On Saturday, I headed over to my last Christmas-oriented souk (in Jordan, that is). It was the Al Hussein Society 2012 Bazaar at the Landmark Hotel. I was nearly souk-ed out, but my ears perked up when I heard that different embassies would be manning tables. Sold! The bazaar ended up being less of a Christmas souk and more of a food and national flair souk. The French table was selling French products (jams, cookies, and lots of delicious looking meats), the Belgium table was making gauffres (waffles) that reminded me a lot of my mom's pizzelles (Italian Christmas cookies), the Spain table had paella, and the Thai/Malaysian/Indonesian tables had both entrees and desserts. A few tables had little knick-knacks from their country but they were insanely priced, so it was more fun to look than buy. All in all, I was happy that I had purchased my Christmas gifts at Souk Jara, but my stomach was definitely happy I had attended the Landmark Bazaar as I stuffed it with gingerbread cookies and PAD THAI! Yum.
The food bazaar was great, but the real highlight of the day happened afterwards--WINE TASTING!!
A group of Fulbrighters met up at The Winemaker on Wadi Saqra for a St. George's Wine Tasting. We learned a lot about the Jordanian wine industry (there are only two wineries here and only one of which grows its own grapes--the other winery uses table grapes to create its wine!) which is still in its infancy. Our wine expert (teacher? connoisseur?) was very frank about how some of the wines we tried were still too young and would be best if opened in a year or two. I had fun listening to him because he was clearly very passionate about his job and kept relating wine and grapes to humans:
-"I care about personality. If this wine were a man or woman, who would they be?"
-"The vine is like the mother, when there is stress she will find a way to protect the kids."
Of the twelve types of wine we tried, there were only 4 that I would consider buying, personally. Lucky for me, however, the table was lined with plates of prosciutto (hard to find in Jordan!), wedges of gourmet cheese, and fresh French bread. I definitely ate more than I drank but it was worth every penny!
Logistics/Recommendations:
The Al-Hussein Society 2012 Bazaar was held on December 15th, 2012 at the Landmark Hotel near third circle. St. George's wine tasting at The Winemaker is by appointment with a minimum group size of 7 persons (15JD each). The Winemaker also has an awesome selection of different wines from many countries, if you can look past the steep Jordanian prices of wine (each bottle is taxed 6JD ($10) whether its imported or made in Jordan!).
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