ATE NO TURKEY IN TURKEY

We were in Istanbul for Thanksgiving. Originally we'd thought to seek out turkey on that day. Not fancy big hotel Thanksgiving dinner turkey for tourists, but some sort of local turkey - turkey kebabs, for instance. According to several people we asked, turkey is eaten in Turkey, but usually only around New Years.

So we gave up on the idea and went out to a restaurant called Asitane that specializes in well-researched food that was popular in high society during the Ottoman Empire. I had a sort of goose pot pie - which was as close to turkey as the menu got - and it was delicious.

The very next day we had lunch at a place recommended by the extremely smart and very useful - should you ever be in search of a good meal in Istanbul - blog, Istanbul Eats. (Three cheers for the internet. We ate extremely well thanks to these bloggers.)

And there, there was turkey on the menu.

We failed to order it though. We were there to sample some sort of stewed beef on top of a grilled smooshed eggplant dish that is only available for lunch and was so good that we had no choice but to eat two orders of it.

Food is good in Turkey. Some of it is even excellent. And the markets that it comes from are even better - colorful, lively, interesting and a riot of intense smells and flavors and sounds.

All this is by way of an excuse to post some pictures I took in markets and at food stalls. (Not all of these are food markets, and as usual, click on the pictures to view them bigger.)












More Turkey pictures to come and maybe some tales as well. And sooner or later, when I get around to it, all the pictures on my blog and more will be found at my Flickr page.