This man from Akstafa is called Elmaz Akhmadov. But it would be better if his parents called him Almaz - because this man, in my opinion, is the best kebabchi in Azerbaijan. It may very well be that so far only his neighbors know about this, at whose weddings and family celebrations he cooks barbecue, me, and now you too. But don’t tell anyone about him, please, because otherwise this artist, this nightingale of Azerbaijani culinary arts, will be put in a gilded cage of fashionable restaurants or even made a court cook, and I know for sure that he needs absolute freedom for creativity. He should take a walk around the neighborhood of his native Akstafa to meet inspiration, for example, in apples that are about to ripen, but still have the necessary firmness and pleasant sourness, or in a dogwood twig plucked right with the leaves, which, it turns out, smell breathtakingly appetizing and fresh. He also definitely needs to say hello and chat with all the butchers at the small Akstafa bazaar to make sure that today he can’t do without a call to a familiar shepherd. And no one should count to him how many lambs will go to today's barbecue - he will say two, then two, but he will say "five is necessary", so shell out - you will have a pleasure that many times exceeds in value all the money on your credit cards.
I will pity the women and children who read these lines, and I will not talk about the skill with which Elmaz cuts and skins rams. I will say one thing: it seemed to me that the lambs were even grateful to him for how easily and painlessly he did the inevitable with them. Remember, in the Middle Ages, those condemned to the chopping block brought coins to the executioner? So, if those lambs had gold, they would bring them to Elmaz, holding them in their mouths.
When both carcasses were already lying in front of us on the table, somewhere there, on the edge, lay the hatchet. But Elmaz joked about this instrument:
- We didn’t slaughter a cow today! For such small lambs, this knife is enough.
Tell me, what do you think of an artist who, in order to realize inspiration, will certainly need a prepared canvas, crushed paints, or certainly gel pens? And what do you think of an artist who needs a pencil stub, a piece of coal from an oven, and a piece of paper to create a masterpiece? Which one is the real artist?
So is Elmaz. Do you think he had some kind of special knife, which grand chefs arm themselves with, preparing impotent food in pompous restaurants? Nothing like this! Elmaz had a small knife made of the most ordinary iron, cheap and unpresentable. But, God, how he worked for them! Let the surgeons come and see how unmistakably the knife moved in his hand - exactly, the first time, revealing joints, joints and veins.
- Look, Stalik, this brisket looks like a ram's head.
- How?
- Well, here is the mouth, - and Elmaz made two cuts, - and here are the eyes, here are the horns! Look like?
Elmaz worked on the brisket from the second lamb like a sculptor.
- Mouth ... a ram has such lips, in the middle of this there is ... a nose ... eyes ... Give me kidneys and toothpicks! - And the "ram" appeared bulging eyes. - Here are the ribs - the horns will be, and let this hang like ears!
Elmaz hurried to the garden, brought an ear of corn and fitted a stigma out of it instead of a forelock.
"Well, it's all tricks, pampering" - I thought. But after I mentally uttered the word "tricks", the magic was not slow to appear in our makeshift kitchen.