parents in Baku: THINGS THEY TRIED

Baku is my home...it has been since last summer, and it will be for the foreseeable future. Because of that, my parents' time here was VERY busy...so much to see and do and TRY [food and otherwise]. TRY is what this blog post is about...everything they got to experience when they were here. It was a BLAST for me to share a week of my life with them, and they were troopers!

So, the first is a typical Azeri tea-time. Below is Azeri tea--black loose-leaf tea flavored with a little mint--and homemade jam. People here can jam with fresh fruit in the summer and then eat it all winter long. The jams above are all sweet, and contain, from L-R: green olive jam (which had been preserved and sweetened. It's popular here, but I don't even like green olives. Gross!), chestnut jam, and grape jam. Typical tea!

Azeri DANCING! Don't be fooled; I'm aware it looks like mom's dancing the hula and dad's filming a deodorant commerical, but no. Here, Mom and Dad are getting lessons in Azeri dancing! They're dutch like me, so they really should never dance in public! What a hysterical experience for EVERYONE involved!

PLOV! Plov is everywhere in central and western Asia, and there are actually more than 40 types of plov! In Kazakhstan, I ate mostly Uzbek plov, but the type below was new even to me! Dad loved it, Mom liked it. It was great that they actually got to try it as I'd been talking about it since my second week in Kazakhstan--a year and a half ago!

SQUATTY POTTY! She walked in and gasped a little, and then I had to give her a little lesson, but it was successful! I clearly got my superior squatting skills from this master squatter:

Caspian Caviar! Dad liked it, mom tolerated it, I despised it. I've never been a fish fan, but it was bought for us to try and is very expensive. So, we all tried something we would have never tried without the obligation to our host... It was REALLY fishy! It wasn't so bad, and it was REALLY salty! But then, after I thought I had downed it all, I found one lone fish egg in my cheek. I nearly lost them all. Ugh. Anyway, we can say we tried it!

Karaoke! You really haven't lived until you've heard your parents karaoke to Whitney Houston and Lionel Ritchie... And I have nothing else to say about that, except: weird.

Lots and lots of Azeri salad! Salad in Azerbaijan does not have the same meeting as salad in the states; instead, it's mostly pickled vegetables, aged cheeses, and fresh herbs:

Shaurma!

Badamjan (eggplant) Dolma! This is a national Azeri meal...it contains meat cooked specially and put inside peppers, tomatoes, and eggplant, and then baked. It's my favorite Azeri meal! Mom and Dad loved it too!

DOGVA! This is sour-yogurt soup with dill and basil and cilantro and other leafy-like things. It's usually served cold, but (thank goodness) this particular meal, it was served warm. A warmer temperature makes this food MUCH more eatable! I actually like it warm if I can eat it with bread. Mom and Dad were not really fans:

The METRO! This is a very cultural experience...it often gets to the point where all the seats are full and the people standing don't have to hold on because there's nowhere to go even if the train jerked a bit. It's not legal to take pictures on the metro, otherwise I would have... What an experience for Mom and Dad!

Really, really REALLY FRESH MEAT. This cow was hosed down just before this picture. He WAS dinner:

Georgian food! What you can see if a meat/cheese/mushroom dish called something like "oolibooly"... They also tried some world-famous Georgian wine, khapoori cheese bread, Chorban salad, and lots of fantastic bread and cheese:

Azeri wine! The regions of Azerbaijan outside of Baku are filled with vineyards, and apparently they make delicious wine! (I'm not a wine fan, so this I cannot confirm.) Dad and Mom enjoyed it!

Azerbaijan traffic! This may not seem very significant, but if you've never experienced this kind of traffic--where these things are just suggestions: lanes, speed limit, pedestrain safety, stop signs (actually, those are meant to be disobeyed), constant honking (even for no other reason than you haven't done it in 6 seconds), shouting, road rage, and 4-person cars next to you filled at least 8 people. YIKES!

SAJ. This is a mix of meat (chicken in our case) cooked with fresh veggies in a sealed iron pan. When it is put on the table, it has glowing coals under it, and it stays warm. It's SO SO SO good!

McDonalds Coffee! Again, not a coffee fan, so I've never tried it, but this restaurant speaks some English and they sat there and drank coffee a few times while I taught:

Doner! This meat is cooked on a rotating skewer, then it's shaved off and put into bread with herbs and fesh veggies and sauce. (again, I don't love this and didn't have any, so...) We got it as take-away and ate it in the sun in the park! They liked it!

And, finally, KABOBS. Meals here are meat (with a side of meat), and they definitely got their fair share! These kabobs were potato and lamb kabobs:

Hungry?