the best meal of the day

My favourite meal in Turkey is breakfast.  I will often try to eat less at lunch or dinner and will sometimes omit one meal entirely when I am still full from the the previous four course meal. But I never hold back at breakfast.  Bring it on, I say!

 

Our hotels all have a buffet set up with a varying amount of items, but there are some that are obviously imperatively part of a typical morning meal.

 

For example:

Yogurt!

Sometimes there is another bowl of fruit yogurt, but natural yogurt is the best.  If I am lucky, I can add sultanas or almonds or oat flakes or honey, or all of them!

They are big on eggs, and there are often hardboiled eggs in one basket identified as 3 minute and in another basket marked 5 minute. 

Hot food is not uncommon, and usually includes some form of pink meat that is sliced like salami or in small pieces like mini-hot dogs.  Sometomes there is a sort of multi-tiered pastry affair that seems to hvea egg in it, but is rather tasteless.  


dried fruit like figs, dates and apricots,
 nuts like hazelnuts and almonds,
fresh fruit like apricots, peaches and berries,
and watermelon without fail

the stickiest jams in the world:
strawberry, raspberry, marmalade, honey
and my personal favourite - charry!
Jams are unusually situated near olives and pickles and pink deli meat

tomatos and cucumbers and greens are staples, as is cheese,
either feta or a curiously bland and tasteless cheese resembling edam



bread goods - not sweet like in North America,
but plaain or flavoured with sesame seeds or poppy seeds


 

family time

My travels generally lead me towards locals about whom I gain insight and thus insight into the country itself.  This trip is not that sort of trip. 

We are essentially a group of students being ferried around everywhere and sticking quite close to each other.  Apart from a bit of shopping and the odd meal, it is too easy to avoid any interaction at all.  There are many in our group what have not learned one word of Turkish and are more afraid of having to communicate with a Turk than use a squat toilet.  This is a bit sad to me, and I wished that there could be a way to ease the path to international awareness and appreciation.

Someone must have been listening June 18 as we made our way between Konya and Bursa.  By that time, we had gotten quite close to Pinar, our guide.  I buy a bottle of water I am reminded of the origin of her name: "water spring".

We knew about her family and where they lived and what they did, but we didn't realize how close we were to her parents.  They live on the coast generally, but for three months of the year live in this area, where they have started an apple garden in their retirement.  And that apple garden was barely 1 km off the hightway, and this was the time her parents were actually there.

We were thrilled to find that yes, we could meet them and see their apple farm, and maybe stop for tea.  And Pinar, who hadn't seen her parents for many months was thrilled that we wanted to go there.

As soon as the buss dropped us off on the highway in the middle of nowheer and we made our way along a rough gravel track in the warm sun, it was as if we passed through a portal not open since Hellenistic times and the gods themselves led us to an enchanted land. 

As we neared her parents' place and they saw this dusty line of humanity move towards them, they rushed out and Pinar was engulfed with hugs and kisses.  Then we were all welcomed with smiles and waves to sit next to the house, where benches and buckets formed a makeshift table and chairs. A hammock swung gently side to side in the breeze and two boxes of bees held the promise of apple blossom honey.

We were expecting tea, but suddenly there was a bowl of cherries and another of apples placed in front of us.

Then some rather

wonderful olives, cheese and watermelon, passed to us from the window in their tiny kitchen.



Then packets of warm borek - long thin flats of bread that are spread with meat or cheese and then wither eaten as is or rolled up and eaten like a wrap. 
It was incredible, and so unexpected.  We ate and drank and then explored their little oasis located in a lovely little valley filled with wheat waving in the breeze like water on a lake, and fruit trees laden with fruit - apple here, but elsewhere apricot, peach, cherry, plum, pear. 


How tea is made in the country

tucking in to a feast!

Anyone want any more?

The little cottage they built themselves, and it is very sinple. No electricity and minimal plumbing for only cold water.  There is a loft over half the space and a small toilet off the enrance.  Windows open on all four sides to move the air on hot days, and a stove sits right in the geographic middle to heat the cottage on cold days. 
The stars must be magnificent at night here!

The students loved the whole experience - oh course - who wouldn't?  Seeing the obvious love passing between parents and daughter during an unexpected visit made me miss my own parents, and parents-in-law, and siblings, but especially my parents, and know it will be another couple of months before I will share Pinar's experience, which will make itall the sweeter when it comes.

beauty framed

overseeing tea operations like a good guide

father and daughter

passing out the leftovers

advising Christian on his gift: sketching the cottage

 

 

receiving Christian's sketch

 

 

two Turkish women discussing which way is north

 



granny smiths ripening by guard dog



mother and daughter

 

Would you like a cold beverage with that?

Turkey's tap water isn't terrible, but you are advised to drink bottled water, which we do, buying it in big bottles and jugs each day before our bus journey.

But sometimes it is nice to have something other than water.  I have never been much of a fan of fizzy drinks, so the ubiquitous Coke/Pepsi option doesn't interest me.  Besides, I'm in Turkey. What could I drink here that I can't find anywhere else?

Sour cherry juice is almost always an option for breakfast and I have become a fan.  I buy cartons for the road, and toss it down wherever I can find it.

There are other juices too.  One day we were treated to a traditional meal in Bursa and were given two choices of juice: raspberry and a sort of honey drink.  Delicious.


A choice that is on every menu everywhere is Ayran.  This is served cold and sometimes frotherd up so that it looks like a milkshake but is in fact a thick milk-based drink.  Most of the time it tastes like buttermilk, and occasionally it tastes more like yogurt.

The wine industry in Turkey is growing, and some of it is very nice - sort of crisp and clean tasting.

And of course there is beer.  Every country in the world seems to produce their own lager, no matter how poor or remote.  In Turkey it happens to be Efes which tastes delicious at the end of a hot day.

Every meal ends with chai (tea) but Turkish coffee is an alternative.  It's pretty strong stuff, generally sweetened regardless of your instructions, but always served well, as if it were a occasion.

 

 

We start our evenings with raki, but one magical night were given a shot of something that tasted a bit like Japanese lum wine.

 

So there's no reason to ever get thirsty in Turkey!

 

Efficiencies

I was impressed with Turkey's forward-thinking stance on getting more for less,and I'm talking about energy, not bartering.

Ottoman architecture devised ways to keep cool in summer and warm in winter, and those are used quite a bit even now.  But there are other energy saving devices that put Turkey higher on the conservation scale than my own country.

But then it never had so much as to overuse it, so it's not really conservation, but rather adding something that they never had before.  Like electricity.  Or warm water.  Or heating. Ottoman houses contain neither of these. New houses can include them of course, but these things are expensive to maintain, especially for those in rural areas.

So it was interesting to see house after house, new and old alike, with solar panels on rooves, attached to water tanks so access to warm water was now possible winer and summer.



As we moved through the country, we often spied clutches of windmills, mesmerizing with their languid turns. 

Toilets were in a bit of limbo.  One the one hand, there were so many more sit-down flush styled loos than even only a few years ago, but they do use a fair bit of water. Being Europe they almost always have a double flush button so some water can be conserved. 

And on the other hand, there are still a lot of squatters, particularly in rural or commercial areas.  A lot less water needed.

I remember one of my exercise instructors saying that countries in which people squat down habitually (not just to do the washroom business but also to cook or eat or whatever) have dramatically less hip problems in later years, and that we in the West would do well to practice squatting to keep our hips limber.  So as long as they are clean, I have no problem with a squatter toilet any more - I thought of it as part of my daily exercise regimen.

old squat  loo - note the handy footwear

a modern squatter,
with a tap and bucket for washing everything down the hole

these would be energy saving,
if only they were hooked up to something!

Eye see you

Have you ever had the feeling that you were being watched? 

a coomon souvenir shop in even uncommon places

Shops throughout the country are full of blue glass or plastic "eyes", which are meant to be worn over the heart to protect the wearer from harm, or the evil eye. Sometimes shop owners will give a small blue bead painted with the eye and attached to a small saftey pin to a shopper or a potential shopper as a gift from Turkey.. 

I played a little game with myself to see how long it takes me to find the eye in any place we enter. .  Some businesss have it enbedded in a wall or on the floor, usually near the entrance.   I have seen it as part of the side walk, and part of a wall. 

It also turns up knitted, crocheted, and painted. 

no evil eye is getting inoto this tea!

our tour bus was protected -
and note the indent manufactured for this very purpose!



every shop visit starts with a "where is the resident eye?" game

High and dry

grasslands in eastern Anatolia

Moving east, we rose in elevation and the land got drier.. 

one of about 6,ooo turns

Our furthest east was Divrigi, a longer than expected day trip from Sivas. Not only was it a twisty, turny road, but there was an enormous amout of roadworks in various states of construction.  This was a surpirse to me.  There's not a lot of traffic out this way, why were these roads being widened?

As we finally made it to Divrigi, we were hit with the sight of multiple and almost identical apartment high rises - about 10 storeys each, and a main shopping street with equally identical 3 storey shops and services.  Our guide Pinar was almost in tears seeing the change to what she remembered a a lovely and typically Ottoman little village.  Okay, so that explains maybe why all the roadworks, but what on earth is here to attract so many? 

up high

dramataic Anatolian landscape

What attracted us was a mosque and hospital complex, built together in the 13th century and regarded as having the best example of stone carving from that era.  At the time, this place was a major and important centre.  It's now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and sits partway up a steep hill, commanding a wonderful view.  I was rather surprised to learn that both the mosque and the adjoining hospital were built by a woman, Turan Melek Sultan, daughter of the Mengujek ruler. Go Turan!

carving

more carving

 

incredible entrance

inside the hospital

a lovely fountain pool in the hospital's central space

skteching in the mosque

if you are there at the right time of day,
you can see someone reading a book in the shadows