Outdoor dining is dead, long live outdoor dining

I'd been eyeing the roadside kebab shop for a while, as there seemed to be a steady stream of customers whenever I walked by after my physiotherapy sessions. Then, quite suddenly, all indoor *and* outdoor seating at restaurants and cafes was banned once again in Turkey as a coronavirus prevention measure. Takeaway, however, was still allowed. On this particular day, I was starving, having missed lunch; the weather was still mild, despite it being early December; and I figured I could furtively scarf down a dürüm in a couple of minutes while lingering on the street corner out front.

But I hadn't given Turkish ingenuity and hospitality enough credit.

No sooner had I approached the server standing outside the door and ordered my Adana dürüm (acılı, tabii ki, ama domatessiz lütfen) than he had swooped up a piece of cardboard and placed it just so on the edge of what used to be the shop's outdoor-dining area. (Can't sit on the cold ground, your reproductive organs might freeze.) 

As I sat on my cardboard-covered perch, eating my dürüm and sipping my ayran, situated at a safe distance away from other customers doing likewise, I noticed there were people sitting in the cars parked in front of the shop. They were eating their kebabs as the server dashed back and forth to their car windows to deliver post-meal tea and retrieve the empty glasses. It was almost like being at an American drive-in.

Restaurants, cafes, and bars are suffering heavily during these shutdowns, to be sure. But these examples of resourcefulness are cheering in their small way. A neighborhood bar is packaging up its cocktails to go and bottling its mixers for sale. The owners of a popular meyhane have opened a takeaway meze shop and even deliver locally by bicycle. One street in Karaköy is doing its best impression of a European Christmas market, the scent of cloves and cinnamon drawing passersby to long tables outside bar-restaurants that are selling cups of mulled wine and slices of cake to take in hand as you stroll. It's something I've not really seen in Istanbul before, but a new tradition I certainly wouldn't mind seeing endure after the pandemic is (inşallah) behind us next winter.

Pide to the people

"Sıcak sıcak sıcaaaaak!!!!"

"Var mı, pide isteyen?!?!"

Since Turkey began weekend lockdowns in its large cities earlier this month – fully confining everyone except certain essential workers to their homes – normally raucous Istanbul has been eerily quiet on Saturdays and Sundays. No matter how late of a lie in I indulge myself with (because really, what's the point of getting out of bed when you can't leave the apartment?), the silence of the streets outside hangs heavily, as if the whole world had vanished while I slept.

Then it happens. The low thrum of a small van inching its way down the street, followed by the crackle of a portable speaker, or an unamplified, full-throated cry. "Geldi geldi geldi!!!!"

Sometimes it's just one voice, other times a competing cacophony. Either way, the sounds break the silence, and the spell that seems to have been cast on the neighborhood. When I pop my head out the window, faces up and down the street mirror my own. The old, infirm, or simply weary lift baskets over their windowsill or balcony railing, lower them on a rope, and wait. The rest stuff a few coins in pockets, slip on some shoes (what are those again?), and rush out the door, not wanting to miss the highlight (OK, the only event) of the day: bread delivery time.

For many Turks, a meal without bread is unthinkable. An estimated 20 million loaves are sold daily in Istanbul (population 16 million) alone. I've seen Turkish friends refuse to eat breakfast because there was no fresh bread, only the slices left over from the day before. A Turkish colleague told our WhatsApp group that even during the 1980 military coup, when tanks patrolled the city’s empty streets, bread was distributed in large trucks to each house or apartment.

So certainly a little thing like a global pandemic wasn't going to keep the halk from their ekmek. The Interior Ministry's curfew order included an exemption allowing people to leave their homes to walk to their nearest bakery. Politicians jostled to be the heroes providing bread to the cooped-up masses, posting videos on social media with soothing footage of loaves coming out of ovens and being brought to homes. And local bakeries took to the streets with their delivery vans.

I'll be honest – even as starved for activity and interaction as I am on weekends, the standard white loaves, more air than bread, weren't going to entice me to run after the bakery van. But this weekend, their siren call became very beguiling, with the addition to their offerings of the Ramazan pidesi. This pillowy flatbread is made during the holy month of Ramadan, when observant Muslims abstain from food and drink during daylight hours, then sit down to a fast-breaking meal called iftar at sunset.

Even for the non-religious, the sight of people coming together each evening, whether at huge tables set up by the municipality or on small stools set up around a newspaper-covered folding table, creates a sense of shared urban conviviality. Of course in 2020, coming together is tehlikeli ve yasaktır, as is jostling in front of the fırın to buy a fresh-out-of-the-oven pide in the last possible minutes before iftar so it's still piping-hot at fast-breaking time.

On weekends, then, buying pide from the bread van is about as close as we can come to a communal experience. So I wasn't going to miss out on that. And if a bread that's usually torn into pieces and shared has to be eaten by one person while it's still warm and at its tastiest, well, it's the kind of year in which sacrifices must be made. But only one pide a day, no matter how many times the vans cruise down my street. Even in a pandemic, you have to draw the line somewhere.

A city and its food

Photo via Fare Magazine

The new magazine Fare, devoted to "exploring city culture through food, history, and community," chose Istanbul as the feature city for its inaugural issue, which was published this week. It's full of beautiful photography and design, and an eclectic selection of articles, including a piece by me on some of Istanbul's lesser-known sweet treats, such as the beyaz tatlı once beloved by the city's Greek, Jewish and Armenian communities and now, like the people who once ate it, largely swept away in a tide of cultural and culinary homogenization.

My piece, "Beyond Baklava," and a wealth of other stories are available in Fare Issue 1: Istanbul, on sale at independent book and magazine stores and other locations in Turkey and Europe -- and available for shipping worldwide.

Bonus photos:

Üç Şekerleme proprietor Altuğ Dörtler scooping out some beyaz tatlı for a guest (me!)

A rainbow array of sweets for sale at Üç Yıldız Şekerleme in Istanbul's Beyoğlu district

Farewell to a favorite Istanbul restaurant

Influenced by the organic, locally grown California cuisine of Alice Waters, young chef Didem Şenol brought a fresh approach to Turkish cooking when she opened Lokanta Maya in 2010, eschewing rigid food combinations and letting high-quality ingredients shine.

Since writing up my first meal at Lokanta Maya in a restaurant review for Istanbul Eats, I'd enjoyed many delicious evenings there with friends, celebrating birthdays, entertaining out-of-town guests, or simply treating ourselves to top-notch food and good Turkish wine in a pleasing setting.

Sadly, the troubles that have enveloped Turkey this year have not been good for business, and at the end of July, Maya joined the growing list of places in Istanbul closing their doors. A small silver lining was the chance to speak with the ever-gracious and thoughtful Şenol about her decision to close the restaurant, her culinary philosophy, and the changing urban fabric around us.

>> Read my interview with Didem Şenol, "Farewell Lokanta Maya: Istanbul and Local Culinary Pioneer Hit Hard Times," on Culinary Backstreets (the successor site to Istanbul Eats).

A sweet but fading tradition

The Altan Şekerleme candy shop was a frequent and favorite stop during my time as a tour guide for Istanbul Eats’ culinary walks, but what happened in the candy-making operation upstairs was always a closely guarded secret. At a recent press event at the Istanbul Culinary Arts Center, however, I finally had the chance to see how those glistening hard candies were made, and to return for a chat with one of the master şekerci (confectioners) carrying on a tradition that dates back, with little change, to Ottoman times.

Read my article for Zester Daily, “Turkish Candy Entices Through the Ages”

A dessert with depth

Cooking aşure at a Slow Food event
in Istanbul.

"What kind of dessert is this?" I thought to myself the first time I tried aşure. A traditional Turkish pudding thick with wheat, rice, chickpeas, and white beans, and studded with dried fruits and nuts, it seemed more reminiscent of a hearty, good-for-you bowl of oatmeal than a sweet treat.

Joining the contributors team at Zester Daily, a website devoted to food journalism, gave me the opportunity to really dig in to this unusual dish, whose cultural associations and traditions are as rich, numerous, and varied as its ingredients.

Get to the bottom of a bowl of aşure with my debut piece for Zester, "A Pudding for All That Comes From Turkey's Melting Pot."

Farewell, İnci

The marble slab below the door sagged on one side, worn concave by the countless thousands of shoes that had trod upon it over the last 68 years.

Photo: Athens Voice

Until this weekend, many feet still passed through the threshold of İnci Pastanesi each day, especially on weekends, when Turkish families, couples, and not a few tourists would crowd into the long, narrow pastry shop, grabbing a plate of profiteroles drenched in chocolate syrup to eat at one of the small, low tables along the wall opposite the counter.

Neatly printed signs above them read, "We don't have any table service" and "We don't have any other outlets." Boxes covered in shiny wrapping paper lined the upper walls, interspersed with tidy spools of equally colorful ribbon. Sometimes a face might peek out from the loft office, above the cash register and next to one of the framed photos of Atatürk. In the back, partly visible through an open doorway, a seemingly un-diminishing pyramid of pastry puffs were continually hand-filled with custard, while chocolate churned in a large white vat.

The eviction. Photo: Radikal

Opened in 1944 by Lukas Zigoridis, an Istanbullu of Albanian Greek origin, İnci hearkened back to an earlier time when Istanbul, and the Beyoğlu district in particular, was a place where religious minorities -- Greeks, Armenians, Jews -- and various residents of European descent made up nearly half of the population and İstiklal Caddesi was a grand avenue lined with fashionable local shops and elite residences.

Shuttered for good. Photo: Aktif Haber

Following anti-Greek riots in 1955, mass rural-to-urban migration, and a host of other factors, today's Istanbul is overwhelmingly Turkish and İstiklal Caddesi is home to three Starbucks, a Burger King, a Sephora, and a Gap (just to name a few). The fading memories of Beyoğlu's cosmopolitan past lend a melancholy undertone to the bustling and often rowdy neighborhood, where this history lingers only in the quiet, tucked-away old churches, in the Greek- and Armenian-origin dishes served at local meyhanes... and at İnci. But no longer.

On Friday, the local zabita (civil police) arrived at the storied pastry shop to carry out a long-fought eviction order of İnci and the other remaining tenants of the historic Cercle d’Orient building, an 1884 Baroque- and Rococo-style beauty reportedly slated for the same fate as its neighbor: renovation into yet another shopping mall.

Watch your tongue

"Sheep's head is usually served roasted or boiled," I said, pointing at the flesh-covered skulls in the corner of the butcher's case, their tongues lolling out between stubby teeth below their bulging eyeballs. "Here's the sheep's liver, and its heart. And did you see the cow tongue back there?" I asked my tour group, indicating a chunk of whitish meat roughly the size and shape of a human forearm.

"No, no," one of the butchers interjected. "It's kaynana tongue."

I racked my brain for the meaning of the unfamiliar word. Was it water buffalo, like the animal whose liver he'd already said was even bigger than the massive cow liver on display? No, that's manda. Was this little shop alongside the Spice Bazaar doing a secret trade in exotic animal parts? Perhaps I should have paid more attention during that useless-seeming Turkish 1 lesson where we studied the words for "giraffe" and "kangaroo."

The butcher repeated himself, clearly dismayed at my still-quizzical expression. "Are you married?" he asked, pointing to his ring finger. I shook my head. "That's why you don't understand..."

As I continued explaining the different types of offal to my guests, the other butcher took pity on me. "Senin beyin annesi," he said with a slight smile.

A-ha. Mother-in-law's tongue.

Tomorrow I'll have to tell them that we have a plant with the same name -- one that's sharp and a bit poisonous.

The year's best bites

Crispy, buttery trout, fresh out of the pond at the Has Bahçe motel in Hasankeyf, served on a cold, rainy night and simply but perfectly prepared.

A breakfast table heaving with sweet and savory pastries, homemade fruit preserves, pungent olives, and the freshest cheeses at the Panorama Otel in Bozcaada.

Plump khinkali and rich, cheesy khachapuri with a view of buses pulling in and out of a poorly lit station at Cafe Euro.

Spicy stir-fried beef with kimchi and all the right trimmings, eaten upstairs from a Korean karaoke bar near Taksim Square.

Melt-in-your-mouth custard-filled Laz boreği at the Black Sea meyhane Mohti.

Stuffed mussels and garlicky greens on a cobblestone backstreet under hanging vines in the seaside town of Ayvalık.

These are just a few of my "perfect little dining moments" in Turkey this year, the ones that came back to me while deciding which experience(s) to choose as my Best Bites of 2011 for Istanbul Eats. My guest submission, "Beating the Meyhane Blues," was published today, putting me in the esteemed company of food writers Robyn Eckhardt from EatingAsia and Katie Parla of Parla Food. Here's to more good eating in 2012.

Photo of the decadent Bozcaada breakfast by my traveling companion Tracey H.

Weekends at the office

Unlike any office in which I've ever worked, the headquarters of Borusan Holding is eerily tidy. Nary a stray piece of paper mars the crisp white interior, where the few framed family photos and coffee-table books placed just so seem more like movie-set props than actual personal belongings.

"Everyone has to gather up their things before the weekend," a security guard explains, confirming my suspicions. I wondered if the owners of the one pad of Post-It notes and the one empty water bottle I spied on desks would get their pay docked this month.

On the weekends, this corporate office turns into a museum, allowing visitors to walk through its hushed hallways and executive suites to peek at the company's contemporary art collection and -- no less a draw -- inside one of the most distinctive buildings along the Bosphorus.

Built beginning in the 1910s, the Perili Köşk's red-brick turret soars alongside the second Bosphorus Bridge, affording sweeping views across the strait that, strikingly framed in the building's many windows, often threaten to overshadow the art on display in what Borusan touts as "Turkey's first office museum." Seven new acquisitions, all video/multimedia works, are given their own screening area, while the current selection from the Borusan collection (dubbed "Segment #1") is spread throughout nine increasingly vertiginous floors of offices and meeting rooms

A smartly chosen mix of works in different mediums, the collection appears to contain very little that could potentially offend workplace sensibilities, though many pieces are bold in color, size, or placement, and generally pleasing to the eye, if not particularly challenging to the mind.

With no more than around 15 works on any given floor, the nine stories of art aren't nearly as daunting or exhausting as they may sound, but just to be on the safe side, fortify yourself first at one of the many all-day breakfast places lining the road below nearby Rumeli Hisarı, which are packed to the gills on weekends.

At Rumeli Kale Cafe, a tea server squeezes through the crowd as voices echo off the wooden walls and metal ceiling in the narrow dining room, its tables overflowing with little plates of cheese, olives, cucumbers, and tomatoes; single-serving frying pans with eggs and halloumi cheese; baskets of olive-studded bread; and dishes full of tahini paste and big slabs of thick cream soaking in honey. It's the kind of breakfast that will keep you full until well after dinner time.

TO VISIT: The exhibits "Segment #1" and "Seven New Works" are on view until December 11 at Borusan Contemporary in Istanbul's Sarıyer district. The museum is open Saturday and Sunday only, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. General admission is 10 Turkish Liras. Bus 42T will get you there from Taksim Square.

Rumeli Kale and the other breakfast places are just a few meters south along the water. Go as early as possible to avoid the rush, and bring a good book for when you inevitably get stuck in traffic on the way back.

Drinking with the enemy

Upon returning to San Francisco after my first trip to Istanbul, I had an impossible time convincing anyone how hard it was to find decent coffee in Turkey. "But what about Turkish coffee?!?" they would say, incredulously. "Didn't the Turks practically invent the stuff?"

"Fine, fine," I thought. "If you like having half of an itty-bitty serving end up as sludge in the bottom of the cup, go right ahead. But I'm talking about coffee -- a nice warm brewed cup of Joe that you
can put your hands around and sip every last drop. Besides, Turks all drink tea anyway. They think 'kahve' translates as Nescafe! That's what it said on all the little kiosks in Sultanahmet: 'Çay (Tea) | Kahve (Nescafe).'"

Since that trip 10 years ago, Starbucks has surged into Istanbul, with three outlets on İstiklal Caddesi alone, and been followed by a Turkish imitator, Kahve Dünyası ("Coffee World"), as well as other coffee options. But Nescafe is still ubiquitous, with a "cappuccino" mix and 3-in-1 packets with "extra cream aroma," "extra coffee taste," and chocolate and hazelnut versions. Never having managed to acquire a real taste for either Turkish coffee or tea, I would grudgingly opt for my old nemesis when offered caffeine-related hospitality. When drowsily waking up in my seat near the tail end of a night bus ride, I actually even enjoyed it a little bit. The sweet artificial taste started to mingle in my mind with watching new landscapes go by as the sun rose.

It wasn't until I started working at a local newspaper, though, that the relationship began to get out of hand. To get me through the afternoon deadline crunch, I started stocking Nescafe packets in my desk drawer -- all I had to do to get my fix was run down the hall and get some hot water from the dispenser. I no longer begrudged it its bad taste and god-knows-what ingredients. I started to look forward to it, just like the equally (and rightfully) maligned Efes I couldn't wait to drink after the madness was all over.

I don't work at that job anymore. I could just break up with Nescafe (and Efes, for that matter). But when I went to buy a cup of filtered coffee at an event yesterday afternoon and was told there was none left, I just shrugged and shifted over to the Nescafe line. It sure as hell ain't coffee, but sometimes (there, I've said it) it hits the spot.

For every thing there is a season

Deep-red pomegranates hung heavily from countless trees along the Mediterranean coast in early October. Two months earlier, women sat by the side of the road in the Aegean town of Ayvalık, selling bags full of freshly clipped squash blossoms, delicate yellow flowers soon to be stuffed with rice and spices and served on local tables.

Traveling around Turkey, it's easy to see what fruits and vegetables are in season. Meat and fish too have their special times of year, with restaurants sticking handwritten signs in their windows to announce the arrival of hamsi (anchovies) or goose. Even in Istanbul, where you can get imported Granny Smith apples or out-of-season strawberries in large supermarkets, produce stands and carts overflow for a few weeks or months with the best of what's growing right now -- juicy cherries in the peak of the summer heat, tart citrus fruit to ward off the late fall chill, hearty brussels sprouts in the dead of winter.

Though what people eat around the world -- including in Turkey -- is becoming increasingly homogenized, food's link to a particular time and place seems stronger here than back in the United States. People many generations removed from rural life will readily tell you with pride that "their" village makes the best cheese, grows the tastiest apples, or is without a doubt the place to get superior pistachios. At the end of summer, the baggage areas of long-distance buses heading to Istanbul from all corners of Anatolia are full of evidence of this devotion -- canvas sacks of nuts and crates of fruit, carted back by visiting city dwellers who won't accept any substitutes for the true tastes of home.

NOTE: From famine and hunger to organic gardening and vegetarianism, bloggers around the world are writing about the past, present, and future of food for Blog Action Day, an annual event that seeks to focus attention on an important topic such as water, climate change, or poverty. Register online and get blogging to join today's global conversation about food.

İftara davet

Amid the general hustle and bustle of a 550-plus-person-capacity ferry traveling to Istanbul on a Saturday night, a few people quietly unwrap take-out packages of food, arranging each item carefully on the plastic table in front of them and then turning their focus intently to the flat-screen TVs hanging above the boat's lounge. Onscreen, a flashing countdown clock ticks off the minute iftar, the breaking of the Ramadan fast, begins in each of Turkey's provinces, moving from east to west with the setting sun.

While cars speed down Sıraselviler Caddesi in central Istanbul, two men open up a Tupperware container on the back hood of a taxi parked at the curb, ready to share a simple meal when the evening ezan rings through the air.

On a back street in Nişantaşi, a pair of security guards scurry outside with a small table on which to lay their iftar meal in the dimly lit courtyard in front of their workplace.

Unlike in countries where dawn-to-dusk fasting is nearly mandatory, and people adjust their schedules to a more nocturnal rhythm, these small scenes in Turkey are carried out following a normal workday, next to people eating, drinking, and smoking as usual. This year, they also occurred amid increased concern about an "iftar divide" between rich and poor in the evening Ramadan meal. Though the debate could perhaps be compared to the annual appearance of pundits in the United States saying the "real meaning" of Christmas is being lost under a pile of wrapping paper and empty eggnog cups, the wrestling over whether lavish meals defeat the spiritual purpose of Ramadan also has a strong thread of social justice running through it.

Image from the program "İftara davet" on 24 Haber.

Better things to do with a can (or bottle) of Efes than drinking it

Make a row of clanking "wind chimes" for your garden:

Gülpinar, Turkey

Cut it into strips and turn it into a model airplane, as in this Efes-sponsored art exhibition:

Via: My Modern Metropolis

Stack up cases containing 72,000 bottles in a pyramid shape inside an art museum, then invite visitors to climb the sculpture and consume its contents:

Photos: KW Institute for Contemporary Art

The artist, Cyprien Gaillard, described the work as a commentary on the destruction and displacement of the Pergamon Altar at the original "Efes" (Ephesus, to most tourists). I call it a clever way to get other people to drink your Efes beer for you.

New and tasty things I've tried recently

Even if you've figured out that there's more to Turkish cuisine than just kebabs, it's easy to feel after a while that there's nothing new under the sun, culinarily speaking. The seeming boom in Black Sea restaurants in Istanbul has been a bit of a revelation -- I can't remember the last time I went to a Turkish restaurant where there were so many completely unfamiliar items on a menu. OK, just three or four, but still! And sometimes, if you look hard enough, even the most traditional spots can hold a few surprises.

• Tahinli pastry -- Something like a cinnamon roll with a thin coat of peanut butter between each layer. (Possibly an Armenian recipe.) At a small, nondescript take-out bakery on the shore road in Beşiktaş.


• Kaygana -- Reminiscent of a crepe, an omelette, and a potato pancake, but made with kale, leeks, and hamsi (anchovy) filets. At the Black Sea meyhane Mohti.


• Gelincik suyu (poppy juice) -- Ruby red and refreshing, if a bit of an acquired taste. Can also be served hot in a tea-like form. No narcotic properties that I could discern. At a cafe on Bozcaada.


• Kabak ezmesi (pumpkin dip) -- Creamy and just a bit smoky. At Zübeyir Ocakbaşı.

Know of any other little-known sweets, snacks, or meals I should try to track down?

NOTE: In other food-related news, I've got a guest review of the fabulous restaurant Lokanta Maya up today on Istanbul Eats, the best website in town for people who love to eat.

'To Şeref!'

To life, to health, to honor. The ritual words shared as glasses clink seem to have the same essential meaning around the globe. During a wine-drinking session last night, however, a Turkish friend put a new-to-me spin on the local tradition of toasting with a hearty "Şerefe" (to honor). Rather than a joint wish for those gathered together, he said, it's a pledge: To protect the honor of fellow drinkers even if having a few too many causes their lips to loosen or their eyes to wander.

In other words, what happens at the rakı-drinking table stays at the rakı-drinking table.

A taste of Turkey in 2010

Stuffed as we were with hummus and wild greens, hearty stews and succulent kebab, the sensible thing to do would have been to push our chairs away from the table and sigh. But the meal wasn't complete without just one more thing.

"You're ordering a walnut for dessert?" the newcomer asked, not bothering to hide her look of disdain. The waiter laughed. When he returned with the dish, he presented it with a flourish. "Your walnut dessert!" Our friend peered at the plate's content: Four small black olive-like orbs, glistening with syrup, accompanied by a dollop of thick cream. She poked her fork at one gingerly. "Just try it!" we insisted.

It's true that ceviz tatlısı, or ceviz reçeli, as it's also known, doesn't look, or sound, particularly appetizing. Take whole walnuts, soften their shells with slaked lime, then candy the whole thing. But the result is sweet, rich, and complex, something you want to slice into infinitesimally small pieces so it won't ever come to an end. Of all the great food I've tasted at Çiya, it's perhaps the most amazing. It hasn't failed to win a convert yet.

- - -

As much as we expats like to complain about the lack of imagination shown at most Turkish restaurants, and the lack of interest among many Turks in other cuisines, Turkish food can be incredibly delicious. I had some of my most memorable eating experiences of the year in a rather unlikely location, the far northeastern city of Kars, perhaps best known as the dreary setting for Orhan Pamuk's lovely and compelling book Snow.

Though the town has few restaurants, and the region lacks the culinary reputation of Southeastern Anatolia, Kars gave me my first taste of roast goose (incredibly rich, if on the heavy/fatty) side, the best simit I've ever eaten (soft, fresh, infused with sesame flavor -- who knew it could taste like this?), a warm, almost gingerbread-y helva, the closest thing I've found to a homegrown blue cheese in Turkey, and a stuffed Anteplim pide so bursting with flavor (and so strangely reminiscent of a Thai chicken pizza) that I ate it two days in a row. It's also where I realized that all those traditional dishes such as etli taze fasulye that I dread seeing on the cafeteria menu at work actually have something to recommend them when made properly.

- - -

Closer to home, I loved every moment I spent shivering by the Golden Horn in order to eat fresh, cheap hamsi (anchovies) and fish soup, an experience I wrote about in an end-of-the-year submission to Istanbul Eats' "Best Bites of 2010." Sitting in the same spot on a warm summer night, with a perfectly grilled fish and a cold beer, wasn't too bad either.

Turkey in Turkey III, the facts and figures

I hosted Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday for the third time in three years, something that has quickly become my favorite tradition in Turkey. As I've explained to the many non-Americans I've shared the occasion with, Thanksgiving is the best American holiday because there's no religion and no gift-buying involved, just eating and drinking with people you (hopefully) like.

Once I cooked a turkey successfully the first year, I decided not to really mess with that, but when October rolls around, I always start looking for new side-dish recipes to add to the ones worth cooking again. This year's menu included:

• A brined and roasted turkey with apple juice gravy (no cider 'round these parts)
• Cornbread stuffing with sausage
• Green mashed potatoes
• Caramelized spiced carrots
• Fatty 'Cue Brussels sprouts (sans bacon, sadly)
• Fresh orange-cranberry sauce with walnuts
• Spinach salad with candied spicy walnuts, dried cranberries, and blue cheese
• Assorted cheeses, olives, and nuts to snack on

And for dessert (not made by me), a quince tart and Iranian halva.

On the guest list:

• 5 Americans
• 3 Brits
• 2 Iranians
• 2 Germans
• 1 Dane
• 1 French
• 1 Turk

The ingredients in the meal were a little melting pot of their own, including:

• American cranberries and Danish sausage from Denmark
• Danish blue cheese from Lebanon (I decided to hold onto the French Roquefort from Djibouti for another occasion)
• rosewater brought straight from Iran that morning
• American maple syrup acquired in Portugal
• sea salt, cayenne pepper, hot sauce, and various other things transported from America
• and, of course,
• a turkey from Turkey

Since so many of the guests were celebrating their first-ever Thanksgiving, I decided to make a little speech explaining the meaning of the holiday, in the warm fuzzy way we learned in elementary school before we knew anything about colonialism or small pox. As I went through the story, it started to feel strangely appropriate, speaking as I was to a group of people who have settled in a land that was not our own, relying on each other to help us get through the hard metaphorical winters -- the bureaucracy, the strangeness, the language barrier, the loneliness -- and harvest something valuable from our sometimes faltering labors. Şükran günümüz kutlu olsun! Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Dondurmacı vs. Japon

Sometimes you just want an ice cream, dammit. You're not going to get it from this guy (or anyone else in Turkey wearing the same goofy uniform):



As a side note, I suppose it could be seen as a sign that I've been here too long that the chewy ice cream tastes just fine to me.

DIY Mangal

Every 4th of July in Amerikastan, we'd pack up the car and drive out to the suburbs of Sacramento to celebrate the holiday the way it was intended -- with a yard full of kegs and BBQ grills, fireworks in the street, dips in the pool, and the neighborhood on parade. Although (or perhaps because) I'm a die-hard city girl, I loved these excursions to the 'burbs. Last week, I think I may have found the equivalent experience in Istanbul.

First, you go to the store and buy as much köfte (meatballs), sucuk (beef sausage), chicken wings, and cans of Efes as you can carry. Then you walk up to Taksim, take the metro to 4. Levent, and then hop on a bus to Sariyer. (More than one bus, if you do it incorrectly.) Stay on as the bus turns away from the sparkling waters of the Bosphorus and cruises down the neighborhood's main drag, past the dusty little otogar and the dilapidated local sports "stadium," and then down a very unpromising-looking industrial road before hopping off by the sign saying "Çırçır Suyu Sosyal Tesileri." You may feel like you're walking into a construction site, but don't give up hope.

At the end of the road, there's a leafy, secluded patch of land, full of trees and picnic tables where you can set up your goods while the men working there bring you the fired-up mangal (grill) and all the plates and silverware you'll need for just 11 liras a person. And they'll clean up after you too. Just make sure not to get roped into letting the roving band of musicians play for you. They sound a lot better from a safe distance, when the neighboring group of raucous picnickers is paying their tips.