Iyi Bayramlar!

When we lived in Karachi we tried our best not to be in town for bakra Eid, and I have to say I haven't really missed Eid in Karachi much. On Eid day (or kurban bayram here) the boys all went off to the Yeni Camii in Eminonu for namaz (interestingly the so-called new mosque in Istanbul dates from the early 1600s). R remarked on how wonderful it was to say the eid prayers in a beautiful mosque, its hugh vaulted ceilings giving the recitations a new musicality. Inwardly I breathed a sigh of relief we now have other alternatives than the rabid khutba at Sultan masjid or the tense security situation at the Imambargah. Qais was relieved they didn't have to stay for the khutba since it was in Turkish!

We are lucky enough to get 6 days off for the bayram holidays and decided to make the most of it, exploring our wonderful new home. So today we packed a picnic and set off to the Asian side, to the Black Sea towns of Sile and Agva.

The promenade at Sile

 Sile, (pronounced Sheelay) is a lovely little beach town, with a few seaside restaurants and a pier leading up to a little lighthouse. It is pretty deserted today, even though it is a sunny, warm day apparently it is not the season for swimming in the Black Sea!

We leave Sile to drive for another hour or so through back country lanes, winding through forests of pine and cinar trees. The air is fresh and perfumed with pines, ferns and moss. For the first time I experience dappled sunlight. Quite magical. Unfortunately, the twisty lanes don't do so much for I and her car-sickness and the drive to Agva (pronounced Aava) seems longer than it is. And then suddenly the forest abruptly ends in the Black Sea.

An inlet where locals try their hand at fishing

Palamut (bonito) is in season and it doesn't get fresher than this!

 After a lovely afternoon of walking along the water and stopping for ice creams we decide to drive back, but H insists on a trek through the forest on our way home and it is a lovely walk, cut short only by the fading light.

 I pick some wild blue crocuses and some other purple-y weeds with a couple of oak leaf twigs to take home, a little reminder of our stroll through the woods. On the way home we seem to drive into the setting sun- a magnificent artwork of lavender, powder blue, yellow, orange and the deepest ruby. And from the back I says "you know clouds really do make the most beautiful shapes." And it feels so right to be here, now.

Brewing a cup of Turkish tea

Everyone knows about Turkish coffee, but here it's really all about cay. Everywhere you go in Istanbul you see people sitting around sipping tea. I too seem to have acquired a taste for Turkish tea and decided to make some at home. Brewing Turkish cay is not to be taken lightly- in fact it took me the better part of the day to get one just right.

First you have to start with where you're planning on drinking it. Ideally it should be an outdoor spot, and preferably one with a view. We are lucky enough to have just such a spot with a view of Asia (unfortunately for R, we just miss out on a sighting of the Bosphorus), and it just so happened that today was the day that the store finally decided to deliver our newly-bought garden table and chairs. So it seemed like a good day to try my hand at tea.

Before we even start talking which tea leaves we have to ponder teapots. Authentic Turkish cay must be brewed in a double teapot. The system is somewhat akin to the Russian samovar- you basically brew tea in the little pot on top and then dilute it to your liking with the water boiling below. The steam from the lower pot helps brew the tea. It is symptomatic of Istanbul that it is easier to find an electric double cay teapot or caydanlik than the old-fashioned kind, but at least I have the necessary tools.

Caydanlik

Now for the tea. When we were moving, many well-wishing Pakistani expats warned us to bring our own tea from home since according to them the local brew was undrinkable. Maybe it is because R and I don't drink much tea back home that we haven't really missed our desi karak chai, but to make authentic Turkish cay you must get Turkish tea leaves, and siyah cay- none of the green tea variety. You have to add one teaspoon of tea leaves for every cup you are planning on making and wash the leaves thoroughly in a strainer to get rid of any powder. Then you add the tea leaves to the top pot and fill the lower pot with water. Once the lower pot has boiled, you pour water from it onto the tea leaves and put both pots together again, letting the tea leaves steep in the pot for a good 15 minutes. Well prepared Turkish tea should not have a horrible astringent after-taste because the tea leaves are never allowed to overcook, they are merely gently heated via steaming.

While waiting for the tea to brew you can start readying your cups. Turkish tea cups are tulip-shaped glasses, and are considered the best shape for tea. The depth and narrow mouth keep the tea hot for as long as possible and the flared out lip allow you to hold the glass without burning your fingertips. Ideally the glasses should be Pasabahce , accompanied by their little plates and tiny spoons. Turkish cay should be served with sugar cubes rather than granules, simply for the aesthetic pleasure of watching the cube melt into the garnet liquid.

If you still have a few minutes to wait spend them reading the English version of instructions that came with the caydanlik. After lines and lines of almost incomprehensible commands we get to the crux of the matter: "Tea steeping is a process that everyone knows..." hmm.

Once you have steeped your tea to your taste, you pour it into the glass, either 1/3 or 2/3 of the way up- depending on how strong you want your tea and then fill up the glass with the steaming water from the pot below. And voila here's your cup of perfect Turkish cay with view to match...just don't plan to do it in a hurry!

Fig jam

We have rented a car- a little Hyundai Accent. It is a big change from my wonderful Toyota RAV 4 (who I miss soooo much), but it gets the job done. I was a little nervous to drive in Turkey, what with the left-hand drive, really steep gradients, not knowing the ways and not speaking the language, but having Abbu over was a big help. He'd sit next to me and navigate and not freak out even when I drove over curbs as I clung dangerously close to the right side of the road.

I am getting more and more comfortable driving around and exploring my immediate neighborhood and today after dropping R to the metro stop managed to find the local farmer's market. It certainly isn't as glamourous as it sounds- more sabzi mandi than California if you know what I mean- but oh the produce...

I can say my numbers in Turkish up to 20, which is only mildly helpful and means that I can only purchase things in kilos as I still can say half! So I could buy 5 apples but had to buy a kilo of figs. I absolutely adore fresh figs and figs, goat cheese, honey and black pepper is a combination made in heaven. But these figs are gorgeously ripe- already bursting at the seams and even I can't down a kilo of figs before they start to rot. So off to the local pazar I went for some tarcin and seker to make some jam. (Am really good at buying things that sound the same as in Urdu: incir for figs, tarcin for cinnamon, seker for sugar) and even found some jam jars and lids on sale- so clearly making jam is the thing to do come the end of summer.

My earliest memories of homemade jam date back to childhood summers in Quetta. During the summer we would always go spend a couple of days at the ancestral family home in Pishin with Aunty Jennifer. The house had several old apricot trees and the apricots were the more golden, fragrant variety- perfect for jam. Amma would always bring back some and we would help her split them into halves for jam. She would also crack a few kernels to mix in with the jam, which made it seem so luxurious and unlike any shop-bought stuff. After we moved to France Amma came to visit one summer and we went strawberry picking, bringing back 5 kilos of the stuff- which she quickly converted into a rather runny but delicious jam.

Getting ready

So here I am, making fig jam in my very basic kitchen- I have no recipe and no way to weigh the sugar- so am just going by instinct. I have quartered the figs, grated in some lemon zest, squeezed in the lemon and thrown in a couple of cinnamon sticks with around a cupful of sugar. It is all bubbling away, perfuming the kitchen quite nicely. The color has changed from a pretty blush pink to a decadent plummy wine, and I think it has gelled quite nicely.

A little hot dollop on a crust of organic bread is heavenly. 

I quickly pour it into my two waiting jars, when I have a eureka moment and I reach into the fridge for some yogurt purchased just this morning. How unctuous is this: (and don't you love the glass pot it is sold in? I just can't get over the fact that the figs came in an old-fashioned paper bag, the milk comes in bottles and the yogurt is glass pots).

A few tablespoons of rich, thick yogurt topped with a scoop of fresh fig jam....can't get more moreish than this :) Here's to an afternoon well spent! 

Ekmek kumaş ev

We have been in Istanbul for a week now, and what a week it has been. The good news is that all three kids are happily settled into the respective schools. All of them come and go by bus- even little Hatim. 

Home-to-be

The rest of the news is not so unequivocally sunny. We are still living in temporary accommodation. We have had the keys to our new "home" for a few days, but this home is far from ready to receive us. In interesting Turkish fashion, rentals have no light fixtures or cupboards. Plus we needed beds so it seemed logical to head out to IKEA. Luckily for me, my parents decided to arrive in Istanbul a few days after us to help us settle in. So Wednesday evening Abbu convinced me to try and find our way to the IKEA in Bayrampaşa. First we took a taxi to the metrobus stop, then the bus across the Golden Horn (Haliç) and further up into terra incognita. We then changed on to a surface train and finally made it to Forum Istanbul. The IKEA in Istanbul is weirdly unsettling- so much is familiar and yet all is alien. At least we managed to pick up basic light fixtures. 

Few cities do pretty like Istanbul

On Thursday I returned with Mama and Abbu, taking a prettier route this time- the tram from Kabataş to Aksaray and then the train. What happened next hardly bears retelling. Suffice it to say that 8 hours later when we emerged from IKEA we no longer thought of shopping as retail therapy! In those interminable hours we managed to get beds for the boys, Iman and a bed for the guest room. We also managed to order a bunch of cupboards and pick up all the essentials to get a kitchen going. Never before have I felt so frustrated by the lack of language skills. 

Our empty room

Over this week we have started to grow more familiar with our new city, even hopping on to public transport and hazarding the odd word or two of our exceedingly limited Turkish vocabulary, but unfortunately I have very little to report on the roti, kapra, makan front (or ekmek, kumaş, ev as it must be from now on). Most of our meals have been sourced in the food court next door (although we did roast a chicken tonight), there is very little kapra of any kind in this serviced flat and the makan has a long way to go. 

Messy goodbyes

I had imagined my last week in Karachi to be seven days filled with revisiting favorite parts of the city; eating at all my old haunts; sharing memories with good friends and indulging in some last minute shopping.

Gone

The reality has been quite different. For one this has been among the filthiest weeks of my life- the house is a sea of packing material, dustballs and Coke cans. It is astonishing just how much stuff one can accumulate in almost five years, and even more shocking how many scraps of paper, random receipts and scribbled notes I have managed to squirrel away in every nook and cranny of my house, possibly fueled by all that Coke! And then there has been the sorting- what to take, what to sell. At first I shed a tear over every item I was to be parted with, but soon enough the nostalgia wore off and a certain ruthlessness set in; three weeks later I just want people to take the stuff away, preferably in cartloads. So the thought of shopping and adding to the load of cartons and knick knacks is frankly nauseating.

The list of essential things to be done is forever growing, so taking time out to stroll around Empress Market or take a last carriage ride on Bunder Road is looking highly unlikely. Fortunately, we have been able to squeeze in a few hurried coffees and dinners with friends, which has definitely helped. We had one very memorable evening with some very dear friends, sitting on broken mooras, our glasses perched on an upside down packing carton. It makes me happy to know the glasses we drank from are now at that friend's house :)

It's all got to go

It is almost the end of our Karachi adventure, and what a ride it has been. Goodbyes are never easy for me, so rather than reflecting on all that (or more precisely all those) I am leaving behind, I'm just going to focus on what comes next...see you all in Istanbul. xxx

Goodnight Karachi. 

A bittersweet meethi Eid

This may be our last Eid in our own home in Karachi for a long time. I don't quite know how I feel about it. I don't do Ramzan (abstinence not being my thing), but I can't seem to ignore its existence completely try as I may, so Eid always comes as a relief. I loved Eid as a child, especially the ones in Pakistan. I love all the rituals of Eid- the planning of the joras, chaand raat, the preparation of holiday treats, eidi envelopes, even the nonsensical and chaotic shenanigans of the Ruet-e-Hilal committee...


Over the years R and I have made our own Eid rituals. Occasionally we have a chaand raat party for our friends and kids' friends- mehndi, chooris, phuljharis, and good old Hanif Rajput catering- a couple of nights before Eid. The actual eve of Eid is far too busy, Eid being one of the few times in the year when all our help is off. As soon as the gunfire erupts (I haven't ever understood our desi penchant for celebratory violence) we know tomorrow will be Eid and it is time to get the haleem pot out. I don't know if haleem is traditionally an Eid dish, but we've always made it because it's something we love and don't usually get around to making and because it's convenient to have lying around over Eid. I love my haleem pot- it is positively gargantuan, reminiscent of the magic porridge pot of fairy tale, it is earthenware and it is blue <3.

Haleem pot

The lavazmaat

Ready to eat :)

I love cooking haleem; the six hours or so that it slowly simmers helps while away the last roza and I love the gentle work of slicing onions, coriander, chillies, and lemons. This year R and I are off to Turkey the day after Eid, so figure we may as well open the last roza with haleem. This year is different in a couple of other respects too- first the gunfire actually hits our cable connection, so there goes the TV and internet, and then Rahman Malik, in his infinite wisdom decides that shutting off mobile phone connections may be a good way to prevent terrorist attacks. The result is chaos as no one knows the timings for eid prayers, and there is a scramble for long-lost phone books while we track down people's landline numbers to coordinate.

Not everyone is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 7:00 am

The ingredients

Eid morning is a rush getting the boys up and into their white shalwar kurtas in time for the 7:30 am Eid namaz. While the boys are gone, I get to work on the sevaiyan. I love the smell of sevaiyan cooking on eid morning-  the sweet cardamom-infused milk, the silky strands of vermicelli, the freshly toasted almonds and pistachios...

Eid breakfast

Once the sevaiyan are ready, I start on the chicken liver- again not traditionally an Eid thing, but one of our rituals. Normally during the year R and I have breakfast together after the school run and before he goes off to work- during Ramzan I miss our breakfasts and therefore the first breakfast after Ramzan needs to be a bit of a production. We only ever have this breakfast once a year- chicken livers marinated in garlic, methi, ajwain, crushed red chillies, coriander seeds, salt and pepper and then lightly sauteed and served with fresh coriander and lime on wholegrain toast, washed down with freshly squeezed grapefruit juice and super strong black coffee.


I've barely finished putting everything out on the breakfast table when the boys are back from the masjid with their giant balloons- apparently there is a balloon-wallah outside the mosque every Eid (a good incentive for the boys to get to namaz). Soon we'll dress to go to Nani's for Eid lunch, but while I drink my coffee I wonder what our next eid- or Seker Bayram- will be like. What rituals will we keep and which new ones will we acquire?

The boy with the blue balloon

I know I will take my haleem pot with me, but there are some things I'm happy to leave behind. The last few days of Ramzan have been marred by the killings of Shias in the north of the country and even in Karachi. The incident in the north is particularly chilling- when the passengers in the bus refused to identify which of their fellow travelers were Shia the attackers demanded people's ID cards and shot those whose names appeared to be Shia. In the past R has often taken the children to the local Imambargah for Eid namaz, where even Iman is welcomed, unlike at our local mosque, but now he doesn't, aware of my unspoken fears.

My friend Romina writes this greeting on her Facebook page


"Eid Mubarik to all
May this be peaceful,
May us as a nation be forgiven for the excesses we have apathetically allowed and let tolerance and reason reign"

And it is true. We have stood by and done nothing when Pakistani Christians have been persecuted under the blasphemy laws, we have allowed Pakistani Ahmedis to be branded non-Muslims and murdered in their places of worship, we have watched Pakistani Hindus slowly crossing the border to avoid forced conversions, and now we silently allow the brutal murder of Pakistani Shias. I hope it isn't too late for us for tolerance and reason, but I suspect a day may come when my husband and children are no longer welcome or safe in my country. One of my grandfathers spoke at the Lahore Resolution and fought with the Quaid for the creation of Pakistan, my other grandfather served to protect this country's borders; my father has spent over forty years serving Pakistan at home and abroad- but the Pakistan they stood for is fast becoming a chimera.

The little things that make a home

We have been discussing this move to Istanbul for over a year now. So when the final decision was made I thought myself well-prepared. Much though I love Karachi, after nineteen years I think I'm ready for a change.

I am used to moving around- as kids we moved a lot- and very often on shorter notice than we have now. Even during our fifteen years of married life we have moved houses often- all three of our kids were "born" in a different house (they were born in hospitals but you know what I mean). Five years ago we decided to finally buy a house and stop moving and in these last few years we made 4 B-2 our home. This was truly home- the only home all three of our kids have known.

It has taken time to make a garden- trying to make it look old and well-established as quickly as possible, and it has taken even longer to get the interiors right. Our home has always been a work-in-process. We love change and since we tend not to be very expensive things, preferring the used to the new, we have often edited our interior spaces. But for the first time in fifteen years we know our next home will be smaller and there are many things we will not be able to take with us. Storage is an option, but somehow it feels wrong. After all we acquired many of these things from other people- and have enjoyed the fact that they came well-loved, with stories to tell. It seems cruel to shut them up.

So, often with great reluctance and a tug at the heart, I made a list of things that had to go. We are having an open house this Friday- letting our friends come and pick out things that they like. I hope these chairs and tables, cabinets and dressers find good homes, and that they continue to give joy to their new owners. Here I'd like to say goodbye to a few favorites.

The "altar"

This is the first thing you see when you enter my house. A Buddha head sits on top with diyas and bowls of flowers. The two side drawers house incense, candles and matches. Th cupboard has a basket or rolled cotton wicks for divas and a big tin of coconut oil to burn. When I first "met" this piece it had been painted blue and had a trunk sitting on top of it. Apparently it was a linen cupboard of sorts in a Memon house. The trunk stored quilts and the cupboard sheets. I acquired both, but trunk and cabinet have always led separate lives in my house, and now the trunk will go to Istanbul while I hope my "altar" cabinet brings peace to its next home too!

The garden bench

This is an old-fashioned garden bench (i.e it weighs a ton) with lovely scrolly iron ends and teak slats and big fat nails holding it together. It really is comfortable to sit on and ever since the foliage has been allowed to grow around it, it seems more a part of the landscape than a piece of furniture. I bought it over a decade ago because it reminded me of park benches in the Parc Monceau in Paris. 

The cane daybed

When I first saw this piece we lived in a smaller house and I worried about where it would fit in, but I knew I wanted it, it is elegantly old-fashioned and yet so contemporary. I love caned furniture- I find the lack of upholstery perfect for hot, humid Karachi- and for a husband allergic to dust mites! Since we moved into this house the daybed has lived in my room and I have spent many afternoons lying reading on it- am so glad it is going to another great reader!

The hallway bench

I can't even remember how long I've had his bench. I first fell in love with the lovely old tile inset. It is quite an unusual design- the turquoise and celadon combination. The bench is delightfully sturdy and over the years has born the brunt of ever heavier school bags. This is where everything is dumped as we enter the house and now, having already agreed to sell it, am beginning to have second thoughts!

The squashy sofa

Can you tell how well-loved this sofa has been? It is one of a pair that sit opposite each other in our study- the most used room in our house. The pair started off their lives in my parents' home- they commissioned them and if I remember well they were covered in the most wonderful elephant bedecked fabric. When my parents moved to Rome for a few years I made very free with their things back home and shamelessly helped myself to these sofas. I re-upholstered them and still remember my mother disagreeing with my choice of fabric- saying it would be filthy in a week. The fabric has stood up rather well to the test of time and multiple grubby children with cheetos-coloured fingers!

Thanks for dropping by, and leave a comment if you have similar attachments to your furniture :) And come by the Open House on Friday!