First off, the fish was delicious

Didn't bread it, just sautéed in olive oil. Shared it with Ughetta after we returned late from a PV at a rather unusual location, a posh fashion/design emporium in Sultanahmet, the area around the Ayasofya and the Blue Mosque full of tourists, hotels and shops for tourists. Not normally where art galleries are found. It seems that to attract viewers to opening, galleries must offer free wine and food. This had both.

When walking with Julie around the 'down' area of our neighbourhood Wednesday, she introduced me to several shops, including one that carries powdered paint pigments and a variety of additives: bags with chunks of pine resin, bags of glitter in every conceivable colour, bags of metallic powders the consistency of talcum (copper, gold, bronze, champagne, silver) and kg bags of Indian shellac flakes, made from the tunnels exuded by the lac bug. Naturally, this is what I had to have, along with denatured alcohol to dissolve it into a liquid.

The black object in the upper right corner is a rubber 5-sided box, presumably for fitting on the bottom of a metal leg. This shop specializes in rubber gears, grommets, rubber feet of all sizes and descriptions, and a most covetous square accordion-folded collapsible hose which I must photograph. I went back today and selected some smaller, rectangular rubber feet.

Here is the entire 100 gr bag of lac flakes dissolved in about 75ml of alcohol. The flakes should have been crushed to a powder before being melted but with some vigorous stirring and then letting it simply sit and relax, it has turned into a pourable liquid about the consistency of single cream.

Note also the two bags of powdered pigment, red and yellow, the blue and black out of shot. The shop had two pallets covered with large bags, quite heavy I imagine, of different colours, one pallet of Turkish powders and one of European powders (another photograph to get). The shop owner steered me to the European powders, saying they were better quality. He was so very nice, we chatted using Google Translate. 

What is the connection between the rubber feet and the shellac? I am using the feet as forms for casting the shellac - will take a very long time to dry out and harden. The forms will be topped with powdered pigments I mixed below:

In bags, pure red, blue and yellow; in cups, pure green, blue-green and yellow-green, red-purple, blue-purple, orange.

Shellac is quite an interesting material. Different colours (from blonde to ruby) arise depending upon which sap the lac bugs feed; when de-waxed it is edible and used to coat pharmaceuticals for slow release action, and on citrus to act as moisture barrier; finally it can be considered a natural polymer plastic as it is mouldable. 

Imported from India it almost seems as if everything available in the neighbourhood is not from Turkey. But in fact, this is the way of life here, and has been for thousands of years. The geography of this spot on Earth is unique for North/South and East/West. Trade with China (think Ghengis Khan), trade with the Vikings (they gave Russia its name), trade with the Italian city-states, everything comes here.