Carpetblogger

Puppyfarm Lounge and Cafe

Carpetblog's Beirut Correspondent and I have been tossing around a business idea that we think will really take off: Puppyfarm Lounge and Cafe.

Most expats don't have the space or time to have puppies of their own, but, as the Carpetdogs will attest, they miss their dogs back home and often need to spend some quality dogtime. We also know expats like to drink and eat. Thus was born the Puppyfarm Lounge and Cafe idea. How could any enterprise that features puppies to play with, food made by Breed and The Producer and plenty of booze fail?

We do acknowledge a serious difference in opinion about overall strategy, however. CBC believes the key to success is puppies and wants to toss the puppies out on the street when they get big. I think that non-puppies have an important role to play in Puppyfarm Lounge and Cafe. This dispute will be solved through a duel.

This idea really grew legs a few days ago. I found eight puppies in a vacant lot near my house! It was a Christmas miracle! Puppyfarm Lounge and Cafe was turning from a dream into reality!

Clearly they had been left there, but the fact is they were old enough to be weaned and whoever had left them made them a little shelter and left them food. The dumper also picked possibly the most puppy-friendly neighborhood in Istanbul.  Everyone who walked by stopped to look at them.

Of course, my first impulse was to scoop them up and take them all home, but 10 dogs in the house seemed excessive. So I emailed these pictures to the vet. Dr. Elif said she'd send them around to the other clinics, but didn't sound very optimistic that they would find homes because they were street dogs.

Every morning and evening we walked by to check on the squirming pile of puppies in their little fort. Each time, there were pans of fresh milk and food set out for them. At night they were all nested together to keep warm (fortunately for them it's been relatively warm and dry). Each time, there were also one or two fewer puppies, until this morning, there were no puppies at all!

I didn't see any puppy carcasses around and if one commenter suggests any conclusion to this story other than all those puppies found nice warm homes, you will be permanently banned from Carpetblog!

Happy Holidays from the Carpetblog Family

Because this is the best picture I ever will take, I will use it again, for the third year in a row, to wish everyone in Carpetblog land a Merry Christmas, Iyi Bayramlar, з новим роким or mutlu yıllar!

A Forum for the Airing of Grievances

Today marks three years and three countries worth of grievances aired and feats of strength accomplished. 

Our first post addressed a topic on which there is no shortage of grievances worth airing: Driving habits of the Turkic world.

Happy Birthday Carpetblog!

Bayram Questions Answered!

Reader Bulent, who always answers questions we didn't know we had, fills in some of the blanks on the Kurban charity option:

Here's another fun bit for you. You probably have noticed by now the deep mistrust Turks hold for organized charities asking for donations. Turkish Red Crescent has a solution for that this year. You pay them for your 'kurban,' they slaughter it in front of a notary public, film it, make a VCD of the slaughter, and send you the 'evidence' along with 1/2 kg of the meat ('kavurma', not the spoilable fresh version). The rest goes to the poor. They figure this scheme will give them an edge over the other charities who don't provide such high-tech evidence of the good deed actually getting done. Here's the link: Haber 7.

On the other hand, when I mentioned this to a local shopkeeper he immediately theorized that they probably have three or four films of various animals getting slaughtered and a VCD duplication machine. Just has to be so, y'know, because, 'they' are always out to con us.

Carpetblog is service journalism at its best!

Things that Come in a Box: Sheep

Iyi Bayramlar! Today, tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday are Kurban Bayram (Eid al Adha), the Muslim celebration of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his own son for God/Allah/Yahweh. It also marks the end of the Hajj in Mecca.

Today, Muslims have an animal slaughtered, then distribute some of the meat to the poor and use the rest for a big feast. Non-observers admire carcasses hanging in public places where carcasses usually aren't and step over guts in the street.

There are a couple of ways believers can fulfill their obligation, at a variety of price points. Old school observers, like my neighbors, commandeer a depo, or storage space, bring in a cow, slaughter it themselves according to Islamic principles (halal) and make the womenfolk strip the carcass of every last useful morsel. When I walked by this evening, they were loading up a sedan with black plastic bags full of meat. This is probably the most economical option and the one preferred in Baku.

Halal slaughter is pretty straightforward: a prayer is said, the animal's throat is cut and the blood is allowed to drain out completely. It's not the most cruel way to do the job, as these things go, but holy moly, there's a lot of blood.

That's why the Beyoglu municipality has established Kurban "Butchery Places," in an attempt to centralize this activity and discourage people like my neighbors from housing a herd of sheep in vacant lots and filling the streets with blood and offal. How very European!

My neighborhood's temporary abattoir is at the same carwash where I washed my carpets this summer. As the sign says, a "big head" costs 150 YTL, or about $125 (a cow or maybe even a camel) and a "little head" is 50 YTL or about $43 (a sheep or a goat, although I did threaten a disobedient carpetdog with a trip to the carwash today). The better off you are, the higher quality animal you are expected to contribute.

Much debate about this pricing structure has ensued. Does it or does it not include the animal? Does it include complete butchery? Does it include distribution services? No one can decide if it seems like a lot or a little money. How do you decide what poor people to give the meat to? Inquiring infidels want to know!

I took this photo at about 7:30 this morning, while prayers were still going on and no one was sacrificing anything yet. As you can see, there's a powerwasher ready to wash the blood and guts down the drain and into the Bosporus. An interesting bit of trivia: this carwash is on Boğazkesen Caddesi, or "Throatcutter Street."

Later in the day, I paid a second visit to the Kurban Kesim Yeri. Lucky for me, they had a cow there and were sharpening the knives. And, I mean lucky in the sense I got there just in time to get a picture before there was any death struggle or gushing blood. It was quite the event for the family that had purchased the cow. They posed for pictures with it and a seven year old boy documented the process with his digital camera.

Since Turkey is a country with an urbanized, middle class population, it makes sense that there are ways one can meet one's spiritual obligations without getting one's hands bloody.

Some charitable foundations offer sheep for purchase, though this banner from the Lighthouse Foundation is pretty light on the details. Sheep are available for 210 YTL. I don't know if that means a sheep is slaughtered and distributed on your behalf or it comes to you pre-slaughtered or what. As a consumer, I'd want to be a bit more informed before I proceeded with this option. The last thing I'd want is a sheep delivered to my front door kicking and bleating and blank eyed and smelly, as sheep tend to be.

Of all the options, I think there's really only one for me, if I were a believer.

Go to the Carrefour!

Earlier this month, the Carrefour in my neighborhood was offering sheep in a box! Since sheep are the only animal held in lower esteem on Carpetblog than monkeys, I can't think of a better place to put a sheep. Just like your Thanksgiving turkey, you can order in advance and for about 300 YTL a sheep in a box arrives on your doorstep, already butchered. I'm not sure how distribution to poor people fits in to this scenario, but I'm pretty sure this is the option I would choose.

Breaking News from Baku!

The Producer reports that all the DVD shops on Fountain Square -- except ABC -- are no longer selling fake DVDs. Even Hong Kong has stopped carrying them, having increased its stock of knock-off purses and low-end karaoke machines to make up for the loss.

This could mean one of two things: The GovAZ has, at last, recognized intellectual property rights and cracked down on institutionalized piracy, or, ABC just figured out a way to muscle its competitors out of the market. I wonder which it is?

Bottom line: Baku's one redeeming quality has been erased. Seriously, what's the point now? Why would anyone live there?

Don't despair, though. It's not the first time this has happened and probably won't be the last. One of the advantages of a lawless society is that crackdowns on activities that in normal countries are completely illegal but totally fun are usually temporary and designed to demonstrate, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, rule of law matters.

What Would Happen if Ukraine Invaded Rostov

Here's a recruitment ad for the Ukrainian army.

Though seriously, I don't know where they found those good looking army recruits. The devushkas look like they were imported from Kherson or Mikolayev in 1994.

Thanks to Josh for the heads up!

Theme of the Week: Things That Come in a Box

Thanks to Bentonator and the Chiplomat, we have a Christmas tree for the first time in five years!

It came in a box.

The Producer came from an artificial tree home, so he finds nothing unusual about removing a plastic tree from a box, sticking the stem in a base and putting it in the corner, ready to decorate and easy to take down. For me, putting up a plastic tree is sort of like voting for a Republican for President -- something you know other people do but would never conceive of doing yourself. Fresh Christmas trees were so important in the Carpetblog household that they often stayed around until Valentine's Day.

So, this morning I took the tree, which makes the Charley Brown Christmas tree look like a coastal redwood, out of the box, stuck the branches together and put the ornament on it. Fortunately, I had bought an old glass Snegoruchka ornament at the flea market in Tbilisi so the last step actually went pretty quickly.

Trying to convince me of its heritage, the lady I bought it from said it was from the "Nikolai" time, by which I think she meant "Nikolai Brezhnev." Still, I really liked the carp Snegoruchka is holding. At the time, I questioned the wisdom of buying a single glass ornament for a tree I didn't plan to get, but now, all my regrets have disappeared. It's exactly what the tree needs.

So now, with the now-dead spray of greenery I bought from the German Christmas bazaar hanging on the door and our luxurious Christmas tree in the corner by the window, the house just screams "infidels live here!" Not very creative or holiday spirit-infused infidels, but infidels nonetheless.

If you have an interest in a Kyiv Christmas, try this, or perhaps a Baku Christmas is more to your liking.

Meanwhile, I wait to see if the tree relaxes or retains the shape of the box in which it came.

Bad Blogger

I've got nothing from Tbilisi-stan. No carpets. No photos. No heartwarming tales or wacky adventures. Only one memorable meal (where else but at my beloved World of Urine?). I did, however, run into longtime blogfriend Wu Wei in the hotel lobby and made unfulfilled plans to meet up with Viola in Vilnius who was also in town.

There's nothing good going on in Georgia right now. In fact, I spent a portion of my week there reliving my experience in Baku. And not in a good way. I worry a lot about what's going to happen on January 5th.

Anyway, we'll be back to regularly scheduled programming soon. Kurban Bayram is this week so stay tuned. I'll be headed down to the carpet carwash to photograph the mass slaughter. You don't want to miss that.

An Article about Istanbul that Doesn't Suck!

In today's NYT travel section, Matt Gross writes about the restaurant scene, and mentions my current favorite Istanbul restaurant, Çiya (pronounced like the pet).  The cold mezzes are absolutely to die for and the special Çiya kebab -- ground meat with melted cheese in a fresh pide -- is one thousand different kinds of awesome. I tried a green mezze there that was so unlike anything I had ever tasted before, I can't even describe its taste. The menu has been different every time I've been. Seriously, there's no excuse not to make the easy ferry trip to Kadiköy to try this place out if you're in Istanbul.

Also, I need to talk about brunch for a moment. It is becoming my favorite day of the week. There are two kinds of brunch. The first is the kind with bacon and pancakes and scrambled eggs and lots of coffee. You can call it American or you can call it English, the goal is the same: repair one's system after a night of drinking.

Right now, our fave place for this is Kahvedan, in Cihangir. It is not perfect. Asking for substitutions like "no eggs, extra bacon" can be risky, but they're getting better all the time. We know the owner and the cook and most of the waiters all of which is important. Kahvedan's minor sins of commission and omission are usually forgiven because it serves real bacon.

The other kind of brunch is Turkish breakfast. As a rule, Turkish breakfast is the best basic breakfast, even if it's served in the cheapest, most touristy hotel in Sultanahmet: fresh crusty bread, white cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, jams and a boiled egg. It's simple, to the point and hard to fuck up. However, its simplicity suggests it's not the kind of meal over which one might linger to discuss the issues of the day with one's contemporaries.

When some actual effort is put into it, Turkish breakfast is actually extremely well-suited to lengthy brunch with your pals. It doesn't get cold. It can sit untouched while you consider your next move or expound at length about Istanbul's Arabic death metal scene. Its components are easily shared. The cons are that it generally doesn't come with filter coffee (Turkish coffee: not the same) and there's very little grease. It's not a hangover cure by any stretch.

New favorite breakfast place: Van Kahvalti Evi. Van is a largely Kurdish city in far eastern Turkey, near the border with Iran, known for its breakfast culture. Van Kahvalti Evi is a very good example of the evolving food scene in Istanbul scene that the NYT article mentions: fresh ingredients typical of and unique to this huge country's ecologically diverse regions. I wonder if it's coincidental that both Van Kahvalti and Çiya specialize in food from the east, where there are a lot of, uh, Mountain Turks?

Van Kahvalti Evi recently opened in my 'hood and we approached its bright yellow exterior and IKEA-lite interior with some trepidation (it needs to be substantially gay'ed up). It's got a slave* lady who makes fresh gözleme (flat pancakes stuffed with cheese or potatoes) on a convex black griddle in the window and a rather limited menu. A window case holds mounds of fresh cheeses and honey.

May I recommend Van's Luks Kahvalti plate? Sure, it's got the usual boiled egg and some cukes, tomatoes and olives, but the real stars are the sides. Have you ever had fresh kaymak? It's a clotted cream and, when mixed with honey, it may be the food of all gods, monotheist and polytheist alike.  Van's is as fresh as the day and the honey has little chunks of comb in it. There's a guy in my neighborhood who sells it from his car from time to time, but it's not the sort of thing you should eat every day. Go find some for yourself.

There's also a thick cacik (yogurt with herbs) with fresh butter, and at least three different kinds of fresh cheeses. My approach to Turkish cheese is pretty much "there's all kinds of cheese here as long as its white," but Van serves on that's sort of like a Georgian sulguni and a famous "grassy cheese," because, well, it's got greenery in it. The most unusual side is murtuğa, a heavy wheat flour porridge that I find appealing in neither taste nor texture, even when it's mixed with fresh honey or eggs. It, too, is a specialty of the region. And they've got the various types of egg dishes (menemen), but I recommend the Luks plate. It'll keep you going all day.

Like Fasuli (a local place that serves Black Sea specialties), you'll never see Van Kahvalti in the New York Times. It's just a low-key neighborhood joint with increasingly long lines on the sidewalk on Sunday mornings.

*I have no idea if this woman is a slave or not. We refer to all the ladies who cook gözleme in restaurant windows as slave ladies. I am sure she is very well-compensated. Regardless, her cheese gözleme are outstanding and she deserves a merit raise on those grounds alone.