An incredible food experience

Mike's pretty sick - it seems that the infection he's had for awhile has spread to his hip joint or something, causing a bunch of hospital visits yesterday and then a MRI (among other things) to get a real diagnosis today. In the afternoon I went back with him to the hospital mostly to be a handholder and distraction; it was a long and tiring time with people saying conflicting things in Turkish in the heat. He also hadn't really slept the night before because the pain was so bad, so exhaustion was kicking in.

Thus we stopped to pick up some kebab on the way back home so that he could take the pain-killers doctor gave us. Hanefi took us to a place along the highway towards our village where he seemed to know not only the owner but the men sitting around their drinks at the "kafeteria". So we order, guy asked if wanted garlic, spicey pepper - sure thing, I figure they'll make a sauce to order or something. Then he opens a refrigerator with what seems to be a dead cow or two hanging there, slices off a chunk of meat, weighs it, and then puts it in the meat grinder right in front of me. It looked like one of those old hand grinders but was motorized. So that passes through a bit, then goes into the food processor with the pepper and garlic (this will be Adana kebap that's a bit spicey it seems). Takes it out, throws it on the wooden counter in front of me and proceeds to chop, mash and then form two meat circles the size of dinner plates on pieces of paper. Some tomatoes are thrown on top and a little boy runs them out the door and down the street a ways, presumably to be cooked.

Meanwhile another little boy brings us cola, comes out to talk with Mike and I in the dolmus (since Mike's not supposed to walk and standing hurts). We have a funny English and Turkish conversation involving places we've been, where we're from, and the boys trying to sell us Ali, the Arab boy who's somewhere between6 and 8. Terribly cute, but we resist (they were concerned that I didn't have children I think). Finally after almost too much time the boys appear with giant newspaper packets - the meat circles are on huge ovals of fresh-baked flatbread and too hot to touch. Incredible stuff. And way yummy.

Today we just got back from the private hospital (my blogging is half digging, half medical issues it seems this summer). It was a long time and lots of doctors, but they squeezed him into the MRI and found liquid in his hip but seemingly no infection there. So days of rest are in order - since digging ends tomorrow and then people just stick around for a week or however long it takes to get their paperwork and final reports done, that's pretty ok. The best part was probably being in air conditioning for more than 2 seconds... huzzah! Gotta love those silver linings.