May 28, 2011
Today is Azerbaijan independent holiday. Get up early in the morning. Clean the apartment, do laundries and hang them outside, have a healthy breakfast: coffee, French toast (local whole wheat bread) and home made fig jam. Afterward, head out to the Bazaar.
Weekend in the Bazaar usually is very busy. I get there a bit early; some of the fresh vegetables have just arrived. Spring ends soon and summer is approaching,
varieties of vegetables are already available in the market, and the prices are getting cheaper; cucumber 3 kilo for $1.25, cauliflower used to be so expensive in the winter, and now is only $1.0 for a kilo. Beet is my favorite root vegetable. The young one has thin smooth skin and dark burgundy color. It looks like a ruby gem. My vegetable man shows me some fresh oriental beans, which are still inside a pod. He opens one and let me taste it. It is so tender and sweet! The price of cabbage comes down significantly as well, only $0.5 a kilo. Some of the vegetables actually come from someone’s gardens; they are freshly picked just this morning!
I am overjoyed by all the fresh fruits and vegetables. I purchase a kilo of apple to make cabbage salad for lunch. This is a healthy dish I experimented last summer, all my friends loves it. Simply cut the apple and cabbage to thin strip, add salt and black pepper, few drops of sesame oil. The final touch is two teaspoons of ginger vinegar, put in the refrigerator for an hour to chill. It is healthy, tasty and inexpensive. As for the fresh oriental beans, I will steam it with the cauliflower, add only salt and pepper. They will definitely go well with my homemade veget
able dumplings. That will be my dinner tonight, yum yum!
Return home, cutting all the vegetables, make a big bowl of salad. After lunch, take a long stroll in the park, bring home some wild roses and sit by the kitchen window, watch the day fade…..my day slips by unnoticed. I have grown to love more and more this effortless, uncomplicated and peaceful life style, it really soothes me. This, I reckon, is how life is meant to be….. At this moment, New York seemed distant, tenuous and marginally real….
Peace Corps encourages us to extend our service for another year, it even adds another 100 manat ($125) to our monthly living allowance, AND, a job offer from the bank ….. tempting, really tempting
…..
Weekend in the Bazaar usually is very busy. I get there a bit early; some of the fresh vegetables have just arrived. Spring ends soon and summer is approaching,
varieties of vegetables are already available in the market, and the prices are getting cheaper; cucumber 3 kilo for $1.25, cauliflower used to be so expensive in the winter, and now is only $1.0 for a kilo. Beet is my favorite root vegetable. The young one has thin smooth skin and dark burgundy color. It looks like a ruby gem. My vegetable man shows me some fresh oriental beans, which are still inside a pod. He opens one and let me taste it. It is so tender and sweet! The price of cabbage comes down significantly as well, only $0.5 a kilo. Some of the vegetables actually come from someone’s gardens; they are freshly picked just this morning!I am overjoyed by all the fresh fruits and vegetables. I purchase a kilo of apple to make cabbage salad for lunch. This is a healthy dish I experimented last summer, all my friends loves it. Simply cut the apple and cabbage to thin strip, add salt and black pepper, few drops of sesame oil. The final touch is two teaspoons of ginger vinegar, put in the refrigerator for an hour to chill. It is healthy, tasty and inexpensive. As for the fresh oriental beans, I will steam it with the cauliflower, add only salt and pepper. They will definitely go well with my homemade veget
able dumplings. That will be my dinner tonight, yum yum!Return home, cutting all the vegetables, make a big bowl of salad. After lunch, take a long stroll in the park, bring home some wild roses and sit by the kitchen window, watch the day fade…..my day slips by unnoticed. I have grown to love more and more this effortless, uncomplicated and peaceful life style, it really soothes me. This, I reckon, is how life is meant to be….. At this moment, New York seemed distant, tenuous and marginally real….
Peace Corps encourages us to extend our service for another year, it even adds another 100 manat ($125) to our monthly living allowance, AND, a job offer from the bank ….. tempting, really tempting
…..
2 comments:
Are you really going to extend? Keep me posted. I'd like to know how that goes!
No Malaika, just a thought. I miss America, I want to go home.
Chi
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