Journal of a Sabbatical

May 8, 1999

follow that car

Reading: Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West

I finished Traveling Mercies on Thursday at the Honda Barn while I was waiting for my car. In addition to the dreaded passenger side headlight, I needed to get a new ignition key and get the right rear tire patched. I'm not sure how I broke the key, but I am very lucky it didn't break in the ignition or I'd have been in for a much longer wait and out a much greater sum of money. And how in the heck did I run over a screw on the way to the Honda Barn? But it was all fixed and gave me a chance to read uninterrupted for a couple of hours.

Friday I drove up to Newburyport specifically to buy some French Roast coffee from Atlantic Coffee Roasters (at Fowle's). Could I pass by Old Port Book Shop? No, especially since I parked right in front of it. I browsed long and hard. No more Charlton Ogburn books in stock. I offered Domino fresh fish if he'd find The Boy Allies in the Balkans for me but he wasn't in the mood for browsing the children's books. And the book store owner heard me talking to Domino as if he were a person. Fortunately, he thought it was funny. I came away with an inexpensive photo book about Canada geese and brant, both species that Nancy loves. Then I crossed the street to Fowle's and bought a half pound of French Roast and a small dark roast of the day to go.

The drizzle that has been with us since Monday night is still with us. Every once in awhile it changes to a downpour, but mainly it's drizzle. I picked up Nancy at the bus station in the drizzle and drove back up here to meet Dan & Geri, Hussein & his wife, and George & his wife for the long planned trip to what Hussein says is the best Turkish restaurant in Boston.

Cafe Mediterranea is not in Boston though. It's in Quincy, which for those unfamiliar with the geography of Massachusetts is on the south shore. We met at Starbucks to form carpools. Dan & Geri rode with Hussein and Nancy and I rode with George and Celeste in George's car. The directions were "follow me" spoken by Hussein. I got into George's car and said "follow that car!" just cause I've always wanted to say that. Well, we got onto I93 and the drizzle turned to downpour again. Boston was shrouded in fog. We couldn't see a thing. George took it on faith that the car we were following was Hussein's.

Hussein drives almost as fast as my mother, and George managed to keep right with him, so we were there in practically no time despite the fact that the rain and fog thickened the closer we got to Quincy. Miraculously, the rain let up just as we arrived and we found two parking spaces right on the street less than a block away.

Cafe Mediterranea is a tiny "mom & pop" place between a huge Irish pub and a nail salon. The guy who owns it is a friend of Hussein's. Although Hussein had made a reservation for 7:30, they'd misunderstood and thought we were coming at 6:30. When we weren't there at 6:30, they gave away the tables. Hussein went into the kitchen to negotiate with his friend and the rest of us waited outside in the light drizzle. Thank goodness the downpour had let up. Everyone who exited the restaurant told is it was worth the wait.

Dan became fascinated by the nail salon and peered in the window. We all tried to figure out what the sign meant by "fill-in $15". "Full set $25" we knew meant two hands worth of fake fingernails, but nobody was sure what a fill-in was. Barbaros (son of Hussein - we asked him his name so we could stop calling him son of Hussein) theorized that it meant repairing cracked fingernails with some kind of patching material. Celeste thought it meant that you had to have the fake fingernails refilled periodically. Dan bites his nails, especially since several of his students scored zero on the final exam. We half expected Dan to go in and get a full set of fake fingernails while we're waiting.

Once we got seated and got menus we found out they were out of everything involving eggplant. This ruled out four appetizers and two main dishes! George managed to get the very last serving of baked eggplant (imam bayildi), which he assured us was delicious. The meat eaters among us - everyone but me and on this occasion Nancy - ordered kebabs of various species, which they all reported to be spicy and delicious. Nancy and I both ordered meze plates, a cold combination platter with a choice of four of these appetizer items:

• shepherd salad: tomato, cucumber, green pepper, scallion, parsley diced and mixed lemon juice and olive oil
• humus: chick-peas blended with garlic, lemon juice, olive oil and tahini
• tabuli: bulgur mixed with diced tomato, scallion, parsley, mint, lemon juice and olive oil
• baba ganush: char-broiled eggplant pureed with lemon juice, garlic and olive oil
• sarma: grape leaves stuffed with rice, cooked with olive oil
• icli kofta (kibbi): stuffed kofta with ground beef, onion, walnut and spices, served with yogurt sauce
• green beans - fantastically delicious but not further described on the menu
• pinto beans - and I forgot the description of this one

I chose humus, tabuli, green beans, and pinto beans. Nancy got the last serving of pinto beans so I got double green beans instead, which made Nancy laugh because she had tried to order double green beans and the waitress told her she couldn't because they were running low. For our entree we split an order of falafel, which was absolutely the best falafel I have ever tasted in my life. It was moist and spicy and not at all greasy and crunched just right. They served it with humus because they ran out of tabuli. I was happy with that 'cause the humus was out of this world.

The talk and laughter flowed easily and people kept ordering more food - whatever they hadn't already run out of I'm sure we ate them out of.

All week I'd been looking forward to having a Turkish coffee, and it met my expectations: thick and rich and sweet, mmm, mmm, mmm. And I never knew fortunetellers could tell your future from coffee grounds, tea leaves I knew about but not coffee. George is very superstitious (he has a fortuneteller on call like a therapist) and apparently the reading of coffee grounds is a tradition in his native Romania. When George turned his cup over in its saucer, figuring to read it himself, our waitress said "I know how to do that, I have Gypsy blood!". So George and Dan and Geri had their fortunes read by the Gypsy girl. We couldn't hear any of what she said to George because they went off to a corner table for privacy, but Dan & Geri let us listen in. The Gypsy didn't say anything about Dan's students getting zero on the final or Dan getting new fake fingernails. It was good luck all around for everybody.