Empty Nest Expat cited for excellent expat advice and resources by the London Telegraph

A cup of Turkish coffee

is the perfect accompaniment

to blog reading

It's a beautiful snowy day here in Istanbul. It was a joy to come home in the snow, and learn that sharing my expat experience is making a difference.

Today I learned that "Empty Nest Expat" was recognized by the Telegraph for "providing excellent expat advice and resources."  How fun! That's exactly what I try and do: provide advice and resources for expats and empty nesters as I share about my expat journey. I'm especially pleased this esteemed newspaper recognized my work, since I am in a period of low blogging due to taking Turkish lessons three times a week.

 I know how thoroughly the editors there work on behalf of their British expat community. Thank you, Telegraph editors. I'm glad you enjoy hearing about expat life; it's so kind of you to include a Yank!

And if you are a new reader, here's some samples of my advice. British readers, be sure and notice the last link. It isn't advice, just a wonderful celebration of my lifelong hero who was, after all, British. That's especially for you.

On Learning a Language Overseas:

Time Out for Turkish

A Review of Live Mocha : The Internet's Largest Language Learning Website

On Living Without a Car: (starting my 5th year now!):

Starting My Third Year Without a Car

How the Czech Government Delighted Me as a Consumer

On Living Spontaneously and Being Open to New People:

An Evening with the Hari Krishnas

Eating my Way through Sofia, Bulgaria

On Terrific Expat Reads:

A Trip to Provence, Accompanied by Julia Child

Hearing Tales from a Female Nomad In Person: Rita Golden Gelman

Vagabonding

Hello, Great Big Beautiful World! (first-ever blog post)

On Downsizing and getting ready for the Expat Adventure:

"Shed Your Stuff, Change Your Life"

Shedding a House and a Full-Time Role

Shed your Music

Shed your Clothes

Shed your Commitments

Shed at Work

Shed Your Books

Shed Your Furniture

And lastly, especially for my British readers, a post in celebration of a great friend to America who was a wonderful leader of free people, the greatest man of the 20th century:

"An Iron Curtain Has Descended"

Thanks for reading. And keep coming back.


Look for "Empty Nest Expat" on Facebook for more updates.

Thank you ExpatsBlog.com for my Silver Award Winner badge - Turkish expat blog

Yesterday I found out that my blog was recognized by ExpatsBlog.com as their silver award winner for Turkish expat blogs. This particular blogging competition was so fun because awards were based on nominations. It meant so much to see all of the lovely things my friends and readers wrote in support of my nomination.

I don't know why, but my blog doesn't seem to get that many reader comments, even though my readership has never been higher. Reading those contest comments was motivational!

There are many, many lovely Turkish expat blogs out there, but I would like to give a special shout-out to the other bloggers recognized by ExpatsBlog.com. They are:

Gold Award Winner: My Turkish Joys

Bronze Award Winner: Ayak's Turkish Delights

Honorable Mention: Canim Benim

Honorable Mention: Ellen in Turkey

Çok teşekkür ederim! Thank you!

Talking About "My People," Iowans, to the Travel Junkies

"American Gothic"

by Iowa artist Grant Wood 

If you live away from where you grew up, have you ever received an invitation to talk about "your people," those that raised you and the culture you grew up in? I can't say I had before. But one of the pleasures of living in Istanbul and having so many expat friends is that I interact with a variety of international people everyday.

My Internations travel group, the Travel Junkies (who I will write more about in future posts), began hosting evenings where individual members shared about the place they came from. The woman who spoke immediately before me spoke about her homeland of Iran. I joked it was just a little intimidating to follow an 8,000-year-old culture to tell about my home state of Iowa, which became a state a mere 166 years ago! 

 

 Repeat three times please: Iowa = corn!

The first things I wanted to teach my friends was to never mix up Iowa, Idaho, and Ohio ever again. Americans always confuse the three and ask Iowans about potatoes and Idahoans about corn.

The President of Iowa State University

at the National Archives in Washington D.C.

celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Morrill Act.

The Morrill Act gave every state in America

that wanted to participate

30,000 acres of federal land to use for a university to

uplift the population.

My hometown of Ames, Iowa, was the first

place in the nation to accept this land grant.

The result today: Iowa State University,

one of the world's most successful

agriculture and technical research universities

in the world supported by a mere 3,000,000 Iowans!

I then was deeply proud to share about Iowa's educational legacy. One of the best things I've ever read on just how good Iowa public education was in Tom Wolfe's book "Hooking Up," a series of essays about American culture. In it he wrote an inspiring essay detailing the impact Iowa public education had on Robert Noyce, a founding chairman of Intel, and a man frequently described as "the father of Silicon Valley."

 Besides describing Noyce's educational experiences growing up in Iowa and at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa specifically, Tom Wolfe made the case that the business casual dress popularized the IT industry was just Noyce's Midwestern lack of fashion pretense institutionalized into Silicon Valley culture.

I love that story, as one would never imagine Iowans having an impact on fashion. We are not a fashion forward people. But we are a deeply democratic people. There is no "us and them" in Iowa, when I grew up there, we viewed ourselves as "us."

Iowa has the highest per capita number of high school graduates of any state in the nation (as well it should since it was the first state in the nation to insitutionalize high school), the highest literacy rate of any state in the nation, we have two cities out of the top three with the most number of PhDs per capita (Ames, Iowa and Iowa City, Iowa share that distinction with Boulder, Colorado).

The beautiful law library

at the Iowa State Capitol building -

frequently used as a television backdrop

for Iowa caucus reporting by national news organizations

Indeed, literacy is so darn important in Iowa, that our recent first lady, Christie Vilsack, visited every single public library in the State because she considered public libraries the most important provider of culture in each town. Some of those libraries were probably one room! She still visited them because those libraries brought their citizens the greater outside world.

Iowa's appreciation of reading and literature is so profound it's even been recognized by UNESCO. Iowa City, Iowa was named a "City of Literature" by UNESCO along with Dublin, Reykjavik, Melbourne, and Edinburgh.

After all, the University of Iowa (where I received my M.A. in Library and Information Science) is home to the Iowa Writer's Workshop, the very first creative writing program in the nation. It draws not only nationally-famous writers, but internationally-known writers. For example, Orhan Pamuk, Turkey's Nobel laureate for literature, has spent time at the Iowa Writer's Workshop. UNESCO speculated Iowa City may be the most literary spot in the world for its size.  It has a mere 67,000 people and was recognized with those large world-famous cities!

"Spring in Town"

painted by Iowa artist

Grant Wood, 1941

In addition to our educational values, I thought our next most important deeply-held value was in feeding the world. Iowa is first in the nation in corn production, first in the nation in soybean production, 1st in the nation in hog production (the most searched for recipe on the Internet in America is for pork chops) 1st in the nation in egg production, and 2nd in the nation in beef production. Indeed, 90% of all Iowa's land is used in farming which resulted in Iowa contributing $4.5 billion in exports to help America's balance of trade in 2005.

Notice the precise geometry

of Iowa farming.

It's a sublter beauty than mountains and oceans,

but it is beauty, nonetheless.

My friends were fascinated by the combination of a highly agricultural state combined with a high level of education in the general population. Most Iowans live in cities. It's hard for folks who come from countries where agriculture is all about peasant traditions to imagine a place where high education levels and ag can be combined.

Dr. Borlaug

Iowans care about feeding the world so much there is now a prize coming out of Iowa started by one of our own, Dr. Norman Borlaug, the ag scientist who is credited with saving more human life than anyone else who has ever lived in the history of the world. Coming from a small farm in Cresco, Iowa, born of Norwegian heritage, Dr. Borlag helped farmers globally increase their yields. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.

The Iowa-generated World Food Prize is a mere 22 years old, but hopes to be recognized as the "Nobel Prize of Food," honoring those innovators in politics and science who find new ways to feed humanity. The Secretary of State announces the winner every year and the Secretary General of the United Nations comes to the awards ceremony each year. I hope, gentle reader, that you will care as much about who wins this award, as any other. I think it is that important, don't you?

A talk about Iowa wouldn't be complete without an explanation of the whole Iowa presidential primary caucus system. I think Iowa maintains its first in the nation status for selecting the president through a primary caucus for a very important reason. The first place to get a crack at judging future presidents should not only be highly educated but small enough for retail politics. Iowa is both. Candidates have to interact personally with Iowans, instead of selling themselves in paid media campaigns.

There is even a joke about it. A presidential candidate asks an Iowan for his vote in the upcoming caucus and the Iowan says, "I can't vote for you yet. I've only interacted with you three times." When I was a county chair for Bob Dole when he was running for President, it was fun to host Elizabeth Dole in my mom's living room where she preceded to tell us why Bob would make a great President.

Iowa (97% white), literally made Obama a star, when in 2008, chose him above everyone else as the winner of the Democratic caucus. He finished his 2012 campaign in Iowa too, combining sentimentality and swing-state saavy.

I described three Iowa companies I thought would impact the entire world culturally: Pioneer Hybrid for genetically-modified foods, Pinterest, a social media company for sharing visual media, and Dwolla, a brand new financial services company that makes money transfers inexpensive between people and companies.

The Iowa butter cow,

and her current sculptor, Sarah Pratt

Since my friends were travel junkies, I wanted to make sure they knew the four most important tourist things to do in Iowa. First is riding on RAGBRAI, the 10,000-strong annual bike ride across Iowa that occurs every July. The second is driving the Iowa River Road along the Mississippi, what National Geographic Magazine calls as on of the "500 Drives for a lifetime," third is spending a day at the Iowa State Fair with a special look at the sculpted "butter cow," and my last suggestion was renting a houseboat to float down the Mississippi.

You don't have to be in Istanbul, or even an expat, to carry out this idea of rotating travelogues from natives to friends. I've loved attending each one (usually presented with a meal that matches the country) and so far I have learned about Trinidad and Tobago, Lebanon, Sudan, and Iran.

Just gather a bunch of international friends and put on evenings for each other. I felt deeply honored that my friends cared enough about me to learn about "my people." I had great fun and renewed passion for my birthplace putting my presentation together. Yea Iowa! That's where the tall corn grows.

Here are four other Iowa-related posts I wrote you might enjoy:

You're My Al Bell!

Enjoying Hometown Friends in Istanbul

Dvorak Embraced Spillville, Iowa; Spillville, Iowa Embraced Dvorak

UNESCO Names Iowa City, Iowa a "City of Literature"

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"Been There, Done That," only in present tense

At Topkapı Palace

with a trusty audioguide

around my neck

Wow! How exciting. I'm part of a trend documented with a three-page travel story in the New York Times. What is it? Solo travel. According to the article, Google reports that solo travel searches are up 50 to 60% and becoming larger all the time. Women make up 70% of solo travel, although men do more solo adventure travel like mountain climbing. The article also explains the difference between solo travel and single travel.

 Where does the article recommend a solo person go if they want to explore a new city? Istanbul! I'm here, I'm doing that! Click here to read the entire article.

Voting in the American Election as an Overseas Voter

This week, I cast my ballot in the American election. I was proud to have not blown it off but to have figured out how to do it. Figuring it out could be overwhelming, but it really helped to just call the Board of Elections where I last voted and ask them how to do it. There is a military and overseas voter specialist in both the city and county election office. I found it reassuring that two specific people actually had their name attached to making my vote count, and it wasn't a shared responsibility with an entire office, possibly becoming no one's responsibility.

They told me to go online, using my Colorado driver's license, and activate my registration for this election which I did. On September 22nd, all military and overseas voters were emailed instructions on how to download and return an email ballot.

It wasn't as simple as downloading an attachment, clicking on the right box, and then emailing it back. If it was going to be emailed back, it had to be printed, signed, scanned, and sent back. I printed it and then faxed it back. I figured there was less chance for someone to change my ballot if I sent it to the office then if I sent it through email. Fax seems less secure than electronic communication, but in this instance it made me feel more secure. I am basing that on well, no knowledge whatsoever! I called the office and confirmed that it had been received though and I had done everything correctly so my vote would count.

Overseas voters give up their right to a secret ballot. I was okay with that. Again, I am basing that on, well...no knowledge to the contrary that it could be a bad thing.

Thinking about how to make my vote count gave me a feeling of vulnerability. After all, there are people running for office who are okay with my children not getting equal pay for equal work, who want to criminalize private family planning decisions, who approach decisions of war and peace with a buccaneer's attitude. It matters deeply to me that my vote count. I also felt that I couldn't complain, if I hadn't done my part by voting.

I am a much, much more globally-aware voter than I was four years ago. I've grown a lot in perspective since I moved abroad the day after Obama was elected in 2008. While I've always followed foreign affairs, now living overseas, I have a view from the other side informed by living in a completely international community talking with people from all over the world everyday. I understand that it is not just about America and what's best for us (although I appreciate that many Americans find that view hard to give up and don't see why we should).

I see how important our leadership is in so many venues and that it has to be informed by voices from the entire planet. It isn't just about us, because the complexity of the world has grown, and so many decisions are about all of us.

America has unique advantages: size, wealth, a shared tongue, and a stable, old, democracy renewed with ideas from the world's finest research universities. Nations can try and band together to replicate our size, but as the EU has shown, it is harder than it looks. It's interesting to me that one party still calls for sending issues back to the States, rather than solve them at a federal level, when our problems have gone from local to national to now global. To send issues back to smaller units of governance would disadvantage the people's representatives when trying to regulate behemoth global corporations. But maybe that's the point of their philosophy.

I hope leaders like Obama and George H.W. Bush, who are so good at creating a consensus among multiple poles of power all around the world, are our future. The people are currently deciding in this election whether or not to go through life on their own or to instead decide we're all in this together. I hope we choose to see that not only are we are all in this together - it's not just as a nation, but as a planet.

Thanks to all the people who made my ability to vote possible in 2012: American veterans, female sufferagettes, the Founding Fathers, public servants in election offices - see - we're all in this together.

Meeting the Kilners: a visit to the home of the U.S. Consul General in Istanbul

 American ladies arriving at the entrance.
 

Jennie Toner, far right and front

just founded the
Istanbul Instructors' Network

with eight colleagues.

Every year, the Professional American Women of Istanbul are invited to the home of America's Consul General in Istanbul. The title of Consul General refers to America's highest diplomat in an important city that isn't the capital city.

I had no expectations of what it would be like but, I was especially looking forward to this, as I have two friends who have served as America's Consul General around the world. One friend served in Perth, Australia, and another friend served in Mumbai, India. I was never able to visit them while they held those posts so I thought my visit to the Kilner's residence might give me a feeling for what my friends' lives were like when they served. Now one of my friends has become an American ambassador, but he's in a country so off the commercial beaten path and expensive to visit, he's going to retire without me ever having visited him and his family in their country of service.

 Hope Mandel and her friend Christy.

Hope is here in Istanbul

working for the Nielsen Company
as a Client Business Partner.
 

It's hard to see in this photo,

but this was a lovely view of the church

in the background.

Weekends in Istanbul have been spectacular this fall, that Saturday morning was no different. The U.S. Consul residence is in the Arnavutköy neighborhood. I haven't explored this neighborhood yet, but need to do so soon, as a simple walk through one day told me it was adorable. The streets give an old Ottoman feeling of close wooden houses with overhanging second stories. At the windows of many homes are beautiful flowers. About twelve of us American ladies met that morning and took a taxi from Besiktas to the residence and it was quite an adventure finding the home in Arnavutköy and getting there.

 Me, stopping to take a picture

 in celebration of the peaceful feeling
of the grounds

A view of the back of the house.

A lawn like this

is a very rare thing in Istanbul.

 Enjoying brunch and conversation

on the back porch

A lovely place to sit in the back yard

and enjoy the view of shipping traffic

passing through the Bosphorus.

 

I find it impossible to tire of watching the ships

go through. They are magnificent.

 U.S. Consul General Scott Kilner
and Vanessa H. Larson,

managing editor of the new global start-up

Culinary Backstreets.

The both speak fluent Turkish, being experienced Turkophiles,

but here they are speaking English.

Enjoying the morning

Me with Adrian Hodges,

writer of the blog "Postcards from Istanbul."

Adrian is a newlywed bursting with joy.

Helene Bumbalo is just beginning her expat adventure.

She is quickly becoming an expert on teaching

"Aviation English."

We had fun and were inspired!

Mrs. Kilner welcomed us to her home and I made a point of thanking her for her service to our country. I think it is important to acknowledge the service supportive spouses give America when they are married to people who serve America professionally, because those spouses do so at considerable sacrifice to their own careers. They don't often get to choose where they will live or how long they will be there. A simple acknowledgement of this gift they give us seems like an important thing to do, don't you agree? I think it's important to say to military spouses and children too.

Everything about the morning made me so proud of my country and American values. I appreciated that the house was grand, like my nation, but our representatives were wonderfully down-to-earth and approachable. I appreciated the two Marines who were present to invite us to their annual Marine Corps ball. I loved the helpful attitude of the consular staff as they worked to answer questions about voting issues and general safety issues. I appreciated how deeply knowledgeable our Consul General is about Turkey and how much time the Kilners have in the country having served in three different posts: Adana, Ankara, and Istanbul.

When I was telling one of my Turkish girlfriends about our morning at the Consul General's house, she said, "I would have to get my hair done for that and get a new dress. It would be impossible to go without maximum effort." I think she was shocked to learn that many Americans felt comfortable going in jeans. It was a Saturday morning, for heaven's sake! I like that we Americans don't always feel the need to dress to impress and could just enjoy each other as authentically as possible.

Sometimes though, Americans can take casual too far. Ninety-five of us R.S.V.P.ed and said we would come and only 55 showed up.

Istanbul is an especially intense post, maybe one of the most intense in the world, due to Turkey's strategic position and regional issues. I believe the Secretary of State has come to Istanbul four times over the past year on business, which doesn't usually happen at consular posts.

After we had enjoyed brunch, Mr. Kilner gave us a 20-minute overview of issues affecting the region. I think there is an etiquette rule that if you go to the White House, you shouldn't repeat everything the President said, otherwise he or she never feels free to talk. So I will extend that same courtesy to Mr. Kilner, as his office has incredibly complex issues in their hands regarding Syria and surrounding international tension. I am sure that "sober" is a word that is completely overused in diplomatic circles, but I felt reassured, as best as an ordinary citizen can feel reassured, that my government is approaching these issues with thoughtful sobriety.

After we left that day, a bunch of us were riding the bus back to central Istanbul, and one of the ladies who had been a foreign service wife told us that before 1970, foreign service wives used to be rated on how much charity work they did, on their entertaining, etc. Imagine! They weren't even paid or held a position, but the U.S. government felt free to rate them.

People like Mrs. Kilner who support their spouse in representing our country are now a disappearing species, as many spouses choose to have their own career.  I'm grateful for both the Kilners and appreciated the opportunity to see how my beloved nation is represented in Istanbul.

Several photos courtesy of Hope Mandel.

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I lasted a month-and-a-half in Cihangir

By far the best thing about living in the Istanbul neighborhood of Cihangir was how centrally located it was. I could walk to the Istanbul Modern and to church (which still took an hour to get to - but this time on foot). Cihangir came highly recommended by newspapers and foreigners alike, although not necessarily the locals.

What I didn't consider before moving, was that Cihangir is so centrally located, every single Erasmus exchange student who had come to Istanbul for six months would be walking down my street at 1 a.m., 2 a.m., 3 a.m. 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. after a long night of dancing and drinking. Each hour of the evening's activities would then have to be discussed in very loud foreign girl and boy voices where dismay or giggles would be promptly shared by their friends, also in equally loud foreign girl and boy voices. If it had been a really good night, the drunken singing would start.

In addition, neighborhood men would love to sit on the building stoop and discuss life until 2 a.m. The neighbors might play their oud and bongos until 4 a.m. prompting neighborhood residents to come out on their balconies and yell for quiet. The taxis and shuttle buses would take a shortcut to the sea road on my street all night long.

The future Maxim Hotel

for now, an empty construction lot

Up the street from me, was a very fun construction site to watch transform during the daytime - but not so fun at night. The construction workers worked in two 12-hour shifts and had for months. Dirt and grime floated everywhere from their efforts. And worst of all, were the dump trucks full of dirt rattling and clanging down my hill at 3 a.m.

Not exactly "lite" construction

 

Cihangir has magnificent views. When searching for my initial apartment and then a second one, I saw so many breathtaking views of the Bosphorus. Indeed, right next to the Cihangir mosque, is a park with a spectacular vista of the Bosphorus, the cruise ships, the Hagia Sophia, and the Blue Mosque. Regular folks can't enjoy it though because it is always filled with 1-5 winos sleeping it off. The winos are in no way dangerous but they leave their bottles and litter everywhere. 

 

So, because of the noise, I decided to find a new neighborhood. I've since moved to Beşiktaş, another centrally-located neighborhood, but one step removed from "too much" activity. Everyday in the first two weeks, it seemed, I discovered yet another girlfriend lives in the neighborhood. I got it right this time.

 

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My Favorite Way of Learning About Islam

When I first moved to Turkey from the Czech Republic, I noticed the different vibe immediately. America's dominant vibe is commerce and making money. The Czech Republic's dominant vibe is skepticism and lack of belief in religion, politicians, and ideologies. Turkey's dominant vibe is faith. Even though the dominant faith isn't my faith, I do enjoy the cocoon feeling of being surrounded by faith.

Before I came to Turkey, everything I knew about Islam was taught to me by the American media. There was a heavy emphasis on how Islam holds back women's rights and doesn't promote critical thinking.

People must be getting something out of it as a religion though, otherwise why would it have become so popular so quickly in this region of the world and remained so. I wanted to learn more about it from people, rather than media sources.

I needed someone who knew my culture to guide me because I wanted someone who knew where I was coming from and my culture's standards of critical thinking and equality.

Luckily, I came across a blog written by a woman of Egyptian heritage who grew up in the Vancouver, Canada area. She too, had, North American standards. Daliah is a financial and economics reporter for a Western corporation, but she is also on a journey to explore her own faith of Islam and to submit to it deeper.

Learning about Islam makes me a better friend and expat. It also allows me to get more out of my time here. With each year here, I understand the festive feeling of Ramazan better and participate more. When I take the time to learn more about the dominant belief system in this country, I am treating my friends and hosts with respect. Most importantly, I find Islam and Islamic people way less threatening than I used to before I lived in an Islamic country. They are not a monolith.

Here's a sampling of blog posts from Daliah's blogs that I enjoyed.

This is single best description I have ever read on how to honor your father and mother:

The three-letter word that taught me how to respect my parents

Daliah explaining the act of fasting:

Fasting to feed the soul

Daliah explaining how hard it can be to pray five times a day:

Becoming spiritually punctual

This post helped me understand the spirit of Ramazan (Turkish name):

10 Ways to Maintain Ramadan's Spiritual Momentum

A trip to Provence, accompanied by Julia Child

What is the greatest expat book of all time? So far, for me, it has to be "My Life in France" by Julia Child. These days it is easy for expats to get a book in an instant on Kindle. I still love the experience of paper copies though. I bought Julia Child's memoir of a life in France in Little Rock, Arkansas, hand carried it to Istanbul, and then to Provence, to read while when I went to visit my college girlfriend Robin and her family in July.

Last year, I delighted in documenting the pleasures of the Provence in ten different posts about my visit to Robin's house. This year was as wonderful and we did much the same things. First, there were the market pleasures in Loumartin to experience:

Perfect cherry tomatoes

Beautiful berries

more exquisite

by the small size of their boxes

French rabbits who gave their lives

in service to their country's cuisine

There were also the pleasures of food and conversation at the table. My friend Robin is a wonderful cook who knows how to make her family and guests feel loved by the smell, taste, and look of her exquisite home-cooked food.

Knowing I was coming from Istanbul, where access to pork in daily cuisine is practically non-existent, she indulged my cravings for all things pig while I was there. I think we had eight pork meals in a row!

My first breakfast in Provence.

Scrambled eggs and bacon!

Like manna from heaven.

A leek and bacon tart

Steak, mashed potatos and gravy,

grilled mushrooms and roasted fennel

Roast chicken, potatoes, and carrots.

Notice the French market preference

for keeping almost the entirety

of the chicken's feet on the chicken.

Warm leek and bacon soup

Fresh melon and prosciutto

Fresh berry tart

An English summer pudding

Oh, so delicious!

Serena, Robin and Jim's daughter, was visiting from Australia where she is working on her Masters degree in philosophy. It was so wonderful for me to see and listen to her. I had last seen Serena when she was in eighth grade. I enjoyed hearing her discuss her intellectual interests. Experiencing the children of our friends can be so delightful, don't you agree? It's a chance to appreciate our friend's life work in parenting.

Serena has grown up

to be as fine a cook

as both of her parents

Serena's apricot upside-down cake

inspired by famous food blogger

 David Lebovitz

Last year, I had told Robin and Jim about my favorite soup, Russian Cabbage Borscht, out of Mollie Katzen's "Moosewood Cookbook." Neither of them had tried borscht, so I promised to make it this year. I must need new glasses though, because in buying the tomato puree for the soup, I failed to notice two bright red chilies on the French-language label.

My soup may look like it is supposed to look, but borscht is not supposed to burn your tongue with chili heat! Oh well...our memories are always enhanced by the things that go wrong in a humorous way. I hope Robin, Jim, and Serena will give borscht a second chance after my Russian cabbage soup got a cross-cultural Latin American dose of extra heat! It's not supposed to taste like that.

Beet, cabbage, carrot, and potato goodness

Russian Cabbage Borscht

topped with yogurt and dill -

normally, healthy and satisfying comfort food.

I relished reading Julia Child's memoir of cooking and cookbook creation at the exact same time I was experiencing such interesting French food markets and food. Julia's joy in discovering the best in a culture new to her, and personalizing that knowledge with the creation of a cookbook celebrating France's cuisine was such rich reading. Provencal surroundings of French landscape and cuisine and dear friends who celebrated both enhanced my reading pleasure.

It was fascinating to me that Julia Child saw America in the polarized way of red and blue that we know today, even if she didn't use those familiar descriptive terms that were invented long after her book was published. She expressed such wonder in cross-cultural discovery and couldn't understand why her own family did not want to experience that same wonder.

Julia Child hit the sweet spot of publishing with her book when American women were cooking for themselves and wanted to make their meals as gracious and as beautiful as possible. I personally have tried cooking out of her cookbook and always find it too laborious and complicated. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate her achievement though.

I could not help but weep at the end of the memoir, such was Julia Child's fervor for the act of living and discovery and creation. What an incredibly well-lived life. Were she still alive, she would have turned 100 years old this week.

Robin and I traded books, and I started the book she was reading: The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. Author Gretchen Rubin fretted that time was short and she asked herself, "am I focusing on the things that really made me happy?"

The book was an account of one woman's drive to do all the things that could contribute to a net increase in her happiness over the course of the year.

How fun it was to read two books in one week and discuss the ideas in each title with my friend. I haven't read two books in one week in years! In the afternoon, Robin and I would have a late afternoon swim and discuss what we had read. The week was a retreat in every sense of the word.

I love this woman!

Thank you Robin,

for a wonderful week with you and your family.

Hearing "Tales from a Female Nomad" in Person: Rita Golden Gelman

Rita Golden Gelman

Author, "Tales of a Female Nomad"

and over seventy children's books

It struck me today as I was sitting having lunch with author Rita Golden Gelman how ironic that was. If there is anything Rita Golden Gelman is not - it is a 'lady who lunches.' Pinch me! I was meeting one of the exciting role models of my last four years as an 'Empty Nest Expat'."

I got to meet Rita, and by arriving early, have lunch with her at the Professional American Women of Istanbul (PAWI) meeting in Istanbul which I attended for the first time. Rita was the guest speaker! The women in attendance were also captivating, happening ladies making their dreams happen here in Istanbul.

Rita Golden Gelman is the author of the acclaimed book "Tales of a Female Nomad." I read her book as part of my vagabonding journey these last four years and was absolutely riveted. The blogging universe exposes us to all kinds of people living lives different than our own these days, but Rita Golden Gelman was a true pioneer in choosing a different path than the American dream of a house with the picket fence.

Rita lived the American dream, actually. She was married - a dutiful wife of an interesting man and mother to accomplished children. She lived with them in Manhattan and Greenwich Village, New York as her children grew up. Eventually, her husband's work took the family out to the film industry in Los Angeles in California. Rita didn't identify with any of it. Her marriage eventually fell apart and she decided to put the anthropology she had been studying in a PhD program at UCLA into practice by seeing the world. By then her children were grown. She sold everything, stuck the house money into savings without spending a dime of it, and has spent the last 27 years living without a permanent home and traveling the world.

She told such incredibly inspiring stories from her book which I won't share here because they are hers to tell. "Tales of a Female Nomad" inspired a whole community of readers to email her with their travel adventures (including the sublime recipes they collected along the way). Rita organized some of their tales into an anthology called "Female Nomad and Friends: Tales of Breaking Free and Breaking Bread Around the World."

Random House paid her and her 41 contributors an initial payment of $55,000 for the book. All of the money goes to support children of the lowest castes in India with vocational training. Guess what's on your Christmas list, family! What a legacy. And what a gift to give to her community of readers - the chance to be part of that legacy.

Risk-taking, trust, and serendipity are key ingredients of joy. Without risk, nothing new ever happens. Without trust, fear creeps in. Without serendipity, there are no surprises.
~ Rita Golden Gelman's quote on Starbuck's tall cup #31

There are cultures where overseas travel is really celebrated. The Netherlands and Isreal come to mind, for me, as two countries where citizens have enough time off, a lack of fear, and the willingness to hit the open road. America is not one of those cultures. Rita is interested in changing that and has a plan to do so.

At age 75, Rita is starting to feel her age for the first time. She wants to go home to spend the next two years in America working on her legacy. She is frequently invited to speak at universities about her global travels. She always asks the university to set up a talk at the local high school as well. Gentle readers, do you know of students that would benefit from hearing Rita's inspiring tales? Why not suggest her as a speaker to your favorite lecture series committee?

Rita believes Americans would approach the world with more understanding if each high school senior took a gap year between high school and college to see the world. She said high school students have three choices: university, work, or military after high school. They are not ready to experience any of these yet with full maturity. She urges grandparents to begin a $500 a year gap year fund for their grandchildren so that kids have a year to mature before starting the bigger commitments of study, work, or job while using that time to understand the greater wider world better.

She has started an organization called Let's Get Global. Her plan is to partner with a young man who is creating an American Gap Year Association and beginning an accreditation process for American gap year programs. Rita would like two people in every high school to be able to win a "Gap Year Scholarship" just to demonstrate the power of the idea to young people everywhere. Two young people from each high school nationwide setting off for parts unknown could begin to change American culture of fear about the outside world.

Rita says that fear drives one of the most common questions she gets about her lifestyle. "How can someone overcome the fear of setting out on an adventure?" She is currently working on a book of 64 tips for developing a successful mindset for global discovery.

What an exciting moment to

meet one of my vagabonding

role models!

So Westerner, ask yourself, could you give up the control Rita has over her life? It seems like control is the #1 Western addiction, but Rita just strugged her shoulders and says "I see what opportunities come to me." She rarely knows where she'll be six months from now. She has four steadfast rules 1) smile at everyone, 2) talk to strangers, 3) accept all invitations and 4) eat everything that is offered. The ability to be adaptable to multiple peoples, cultures, situations and opportunities has resulted in an incredibly inspiring life well-lived.