Friday, November 2, 2007

Turkish TV, Tea and Coffee

Today I did a 9 minute Internet safety segment on EBRU TV, a Turkish owned and operated satillite TV station in Somerset. It was a trip!

Merideth Parker, the host of Daily Connections was articulate, inquisitive, friendly and charming. When the interview airs, it will be available on the web. I'll write a little bit about it in my 3DWiredSafety blog and post a link here to the program when it airs on the web in about 2 weeks. For this post, I want to tell you about my experiences at the station.

As Educational Technology Director for WiredSafety, I get a pay check of $0.00 for the charity work that I do, but I do get the cool title and a few perks, one of which is appearing on TV shows.

I've been on all of the major stations, but I always enjoy visiting smaller stations. This company is a relatively new satellite start up. They've been broadcasting for about a year and have their studios in Somerset, NJ. When I walked into the offices, there were no security guards, sign in sheets or bureaucracy. It was refreshingly unlike the major stations, which understandably have such procedures.

Oscar greeted me and directed me and another guest to the "green room" and pointed us to the cafeteria where we could have coffee, tea, cookies, and other goodies. It was there that I found another distinct departure from the major studios. In the coffee room there was a considerably more emphasis on tea. There was a large tea making unit, on the top of which sat carafes of Turkish tea. Below it was a hot water spout for diluting the concentrated tea. I probably should have asked what proportions are best, but I didn't and for my first cup of Turkish tea and used about 1/4 water. In retrospect, I probably should have gone about 50-50. The resulting tea was about the color of my usual morning coffee. I figure it will be 2-3 days before I get any sleep. LOL

The show is taped in unedited 9 minute segments in a very comfortable and relaxed atmosphere. Guests are followed by a cooking segment done by Arzu. In yesterday's segments she showed viewers how to make Turkish coffee and baklavah. The crew and guests get to chow down on her cooking between shooting segments. They offered me the coffee, but considering I was already walking about 2 inches off the ground, I passed and just had some of the heavenly baklavah.

Between the tea and the coffee I know what puts the whirl in the Dervishes. Add to that Arzu's cooking and might also explain why everyone in the studio was so chipper, but I really think it was just a very friendly work atmosphere and genuinely nice people.

4 comments:

  1. I <3 Turkish coffee. But I learned the hard way not to walk and drink it -- unless you want to end up with as mouthful of coffee grinds.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ok, Anonymous. I don't have any problem with your comment per se. My kidney are intack. I'm not sure I can safely say the same for my brain. However, I just did a quick check and this exact comment, word for word, was posted to the Washington Note Blog by Kerry, The Ideal Bite Blog by Sharon Stone, and to the A Nice Cuppa blog by Shila. Coincidence? I doubt it. Rather than a reader of blogs, me thinks we have a shill for CaffeineAwareness.org. I guess there are worse motivations for commenting.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I finally had a chance to check out the blogs. Nice, but watch your back for the Nutrisystem gestapo!!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Your blog is very valuable which you have shared here about tea. I appreciate your efforts which you have put into this article and also it is a gainful article for us. Thank you for sharing this article here. buy cbd tea usa

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for your comment!