Virtual tag and no turkeys in Turkey

It appears that I've been tagged by the Turkish Muse in a game of blog tag. So now I am supposed to reveal 7 silly things about myself that few people know.

Here are 7 dazzling Devi mysteries revealed:

1. I used to eat pomegranates morsel by morsel but since I moved to Turkey I devour entire sections of my favorite fruit.

2. I'm a Scrabble nerd.

3. I have difficulty rolling my "RRRR's" in Spanish.

4. I have never been able to snap with the fingers of my left hand.

5. "Fahrenheit 101" was one of my favorite books at age 7.

6. When I grow up, I want to be a star salsa dancer.

7. I love green chili and cheese tamales from LA (maybe from elsewhere, too, I just haven't tried those yet).

Now, I get to tag 5 more unsuspecting bloggers:

Prosecards from the Edge (of a Continent)

ohhhsweetturkey

Confessions of an Expat's Wife: small talks on everyday life

mikey in istanbul

Albtranslator

In belated news, we (some Californians, a Canadian and some Turks) had our late Thanksgiving celebration last week Thursday (we figured we would do it on Turkish time, a week late) at Ev's work villa. Unfortunately Fatoş was unable to acquire turkeys in time because of the big demand here for them before New Years so we had stuffed chickens instead (she was told turkeys have to be ordered 10 days ahead of time!) It was finally a chance for Evren to meet my friends from work after almost 3 months of not encountering each other. I ate plenty of sigara börek and dolma while Ev sliced up monstrous slices of the chickens for everyone. Afterward, we played scrabble on my newly acquired board, which cost a whopping YTL 75 here. Definitely should have had someone bring one over or even created my own, but I've just been missing my game too much to wait. Would post some pics, but unfortunately they might prove incriminating. . .

Out of touch or avoiding turkey in Turkey

My co-workers and I were debating over whether Thanksgiving is next week or this week. Three of us were sure it was next week whereas one was sure it was this week. It went back and forth till J. finally googled it and found out he was right. Damn. Well, he's also the most recent addition to the editing group and has lived in the states a lot more recently than the rest of us.

I've never been a big fan of the holiday anyways. My family wasn't big on traditions. We would celebrate but never with the typical foods. For instance we might have sweet potatoes (yeah, kind of traditional) but then also have eggrolls, tamales, panset (a Filipino noodle dish) and a pineapple upside down cake for dessert. I used to hate pumpkin pie. I have a very vague memory of having thrown up after eating it when I was a kid, probably at someone else's house because I don't think it ever graced my family's Thanksgiving table.

In my freshmen year of college I wasn't able to head home for Thanksgiving. Luckily, my friend Jessica had decided to stay on campus too. We went to the store and bought a stack of pumpkin pies. Then we drove to the local penitentiary in Walla Walla and tried to give them away. The guards asked who we were there to visit and we told them we just wanted to give away some pies. They said the pies could be tainted or have weapons in them. We offered them to the guards and they of course turned them down. After that we decided to head to the mental institution and then farms with migrant workers to distribute the pies. Later we ended up going to a house where a woman we had never met showed us some belly dancing moves.

I don't know if we'll be celebrating this year. If we do, it will be sure to be another non-traditional event, complete with dolma biber (stuffed peppers), baklava and boza.