(<- Photo, Tijen İnaltong)Hellooooooo,
My last post was in June, 17. Today I forgot the password first and I couldn't find how I was doing the small wave just before Ç! It is obvious that I am OK with creativity but I need to go long long long with punctuality.... Although I don't write I do many Arakhnes things, hopefully :) I prepared an executive summary for you to give an idea of two months
before we see each other next week in Burhaniye:
1) Apricot fest: Our next door neighbour is Tijen İnaltong, a food writer whom I known for 4 years from her workshops, books and her yahoo groups. She recommended the house - i must say bungalow- which we rented for this summer. There was "an" apricot tree in their garden and in June and early July we produced almost every kind of side-product from these apricots: Sun-dried as you seen in pictures, marmelades, pestil ( dried layers of fruit pulp as it is explained in the dictionary), juice and icecream - you may taste this last one!- You may find the link for Tijen's blog just below:
http://mutfaktazen.blogspot.com/
2) Weddings: In mid-June, there were two and in August, 11 there was one wedding ceremony. The first bride was my close relative and next door neighbour in mother's house, the second bride is younger of sisters whom we met in our Greece tour in Thessaloniki, just before to meet you! The older of the sisters is my friend in the States where i spent my 5-6 weeks together this year. So as you see my Greek visit yielded 3 good friends for me! The third bride is my ex-intern in the consultancy job, but she is like a cousin for me, and another coincidence after the internship she started to work in Yapı Kredi Bank which I worked for 4-5 years and her colleagues are my ex-colleagues at the same time. Small world! (I realized that I attended the first wedding in June, 27 in Gönen the town famous of needle laces in South Marmara)
http://gonenoyasi.sitemynet.com/ ( I found this site just i was looking a page for ypu to show Gonen, it is interesting, again Turkish, just surf. The name of the site is "oya" of Gonen, in one of your postings you did mention about the etimology of lace, oya etc. I love to talk about this issue, let's keep it to face to face)
Although to be in 4 different ceremonies ( 2 quite traditional, 2 more modern), I would like to write about "kına gecesi", unfortunately i couldn't load the original photos, so the info and photos from net. Kına means "henna" and this ceremony focuses on farewell of bride to exactly to her mother, own family and the objective is to make mother&daughter to cry. Now I am realizing that it is very psychodramatic way of eliminating the catharsis of especially the bride who is going to be in a totally new environment, if you think traditional families.
This brief explanation from the official site of Ministry of Culture, is you find time to visit you will see more about authentic marriage rituals: http://www.discoverturkey.com/english/kultursanat/halk-dugun.html
Night Next Before The Wedding Day, A Women’s Entertainment Where Bride’s Fingers Are Freshly Tinged With Henna ( Kına Gecesi):
This night in which the bride will be together with her family, relatives and friends all of which are women is just before the day of fetching bride as known the main wedding day. This night which is called “Kına Gecesi” is celebrated in the bride’s home. The bridegroom’s family and other guests are met and hosted in the bride’s home.
Usually dry henna brought by the bridegroom’s family is broken to pieces in a silver or cupper vessel by a woman whose father and mother alive, not experienced any separation. After preparing the bride, veil ornamented with red flake is placed over her head, and she is brought into the middle with accompaniment of hymn, folk songs about henna. Hands and feet of the bride are dyed with henna. The bridegroom’s side is under the obligation to put money in the hand of the bride. Dying ceremony of henna is different according to regions. The henna so dyed has such names and types as “iplik kınası” (henna for yarn), “sıvama” (smearing), “kuşgözü” (bird eye).
After leaving woman who came together for dying henna close friend of the bride remain with her and enjoy themselves till morning.
3) Olive oil
I am not going to write anything new about this divine gold liquid, however i will share with you the new tastes in Ayvalık and Burhaniye with Tijen's guidance. İnşallah, we will stop there with you, too.
The first one is Laleli, and my favorite is olive oils with original aromas, in which the aromatic herb or fruit is squeezed at the same time with olives, lemon and olive are processed at the same time for example.
http://www.zeytinim.com/engindex.aspx
The second is "Kürşat" and their olive pastes are delicious, unfortunately i couldn't find them on the internet, so you will see live!
That's all for this month, until see you next week.
