Orientalism

I am not an Orientalist. This, according to Bernard Lewis, is a person who fantizes about the Middle East, the exotic Orient, the desert, the Sheik.

Well, then I am an Orientalist. I shimmy when I hear the oud, I writhe and do a subtle shake when I hear the saz and the music of the Mideast.

I would rather have olives, tomatoes, cheese and yogurt than eggs and stupid pastries for breakfast. I would rather hear melodies from a campfire and Bedouin tents than rock music, I would rather have raki than bourbon. I would rather have a sheik in my bed than some pasty faced northerner with freckles.

So there.

I loved Omar Sharif in Lawrence of Arabia, I remember the 50's movie The Egyptian more than other movies of the time, I remember walking the souk of Izmir with my Mom buying shisk kebab over a bbq in the suburbs. My life growing up centered around the dancing bears on the street five floors below, hearing the minaret calls at sunset, knowing that my neighbors were Turks and were lovely, exotic, and life friends. I grew up with trips to Ephesus, pocketing mosaic fragments, learning archaeology, and coming home to foods which 50's kids did not know in middle America military base.

And, I am a proud American at the same time. Proud in the base commissary way, with imported Spam, fishsticks, Russian dressing, cheeze whiz, all the foods of the maligned 50's. I don't think of these foods this way as we lurched into a modern, world view of foods long before Chez Panisse and California rocketed onto the food scene in the eitghties.These foods were home in a world of kofte, domades and izgara. I was a hybrid: cheeze triangles and kofte with fishsticks and chicken pot pies. Imported celery from Italy for my parent's cockatil parties, and pistachioes staining our fingers red as we cracked the seeds and dropped them on the gypsy's bears five stories below.

It this Orientialism, the romantizing of the " other; the "sheik" with kohl-rimmed eyes and the swooning blonde, so be it. This is how I grew up. I grew up with fishsticks and handfulls of nuts on the street. I grew up with a maid from a village who after pulling us on towels to polish the marble would make us pistachio sweets with honey. After the Spam for dinner we would have lokum the sticky delight clinging our fingers. I credit my parents for not making it 'the other' but makinig it our oppoortunity, our chance to try other foods and culture. I ate goat cheese, stuffed mussles, cheese triangles, coconut on the slice, juice and tea on the street and through the gift of my parents' indulgence and openness, an appreciation of the culture.

To the point that I don't feel here. I don't feel anywhere. I feel a tug, a drumbeat of the Orient, and sitting here I am playing Sahara Lounge music. I would rather hear an oud than a drumset. (Except Cowboy music but that is another event. )II wiggle, I think of pistachoes, I want some raki, I remember Turkish delight. And I am thankful that my parents encouraged me to be an Orientalist before it became a non-political apporporiate word.

Put on the Turkish coffee, put out the blue beads for guests. Cook the chicken with yogurt and mint, prepare the lamb with cinnamon and couscous. Play the music, scent the air with cardamon. Use henna on your hands, on your feet, wiggle your hips and be full figured. Toast the almonds and pour the anise liqueur. Think desert tents, indulgence, survival, and yes, seduction. I am thankful for the past, a part which is now part of my being.