When we would make our rest stops, we never knew
whether we would find a throne or a target hole, but
there was always plenty of soft toilet paper at hand.
No more that rough Turkish Toilet Paper or small
squares of newspaper stuck on a nail.

Ankara was much changed and unrecognizable, a
sprawling and thriving city of some seven million.
You know how our bodies have weathered but our eyes
and smiles remain the same? Ankara was like that,
physically weathered, but the people were as warm and
open as I remembered.

One of the sights I remember from Istanbul is watching seagulls fly over a mosque, their undersides clearly lit by the lights while everything around them was dark. It was a beautiful thing to see.

I was surprised not to see women in European dress on the streets of Turkey. Instead, most women wore long buttoned coats of thin material over their clothes with hair-covering scarves tied under their chins. Isa predicted this would change after the elections install a new government.

All the kofte I ate in Turkey had a rectangular shape instead of looking like a you-know-what. The best I've ever tasted was in an old restaurant on the square of the Hippodrome in Istanbul. The family has kept the ingredients secret for generations.

It is easy to prepare Turkish food because everything is fresh and put together simply. Just have on hand plenty of plain whole yoghurt, olives, beyaz penir/feta cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers, onions, garlic, lemon and olive oil--classic for
cooking because it will take a high heat without burning; virgin for flavoring.

Make kofte/meatballs with regular ground beef and knead the meat mixture for a long time before you shape it. That breaks it down and gives a better seal to keep in the juices.

For a salad, just mix together chopped cucumbers with tomatoes and dress them with salt, olive oil and lemon juice. Add other ingredients to your taste.

Stew green beans with tomatoes and onions, and add virgin olive oil as a flavoring before serving. Add crushed garlic to plain whole yoghurt and spoon it over your meat and vegetables. This is really good with thinly sliced fried eggplant/patlican.

Find some good sweet french bread and give it a crust. Wet your hands with cold water, rub them all over the loaf, then put it on the top rack of a preheated 450 degree oven for 3-5 minutes. Let it rest for at least fifteen minutes after you take it out of the oven.

For breakfast, drink tea from a glass, sweetened with sugar cubes and eat ekmek, boiled eggs, olives, beyaz peynir, jam--rose petal if you can find it. Or add jam to a bowl of fresh yoghurt.

Eat everything at room temperature.

Drink tea all day, fresh juice or beer in the afternoon and red wine in the evening. Efes beer was a big hit, and Dennis and I discovered Kavaklidere Yakut wine. Yakut was a consistently full-bodied smooth red wine. Dennis would buy one night; I would buy the next.

Anita Donohoe
June 25, 2006

In the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul, a vendor offered me $100 for my hat. I ignored him because it was the perfect hat to protect my scalp from the hot Turkish sun. Actually, my first thought was that I would have to remove all the little evil eye beads that street vendors had given me for looking at their goods. I found this very nice embroidered tshirt in the bazaar and will probably wear it to sleep in. Maybe I will dream up my next visit to Turkey!