Carrot Soup and a Blender

An eventual day, to say the least! After studying my Turkish for 2.5 hours in a cute little cafe (it's called "Coffee Haus"), I decided to practice a bit while buying the groceries I needed to make dinner--my first attempt at making soup from scratch. After standing in the grocery store forever looking in my dictionary to see if what I'd found was vegetable stock (it wasn't, but it worked), I headed to my friendly vegetable seller around the corner from my house.

The veg man and I have already become fast friends as I go just about every other day to buy 'mandalinas.' (Mandarin oranges--they're SO good here!) I walked up and he said, "Merhaba! 6 mandalinas?" I said, "No!" (All this is in Turkish, mind you. My words will be in ORANGE--war eagle!)

" 3 oranges... 1 kilo carrots... 1 onion."

"Which kind of onion?"

" A small one."

"Haha. Okay. Small one. But what kind?" He points to four kinds of onions...oh. I point to the kind I want.

" Garlic?"

"What?" I point in the dictionary to garlic...blasted silent G that I can't pronounce yet. " Garlic, one."

" 1 kilo apples. 1/2 kilo mandalinas!" He gave me a TRUCKLOAD of mandalinas, and it wasn't until later that I realized that I'd said the word "half" that goes with things that are more than one. There is a different word for half that is for less than one...the word I should have used! So I ended up with 1.5 kilos of mandalinas!

He laughs that I am trying so hard, and announces the price--in English. I say, " Turkish, please!" He says, "oh yeah, Turkish. 4.5 million." Why is interesting that the price was in millions? Because the money in Turkey officially changed on Saturday to the New Turkish Lira (YTL), dropping all the zeroes, so that things won't cost in the millions anymore. The funny thing is...no one is using the money yet! I withdrew cash from the ATM today, and got old Turkish money. Went shopping at four different places for food today, spending and receiving old Turkish lira. I have yet to see the YTL.

Anyway. Back to my story. So I realize I still need bread, which the veg man obviously doesn't sell. I head to the little grocer right across the street from us, and walk in looking around for bread. I finally find it, pull out a loaf from the cabinet, and place it near the register. I point and say, " What this Tukish?" The man smiles and responds, "Ekmek. In English, bread." (In case I didn't know the English word...) I practice my sentences, and say, "This is bread." He smiles and says, "Yes. That is bread." I sing "Good evening!" as I walk out the door to go make my carrot soup.

I'm happy and thrilled to be making soup from scratch, and all is going well. Schroomie comments on what interesting soup...I respond that it'll look different once I puree it. She laughs and says "Just how are you going to puree it?" I respond, "With the blender in the cabinet." (Oh, all that conversation was NOT in Turkish...) She proceeds to tell me that the blender is from Cyprus and has a British plug. Blast the British for doing everything different and complicating my life!

So I decide to be adventuresome, grab the blender, a converter, and head back down to the street. The electric store is closed, so I head back over to the friendly grocer. He sees me (blender in hand), and says (at least I imagine this is what he says), "What's wrong, miss?" I show him the British plug, the converter, and say (in English), "I need to buy a converter." He and three other men walk me across the street to a light bulb store (remember that I live in the light district), and present the blender and converter to the shop owner. Several more men look and see that the plug is indeed British and won't work here. They point to the electric shop down the street. I respond, "It's closed!" (I now have about 6 men helping me with the blender). They say a whole bunch in Turkish that translates (in my non-Turkish head), "No puree'd soup for you."

So I head back up the four flights of stairs and try blending the soup with a hand held blender. Note to the wise--not such a smart idea. I had carrot soup flying every direction of our kitchen.
We ended up eating the soup as was...and it tasted fine. Note to self for tomorrow: buy a converter for the blender.