Of Uzbekistan: Suzani Sellers

I met this woman serving plov, the national dish of Uzbekistan, in a market where women sold gold jewelry from identical little red velvet cushions. This woman cooked plov in the back of the market area and her daughter ran around delivering it to the various jewelry-selling stalls. She was nice, and the food was plov-ilicious.

The next day, I happened upon her and her husband walking elsewhere in town. They walked right up to me, so I don't know if they had orchestrated our chance meeting or not. In any case, they invited me to visit their house. This was very kind of them, but of course also had the motive that the woman spends her evenings doing traditional Uzbek embroidery work and they wanted to sell me a piece of her handiwork. Or maybe they just buy the stuff and then convince gullible tourists that the woman made it herself so people like me who weren't totally sure they needed a piece of traditional Uzbek embroidery feel guilty and buy one. Anyway, I bought one. I think it's nice. I think they were also nice, and clearly had a clever sales ploy, but also served me tea and apricots in their home, so they deserved something for their kindness/entrepreneurial zeal.