<< locusts and honey, lord, wild honey >>

today mehmet was receiving guests -- the wife of the about-equivalent of the lieutenant governor came for a tour of the facility, with two dozen attendents as well as a driver. after the tour was lunch.

two of the staff were sick so mehmet and i spent the morning helping to set up the restaurant.



the tables started laid out in a horseshoe with seats on its inner and outer edges. this arrangement though meant that guests would have to sit back to back. so mehmet helped to carry down extra tables from the classroom upstairs, and we lengthened the horseshoe with them, moving all the placements to the outside edge so that everyone faced each other and there were four seats of honour in the arrangement that everyone could see. then we fastened the tables together with clamps so they would not get out of alignment.

per every four guests there were plates of olives, green and black, and olive oil poured over, as well as oils and spices for bread, salt and pepper, and toothpicks. someone brought red carnations in black bottles.



between the store and the table was set up a display of samples of products, aromatic oils and soaps, decorated with branches of olive trees. you could see the cut ends of the branches still moist. off to the side, tea, coffee, water, lemonade: later at that table too, cordoba, which are like shortbread, but less sweet, and with nuts.

i saw the chef starting to prepare for this meal yesterday, though i did not realize what was the occasion -- hand-rolling perhaps a hundred of dolmas, which are rice wrapped in vine leaves. when we arrived today he was frying eggplant in a light oil that bubbled with small quick bubbles around the edges of the cooking food. by the time food preparation was done there were potatoes and onions, broccoli with carrots, artichoke hearts with lima beans each one cut the long way, as well as shredded cabbage and carrot to go with lettuce for salad. burek, too, which are flakey pastry, ground meat with spices inside.

then each dish was done up with olive oil and garnished. on the burek, parsley; on the dolmas, a half lemon sliced and the slices twisted into two half circles, and the other half of the lemon turned into a lemon rose; likewise with the artichoke hearts; on the potatos a spiral-cut tomato; on the brussels sprouts finely chopped onion.

there is a woodfire oven that makes flat, heavy loaves of bread. when mehmet and i had some for lunch it was warm still. whıle we ate we watched tanks being moved south on flatbed trucks, down the highway that is the main road of Burhaniye.

for desert, semolina pudding -- like rice pudding -- in a cheesecake tray like they must have had back in the days of the empire, with nutmeg and cinnamon.

i did not realize that all this food is served cold, but it is. the olive oil draws out the flavours.

the chef wears white cotton with red piping and red buttons and a white cotton hat. mehmet claps his men on the shoulder and laughs with them. when he receives guests he walks with his hands clasped behind his back.

his uncle says of him, il travail très fort, mehmet, il travail très fort. il sait tout ce qui se passe. he works very hard, very hard. he knows everything that goes on here. not one moment ago my host brought me tea in my room, and he has had me teach him to say, in french, je vous en prie -- i insist.

the guests did not make a dent in the amount of food prepared. perhaps a fifth? anyways we packed up as much of it as we pleased and had it for dinner with full-fat yoghourt. very savoury, but let's not forget the sweet. for desert mehmet produced a bucket of wild honeycombs. the honey was dark, the colour of violets. you eat the whole thing, comb and all, and it's very delicate to crunch through. drippingly sweet -- "almost too much," said mehmet. i had a glass of russian kefir with my honeycomb. i felt like a bear.