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.

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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.

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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.

What's in a name?

Like suburban developments in the States that might be called "The Meadows" or "Forest Grove" when such things no longer exist there, street names in Turkey also sometimes outlive what originally inspired them. Asmalımescit Sokak ("Vine-Covered Small Mosque Street") in Istanbul is now full of bars and there's not much in the way of trees on Siraselviler Caddesi ("Row of Cypresses Avenue"). In the northeastern city of Kars, Bankacılar Sokak ("Bankers' Street") is a small abandoned alley. So when the driver of a car I was in started asking directions in the town of Sarıkamış that involved "çöp" (trash) street, I assumed it would be more of the same. I was wrong.

As the road led outside of Sarıkamış, I felt like I'd been transported back to the mountains of California: Alongside the road ran a clear stream winding its way through a green, flower-filled meadow at the foot of a forested hill. But as I looked closer, I started to wonder why some of those "flowers" had such vivid, almost unnatural colors. Could they actually be... yep, they were... bits of trash, increasing in volume as we progressed. Around one curve, the reason became clear: The entire other side of the road was a massive open-air garbage dump, with detritus fluttering off in the breeze. Sometimes, a name means exactly what you think it does.