Connections: Paper Sleeves in Alabama and Istanbul

 

Warm pretzel in sleeve at OWA, Foley, Alabama. January 2022. Credit: Mzuriana.

At my maiden visit to OWA Park recently,  I savored a warm, buttery, salty, soft pretzel. I ate it slowly, pulling away limbs from the main body, sitting in the full sun, watching passersby pass by. 

As I looked at this yeasty golden oven, balanced on my thigh, tucked in its paper sleeve, I remembered another sunny day, but in Istanbul, where I ate something else in a paper sleeve. On that day in Istanbul, I'd contemplated the paper wrap and compared it with the little blue plastic bags in Caucasus Georgia and Ethiopia.

 

Paper food wrap in Istanbul, Turkey. June 2012. Credit: Mzuriana.

Connections: Capicola and Capybara and Lent

 I saw this sign on the Jimmy John's store window in downtown Mobile: 

Out of capicola in Mobile, Alabama. November 2021. Credit: Mzuriana.

 

The sign grabbed my attention because I didn't know what capicola was. 

But it reminded my of this: 

 

Capybara at Alameda Park Zoo in Alamogordo, New Mexico. March 2010. Credit: Mzuriana.

 

Capybara. Which were new to me when my mother and I encountered them in Alamogordo, New Mexico, more than 10 years ago in March, when we fled from a midwestern winter that wouldn't let loose its frigid fingers. 

Which led me to learn that one can eat capybara during Lent.

Unlike capicola.