Antalya aka lots of food pictures

Hi everyone! I'm in Antalya for a quick vacation - I haven't been here in four months so I wanted to come say hi, and also Sinan is here for his winter break. Getting here was a bit of a pain because of a sort of snow storm in Istanbul. Every flight leaving and coming in was delayed; I was supposed to leave at 10:30pm and arrive in Antalya at 11:30 but instead I arrived at 2:05am. It's okay, I'm just glad I got here safely. Just a few hours after leaving a snowy, windy, cold Istanbul, I come here and eat breakfast on the balcony outside!



Looking outside from work. This is before it started sticking to the roads and blowing sideways.



Standing on the balcony at Sinan's house - I love the snow capped mountains in the background.



Sinan's mother and the downstairs neighbor making borek - one kind with cheese and parsley, another with spinach and onion. Delicious!



Breakfast, of course, complete with tomatoes, cucumbers, and tea.



Later we make sarma - grape leaves rolled up with rice (uncooked at this point), tomatoes, parsley, onions, garlic, dried mint, cumin, salt and pepper. They are really really hard to roll but I managed to do okay actually!



Sarma - after they are boiled. Good with lemon squirted on them.



The sarma were for dinner, along with chunks of meat cooked with peppers and tomatoes, and cacik - grated cucumber with yogurt, water, and salt.



Meat stuff - it's a little heavy for me but still delicious in small quantities.



The cacik



This is sutlac - or rice pudding. Funny story - I really like this stuff and THREE times I've tried to make it and every time I fail - it's always soupy. I watched Sinan's mom make it and hopefully I can do it now. This was so delicious, especially with a little cinnamon sprinkled on it.