Hungry?

This blog is not complete -- I will keep writing it until I've purged my need to relive the memories of the trip.  I will label the last post -- whenever it occurs.

Also, please forgive me for not laboriously searching for the appropriate letters of the Turkish alphabet for all of the names I am including here.  I've included links, so if you want to see actually spellings, please click there.

I’ve been home a few days, and need to discuss food.  At this moment, in foggy cold mid-afternoon weather (the Bay Area forgot to have summer), I am missing the steamily cloying thundershowers of Istanbul, where like domed jelly fish under transparent umbrellas we streamed along the Istiklal Caddesi…Please put a Gül böreği ("rose börek")  and a glass of Ayran in front of me, now!   

Here’s how you make Ayran:

1 1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 1/2 cup water
1 tsp salt

I don’t know if Dannon will be an acceptable substitute for Turkish yogurt. 

In Istanbul, don’t be offended by the bright plastic McDonaldesque signage – many fast-food-looking restaurants offer a limited menu of real and good food.  A borek franchise will offer many variations of this fried or baked stuffed pastry staple– both sweet and savory.  Originally invented by Central Asian Nomadic Turks, it retains the popularity it gained in Ottoman times.  Stuffed with cheese, meat, spinach, etc. the pastry may resemble phyllo or lasagna noodles.  Look critically at a shop selling borek – you may see comfortable seating and wait service, even though its menu garishly pictures the items it offers.  This, by the way, is very helpful to a mute tourist peering up at a hovering Turkish waiter.

For a wonderful terrace overlooking the Bosphorus, next to the picturesque Galata Tower, climb to the fifth floor of the Galata Konak Café, http://www.galatakonakcafe.com/about.html .  Ottoman-style multi-story residences are called konaks.  We were there in the middle of the afternoon, so although Istanbul was crawling with tourists, it was calm and quiet. 

For luscious food, and a stimulating trek to reach it, from the Taksim Square end of Istiklal, walk a few blocks and turn left in front of the McDonald’s onto Kucukparmakkapi Sok.  If you don’t get distracted by beer and backgammon at the bottom of the hill, or linger under the cooling mist in the middle, at the top, on the right, you will find Medi Sark Sofrasi (No. 46A). Yum.  They don’t serve alcohol, so eat there and then drink on the way back down. Do order Ayran, they serve it foamy,  in a small copper bowl with a ladle.

On the Anatolian side of Istanbul, two wonderful restaurants…Ciya  Sofrasi http://www.ciya.com.tr/index_en.php in Kadikoy specializes in home-cooked traditional foods.  We were a big group with many non-Turkish speakers, so to preserve their waiter’s sanity, they noted our choices as we looked and pointed at the food as it was being prepared,   I had sour cherry kebab among other things.  

A tall glass of visne suyu set in front of me right now would make me so grateful. Visne--the sour cherry, suyu--the juice, is ubiquitous in Turkey.  Frequently a glass would suffice for my dessert – not that there weren’t boatloads of other exquisite options.   Visne will always remind me of Turkey.  During our meetings in Ankara, juice boxes were placed twice a day at each of our seats in the conference room.  Their hospitality was such that it took one day to notice that all of us drank the visne, and left the mango alone.  The next morning and afternoon, two juice boxes, of you guessed it, were at each seat.  The conference room table was about twice as big as we needed, so at the end of each day, we raced to collect the left-over visne suyu for overnight consumption.

Looking at the brightly changing multi-colored hues of the lights on the Bosphorus Bridge, a suspension bridge with a resemblance to the Golden Gate, I was treated to dinner by Burcu and her parents Aysa and Baha at Deniz Yildizi. http://www.villadenizyildizi.com/  The seafood was delicious, the service was impeccable, and the setting was unforgettable.  The sloping shores of the Bosphorus remind me of the Italian Lake district north of Milan, with its romantic old world timelessness.  To get to either of these Asian continent restaurants you have to cross the Bosphorus – and I recommend doing it by ferry – don’t get lazy and drive over.