Teaches of Peaches

I spent about two days in Tbilisi recuperating and reconnecting with what had become my own perception of reality at this point: drinking café glaceé on Rustaveli Blvd.  If you ever find yourself in Georgia, or spending ample amounts of time in Tbilisi, or even if you find yourself immobilized by your own sweat, this is what you need to do.  After about 30-some odd countries in 8 months, it suddenly became apparent to me that the only thing I cared about—besides pizza and Chinese food—was drinking coffee in exotic locales.  This reigns almost supreme in my hierarchy of needs.  The next such locale I set my eyes on was The Black Garden on the Mountain.  If you don’t know where that is then I suggest you do some light googling because I refuse to further incriminate myself by saying the name of this place in print and getting hunted down by secret police. 

I also bought the Constance Garnett translation of War and Peace, and while I have a lot to say about War and Peace, the gist is that now I need to read it again because supposedly the literary community is ablaze with criticism of Constance Garnett.  I gave 6 months of my life completely to that book.  I don’t have that many months left to be reading War and Peace with reckless abandon again.

I kept thinking to myself that I would talk up to the tower on the hill overlooking the city or that I would go to this thing called the “Tbilisi Sea” but instead I spent the cooler parts of the day exploring markets around different metro stations, arguing shrilly with the angriest and cronliest of crones about peaches (things got seriously heated at one point and one old crone shrieked and threw something at me because I had picked up the peach I wanted to buy.  This woman is out of control and needs to be stopped).

I also was obsessed with eating khinkali (you need to hark up a lot of phlegm on that first
“kh” sound), which is, by all accounts, my favourite food.  Have you ever had it?  It’s like a Georgian perogie, full of meat and herbs and twisted up.  The first time I ordered them I thought they were simply bite-sized pillows of joy and ordered about 15, and when they arrived each was the size of my fist.  You pick it up delicately and take a bite and then boiling hot, oily meat juice squirts out and all over your face and down your neck.  I can’t actually think of a more appetizing way to explain that.

So on my quest for khinkali I wandered into a small restaurant that I discovered, alas only too late, was closed.  There was a private function for a family being held and I apologized and backed out.  Instead of brushing me off, they demanded I join them for this enormous birthday celebration.  One man spoke English and worked for the World Bank.  Another had lived in the states since the early 90s and was now home visiting.  Another had a cousin in Toronto to which I replied, “Of course you do.  Everyone in the entire world except actual Canadians seem to have family in Toronto.”

In any case, this is where I learned to toast Georgian-style, ate my fill of khinkali and walnut paste on grilled aubergines, and got absolutely crunk on iced, sweet, red wine.  But, I mean, what else would you have me do?