The foods of Turkey

One thing for sure, you won't starve in Turkey, they will make sure of that! Fun factoid: Turkey is entirely self-sufficient food-wise.

A typical Turkish meal is meze, grilled meat or fish, and dessert. Black tea (chai) is the prevalent drink, and everywhere you go -- stores, meetings, homes -- you will be offered at least tea or coffee. But beware, the coffee is often instant if you don't like Turkish coffee. They also have a good wine industry, and we had some pretty nice surprises on that front!

The meze are just slightly different than in other Middle East counties. Hummus, white bean and creamy and spicy eggplant dips, dolmas, carrot salads (including the amazing carrot/yogurt salad imspoke of previously) cucumber in yogurt, cigar pastries filled with cheese, etc.

One item that was every where in Turkey that I did not see in either Jordan or Egypt is soup. Lentil soup of course, but also fresh tomato soup, and also a nice eggplant and almond soup. I was surprised at how many of my fellow travellers don't like eggplant, since it's one of my faves, but that meant there was more for me, so I wasn't complaining.

Bread is omnipresent, but totally different than the Middle East breads. I loved the very flat breads you made wraps with (when stuffed they're called gozleme, and look like the bread they make lamacun with) and they have something very similar to Montreal-style bagels, called simit, as well as a flatbread that's a bit like a thinner focaccia, otherwise, we had varieties of sliced breads which tasted pretty ordinary to me.  Simit is sold on street carts for 1 Turkish Lira, roughly 50 cents. That was my daily bread!

Meat is typical of a Muslim country: lamb and chicken, but they also have beef. Lots of minced lamb and beef preparations, and we were mostly impressed with those. I had two awesome tavok shish dishes ( chicken kebabs). After awhile though, the flavours get repetitive, especially as we're used to more variety food wise. Istanbul just got its first Thai restaurant, for example, so the meals tend to be the traditional foods going back to the ottoman  days.

The one unique but quite ubiquitous item I saw pretty much everywhere is  urfa pepper. The link describes the smoked version, but you also find the unsmoked version on many restaurant tables to just sprinkle over your food like you would salt and pepper. I loved both and brought some back.

Our last day in Turkey we sampled Turkish ravioli in 2 different restaurants .. The first was ordinary, the second, sublime. So don't let your first experience fool you if  you're not impressed.

The best dessert we had, by far, was  poached quince, at least it was for me.  We had the typical baklava, lacoum, and such, but the poached fruit beat them all.

That pretty much sums it up from my perspective. We didn't have many great meals, but we had decent mid-priced meals, so overall I was pleased.

Anatomy of a perfect day

This one started at 5:15 with a wake up call, which meant that I had an hour or so to conquer my fear of heights before taking my first -- and most probably last -- hot air balloon ride. Fear conquered, I can tell you this was a truly extraordinary experience. It's so peaceful and beautiful up there, I wondered why I was ever scared. A must try for everyone.

After breakfast, we headed out to the house of Ustun Bilgen-Reinart, a Turkish-Canadian writer and former CBC reporter who has returned to Turkey with her Québécois husband. They live part of the year in Cappadocia where they have restored a cave dwelling and turned it into a wonderful summer home. He now makes superb furniture, she's recently retired, and they both seem to be having a great time. Oh, and she's smart and lively. She'll be leading a seminar next year at Classical Pursuits Toronto on women writers of the Middle East. Having met her, I'm pretty sure it's going to be an exciting workshop.

Fom there, lunch at a small local hotel/restaurant where everything is cooked from scratch using local ingredients. This is a small village, so in fact it's the only place to eat in town. Best lentil soup I have ever had -- it's going to take me a lifetime to figure out how she did it, and an awesome carrot salad (I think this recipe might be close).  Properly fed we went on to a local pottery master ... Maybe more on this later.

Back to our hotel, I had booked a Turkish bath and a facial, so I headed off gleefully for a few hours of pampering. Oh me, oh my.  I walked out of there feeling like a wet noodle, in a good way of course.  Promise to myself: must pamper myself more often. Shoes don't count.

There's much more, but sleep beckons.  Ta.

From a teeming metropolis to the desert

I already miss Istanbul. I am definitely a city girl. Mind, we've just really arrived in Capadoccia, where we are staying in the magnificent Capadoccia Cave Resort, which is also a spa, so I'm pretty sure I'll get over it pretty quickly. If you click on the first link, our hotel is in that rock in the middle. click the resort link, and look at the picture of the pool. Just above the pool, there's a terrace with 3 lit arches. My room is in the first arch on the left.

Eight days in Istanbul proved just enough. Any less would have felt rushed, and I would have missed too much. And we had 2 great meetings -- one with the administrators of an NGO that works on training media reporters, and one with Orhan Pamuk's (incredibly young) editor.  In both cases these were smart people who were politically, economically and culturally aware, so it made for great discussions on what's happening in Turkey today and they're hopes for the future. The 3rd meeting I've already written about -- smart kids, but they lacked the maturity of our other contacts so the conversation was a bit lighter. Nothing wrong with that, but I enjoyed the other 2 conversations more.

Victor -- one of the participants on this trip -- and I split from the group yesterday to go see Pera palace , which was an Orient Express hotel where some pretty fancy people stayed, including Agatha Christie and Ernest Hemingway. But their most important guest was Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of  the Turkish Republic as we know it today. Room 101 has been converted into the Ataturk Museum, and that's what I was hoping to see.  Fate intervened, however, and on our way Victor recognized SALT, a new contemporary art centre in Istanbul, sort of like the Power Plant in Toronto, that just recently opened, so we checked it out. Between checking out a new art centre and visiting a dead president's hotel room, I think we made the right choice, but I'm still a bit sad we couldn't do both. As it is, we had to rush to join the group that was waiting for us before heading out to the Museum of  Innocence and then the Istanbul Modern. That's a lot in one day, but I wouldn't have missed any of it.

We have a great group, maybe the best I've ever travelled with. We're only 10, so we're really getting to know each other quite well. And of of them lived in Turkey 40 years ago and still speaks Turkish, so we've been getting Turkish lessons. Repeat after me: beer, ick, ooch. That's 1, 2, 3.  I had so much fun yesterday ordering "beer Turk kavesi, oz sukar" which sort of means one Turkish coffee with a little bit of sugar. I think. I got what I wanted, so it couldn't be far off.

Tomorrow, the adventure continues with a hot air balloon ride. I'm afraid of heights, so that should be fun.

I'm mosque'd out!

Istanbul is old. We saw one of the earliest Christian churches today, built in 400 AD roughly. Now that's old.

In all, I think we've seen 6 mosques. That's a lot. It all gets blurred in my mind at the end. The nicest was Rustem Pacha mosque. Not the biggest, but the prettiest.

Thanks to a website called Delicious Istanbul, we found great foodstuff on a number of our stops --Turkish Delight, nougat of some kind, smoked Urfa pepper, all kinds of good stuff.

The Grand Bazar is an adventure. Found the most amazing scarf store, Ottoamano, with scarves ranging from $5 to several thousand dollars. I got to try a $1200 one. Light as air, with the most exquisite hand embroidery, it was a work of art.

We had dinner with a lovely couple -- a university prof and his wife. Both passionate activists, their idealism and enthusiasm were endearing, but I'm glad I'm not that age anymore. Her Ph.D. thesis sounds remarkably interesting though -- roughly, she's demonstrating through the works of Moliere andTurkish theatre that the west is just as influenced by the east as the east is by the west. Strange to think that's not a given!

So far, I have eaten everything I was hoping to eat while I was here -- tavok shish, lamacun, kofte,  fresh grilled fish,

And more meze that I can shake a stick at. The best? Sliced green beans poached in olive oil. Served cold with a squirt of lemon and a 

sprinkle of Urfa pepper, it's da bomb!

I'm looking forward to another good night's sleep!

Topkapi Palace, Aya Sofia, Bosphorus Cruise...

... and yes, I will sleep well tonight.

(I had to remove pictures as this thing wouldn't post. See this link for photos.)  

Crazy busy days can be the best, even if they are a bit tiring. Topkapi Palace is the kind of place that just just blows your mind, with all the great history that hides in its walls. Standing in the harem, in the valide sultan's room -- the mother of the sultan, probably the most important person in the Empire -- was a dream come true. That was probably the room where the biggest decisions were made and fates sealed for 4+ centuries, before the sultans moved to new palace. See link above for a  picture of the courtyard between the valide's apartment and that of the mother of the first born son, another highly placed person. Oh the intrigues those walls must have heard.

We did a stop at Aya (or Hagya) Sofia afterwards (it's big, it's old, what else is there to say?), a quick lunch and then a chilly cruise on the Bosphorus.

We didn't mind the cold, we we're pretty much all dressed for it, and in warmer weather, we probably would have dozed off. We were walking for 4+ hours in the morning, so a nap would have been welcome.  That's where you really see how huge Istanbul is. Want to talk about density? Check out the photo of' Istanbul, seen from the water. And it goes on and on like this for miles. 15 or 17 million people, depending on who you talk to, is a lot of people.

You have to be really wealthy to afford a detached house, so the ones we see tend to be really big.

We had a lovely fish dinner outside, and it was surprisingly comfortable even though it's really cold. Strategically placed heaters and good company and we never noticed the cold. Our guide told me they eat outdoors like that year round, even though it gets much colder during the winter months. But they don't get a lot of snow, so that might make the difference. I do think they are crazy, but I'm too polite to say it.


We have a really good guide. He's been doing this for nearly 14 years so he knows his stuff, and he's very funny. This tour company does pick good local guides, we haven't had a bad one yet.

Tomorrow: blue mosque, fancy lunch, and then my first hamam experience.
 That's where you sweat for 20 minutes and then they loofah  a lifetime of dead skin off you.
Sounds awesome.

First impressions

Hard to beloeve it's day 2 in Istanbul. It's been a busy 2 days, but wow, do I love this city. My hotel is in the old town -- Sultanahmet -- that's Byzantine period. Yesterday, I walked up twisted and tortuous cobblestoned Byzantine streets until I got to an Ottoman Empire-time area (the Blue Mosque) and then back.  Thus, I discovered that Istanbul is built on 7 hills. And I feel I went up and down every one of them, or will.

Today, I went to Taksim square, of  recent fame, but they've been demonstrating here for close to 100 years, so turkish rebellion is nothin new. To the right, I saw the intercontinental hotel, the Hyatt, and the Ritz ( a surprisingly ugly building, and awkwardly-located). To the left was a long pedestrian street called Independance Street that is populated with consulates as well as stores stores stores and coffee shops. Did I mention stores?  It was OK in that I had good food with bad names (milk pudding with blackened top, anyone?), saw gazillions of people walking with no purpose other than gawk at cheap touristy stuff (yes, lemmings did come to mind)' but you know what? I had fun. The weather was glorious, the Turks are funny, you can get half-sweet Turkish coffee, and the taksis ( yup, that's taxi in Turkish) don't try to run you down. What's not to love????

So far, I've resisted shopping, except for soap. Great spa (hamam) country, the handmade soaps are awesome, and the cotton towels. Guess what I'll be bringing back?

Foodwise: great fresh fish but you have to pick your spots; dried fruit and fruit pastes are amazing; fresh walnuts! Who knew how different they taste fresh? And I'm on a baklava and Turkish coffee discovery mission.

Tomorrow, we do a cruise on the Bosphorus. History calls out to me!

Good night!

Last minutes things to do....

Pack? Done.
Turn power off? Done
Cancel papers? Done
All is done, and i saved the best for last: visit to the vet to say bye to my sick cat, Picasso.

It was hard getting this picture of him. All he wanted to do is climb in my arms and come home.  As soon as he's out of isolation, he'll be joined with his bro Gaston and they'll have the room to themselves to play in, no cages except at night. Hope that's soon!

Now for a nap. 

Books are better than stones

Today, I checked out the exhibit at the ROM on Mesopotamia, where civilization all began. While objects are important, i just can't get into that "small" stuff.  I prefer a good book. 

 (Overheard outside the museum:
Dude 1: it's, like, cool stuff that Indiana Jones collects.
Dude 2: Indiana Jones? You mean, like, artefacts?
Dude 1: yeah man, artefacts.
Dude 2: cool.
They didn't go in. Guess I'm not alone.)

A few years ago, shortly  before the Arab uprisings, I travelled with a small group to Jordan and Egypt. Try as I might, I could not get into the books on the temples and such we were going to see, but I loved the books on Nasser and the revolution, the Belle Epoque that preceeded it, the recent kings of Jordan. While there, I enjoyed Cairo, the Nile cruise, the people, but enough with the temples already! 

Now I'm going to Turkey --  with roughly the same group -- and I'm pretty sure this trip will better meet my tastes. A week in Istanbul with lots of time to see the modern city as well as the tourist musts -- but no ruins! And I can't imagine a better time to go, with the pushback against islamicism going on now. (An offshoot of the group has added a few days in Epheseus at the end, but I've seen all the roman ruins I care to see in my lifetime so I'm skipping it. )

By luck, the good folks of TIFF are presenting a week long series of contemporary Turkish films directed by women.  I'll manage to see 3 or 4, and I'm very excited of the opportunity to see contemporary works just before I go. It feels like I'll have a 'language' in common with some of the people we'll meet there.

I guess I finally understand the type of travel that interests me. History, yes. Ruins, no.

Team building with the Jays

I admit it: I'm not a team player. Not if it means playing stupid charades, writing poems about what I love about my job (I kid you not) and other such juvenile activities. In fact, I find these demeaning more than anything.

But (of course there's a but!) I do love an afternoon at the ballpark. I love baseball. Not the distractions -- the rock music, the jumbotron, the games --  but the game itself.  I am always transported back in time at the ballpark. Everything becomes simple again.

I like the pace. It's not slow, it's thoughtful. You got 2 on base, 2 outs, and a clean up hitter coming up. What do you do? I love trying to guess, even if I always guess wrong.  I have time to think before the pitch, and time to second guess after, a luxury you certainly won't find in hockey. Plus baseball has inspired such beautiful writing.

But does going to the park help build your team? Not on your life. Those of us who love the game watched the game. A few hung out in the back eating, drinking and chatting.  Too many were glued to their Blackberries. No team stuff there.

But as a team, we agreed on this: a sunny afternoon at the ballpark never hurts, even if the Jays lose.

Craft Beer Festival

I could not have hoped for a better weekend to sample craft beer. Sunny, warm but not hot, with a light   breeze...it was perfect. 

The Craft Beer Fest is an annual event, but this was my first time. They're competing for attention with the Taste of the Danforth, that behemoth of street festivals, but they seemed to have a good turnout.

The fest is in Roundhouse Park, minutes away from the Rogers Centre. We got there around 1 p.m., and good thing too. By 2:30, the line ups were getting quite long, but by then, we were on our way out.

 We bought our sampling glass ($15 for a sample size) and sample tokens ($1 each, sold in pack of 5 or 10), and headed for the food trucks.   My friend Deb got a Wild mushroom 'za I got a chicken Schnitzel sandwich, and off to the beer stands we went.  

First stop was Flying Monkeys, where we discovered their orange creamsicle beer. Imagine a beer Mimosa; surprising, really tasty and refreshing, but missing the bitter tang that I expect in a beer. (Yes, I'm an ale fan.)

A few more tastings of great IPAs and amber ales at Lake of Bays and Left Field breweries, and we were ready for a break -- the beer and sun combo always knocks me out and there were only a very few places to sit, all in the sun. Too bad, I would happily sampled more, but I needed some shade. 

The Fest continues until 7 p.m tonight.

Drinking with my goddaughter

Calm down, she's 29.  I am not corrupting a minor or a naive young girl who's just moved to the big city. Kate is quite capable of drinking on her own if she pleases!

What made this one fun is that we tried one of the cool new places in her part of town, one of the latest up and coming 'hoods of Toronto. 

In other words, a place that takes its cocktails seriously. Oh what a treat! We each had 3 different drinks. She started off with the daily offering -- dark rum and a lot of other stuff -- ice cold, sweet but not too,  quite delish. I think that was the best of the evening. I had an Old Fashioned with a spicy bourbon. I'm trying to 'mature' my palate and this fit the bill perfectly. A grown up drink, smoky, but with enough fruity notes from the muddled orange peel, that I wasn't totally out of my comfort zone.

Then I tried the other daily drink, a sweet, summery, fruity concoction. The total opposite of my first drink. Heaven knows what Katie had (a sign that I should have stopped there?) Our last round was a "surprise me" round. Mine was a Bloody Caesar inspiration with bacon infused bourbon. I can only describe it as 'meaty,' which sounds weird, but it was quite tasty.  Kate had a sour, which was okay, but not the highlight of the evening.

A very successful cocktail evening if I say so myself. In a few weeks, we're going to a ladies' only scotch tasting. I can't wait!

Canada Day in London.... Ontario.

I just spent a lovely weekend visiting my friend Loryn and her relatively new husband. They live in London, a city I know very little about other than my friend lives there, and this despite the fact that I have visited Loryn at least twice a year since she moved to London 5-6 years ago.

I decided to do something about my ignorance, and found out all kinds of juicy tidbits that I'm happy to share:

- Ryan Gosling is from London. That alone makes it worth visiting doesn't it?
- London is a tree town. Lots and lots of trees. Old trees. It's known as The Forest City
- London is surrounded by farmland, and I've discovered there's even a   lavender farm nearby. If I'd known that...... next time!
- Not surprisingly, it has 3 big farmers markets. So far, I've visited two. The trendy one downtown, and a larger, more authentic one on the outskirts. I prefer the larger one... real farmers, dirt on the potatoes, enormous quantities of beef tripe, pig trotters and other offbeat cuts, and cheap furniture. Now that's a market!
- If you're a hockey fan, Nazeem Kadri is from London. I saw him play there a few years ago.
- The main river is called -- you guessed it! -- the Thames.

The main thing is that I have fun when I go there, and that's what really matters.