MAY DAY HOPES & MEMORIES OF KURDISTAN

The last time I posted here I was just about to leave for Kurdistan. Since then I have left a long silence. It's not because life has been dull. More, perhaps, that each day has been so packed, so intense, that i have not had the distance to reflect and write about it.

I am in New York as I write this, in fact in Brooklyn staying with a friend. For the next couple f days I will be seeing friends, attending the James Beard Cookbook and Journalism awards event (I'm on the cookbook committee) and attending a committee meeting. It's a privilege and a treat to come to NYC three times a year for the committee. We're a thoughtful bunch who try to do a good job of managing the judging process, all of which is done by independent judges living all over the US and Canada. The awards ceremony is where it all comes together...

But what have I been doing for the last month? The answer is that I have been in Iraqi Kurdistan, and for most of my time there being hosted and taken care of by the lively and generous members of a large extended family from Halabja. I had very little access to the internet, but that was not what kept me from posting, not really. It was instead the fact that I was entirely immersed in where I was, unable to distance myself enough to shape a post properly, and feeling oh-so-fortunate. I made lots of notes, about events, people, the food, the language (Sorani Kurdish), and more. That raw material, plus my photographs, are what I will rely on as I digest all that I've seen and learned, write stories, figure out recipes, etc, for my Persian World book. All that lies ahead.

Apart from memories, notes, and photos, I brought back some Kurdish rice, some spices, and also a box of "gazo", made at a shop in the Sulaymaniya bazaar. It's called "gaz" in Iran and is a special kind of nougat, chewy and not overly sweet, made of a resin exuded by insects onto the leaves of a plant that grows in the Zagros Mountains, plus egg white, sugar, pistachios, and a little rose water. A friend in Toronto loves gaz, so I asked her over to help open the box and have a taste. The box was nailed shut. When we got it open, it was filled with flour, the gazo packed in there, protected and kept fresh by the flour. You wash a piece, tear/pull it in half, since they are large, and then share and eat with pleasure.

Of course since I had bought the box new at the sweet shop (Tofiq Halawchy), sealed up and wrapped in plastic, I had had no idea that it was full of flour (I've since learned that this is the traditional way of storing it).  This means that I had travelled back from Iraq via two days in Istanbul, through two sets of customs checks, with a box full of white powder...  No harm done as it turns out, but perhaps a lesson: I should have asked to see what was in the box when I bought it, don't you think? There's a spy/thriller/mystery novel plot lying in wait here perhaps!

I cried when I parted from the family because I was going to miss them, their warmth and our connection. I still have Kurdish phrases echoing in my "mind's ear" and am looking forward to leaping into recipe work and writing, starting next Monday.

Meantime it's May Day, a day for celebrating working people internationally, and, if you are in France, for giving small bouquets of lily-of-the-valley (muguet) to friends. At this time of year, La Fete Des Muguets, the streets are lightly perfumed with the scent of the small posies that are sold on street corners to passers-by.

Perhaps the weather will warm up and the sun come out in Toronto and elsewhere. This spring Toronto is at least two weeks behind, with all plant life except the bravest crocus flowers holding off until Mother Nature confirms that warmth and sun can be relied on. The lilies of the valley that are usually a carpet of green by now in my front yard, with first buds of flowers showing on spindly little stems, have barely begun to surface from the cold earth. Yikes!

Happy May Day everyone...

HAPPY MAY DAY! WITH FINGERS CROSSED FOR TOMORROW

The birds are twittering in fine spring rain, the green is greening everywhere, and tomorrow we have the election, with its wildly lively energy (for once!) to look forward to and to survive.

I'll be with friends who have a TV (this house is without TV now), with our predictions on numbers of seats each party will win all tidily written down so we can compare then to the incoming results.

I was just sent a list of swing ridings, by a friend in BC, compiled by Catch 22 Harper; a group that is guiding people in their necessarily strategic voting (necessary if the Conservatives are to be held back). It's amazing to see the list of ridings where Liberal is the strategic vote, and those where NDP is; and it speaks to the likelihood of split votes and Harper's chance of sliding up the middle. It's so frustrating to be stuck with this first-past-the-post system when we have more than two parties and also have large regional fracturing of politics.

At least we have elections, elections that are reasonably clean and fair, though with the usual empty posturing and last-minute smearing. As we are reminded by events in the last three months in North Africa and West ASia, many people are without the right to express an opinion, let alone to vote, and many have lost their lives doing battle for those rights. So, the old rule "remember to be thankful for what we have" still holds, even when I feel like whining!

Sorry to rant and ramble... especially dreary for those of you who have no stake or interest in Canadian politics.

Meantime Labour and the Labour movement and workers' rights should be on our minds on this political day of remembrance. But all I can think about is the results coming in tomorrow night.

I bicycled to Wychwood Market yesterday, a ride up a steep hill in bright sunshine. Apart from looking around at all there was for sale, including some beautiful Jerusalem artichokes, and sweet potatoes, etc, I also hung out with Ed at his Evelyn's Crackers stall. People came by to taste the amazing crackers and shortbreads, handmade from local organic grains, and to chat.

One guy told me about his addiction to the Cheese Crackers, but then was buying two other kinds instead. It was like he was rationing himself. I remonstrated with him a little, reminding him that he might need to indulge himself while watching the election results Monday night. "Oh, he said, joking, I have a bottle of gin for that!" We laughed, but it did remind me of some of those deeply disappointing election nights when my democratic impulses and reflexes were tested and all I wanted to do was smash something or weep or ...

Here's hoping tomorrow is NOT like that!