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EDINBURG — I step into a place of fascination and intrigue and the awakening of memories cherished for many lifetimes.
“Is that chai? Turkish chai?” I ask when I see that familiar curved class on a plate in a photograph on a wall.
“Yes,” says a woman who greets me as I enter Jerusalem Mediterranean Bistro and Grocery at 1601 W. Trenton Road.
I immediately order a Turkish coffee for a remembrance of drinking Turkish coffee at the bazaar in Istanbul in October 1985.
The gentleman in an apron who I believe to be the proprietor has heard my exclamations about the chai, so he brings me chai in a paper cup first and then my Turkish coffee.
I’m disappointed the chai did not come in the curved glass like it did while I was on the deck of a boat traveling up the Bosporus Strait toward the Black Sea in October 1985. It was a chilly day and the hot chai tasted good and felt good in my hands and in my mouth. Something about the warmth of the chai and taste of the chai imprinted a permanent memory which includes the choppy sea and the cold and the drizzle and the passing of a boat with the hammer and sickle of the Soviet Union.
Back at the Jerusalem in Edinburg, the proprietor, who identifies himself as Palestinian, explains it’s a matter of expediency to use the disposable cups instead of the curved glass.
I ask him if he serves couscous, a dish I first enjoyed while in Panama while having dinner with an American man named Dave and his French wife Marie Francois. They had spent time in Tunisia where Madame Marie Francois had learned how to make this historically North African dish. I recalled it had been a big pot of grain with meat and vegetables. Later I find many descriptions, but they all mention semolina, which is coarsely milled durum wheat.
After my dinner with David and Marie Francois in Panama, I had mentioned the dish to my coworkers at the Southern Command Newspaper. One of them, Boston-raised John whose family originated from the Middle East, remarked that it was very good. The very next time I had it was at Texas State University in San Marcos where I had the pleasure and privilege of dating a Palestinian woman who was born and raised in Honduras.
She had also made a fine couscous so I had thought it was a Middle Eastern dish, and so at the Jerusalem in Edinburg I naturally assume couscous will be on the menu.
But I don’t see it. Certainly, there must be some mistake.
“No, couscous is Moroccan style,” says the proprietor.
But people everywhere eat it. I’m somewhat confused.
OK, diversity is what I seek in all things, and I don’t have time to be confused, I’m here to enjoy.
I face a huge photo on the wall of the city of Jerusalem and another of the Turkish coffee. Along the walls are tall hookahs and boxes of flavored tobacco and again I remember the bazaar in Istanbul where people smoked tobacco in tall hookahs and played backgammon and drank coffee and shopped for gold and also for lambskin jackets. The memory is vivid to me even 40 years later and I am there again.
I sip the chai and the coffee and look over the menu. I am the only patron here at the moment, but I know there will soon be a lunch crowd because the menu has a fine array of items.
Some of the menu items are familiar to so many. Hummus is a favorite among many and so is falafel. I do not, however, recognize baba chanouj or musakhan rolls or labneh in the list of appetizers. The kibbeh at first rings a bell, as my friend from the Ukraine who had lived in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon for a time had once made rolled grape leaves for me with some filling inside, and I remembered her calling it kibbet.
However, the stuffed kibbeh does not fit that description. Another listing in the appetizers does have rolled grape leaves with seasoned rice and mince meat but is simply called grape leaves.
I don’t order any of the appetizers but I do ask for a lamb shawarma sandwich and something else: baklava. A walnut baklava, to be exact.
Now that is something, indeed.
I recall very well the first time I ever had baklava. In order to tell that story, allow me to tell a cherished story about my trip to Europe in 1985. It started out in Panama where I had served as a U.S. Army photojournalist since 1982. It was a glorious and painful time, but these days I focus more on the glorious for spending three and a half years on the Panama Canal.
I had the occasion to meet and befriend many people from many places. I met Rolly Bain from Trinidad, Loren Upton who was driving around the world, and Charles Handley, Curator of Mammals for the Smithsonian Institution who was studying bats.
This story, however, begins with an individual from Turkey who was serving as a chaplain’s assistant in the U.S. Army in Panama. He went by Turk, and that is how I shall refer to him. Turk was going home to Izmir in Turkey to visit his family and invited me to come along.
I spent a few days in Izmir, exploring the streets and the seawall, and I soon became restless. I took a 19-hour boat ride from Izmir overnight through the Greek Islands to Istanbul.
During the boat ride I made the acquaintance of a young Turk named Uluc who had just finished his service in the Turkish Army.
He invited me to have breakfast at his home. I don’t remember all the contents of that breakfast, only it had a cherry sauce and then something I had never seen.
“Turkish baklava!” said his mother as I delighted in this new dessert. I fell in love with this new delicacy that day and have always sought it out.
After that breakfast, Uluc took me on a tour of Istanbul, to the fine and ancient mosques, to the bazaar, and to Topkapi Palace.
Upon my return to Izmir, there was some sort of census day in which everyone had to remain inside while we were called by the census takers. By that time, I was in a hotel as Turk and I had had our differences, and I was more than happy to have my own hotel room.
To keep myself company, I picked up an entire box of baklava, took it to my room, and consumed every single piece. Of course, I felt sick afterwards, but it was a delightful sickness, a guiltless sick for which I had no regrets.
So here I was at the Jerusalem on Wednesday in Edinburg, and I order the walnut baklava. The man who I believed to be the proprietor brought me only one piece, so of course I ordered three more to go.
I quickly devoured the shawarma and slowly sipped the Turkish coffee. I remembered again the bazaar in Istanbul. I had spent the entire day walking and was quite tired. One cup of Turkish coffee and it gave me such a zip I was ready to explore Istanbul all over again.
I sat now in the Jerusalem in Edinburg and slowly sipped my Turkish coffee. It became quite thick at the bottom and I recalled something I had not thought of in many years.
I did have dinner at Turk’s home in Izmir once. I don’t remember the dinner itself, only that I had eaten until I knew his mother was very happy. And then we had…Turkish coffee.
When I had finished, she took the cup and dipped some of the grounds onto a small plate and read my fortune.
The rest is confidential.
Jerusalem is open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday. It is closed Sunday.
