Food!!

Hi Guys,

I thought I would take a break from writing about what I've been doing everyday and instead talk about the different food that I've tried. I can't remember everything, but I'll try to touch all the good stuff!

I haven't had the chance to have a real traditional Turkish breakfast, but I'm hoping that changes soon. My roommate and I are hopefully going to find time to go one morning to have breakfast together. With that said, the Turks are really big on yogurt. Yogurt is used in everything: sauces, dips, soups, breakfast, etc. Just about anything you can think of. I wasn't a big fan of the yogurt because its very dense and heavy, but then someone suggested putting jam in the yogurt to add some flavor and that did the trick!

Food is a big deal here and its taken very seriously. When you go out to eat at a nice restaurant the service is a little slower than the states because you're supposed to enjoy your meal and take your time in eating. I'm still working on eating slower. For lunch, if you don't go to a sit down restaurant, there are a lot of food stands and cafes that sell doner, which is like a sandwich, often filled with meat, spices, cheese, and veggies. It's a little bit like a panini, but much more juicy and flavorful. Its really cool to walk past these cafes because in the windows or right outside the stores you can see the meat being marinated or cut. At least you know its fresh! One of my favorite lunch meals so far has been Kofte kebab, which is lamb meatballs and fresh spices that are grilled on a steak and served like that or served on fresh bread. Speaking of which, bread is given to you everywhere. Its even more common than receiving bread at a restaurant in the states. There's a great bakery that makes fresh bread right now near campus and I've gone there twice to get fresh rolls for sandwiches.

I think the most adventurous meal I've tried has been fried lamb liver. I'm glad I tried, but I don't think I'll be having it again soon. Fresh veggies and fruits are abundant. Every meal is accompanied by at least some form of both. Its nice to see fresh fruit listed as a desert at some restaurants. You forget how good sliced apple and orange can be as a sweet after a meal.

There are tons of different ways to prepare kebabs in Turkey. One of my favorites is Adana kebab which is generally minced lamb with red pepper flakes, peppers, and salt mixed in. Generally we think of a kebab as being served on the skewer, but in Turkey after the meat has cooked the kebab is removed from the stick and placed on bread pieces (think pita) with a salad and maybe some rice. Rice is served with almost anything and is always cooked perfectly. I never knew I loved rice as much as I did until I started having it here.

A couple days ago, I tried Iskender kebab which is one of the most famous foods in Turkey. The lamb or beef is cut really thin and sauteed with butter and yogurt before being placed on pieces of flat bread. Its incredibly rich, but tasty. It wasn't one of my favorite meals because of how rich it was, but it was pretty good.

Now for everyone's favorite foods: sweets! Turkey is well-known for their deserts especially baklava. For those who don't know baklava is a dough-based pastry that's been rolled in nuts and layered with honey or a sugar sauce. It's INCREDIBLY sweet, but really tasty. I'm not a big fan of really sweet or rich deserts so I can't say that I would want to eat it very often, but baklava is quite tasty and worth the calories! Another famous desert is turkish delight which are small pastries that have a really soft and almost jelly-like center. Like baklava they are really sweet, but pretty good. I should have mentioned this when I was talking about breakfasts, but I forgot... there's a place called abba's waffles that I have yet to try, but plan to soon. Located along the water, this little shop makes the waffles in front of you and then you can pick what you want it topped with. You can have it dipped in chocolate, nuts, bananas, strawberries, whipped cream, literally anything you can think of. Its kinda of like walking into an ice cream store and picking all the different toppings that you want in your dish.

Alright well that's enough for now. I'm going to go do some reading for class tomorrow. Hope the rain stops soon!

Love... Brett