buying appliances with her then-boyfriend (now husband). They have a rock-solid relationship and were already living together at the time. What was the big deal about jointly owning a washer? But at a point in our lives when furniture still meant your college roommate's old hand-me-down futon, there was something a bit too, well, heavy about these hefty purchases, something a bit too "adult."

When I moved to Istanbul, I pared down what I'd acquired over the post-college decade (which, for the record, never included any appliances larger than a toaster), returning to a transient state I've kept justifying over nearly four years with the idea that I might not be here that long. Then, last month, I decided to abandon shared-flat living and get my own apartment.

Here in Turkey, unfurnished apartments are just that -- no refrigerator, no oven, nada in the way of what is called beyaz eşya (white goods). I'm considered lucky because my new place came with curtains and some light fixtures -- even some light bulbs. A bit of panic about the weightiness of appliance-shopping once again set in. It seemed so permanent, not to mention confusing. But with the help of a dear and trusted friend, I managed to muster up the courage to go shopping...

...and last night two men appeared at my door with a refrigerator and an oven. After crossing the threshold, they set down their bulky loads and carefully slipped shower-cap-like blue plastic booties over their shoes to protect my newly cleaned floors. They maneuvered the goods into the kitchen, told me how to set the fridge's temperature and clean its interior, showed me how to use the oven with its fancy press-button starter, and noted I needed to replace my gas hose. Then they left with a "Güle güle kullan" -- use it happily.

Does this mean I'm an adult now?

For every thing there is a season

Deep-red pomegranates hung heavily from countless trees along the Mediterranean coast in early October. Two months earlier, women sat by the side of the road in the Aegean town of Ayvalık, selling bags full of freshly clipped squash blossoms, delicate yellow flowers soon to be stuffed with rice and spices and served on local tables.

Traveling around Turkey, it's easy to see what fruits and vegetables are in season. Meat and fish too have their special times of year, with restaurants sticking handwritten signs in their windows to announce the arrival of hamsi (anchovies) or goose. Even in Istanbul, where you can get imported Granny Smith apples or out-of-season strawberries in large supermarkets, produce stands and carts overflow for a few weeks or months with the best of what's growing right now -- juicy cherries in the peak of the summer heat, tart citrus fruit to ward off the late fall chill, hearty brussels sprouts in the dead of winter.

Though what people eat around the world -- including in Turkey -- is becoming increasingly homogenized, food's link to a particular time and place seems stronger here than back in the United States. People many generations removed from rural life will readily tell you with pride that "their" village makes the best cheese, grows the tastiest apples, or is without a doubt the place to get superior pistachios. At the end of summer, the baggage areas of long-distance buses heading to Istanbul from all corners of Anatolia are full of evidence of this devotion -- canvas sacks of nuts and crates of fruit, carted back by visiting city dwellers who won't accept any substitutes for the true tastes of home.

NOTE: From famine and hunger to organic gardening and vegetarianism, bloggers around the world are writing about the past, present, and future of food for Blog Action Day, an annual event that seeks to focus attention on an important topic such as water, climate change, or poverty. Register online and get blogging to join today's global conversation about food.

Famished in Phaselis

Schedules may often be more like suggestions, "no"s may sometimes mysteriously turn into "yes"es, and procedures may change from day to day, but if there's anything you can count on in Turkey, it's that there will be a dolmuş (private minibus) going where you want to go, and that when you get there, someone will be selling something to eat.

So there was no reason to doubt the Lonely Planet Turkey guide when it said you could buy snacks at the site entrance to Phaselis, the ruins of an ancient city set along three small bays on Turkey's Mediterranean Coast.

"Snacks," though, turned out to be a cooler of sodas and a few overpriced candy bars. My faith in the certainties of Turkish travel badly shaken, I bought a Twix bar and headed onward. I had spent three hours on the dolmuş to get here; there would be no turning back in search of tost.

The ruins and beaches, fortunately, were exactly as advertised.

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Cellular confusion

Despite their many and long-held animosities, Turkey and Greece have a lot in common. Not that either of them would admit it. When I visited Athens a few years ago, people often stiffened noticeably when we told them we were from Istanbul, and then insisted we absolutely must try "Greek baklava," "Greek coffee," or "Greek kebab" -- all of which tasted pretty much exactly like their Turkish counterparts.

See my toes? They're in Turkey. That island offshore? That's Greece.

The similarities are so strong that while riding in a minibus on a winding road hugging the cliffs along Turkey's Mediterranean coast, even my cell phone got confused about exactly where it was.

"Sayin musterimiz, yurt disi operatorden sinyal almakta oldugunuz icin Turkcell Dunya tarifesi ile ucretlendirilmektesiniz," read the first in a barrage of text messages explaining call and SMS fees in Greece and touting the "avantaj" of Turkcell's international calling packages.

Dear customer, you are getting a signal from an international operator and will be charged Turkcell World fees...

The nearness of Greece is particularly keenly felt on Turkey's Aegean and Mediterranean coasts, where places like Ayvalık, Bozcaada, and Kalkan retain the distinctive architecture of their historical "Greek quarters," if not the residents, relocated in the population exchange of 1923. Near Fethiye, an entire town, Kayaköy, stands empty, its stone homes never re-inhabited after their owners were forced to leave. Continued saber-rattling today over Cyprus and an Aegean territorial dispute are further proof, though, that closeness doesn't always lead to comity.

Up the stairs and back in time

With its clean-swept sandstone steps and lush, well-tended foliage, this little neighborhood staircase could be located in any number of warm-climate, well-to-do communities around the world. I could easily see people in Los Angeles, or maybe Santa Fe, or even somewhere in Spain, walking up these stairs after work, and going home to one of the handful of houses lining the steps on both sides.

What these imaginary people wouldn't find at the top of those doppelgänger stairs, however, would be what these particular steps led to: a 2,000-year-old Lycian rock tomb, carved into the hillside above.

There was a pretty nice view of the sunset from the top too, but those aren't quite so unusual outside this beautiful and history-rich stretch of Turkish Mediterranean coastline.

TO VISIT: This tomb, and some less-well-preserved ones nearby, are easy to get to from the town center in Kaş, though you won't find any signs until right at the base of the steps.

Go up from the town square on Uzun Çarşi Cad. (you'll pass an impressive free-standing sarcophagi dating to the same era on the way) until you see the big Phellos Health Club on your right. Turn left on Likya Cad. and continue uphill until you reach the tombs.

İftara davet

Amid the general hustle and bustle of a 550-plus-person-capacity ferry traveling to Istanbul on a Saturday night, a few people quietly unwrap take-out packages of food, arranging each item carefully on the plastic table in front of them and then turning their focus intently to the flat-screen TVs hanging above the boat's lounge. Onscreen, a flashing countdown clock ticks off the minute iftar, the breaking of the Ramadan fast, begins in each of Turkey's provinces, moving from east to west with the setting sun.

While cars speed down Sıraselviler Caddesi in central Istanbul, two men open up a Tupperware container on the back hood of a taxi parked at the curb, ready to share a simple meal when the evening ezan rings through the air.

On a back street in Nişantaşi, a pair of security guards scurry outside with a small table on which to lay their iftar meal in the dimly lit courtyard in front of their workplace.

Unlike in countries where dawn-to-dusk fasting is nearly mandatory, and people adjust their schedules to a more nocturnal rhythm, these small scenes in Turkey are carried out following a normal workday, next to people eating, drinking, and smoking as usual. This year, they also occurred amid increased concern about an "iftar divide" between rich and poor in the evening Ramadan meal. Though the debate could perhaps be compared to the annual appearance of pundits in the United States saying the "real meaning" of Christmas is being lost under a pile of wrapping paper and empty eggnog cups, the wrestling over whether lavish meals defeat the spiritual purpose of Ramadan also has a strong thread of social justice running through it.

Image from the program "İftara davet" on 24 Haber.

The tale of the disappearing tables

Tucked as it is down a sparsely populated, dimly lit alley on the second floor of a unremarkable-looking building, it's often hard to tell if there's anyone home at Mohti. Pushing open the door tonight and peeking my head inside, I saw only the usually gregarious owner of the cozy Black Sea meyhane, hunched over a laptop in the far corner of the room.

"Are you open?" I asked.

"We're open, but we don't have any customers," he said, rising to shake our hands. "It's because of Asmalımescit... I'm sure you know about it."

We did. For the past month, tables and chairs have been forcibly removed from sidewalks and patio areas at bars, cafes, restaurants -- even closet-sized kitchens serving up scrambled eggs for breakfast -- throughout what had been central Istanbul's liveliest district. Rumors still swirl about what sparked the "masa operasyonu" (table operation), as the Turkish press breathlessly dubbed the ongoing events in Beyoğlu. Had the business owners failed to pay the required bribes? Had the country's teetotaling prime minister, enraged at the sight of people drinking on the street, himself ordered the crackdown? Would it all blow over after Ramadan?

Whatever the impetus, streets that used to be pulsing with people into the wee hours of the night are now empty of everything but stray cats and some old plastic bags blowing through like synthetic tumbleweeds.

"It's very bad, all black and white. No middle way," I said, shaking my head sympathetically. Yesterday, the progressive news site Bianet reported that 2,000 people have lost their jobs due to the sweep, which hit businesses during the busy summer months, when Istanbullus live as much of their life as they can out of doors. Mohti never had any outdoor tables, but has been abandoned along with the rest of the area.

"We don't really have a menu right now. I'll just bring some things and if you don't want them, I'll take them back," the owner said, even more solicitously than usual.

Out came a small plate of tangy cheeses. A large bowl of salad tossed with mint and hot peppers. Fresh-baked Georgian börek with potatoes. A savory pancake made from brined hamsi and shredded vegetables. Baked palamut, de-boned at the table. And, finally, a plate of watermelon slices.

We didn't send anything back. After politely declining a cup of Turkish coffee to top the evening off, we left the restaurant, as empty as it was when we came in.

Better things to do with a can (or bottle) of Efes than drinking it

Make a row of clanking "wind chimes" for your garden:

Gülpinar, Turkey

Cut it into strips and turn it into a model airplane, as in this Efes-sponsored art exhibition:

Via: My Modern Metropolis

Stack up cases containing 72,000 bottles in a pyramid shape inside an art museum, then invite visitors to climb the sculpture and consume its contents:

Photos: KW Institute for Contemporary Art

The artist, Cyprien Gaillard, described the work as a commentary on the destruction and displacement of the Pergamon Altar at the original "Efes" (Ephesus, to most tourists). I call it a clever way to get other people to drink your Efes beer for you.

The original Twitter*

A dear friend back home recently ran across a postcard I had sent from a long-ago work trip to mining-blighted rural West Virginia and wanted to read the message I had penned back to me over the phone. The trip had made a strong emotional impression on me and I cringed inwardly at the thought of hearing what banalities my eight-years-earlier self had seen fit to pen. Surprisingly, the few sentences I had jotted down really seemed to capture the feelings that my time in and around Whitesville, WV, had evoked.

I know I've written my share of trite "XXX is beautiful, wish you were here" notes on the back of postcards, but the chance to pair a few pithy -- but funny, heartfelt, informative, or otherwise meaningful -- words with an appropriate keepsake picture keeps me firmly in the camp of those practicing the lost art of postcard writing, as a recent New York Review of Books essay described it.

Travel blogger Doug Mack complained, and rightfully so, about essayist Charles Simic's seeming contention that the doddering elderly are the last keepers of the postcard-writing flame, but the piece is otherwise a loving tribute and the flurry of comments it inspired show that postcard fandom is alive and plenty creative.

On my first trip abroad, writing postcards gave me a reason to linger in dauntingly sophisticated-seeming cafes or bars without feeling so horribly lonely and out of place. It's sent me poking through dusty shops in small Turkish towns for something to remember an obscure destination by. Perhaps best of all, it's led me to some very memorable places: An imposing concrete monument to Soviet bureaucracy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan (top); a battered and weathered trailer in Dead Horse, Alaska (above); a grandly renovated 17th-century caravansaray in Mardin, Turkey (left). All post offices.

* Props for the post title idea to "james," a commenter on the NYRB article.

Opportunism amid tragedy

While everyone else* has been praising Norway's compassionate, measured response to the horrific massacre it recently endured, some Turkish officials have been appallingly quick to try and use the deadly attacks for their own political gain.

EU Minister Egemen Bağış -- a man a Turkish colleague joked is considered "the village idiot" amongst his European peers -- was first out of the gate, essentially arguing less than a week after the bloody deaths of 76 people that the tragedy could have been prevented if only stubborn old Europe had seen the error of its ways sooner and let Turkey join its club.

"The seeds of hatred and racism that have triggered these attacks can be destroyed by Turkey’s EU membership," Bağış told the semi-official Anatolia news agency. "[The] EU cannot ignore its responsibility by solely condemning the attacks or releasing messages of sorrow."

Even while purportedly expressing his condolences to Norway, the minister apparently couldn't help but get in another dig -- this one at Norway itself for allegedly not taking seriously enough demonstrations led by supporters of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, during a visit by the Turkish prime minister. "We have seen the point this tolerance has reached today," Bağış said.

Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç jumped on the bandwagon Thursday, raising the specter of confessed killer Anders Behring Breivik's Internet-acquired bomb-making skills to defend an online filtering plan that has been roundly criticized as an infringement on free expression.

Opposition parties, usually quick to denounce any perceived slight by government officials, thus far seem to be letting these blatant bits of political opportunism slide.

* Admittedly, I'm really only following the Turkish news these days. Any bad behavior been spotted among politicians from other countries in response to the Norway attacks? Or have any Turkish news outlets called Bağış and Arınç out on their comments?