The Novruz 2010 experience was different than the 2009 experience. Last year, during the holiday, I was still living with a host family. This year I'm living on my own and I chose who to spend the holiday with and how much time to spend there.
Day 1: şor cörəyi (sweet bread with sugar & nuts inside)
Day 2: şəkərbura (pastry with sugar & nuts inside)
Day 3: paxlava (baklava)
For those days, I was her substitute daughter. My friend is in her early 20's, but she doesn't really like to bake (or cook, for that matter) and hasn't learned. So I was the Azeri daughter, learning to cook from her mother - for preparation of having a family of my own, of course! Here are a couple pictures of our days.
Now I just have to try these recipes on my own before I leave the country. But first I have to translate a couple spices that I couldn't find in the dictionary...
The actual day of the holiday I spent with the family of a couple of teenage girls that came to camp last summer, are in my cooking club and are my neighbors since I moved a couple of months ago. While I could have gone many places, I chose to go one place and spend the entire day there. I received instructions on how to cook our meal, looked at tons of pictures, played catch with the kids, helped one of the girls write a letter in English, ate a ton, and much more.
Like last year, there was a fire. And fire jumping. And dancing around the fire. But this celebration had the added excitement of fireworks! And I remembered just how jumpy I am to loud noises. After dusk, when we had the fire festivities, we headed inside for our gigantic meal - plov, dolma, compot, and more sweets. Then the kids and I went out for papaq atmaq - literally, to throw hats. We knocked on neighbors' doors, left our hats, and then ran away before they came to the door. Then the neighbor would fill our hats with candy and fruit. While these are traditional ways of celebrating Novruz, it can vary a little from family to family just depending on the ages of the kids, etc. - for example, with my host family the two girls were older, so they didn't throw hats. But the meal was mostly the same - just like how most Americans have turkey as the main dish for Thanksgiving, plov is the main dish for Novruz.
Like last year, there was a fire. And fire jumping. And dancing around the fire. But this celebration had the added excitement of fireworks! And I remembered just how jumpy I am to loud noises. After dusk, when we had the fire festivities, we headed inside for our gigantic meal - plov, dolma, compot, and more sweets. Then the kids and I went out for papaq atmaq - literally, to throw hats. We knocked on neighbors' doors, left our hats, and then ran away before they came to the door. Then the neighbor would fill our hats with candy and fruit. While these are traditional ways of celebrating Novruz, it can vary a little from family to family just depending on the ages of the kids, etc. - for example, with my host family the two girls were older, so they didn't throw hats. But the meal was mostly the same - just like how most Americans have turkey as the main dish for Thanksgiving, plov is the main dish for Novruz.
It was a great day, with a wonderfully welcoming family, and I'm glad that they invited me into their life and shared their holiday with me.
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