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turkish bazaar
istanbul is constantinople
So you've seen a couple of
the themed parties
we've thrown in the past. You've been appropriately impressed at our mad
decorating skillz. You may have thought you grasped the true depth
of our entertaining talents. But dudes? You seriously have no idea.
We had this great idea to
invite some friends over and grill kebobs over an open fire in our
backyard. And actually, grilling the kebobs was really beside the point,
because what we were really after was an excuse to skewer some fresh
pineapple, lightly coat it in a sauce of sugar and vanilla and lime, roast
it over open coals until the sauce caramelized, and then serve it over
homemade vanilla ice cream. That's how this whole thing started.
Well, we couldn't very
well have such an exotic meal in such a dramatic fashion in our regular
backyard, fantastic though it is already.
It would need to be decorated to give the kind of of Middle-Eastern flavor
we wanted for the evening. As we described it to each other during the
initial brainstorming, we kept saying, "you know, like a Turkish bazaar".
And then the obvious finally hit us and we said, "Hey! We should do
a Turkish Bazaar!"
Now, we've never been to
Turkey and we can't claim to know what a Turkish Bazaar is actually like.
But we have an (over)active imaginations and we've read quite a lot and of
course we've seen our share of Rick Steves' Travels Through Europe
(whether Turkey is technically a part of Europe or not, he did a series
from Turkey). But we figured what the hell, let's give it the good old
college try.
We decided to do a
community meal that consisted of skewers of marinated beef, chicken, and
various vegetables that everyone would roast together over a long trench
filled with coals. When they were ready, we'd empty the skewers into a
large bowl of couscous seasoned with saffron and other spices and then
we'd pass the bowl around for everyone to serve themselves, using pieces
of naan to scoop it. And of course, dessert would be the glorious
pineapple skewers (and they were indeed glorious) that started this whole
thing.
First, of course, we had
to get people to come. Here's the invite:
Here's what it said:
Merhaba!
Welcome to Instanbul, the Crossroads of the Ottoman Empire. At the Turkish
Bazaar, there are expensive silks from India, valuable spices from the Far
East, intricate Moorish jewelry, priceless gems from deepest Africa, and a
thousand other exotic and rare treasures from around the world, waiting to
be discovered. Mingled throughout are the sounds and smells of the native
land, bringing these disparate cultures together with the most valuable
treasures of all: sumptuous food and cherished friends.
Please join us on Saturday, August 26th to share in the exchange of tea,
prepare the communal meal, and meet other travelers from distant lands.
The Bazaar opens at 6 PM -- wear shoes that are easily removed and bring
your sense of adventure for a night of Mediterranean enchantment.
So, how to transform our
yard into a marketplace in Turkey? I decided we needed the "suggestion" of
tent walls, so I pulled out my trusty old purple
fabric, but to keep it from becoming too Grape Bubble-Yum to be
believed, we needed other colors, too. Because the idea was an
international market, we would just pull all kinds of colors and styles
and designs together. For the tent "walls", to supplement the purple, I
bought several yards of broadcloth in three different colors: bright
yellow, burgundy, and bright orange. I didn't have these specific colors
in mind, I just had an idea that I wanted something inspired by spices
like paprika, turmeric, and saffron and that I'd see what they had at the
fabric store in these colors for cheap (we had a budget, after all). Those
particular colors were close to what I had in mind and they were also on
sale -- I learned from the nice lady who cut the fabric for me that
teachers were buying it to dress up their bulletin boards for fall. Score
one for me!
I also browsed through
their fat quarters and found some terrific fabrics in a range of colors
and textures. My idea was to have a lot of variety but again, on a budget,
so fat quarters seemed like a great way to bring in all the variety I
wanted without spending a fortune. I got 17 different fabrics in fat
quarters, everything from solids to velvets to satins and even a lovely
piece of embroidered fabric that was dyed. I had a $50 budget for fabric
and spent just a few dollars over that, including the 16 total yards of
broadcloth.
We already had decorations
we could use -- some vases and other tchotchkes from the living room,
plate chargers in gold and cobalt blue, and some really neat metal candle
stands. We browsed the extreme markdown sales at Pier 1 and Cost Plus, as
well, and picked up a dozen large candles (last years' unsold
colors/scents), three bright green oil lamps that Sal found that I'm
totally in love with (and that are now permanent part of our outdoor
decorations), and the coolest little jewel boxes for party favors. They
were also having a big sale on throw rugs that were already on clearance.
All of that and we were still well within our budget.
I should note here that
when we buy stuff for something like this, we have a strict rule that it
must all be stuff we can use again, either permanently or for
entertaining, and that we can't spend more than $10 on any item. Aside
from the financial considerations, it's just no fun to spend a lot of
money to pull it together...where's the challenge? Magic's easy if you're
spending lots of money, but the fun is in doing it on the cheap.
To make the "tent walls",
we screwed in a few hooks along the back porch rafters and also on the
back fence post, then strung up some plastic-coated clothesline and hung
the fabric from that. (Oh, and by the way? Judging from the epic adventure
it took to find them, clothespins were the most exotic item at our
international marketplace of exotic wares.) In the middle of the patio, we
cleared out an area for an 8' trench (yay
for gravel!) outlined with bricks (god knows the PO left enough to
build a damn fireplace all over the yard), and filled with sand (to make
cleanup easier later on, we put down a later of aluminum foil before we
put down the sand). The trench was just wide enough for a skewer to rest
each end on the bricks, and just deep enough to hold the sand and the hot
coals so that the skewers were hanging just above them. We wanted the
trench long enough so that everyone could sit around it on the ground --
three on each side and one person at each end. For cushions, I used
regular old bed pillows (for some reason, we have a lot), wrapped with
more of the ubiquitous purple fabric and the corners tied with ribbon just
to kind of hold it all together.
It took us almost two
months to plan this party. It took eight hours to decorate the patio and
about the same amount of time to cut the meat and vegetables, marinate
them, put them on skewers, and make the ice cream and sauce to be used
later. Oh, and don't forget the music, which I spent many, many hours on
the internet looking for and finally came across not one but THREE albums
of traditional Turkish folk music that I downloaded and burnt onto
a CD totally purchased legally for background music.
The end result?
An Amazing Fantastic Terrifically Fabulous Party of Mindblowing
Awesome:
Okay, so we might be a
little biased. And the decorating's all well and good but unless you have
really cool people who are adventurous enough to come and sit on the
ground for several hours and cook their own dinner with perfect strangers
(none of them knew each other) over hot coals on a 100 degree August
evening, it's nothing but playing dress up with nowhere to go.
Thankfully, we are blessed
with amazing, awesome friends who are all interesting and funny and smart.
While we ate our meal, we played Two Truths and a Lie (instructions on the
sidebar to the right) to help get acquainted and even though we knew
everyone there, even we learned interesting and amazing things we didn't
know. The heat dissipated quickly and coals gave off just enough heat
later in the evening to keep the night from being chilly, so that towards
the end of the evening, when we were all satiated with great food and were
kind of warm and glowy from the magic of the night, we lay back on the
rugs and looked up at the night sky. The whole backyard glowed with the
lights in the trees and the candles all around us and I will never forget
how it looked that night.
The winner of the game
took home a nice bottle of wine (though sadly, not Turkish) and to thank
our guests for being willing to play along, we sent them home with party
favors (the little jewel boxes on clearance at Pier 1, one box for each
couple) each containing two pieces of authentic Turkish Delight, straight
from Barbur World Foods:
It was, without question,
the best party we've ever thrown. In fact, I'm not sure that we'll ever
top it. Although next year, we're going to give it the good old college
try.
08.26.06 |
