Notes from Cottonwood

August in Talas means melons. The bazaar road looks like a sea of green and yellow: big striped ones, long yellow ones, small round ones that smell like honey. Rahim ata gave me a heavy one (3 som) and showed me how to tap it: "if it sounds like a drum, no good; if it sounds like a closed door, good."

I tapped fifteen melons before I picked one. I'm told that this is normal.

The melon road. Don't ask me which one was mine.

I've been reading a food blog by a woman named Zarina who lives in Talas (link on the left). My sister found it first and she says her church potluck can't have enough of her plov. So I tried it. I got the carrots wrong (cut, not grated, which makes sense: they must stay in sticks) and I stirred the rice because I was nervous, which is apparently a crime in the plov world.

My first plov. The color is better than the taste. Zarina, I'm sorry.

Mark ate three plates. Sam ate rice and left the carrots in a pile on the side of the plate. Lily asked if we could have it every night. I'd say that's a pass.