Tuesday, January 27, 2009



Above was tonight's dinner - chicken baked in the oven but with lots of juice and so moist, along with potatoes and tomatoes that seemed to have been baked along with the chicken. In addition there was the delicious salad and rice with peas. Every meal ends with Sinan's mother telling me to eat - "ye, ye!" - and me groaning. I should pretend to stop eating earlier, so then I can keep eating a little more when she forces me to continue.



Mmm breakfast. The food in the lower right corner is menemen, one of my favorite Turkish dishes (that doens't really say anything...almost everything is my favorite). It is onions and tomatoes cooked in oil (tomatoes peeled and finely chopped), then some green pepper is added, and finally some eggs are broken into it. It is sort of a stir fried omelette, but less eggy and more tomato-y. Obviously, best scooped up with bread. There is also some meat which I would make sandwiches with. Menemen is fun because you can add stuff to it - when I order it at a cafe in Istanbul I get that meat mixed in with it.



No visit to Turkey is complete without doner. This is chicken, with lettuce, tomato, ketchup and mayonnaise.



Yes, we are eating it outside! It sounds like people at home on the east coast are battling snow, and I am spending my "winter break" eating doner outside.

Today I went into Serik with Sinan's mother, Kubra, and Merve, a cousin who is staying here for a while (pictured on the far right above). I was telling Sinan yesterday Serik is the kind of place I wish I had studied abroad, or done a home stay in for a long amount of time. The population is 50,000, so it is a good size but manageable. It is more "real" than Istanbul, particularly Etiler where I am located. Most of the shops are selling hardware tools or boots to do manual labor in, not expensive clothes, jewelry, and cars. I stand out while walking around, sometimes uncomfortably so. Half-jokingly, Sinan says I might cause an accident because people tend to stare at me while driving. At the same time, people comment on how I look like Sinan's mother or even Sinan.
I like how there is a sense of community and it seems more down-to-earth here. While walking around we stop in places to say hi to people, or run into people that they know. We stopped at a shop that sells the really thin dough (like filo dough) (and a shop dedicated just to that), and they gave us a cheese filled borek. Nice!

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