[Ok. I wrote that last night only to be interrupted by the dynamic duo and a text from Aydın flipping out and telling me he’d be over around midnight.]
It seems a little irrelevant to be sitting at my airport gate looking at the Turkish Air planes load and unload and type out a description of the dinner Aydın made me on Saturday night, but girl’s gotta have priorities. And fruit mongering / food consumption is always one of them. I should begin by saying that Saturday was one of the weirdest days ever. And I don’t know what kind of crazy pheromones I’m exuding, but they seem to be deeply effective on Turkish men (and maybe, considering my luck in the past, only Turkish men.) Ömer asked me on Thursday night at my party if I would want to have dinner with him and Duran on Saturday, and loving both of them to bits, I immediately agreed. They’re both really funny, really interesting, and great conversationalists. I’m not gonna lie: I also love hanging out with Turkish men who know the cool, overlooked parts of the city. I might also love hanging out with Turkish men in general - it’s such a welcome break from being given the googly eye. So I jumped at the chance, and was genuinely looking forward to it. A few hours later, Aydın asked me if he could make me dinner on Saturday. I promise I’m not normally an over-committer, but I wanted to have my cake and eat it too, so I said yes. I was told even before I visited in April that if ever given the chance to dine at a Turk’s home, I must do so. I can follow that rule. So I got to class on Saturday morning, said hello to Ömer and Duran, and was then asked by Ömer if I would be interested in having lunch with him as well. I have about an hour and a half between my morning and my afternoon class and I usually just eat a second breakfast “sandvich,” but I figured... why not. What I didn’t anticipate was that it would be just me and Ömer, and that we would spend a large part of it gazing at each other over our baked potatoes, talking about his relationship with his girlfriend. Not only insisting on carrying my backpack, he also insisted on paying for lunch, opening every door in sight, and then offering me his coat when he thought I was cold. We walked down to the seaside and talked about his favorite directors, photography, Turkish economics. It almost felt like a slightly awkward second date. Standing outside of school a few minutes before my next lesson, I decided to take the plunge and ask Ömer why he wanted to marry his girlfriend. He’s 24 (and so is she) and it just seems a little hasty to me. Much to my surprise, he wasn’t offended in the least and took a minute to reflect before answering. And his answer was... disheartening. The list was long. An the list didn’t include the word “love.” Not even once. I can see from how they interact that they obviously love one another and they’re very openly affectionate, but it seems more a matter of practicality for him than anything else. And that’s one cultural difference I just can’t get behind. We parted and I went to my second class which was disappointingly shitty. I absolutely adore that group but they were being a bunch of sulky, lazy bastards. And I wasn’t having it. I walked out of class four hours later in a bit of a bad mood and saw a text from Ömer. Duran had bailed. I found Ömer waiting outside for me - alone. Again. He seemed upset. He said “I think Zuhal and I might break be breaking up.” Umm. Fuck. I gently prodded for an explanation. They had a fight - he can’t deal with her jealousy and he’s “not doing anything wrong.” Double fuck. What does that mean? Dinner with Ömer was an experience I’ll never forget. We got in a taxi and he took me to Florya, this part of the city next to the sea with a big park and a fancy restaurant where people have their wedding receptions. I wasn’t particularly hungry (and knew I couldn’t fill up) so Ömer suggested a little walk down to the sea.
*I promise this is all going somewhere. I promise. I also promise that I will talk about Aydın and his culinary skillz shortly.
We both commented that we had never seen such a dark night. The stars were hidden behind fog and only a ship with its night lights was visible on the water. To call this scene magical would be understating things. When Ömer suggested we walk down the little completely pitch black pier, I was almost afraid. Afraid of being swept up into the major romance of the moment, afraid of being swept up into his dark brown eyes and his five o’clock shadow. Dude is seriously, seriously sexy. Fortunately he’s also too much of a gentleman to try anything questionable with me and we made our way back to the restaurant for a cosy dinner. We talked about sooo many things - relationships, the Qur'an, day-to-day Islam, men and women. Sex. His family and his goals for the future. My family and my goals for the future. My fascination with İstanbul. My general thoughts on life. Our table was about three feet from a wedding party chowing down and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the women sitting there. Covered (hijab - no burkas or niqabs) with faces slathered in wedding makeup, and the most intricate pleated, embellished, dresses. The girls who were too young to cover had their hair done in these insanely complicated curls and braids and tucks and swoops. They looked like miniature prom queens, but somehow more beautiful. I’m pretty accustomed to seeing women covered from head to toe now, but seeing them in their fancy finery was bizarre. Ömer caught me staring and his “and... what’s the big deal?” expression on his face prompted me to ask him whether he would ever date a covered woman.
One of the most amazing parts of İstanbul is that you can see every shade of Islamic devotion, to put it clumsily. I see women in miniskirts and hooker-esque boots. I also see women who look like floating noses in bobbing black tents. Generally speaking, it seems like there’s some major hostility between the covered and un-covered. My American/Turkish friend Berna tells me that they hate each other, and as an un-covered woman, she herself has come to hate the covered. And to be honest and awful, I totally see her point. With more and more women covering as a political statement, the women who aren’t covered carry the brunt of the burden that is Turkish male attention. Several Turkish men have told me that when they see a headscarf, they just stop looking. Sounds terrible, but covered girls are invisible. And that’s part of the point. The dirty old man on the tram would never dare to pinch a covered woman’s ass, and yet mine he manages to justify grabbing. (True story.) Anyway. This is obviously a super sensitive subject, and it’s taken me this long to ask Ömer about it because he’s constantly talking about Allah and I assumed was pretty religious. I prefaced my question by stating that I hoped I wouldn’t offend him, and then I plowed forward. “Ömer, would you ever date a covered girl?” He looked at me confused for a second, and said “Why wouldn’t I? Both my mother and sister are covered.” FOOT IN MOUTH, ANYA. NICE ONE. I tried to brush it off as cultural curiosity but it definitely changed the dynamic a little. Of course being the wildly subtle and intelligent girl I am decided this would be a good time to ask him what the big deal about marrying a virgin was. Oops.
After about two hours of intense conversation, I told Ömer I needed to get going for the meeting I had with my friend. He got us a taxi and walked me to the gate leading up to my apartment. It was one of those scenes in a movie where the quiet, charming guy is deciding when and how to kiss the girl. Ömer didn’t - thank god - and instead told me he already missed me, and if I had any free time before my flight I should let him know. He’s a good guy. A really good guy.
Aydın picked me up about an hour after I said goodbye to Ömer, and it was with some nervousness that I got into his car and prepared myself for a trip to his apartment. As I’ve mentioned regarding Tarık, Turkish men and women don’t hang out alone together at their apartments. Usually because their parents are there and it would be awkward, but also because they’re sure it’ll lead to premarital shenanigans. (If you know what I mean and I know you do.) Well, Aydın isn’t a normal Turkish guy. For one, he lives alone and has since he was 19. And secondly, he offered to cook me dinner. Turkish men don’t cook. Their moms do it for them. Their wives and girlfriends and sisters do it for them. Most of them probably don’t even know how to work a washing machine. So he is clearly a bit different. When he showed up at my apartment, my friend Ido jokingly grilled him about the menu (since Ido mysteriously speaks Turkish perfectly) and from the back and forth and the raised eyebrows, I could tell I was in for an interesting evening. At one point, Ido said “I wish I could come!” We left, and when Aydın opened his door for me and I was immediately hit by a wave of scents - garlic, olive oil, the sharp (and ubiquitous) sharp tang of yogurt, onions, lemon juice. He’d already laid out several dishes of food and immediately began to heat up a big pot of soup. Aydın’s apartment used to be a small business of some kind and when he moved in, he got to design the place from scratch so it was pretty amazing to see him move fluidly around his kitchen - nothing out of place, nothing excessive or understocked. He invited me to sit at the little island he uses as a kitchen table and I plopped down on a bar stool and watched him work. As best as I can remember, this is what he made:
-shredded turnip with salt, pepper, and lemon juice. (I was totally afraid to try this but did and it was awesome.)
-Akdeniz salad with green onions
-a vegetable platter of sliced cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, and olives drenched in lemon juice and olive oil and some other mystery spices (delicious)
-roasted/braised eggplant and bell peppers in olive oil with roasted potatoes and cold yogurt on top (sounds super weird but was jaw-droppingly good)
-buttered rice with corn that he shaped into a pyramid and actually garnished right in front of me
-pea soup in a light tomato base with sautéed onions and pepper. I have no idea how he made the soup but it was so, so good.
-fresh bread (bought)
Everything was so, so good. Not knowing the etiquette, I did what my momma taught me and grabbed the plates and bowls and took a small portion out of each for my own plate. He laughed and told me to stop being so polite, to pick directly from the dishes. Sitting there with him was kind of unbelievable. I saw him adding salt to everything, and when I asked him why, he told me he’d under-done the salt because he remembered me saying I didn’t like how salty Turkish food can be. He remembered that from class. Can I just say WOW? When I’d eaten enough (“like a bird,” he said), he cleared the dishes (I wasn’t allowed to help) and pulled out two bowls from the refrigerator. He seemed a little nervous about what I’d think, but told me that he had actually asked his mom to make this dish for us. Called “aşure” (pronounced ash-oo-ray), it’s kind of a sweet bean/oaty/citrusy/crunchy porridge. Google it. It takes like five hours to make and has twenty ingredients. I admit I was highly skeptical when I saw the beans at the bottom, but it’s amazing. There are so many flavors and textures at work. Truly an experience. And to think that his mom made it - I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d told her anything about whom it was for.
Aside from the marvelous food, there was also lots of marvelous linguistic effort going on. Unfortunately, almost exclusively on his part. Now that I understand the alphabet and all of the funky letters (ö, ı, ş, ç, ğ, ü,) my Turkish pronunciation is pretty good and I can usually fool strangers into thinking I’m Turkish. Until they actually say anything beyond “hello” and “how are you.” Then the incomprehension dawns on my face and I have to spill the truth. Aydın jokes that I actually speak perfect Turkish and am hustling everyone for CIA-related purposes. Oh, would that I were. Instead, I’m pretty much a linguistic lump on a log. So I did a lot of sitting and listening while he bravely barreled through pretty personal conversation about himself.
You guys might think I’m getting a bit soft under the influence of all of these charming Turkish men, but truth be told I merely appreciate how different they are from the French people I met. I have been that awkward person blundering my way through foreign grammar, feeling like an inferior idiot for not having mastered the language I lived in. And yet here are these people opening their lives up to me - sharing their lives and their homes with me - in my language. It means a lot.
I couldn’t have asked for a better night, or a better dinner. Two dinners, actually. When Aydın was loading the dishwasher after dessert, he smiled at me and said they have an expression in Turkish. “The way to a man’s heart is a through his stomach.” Indeed.
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