Kisir Recipe: Turkish Take on Tabbouleh Salad

New Year preparations and celebrations brought me back to Sapanca, to our large family which grows even larger on the festive times. While all the normal families were setting up the festive decorations, doing present shopping and planning their vacation we were busy cleaning, cooking and receiving guests here at the farmhouse. And I have experienced the new depths of being a family bride (or gelin, in Turkish).

It is somewhat ironic that with all my liberated life views and those of Özgür’s family my experience of entering the family at times becomes hardcore difficult. Context matters and ours is such that we live on the countryside and deal with villagers. My socializing into this family could have been totally different if I had met the guy a few years earlier when he lived in Istanbul. There would be visiting Sapanca only now and then as we would have been busy working, going to restaurants and cinemas, shopping and clubbing. And traveling to Bodrum in summer. But because I ran away from all this urban delights of which I had enough in Moscow I am happy we now can divide our time between big and exciting city (Istanbul) and small and quiet village (Sapanca). But then I figure that there is more to the countryside life than mere calm and quietness.

Like an young army conscript I have to deal with the attitude of the tenured (and not so tenured) workers at the farmhouse. Take the cleaning ladies. We had six for the past six months. Those call for a dedicated post really: not that they deserve it but they frustrate me that much. A few would spent hours complaining about too much work and gossiping instead of actual working. “Things were so good before Olga“, told one of them to Özgür’s mom in June complaining about the burden of the hotel rooms’ cleaning. “Yes, because no one checked what you were doing there“, she replied. A few would be very enterprising trying to drag me into doing their work. “I am so tired. Would you come with me?“, told me another when I asked her to clean our room on a very not busy day. And almost always finding a chance to push responsibility to the others. “You should get yourself a a helper to clean on weekdays“, tells me the cleaning lady who comes on weekends to my question about the dirty floors at the room she has just cleaned.

These cleaning ladies surely have their own views on what a young bride running around in the Adidas trainers should do. I also bet they have no idea that when not doing the housework I can actually be quite busy. But none of them have failed to understand that I indeed don’t have any monetary carrots and sticks ready for them and that’s why my opinion can be disregarded without loss. Smart strategy if you want a job for a few months but not quite sustainable. That’s why they were all send off sooner or later.

Kitchen assistants are another category of people who try to make my life difficult here. When compared with the cleaning ladies the kitchen helpers may not do much better on the intelligence front but they definitely score higher when it comes to the ego department.

Since I have entered the kitchen and started making meals for the staff now I have invaded the territory of Özgür’s mom assistant. If I were him I would be inspired to cook more often and more interesting dishes for us. Or happy to take the break when he doesn’t have to. But he’s chosen another way: to guard off by BS-ing me on about anything I ask. He always has a funny answer to my “What do you put in this sauce?“- type questions.

And then the lady who comes to help on weekends and position herself as a chef-assistant whose major task is to pass the orders. “Olga, bring this! Put it here!” I can understand how a large professional kitchen provides enough inspiration to playing up big bosses but can’t understand why these folks try to drag me into their game.

“Olga, what have you done with the peeled chestnuts?“, asks Özgür’s mom showing me a bowl of the chestnut crumbles. An hour ago I started peeling over-boiled and way too soft chestnuts and a dozen of chestnuts down I was pushed away by the weekend kitchen helper, “You must have other things to do, I will handle this”. An hour later I learned it was me who first over-boiled and then peeled the chestnuts wrong way.

After each day of cleaning or each unfair blame I felt so frustrated that I would make a doll. This is why for the New Year each family member got a doll from me. I have particularly made a bunch of those holding their hands up symbolizing the fact that women don’t have a right to put their hands down and give up. That’s why any tiny reward makes us very happy.

Mine was that Özgür’s mom allowed me to help her with cooking. While she gets help with a regular set of dishes there are a few specialties she makes only herself. One of them being kisir (in Turkish writes as kısır). I was allowed to mix ingredients and start kneading them. She said later, “This is the best way to learn - by mixing ingredients. How many things we’ve done today? That many every day - how many will you learn in a year?!” And even though she made me think about number of useless cleaning ladies I would also have to deal this year I felt somewhat comforted. I gave her the doll with hands-up.