It's shuka time!

Sitting at home all day might appeal to some, but not me.  Yesterday I didn't leave the house and I ended up in a bad mood and slightly depressed.  Whoa is me, the diplomat's wife, who's like a caged bird wanting to sing.

So today I spent the afternoon exploring downtown Yerevan on my own.  Again, I was lucky to have a charming cab driver, this time named Simon.  My mood always goes up about ten notches when I realize that I can have semi-substantive conversations with people in Russian.  For example, Simon told me that he spent 20 years working in the Armenian Assembly and only drove cabs on occasion -- today was my lucky day!  For about $1 more than the usual home-to-city center fare, Simon gave me a mini-tour of the city so that I could get orientated.  He drove me by the American University, the Cascade, the Opera House and the Philharmonic.  Then he took me out to the "big" shuka (market) near the center before bidding me adieu.  (But not before making sure I knew how to get home and oh-so-gently chastising me for not having kids yet.) While small in comparison to the shukas on the outskirts of town (there's one near us that's referred to as "Bangladesh" because it's so far away and so crowded), this one was perfect because it had a little bit of everything but wasn't overwhelming.

The day's reward

Lonely Planet had warned me to shop on an empty stomach because as a foreigner I'd be plied with free samples and "gifts."  Usually, I take LP with a grain of salt but this time they were spot-on.  It's a good thing I didn't eat lunch today.  The meat lady made me try four different times of Armenian smoked meat (I settled on some basturma and ended up with a stick of something else as well -- I'm not even sure if I paid for it); the nut guy let me sample all the pistachios until I found the one I liked, and the fruit seller gave me a handful of free dried apricots and a "fruit lavash" (basically a homemade fruit roll-up) after I bought 400grams of dried plums.

Armed with a bag full of treasures, I set off to figure out exactly where I was.  I had a brief moment that my former American Councils colleagues will enjoy.  I found myself looking around for a old babushka to ask, "Izvenite, ya ne znayu gde ya?" It was straight out of one of our pre-departure orientation skits.  Avoid the sketchy looking man and aim for the sweet old lady.  Thankfully, Simon hadn't dropped me too far from the main square, so I easily made my way to some of the nicer souvenir stores.  Santa is shopping in Yerevan this year.

Shuka #1

Before heading home I wanted to find the well known "Shuka #1" which is an architectural gem in Yerevan because of its ornately designed front portico.  I was just planning to take a few pictures and ignore the calls from vendors to sample yet more nuts and fruit until, that is, I reached the spice vendor.  I have a serious weakness for exotic spices and 7000 dram later I left with a huge bag full of Armenian delights.  The seller made me a hug bag full of something she dubbed "Armenian bouquet" which she filled so fast that I didn't have time to ask questions or say no.  I just looked it up on the Interwebs, and *I think* it's something called chaimen which includes cumin, allspice, fenugreek, paprika and black pepper.  I swear she put more than that in it, but who knows. She told me to rub it on everything in kitchen so maybe I'll have a better idea after I experiment a bit.  I also walked away with Armenian red pepper flakes, Armenian adzhika spice (red pepper with other spices) and some dried basil and mint.  I think I'm most excited about the adzhika spice.  Adzhika is spicy red pepper blended with herbs that is used to flavor a lot of Caucasian foods.  Ukrainians and Russian usually dilute it with tomatoes to make a salsa-type condiment, but Caucasians do it up right.  And hot.

Inspired by all this shuka-ing, I'm making a pot of Armenian chicken soup with a recipe I found on thearmeniankitchen.com.  It reminds me of the Greek lemon-chicken soup that I've tasted at the Greek Deli in DC.  But we'll see!  Maybe I'll throw in some adzhika just for fun.