Food and dancing

Chicken with potatoes and tomatoes baked in an oven - simple but delicious.



Piyaz - White beans in a sesame oil, lemon juice, vinegar and oil sauce with parsley, hardboiled eggs, onions, and tomatoes on top of it. I tried to make it in Istanbul and it didn't turn out well - it's hard to get the proportions of the sauce correct.




Cakes for Kubra's birthday. Both beautiful and tasty.



The guy in blue is clearly Sinan's brother.



Sinan's mother, Kubra, Azime, Mehmet with Berke, and Mehmet's wife (I've never learned her name!!! I see her everytime I'm here!)




I don't remember everyone's name - some family, some friends.



Then a dance party started...



Actually there were a couple dance parties. The only word I knew to say to describe myself was, "stone".

Breakfast!

Olives (black and green), two kinds of cheese, meat borek (rolled up pastry), tomatoes and cucumbers, tomatoes and cucumbers with parsley and some spice, and leftover delicious moist meat. Yum!

Eggs and Pools

A couple of things:

They sell their eggs here in cartons of 10 and they don't refridgerate them. Strange.

I went to a pool on Saturday (yes, a Saturday off like a normal human being!!) and there is a sign there that says you can't put sunscreen on. I thought I was smart by applying it before we left, but then there was a person standing at the entrance, making us shower before going to the pool. Darn.

Usually like 5 times a day I ask my students, as I'm checking their workbooks, their jobs, where they live, and hobbies. In response to the hobbies question, I guarantee they will say 2 of the following: Going to the cinema, swimming, reading a book, listening to music. I always laugh at how many people say swimming and going to the cinema, the amount of people is enormous. So on this Saturday, I felt like one of my students; I went swimming then I went to the cinema! Oh well, I guess they aren't making it up.

You will probably be happy to know I am in Antalya with Sinan's family, aka, going to be taking pictures of Turkish food. It was a really last minute decision but my work schedule gave me almost 3 days off and I wanted to go somewhere and it was Kubra's birthday. Anyway, I got to the home at 3:30am last night so no pictures yet!






On the Bosphorus



On the Bosphorus



Mustafa, Sinan's cousin.



Oh my gosh! A normal picture of me!

Eggplant stuffed with beef

Finishing work at 6 on the weekends is such a treat (and I suppose normal...for a weekday. Oh well) so I get to cook dinner. I decided I want to try to cook eggplant stuffed with beef. It turned out okay, considering I'm not the biggest fan of eggplant. They're so cheap - I bought 6 for about 50 cents. First I alternately peeled them so they were stripy, then I put salt on them and let them sit for 20 minutes. In the meantime I started cooking rice, which I later added canned chickpeas to. Then I (actually Sinan) fried the eggplant in olive oil, and while those were cooling I cooked a mixture of beef stuff (onions, green pepper, tomatoes, garlic, salt, pepper, beef), then I tried to scrape the insides of the eggplant out with not very much luck. It was either too thin in some places or really thick in others. Then I put the beef stuff into the eggplant, put them in a pan, put some water in (and as Sinan has reminded me 17 times, I was supposed to put crushed tomato in but laziness and impatience stopped me), covered the pan, and let them cook for 15 minutes. They could use some work but it was a nice change from the usual (but good) soups.





They like to put pepper on their rice. Not for me, thanks.

"Home" safely and Michigan

After 4 flights (Traverse City to Detroit, Detroit to Baltimore, Baltimore to Heathrow, Heathrow to Istanbul), I am back to my neighborhood in Turkey. I left Michigan Tuesday morning and arrived here Wednesday late afternoon. Awesome. Then I had to finish moving into my new apartment. It's an okay place, I haven't been here long enough yet to make any judgements but I think it could use a big sweep and scrubbing. But no mold though! And I actually have a view of nature (and of course people's windows in the distance) rather than a cement allyway and screaming children. The weather is surprisingly cool, there was a huge rainstorm yesterday before I arrived so maybe that brought the bearable weather.

While I was only in Michigan for two and a half days, it was wonderful as always. It really is a special place, maybe because it is like a second (or third?) home, a place I have visited every year of my life. The weather was great and I spent most of my time reading, eating, cooking, and not helping clean up. I wish I was there when more family was around, but I'm lucky to have even made it there.

As far as returning to Turkey after being in America, it hasn't been bad so far but we'll see how I feel when I go back to work tomorrow. I am a little worried I might be kind of braindead but I am looking forward to seeing the staff and students. The constant struggle of the language barrier is so normal it really hasn't been hard. Phew!

Here are a few pictures from Michigan:





I wish I could capture how incredibly blue the sky is up there. Amazing.







Such clear water!

America!

Hi everyone -

So sorry to slack off on writing. I think most readers knew I was going to America for a quick (and last minute!) vacation, and I am here until Tuesday, arriving in Istanbul on Wednesday, and starting work on Friday. It's going to be a bit of a rough adjustment going back to Turkey - mostly because of the language barrier. Things have been so easy in America! Going to stores and asking what I want, talking to strangers and so forth. That's another difference, I didn't realize how friendly people were in America until I came back, so many people wave or say hi to me that I don't even know, and I do the same thing back. Not that people aren't friendly in Turkey, but it's a different kind of friendliness.
I have been indulging in "American" food as well. I do love summertime food - especially the fresh fruit and vegetables and salads. For example:





But of course I can't be in America without missing some Turkish food so one afternoon I devoted to making a yogurt kebap (pieces of bread with meatballs [kind of], garlicy salty yogurt, homemade tomato sauce, topped with melted butter and paprika). It tasted pretty good I must say, but pretty different from the real thing!





Tonight is going to be great - Turkey burgers with onions, lettuce, and tomatoes, salad, and corn! THEN we'll have S'mores. Excellent. I think readers are starting to notice I like eating food, and taking pictures of food, and then gloating about it to you. Sorry!

Other then eating, I've been visiting with a lot of people...a lot. Which is why I came to the States, I wanted to see people. People have been so nice and asking great questions and been really supportive about me living in a foreign country. It's been good to catch up with everyone. Unfortunately I haven't been able to see everyone I want, but I did what I could considering my time.

Other things I've been enjoying while at home, besides seeing and playing with my family of course, have been driving, listening to the radio, reading - the normal. I am only in Michigan for a couple of days where I've been enjoying the clear, blue sky and the cute town in walking distance of our rental house. I wish I could be here when more family comes so we can have epic pounce games and funny Cranium moments. But, it's time to go back to Turkey. Sinan's kitchen and room are messy, he needs me. Seriously, if I'm gone much longer I'll forget what a preposition is as well as my students' (is that the right place for the apostrophe?) names.

Hopefully I will be better about updating this! Thanks for checking in!

These are some random pictures of flowers in Mom's garden that I am proud of: