EatingAsia

It's a Man's World II: The Kars Sunday Grill

This is Sunday in Kars. Outside of the city, by the river and on hillsides, parked by the road, half-sheltered in the ruins of a church, hunkered beneath the castle -- groups of men, grilling.

Here and there are a few -- very, very few -- families (men, women, children) picnicing around their kebab-erias. But for the most part this is a man's world. On this day 95-98 percent of observed outdoor grillers and eaters are male. Here in Kars the American male's obsession with cooking protein over glowing embers is taken to a whole new level: women are excluded not only from the act of barbecuing, but from the enjoyment of the grill product as well. To a degree we've not yet observed elsewhere in Turkey.

What gives? Your guess is as good as ours.

We've been here in Kars since the middle of last week, heading out every morning to walk the area's stunningly beautiful electric green hills. We've broken our walks with plenty of tea breaks, thanks to the hospitable shephards and cowherds -- and yesterday, the hospitable manager of a hydroelectric power station -- we've met along the way.

The serious walking begins soon enough, when we embark on a multi-day hike. Food will feature prominently, in the villages we overnight in. Tune in next week for a taste of yöresel ev yemeği (regional home cooking).

How to Get the Most Out of Istanbul: A Highly Opinionated List

Not listed in your guidebook: a typical scene in an Istanbul neighborhood

You might have done a double-take when you read that title. Service-y lists are definitely not our thing. Lists are the sort of thing I (Robyn) write for monetary compensation, though rarely willingly. When editors broach the "L" word I tend to cringe.

But, but. There is a time and a place for lists. Here, for instance, and now -- when the number of emails that I receive, in which the sender is heading to Istanbul and asking for a few general tips, reaches a critical mass. Istanbul, it seems, is hot.

It's pretty plain to see that we love Istanbul; we've made 9 visits in the last two years. But we "do" the city in a particular way, the sort of way that probably won't earn coverage in your average travel magazine. Maybe it's your sort of way too. Or maybe not.

At any rate, we have opinions about how best to experience the city. To whit:

After Sultanahmet's sites close, Beyoglu is where it's at

1.

As soon as you arrive buy an Istanbulkart -- one of those wallet-stashable plastic cards that you buy loaded and reload at a kiosk, useable on just about any form of public transport you are likely to board. We still use our akbil from ages ago -- same difference -- and not having to buy a jeton every time you want to get on a ferry is a real aggravation reducer. You do have to pay a deposit on the thing -- and thus remember to A) keep the receipt and B) return the card to claim back your deposit before you leave town --  so it's worth noting that just one card will work just fine for a couple or even a family of up to four people traveling together.

2.

Following on the Istanbulkart advice -- learn the basic transport lines. Why? So that you can sail through your time in Istanbul without ever having to set foot in a cab.

In our experience nine out of ten taxi drivers in Istanbul are jerks. One even threw change at me (Turkish coins are not flimsy) and then put a hex on Dave, which we are fairly certain resulted, a few minutes later, in a serious, trip-ruining (and persisting) back injury.

Why risk the giddy happy-state that Istanbul induces in 99% of its visitors on a teeth-grinding encounter with a taxi driver?

Here, let me make it simple for you.

• The ferry lines you're most likely to use -- Karakoy to Kadikoy, Eminonu to Kadikoy and Uskudar, Kadikoy to Besiktas and Uskudar to Besiktas. Note that ferry terminals are named for their DESTINATION. You will see no Eminonu ferry terminal at Eminomu -- just Uskudar and Kadikoy.
• The tram thing runs from beyond Sultanahmet (Universiti is a good stop if you're headed to Suleymaniye Mosque) across the Galata bridge to Karakoy (where the ferries are), Tophane (galleries and walking up to Cihangir and Galata and even Taksim) and Kabatas.
• The funicular (two stops, the top and bottom) runs from Karakoy right up to Tunel, which sits right between Galata and that famous (and famously annoying, if you are in a hurry) pedestrian shopping mall Istiklal Caddesi.
• And there's a quick little underground line that will get you from Kabatas, last stop on the tram thingy past Tophane, up to Taksim Square in the blink of an eye.
• Buses are easy: just know where you want to go and look for the your destination on the window. Or step up and ask the driver: Besiktas? Fatih? If you've got your Istanbulkart ready then you won't have to fiddle with change. With this minimal amount of public transport info in your head you can get many, many places.

3.

Related to II -- ride the heck out of Istanbul's ferry boats! They're one of the best things the city has going for it. If you don't believe me, take just four minutes to watch and listen to Dave's multimedia ode to Istanbul's ferries (wear headphones, view large screen). See, wasn't I right? In Istanbul riding the ferry is like taking a mini vacation within your vacation.

They're cool in the sticky heat of the summer if you can snag a seat outside. They're warm and cozy in the winter. They offer the best views, anywhere. Ride all the ferries and you'll see all of Istanbul's skylines from every possible angle. Fantastic photo opps! They're a way to "sightsee" without walking, an excuse to take a load off. A ferry ride during off hours, without the crowds, is incredible romantic. When I'm in Istanbul I feel as if I have failed if I don't ride at least two ferries a day. And unless you're deathly afraid of water or prone to seasickness you should feel that way too.

This is what we did just the other day: Karakoy to Kadikoy. Then Kadikoy to Uskudar. Then Uskudar to Besiktas (this is a quick ride). Besiktas to Kadikoy. Kadikoy back to Karakoy. Lots of photos were made. Lots of sighing over Istanbul's incomparable skylines was done. Hands were held. Tea was drunk.

Which leads me to my next tip:

A "secret" tea spot with a view near the Kabatas ferry terminal

4.

Get into tea drinking. It's a great excuse to rest up and rejuvenate after sightseeing/walking/shopping etc., and also a great way to soak up the local vibe. It's also a fantastic means to staying upright if you're fighting jetlag. Turks drink tea all day -- they'll stop anywhere, anytime for a bardak (glass). Get into this mode. Also, if someone offers you tea feel free to accept. It doesn't obligate you to anything other than friendly chit-chat. (Even if it's offered by a carpet seller.) You are also free to decline, as Turks do. Do so politely and no one is going to hold anything against you.

(If you can't tolerate caffeine, know that tea spots also offer bottled water, ayran and sometimes herbal teas -- zahter for thyme or ada cayi for sage tea. Sorry, but apple tea is for tourists.)

We have a few beloved secret tea spots. They're not exactly "secret" -- but they're not the Pierre Loti Cafe and they're unlikely to be listed in any guidebook:

• Tucked in a corner of the park by the Kabatas ferry pier, almost exactly across from the Findikli stop on the tram thingy, is a sweet little outdoor tea spot. Comfortable plastic chairs steps from the water, a lovely view across to Uskudar. This is a nice sunset spot and absolutely beautiful first thing in the morning, around 7:30.
• At the far edge of the parking lot across from the Istanbul Culinary Institute, there's an indoor tea space with tables and chairs out front. A bit noisy from the road below, but a nice view over a part of Istanbul we really haven't explored. Great for a cool-season afternoon tea, as it gets good sun around 2pm.
• The bufe just to the right as you exit the Eminonu/Karakoy ferry terminal in Kadikoy has tables and chairs right on the water. Another great sunset spot; turn your chair facing out to Besiktas and away from the godawful red-and-white beachball view-spoiler thing at the opposite end of the promenade.
• At the urging of Istanbul Eats' Ansel, we checked out Osman's independent tea truck in Karakoy, on the other side of the bridge from the Kadikoy ferry terminal (walk through the fish market, past the tables where people are eating grilled fish, and just keep walking). We like the vibe, very much so. This would be the place to head for tea around sunset, then switch to a cold Efes as the ball drops.

5.

Familiarize yourself with Turkish vowels and consonants. At some point or another you may need to ask directions, or order a grilled fish or a "Turkish bagel" or whatnot, and pronouncing the "c" as a "j" instead of as a "ch" when it should be pronounced as a "j" is going to increase the chances of your getting what you want and just generally make your life easier all around.

It's not that complicated. C and s are pronounced "j" and s, add a thingy underneath c and it's "ch", one underneath s makes it "sh". A dipper over g makes it soft and almost nonexistent (so dogal, g with thingy over it, is pronounced "doh-all"). A g without the dipper is just a hard g. O and u are "oh" and "oo", two dots over each just make them tighter vowels -- not anything to worry too about, actually, as Turks have always been very pleasant, to my face at least, wehn I mangle their language

E is "eh", a is "ah", and i is "ee". An i without the dot over it is pronounced "uh". So ızgara balık
(grilled fish) is uhz-gah-rah  bahl-uhk. Or close enough to it for you to be understood when you say it.

You will not see this next to the Blue Mosque.

6.

Get out of Sultanahmet, aka the Old City. I know, I know -- the Blue Mosque is there! You know what else is there? Carpet sellers, a lot of them. Touts, postcard and trinket sellers. Irish pubs. Overpriced, mediocre food. A Turkish friend once said to me, "No self-respecting Istanbullu would eat in Sultanahmet." And neither should you.

Yes -- you will want to spend one, two or even three days sightseeing in Sultanahmet. But you don't have to spend your nights there too. If you visit New York must you stay near the Empire State Building? You have absorbed Tip I, right? So you know that getting to and from Sultanahmet is as easy as brandishing your Istanbulkart and hopping on the tram. Or the ferry. Or walking across the bridge on a beautiful spring or fall day.

Our favorite stay is Cihangir (Galata is second, for its convenience), a lovely under-the-radar neighborhood that is a 10-minute walk downhill from Istiklal Caddesi and a 10-minute walk to the Tophane tram stop. Add 10-15 minutes to wait for a train and get to Sultanahmet and you're talking 25-30 minutes top. Most real Istanbullu live, eat and play across the bridge (or elsewhere in the city outside of Sultanahmet). When Sultanahmet's sites close for the day get out and stay/live, eat and play among them.

A street scene in Cihangir.

7.

Rent an apartment. Hotels are ridiculously overpriced in Istanbul -- I have no idea what justifies the 150 Euros per night charged by the most mediocre of 3-star hotels in the city. If you're bound and determined to spend 150 euros a night you can score a nice apartment with a Bosphorus view and probably a private balcony too. Not to mention: a washing machine, a full-sized fridge to chill your duty-free champagne (if you enjoy a tipple or two and are staying in an apartment you will want to stop at duty-free; Turkey's liquor duties are a major strike against it) in, a stereo, room to move and the privilege of not having to shower and dress before your morning coffee.

If you are an avid cook, as I am, and go gah-gah for beautiful ingredients then it's no contest. You'll welcome the opportunity to cultivate a friendly relationship with your neighborhood fruit or vegetable guy. When you're browsing at the corner produce shop and see 6 huge, beautifully pared artichoke hearts in a bag of lemon water for 15 lira you are going to want a stovetop to pan roast them on. You won't get it in a hotel room. You know those astonishingly fragrant, sweet green-fleshed melons dripping juice that every fruit seller in town is displaying come May/June? They're absolutely gorgeous for breakfast, served dead-ripe with a good quality sharp, lightly salted white cheese -- a combo unlikely to show up on your Sultanahmet hotel breakfast hotel table.

(Please note: no vacation apartment rental service sponsored this post.)

At the Tarlabasi Sunday market.

8.

Go to a once-a-week market. Even if you're not taking the advice in Tip VII, you can still take advantage of things like amazing fruit and a jawdropping selection of cheeses and edible souvenirs like nuts and dried fruit and spices and such. We love the Besiktas market on Saturdays -- the cheese stalls are particularly alluring. It doesn't really get rolling till around 10am. The Tarlabasi market on Sundays is mammoth, and good fun too.

9.

Get juiced. Does juice deserve its own point? I think so. Like tea houses, juice sellers are everywhere in Istanbul, squeezing oranges and grapefruits and, in season, pomegranates to order. Following on point VI, don't pay 5 Turkish lira for an orange juice in Sultahahment. Stop at the entrance to the Tunel funicular in Karakoy where a guy proffers a small glass for 1 TL. In winter, head behind the Kadikoy ferry terminal in Karakoy, in front of the tea house facing out onto the bit of promenade where all the guys are tossing fishing lines, and have a glass of ruby-red pomengranate juice pressed to order for 2 TL.

Every Istanbul stay should include proper breakfast out -- including menemen

10.

See the sights and then put away the guidebook and just do some neighborhoods. Go to Fatih, visit the Kadinlari Pazari, sit for some tea underneath the aquaduct (how cool is that), stroll through the mosque by the park, and just wander. Head out the Rumeli Castle early-ish (no later than 9:30am) on a Saturday or a Sunday, have a proper breakfast, then walk the water to Arnavutkoy and stroll up and down its hills, admiring the cute wooden houses. Take the tram to the Findikli stop, start walking to Tophane, climb the first set of stairs you see to its top, and then thread your way through the 'hoods towards Cihangir and beyond to Galata. You won't get lost (and so what if you did?), just keep the water in your sights. Take the ferry from Eminonu or Karakoy to Kadikoy but get off at Haydarpasa station, have some tea by the water, then walk to Kadikoy and duck up into its streets opposite the bus terminal.

Water views from a randomly located grassy spot above Tophane

You get the point. Put the map away and wander. Never knowing quite what to expect is one of the best things about one of the greatest cities in the world.

11.

Probably most important -- when planning your trip give Istanbul the time it deserves. I know, it's your first trip to Turkey (and maybe your last) and you want to fit in as much as possible. But Istanbul is like an onion, with many layers that reveal themselves only as the previous is peeled away. And in some ways Istanbul is a place unto itself -- different to every other part of Turkey you may ever visit. Think of Turkey as two countries: Istanbul and the rest. (Actually that is an oversimplification -- but you get my point.)

On our first trip to Turkey we spent 9 nights in Istanbul and left fretting that we hadn't even scratched its surface. Over subsequent trips we've probably spent a total of 3-4 months in the city. And we still feel that there is so much we haven't seen and experienced.

So don't rush Istanbul. Because no matter how much time you spend there you're unlikely to leave not wanting to return.

In Istanbul, Nothing Special

An on-time touchdown and a friendly taxi driver from Malatya who cheerfully helped with our bags and wished us a pleasant day with a smile.

Milky blue skies and a gently warming sun. Through our window as we chased dehydration with ice-cold ayran, a sweet breeze with a hint of saltwater and just a lick of coolness. A jetlagged nap -- not too long, just enough.

A sublime lunch: pillowy little meat medallions, lightly crusted from the grill, accompanied by an intriguing dried chili-based sauce hinting at vinegar. "A secret recipe, like Coca Cola," said the kofteci when our companion asked after its ingredients.

A stroll through Karakoy and a ferry ride to Hydarpasa. Tea, because we were determined to stay awake the whole day and there is no better excuse to sit idle and stare at the water, and look at the now-quiet train station. (Sad to see waiting rooms occupied only by cats, the restaurant empty, the barber shop quiet).

A wander along the water to Kadikoy. Tea again, by the water again. A kilo of cherries purchased in the market and eaten in the park as a dog serenaded a shoe shiner, young couples, a group of guys getting lit on Efes, some housewives, and us.

The ferry to Eminonu, the Galata Bridge by foot and the funicular to Tunel. A late afternoon stroll down Istiklal, a spot of grocery shopping down the hill in Cihangir and a stop to say hello to Mehmet, our Istanbul fruit guy. Back at our apartment, artichoke hearts stewed in olive oil with fragrant young garlic, peas tossed with olive oil and slivers of fresh mint. A nectarine sky and the cries of gulls drifting through the window.

A not particularly special day in Istanbul. A perfect first day in Istanbul.

For more on our lunch -- Köfteci Hüseyin: The Cadillac of Meatballs

 

Old Tea in Anatolia

After 120 kilometers of arctic nothingness we found ourselves in Çorum [cho-ruhm], a surprisingly bustling little city set in the middle of northern-central Anatolian nowhere. If Çorum is known to foreign travelers at all it's probably as a place to bunk before or after a visit to nearby Hittite ruins. For Turks, it's home to the finest leblebi (roasted chickpeas) in the country,

One of the upsides of traveling central Turkey during this especially harsh winter was the many excuses it offered -- frozen toes and fingers, mind-numbing expanses of white that could prove detrimental to driver alertness -- to brake for tea. Not that we've ever needed an excuse for a tea break in Turkey; even the southeast's scorching summer temperatures couldn't dampen our enthusiasm for the cay evi / kahvehanesi experience.

Tea delivery in the dead of a Çorum winter

But while Turkey's winter's chill stokes welcome tea cravings it also presents a challenge to the mixed (male-female) couple, one exacerbated by the fact that on this trip we stuck to lesser touristed towns in a relatively conservative part of the country: It's too cold to sit outside, and in some instances I'm not welcome inside. (If you've not ventured far from Istanbul, know that the city is a world unto itself. And I mean that as neither compliment nor smear.)

A little over a year and a half ago I wrote about the traditional Turkish tea house as a Man's World, one which I could observe and even dip my toe into while physically staying outside. During that jaunt around the southeast Dave and I took most of our tea and Turk kahvesi al fresco. That was as much by choice as by necessity -- the weather was fine, most other teahouse patrons were also sipping outdoors, and sitting outside faciliated superior people-watching and photography opportunities. On that trip I never felt it a loss to not be inside. And on a few occasions I was.

But despite having by now a fair bit of experience exploring Turkey's back of beyond and a reasonable facility basic Turkish I do not walk into many tea houses uninvited. Some patrons simply aren't comfortable with -- dislike, even --  having a woman in their midst. I suppose that I could choose to get in a kerfluffle about that, but it is what it is. No matter how good the tea or how lovely the tea house, time spent where the overall vibe says "Go away" is time wasted.

Happily, this trip delivered a few accessible tea houses that also score high on atmosphere.

One of the best is in Çorum's old town, a two or three century-old grid of stone-paved lanes lined with barbershops, butchers, hardware and kitchenware shops and -- of course - tea and coffee houses that has somehow survived the city's ambitious redevelopment. After being accosted by a patron who first tapped on a window as we passed and then burst out the door saying "Tea! Tea! Won't you have some tea?" we were happy enter into the embrace of Tıkı Mehmet Kahvesi's wood-stove warmth.

Most everything in Tıkı Mehmet Kahvesi (also known as Tıkının Kahve)  -- which translates to something like Lazy or Stupid Mehmet's Coffee -- looks original, including some of its customers. According to proprietor Bekir, who runs the show with a helper, the shop has been open for almost 110 years.

The tea/coffee "kitchen" features a now rare charcoal-fired copper çay ocağı or "tea stove" set into a stone hearth (see opening photo). The copper tank boils water which is delivered via a spout on its facing to each of two blue enameled metal kettles, one for brewing tea and the other to hold the hot water that dilutes it. (For those of you not familiar with Turkish tea: it's always brewed extra strong and then diluted to taste with hot water; thus the common double-potted Turkish tea kettle -- the lower pot holds and tea is brewed in the upper pot.)

We watched as Bekir Bey emptied spent ash from the stove and then shoveled in new charcoal to keep the supply of boiling water steady. It's a dusty, messy business but he so obviously cherishes the old stove.

A Tıkı regular

The charcoal doesn't really lend a special flavor to the tea. When I asked if tea brewed over charcoal tastes better Bekir nodded adamantly while the customer who invited us in, a native Çorumlu who spends half his time in Istanbul working as a women's hairdresser, shook his head. Other customers who cared to weigh in agreed, nodding their heads as he told me: "It looks nice. It makes us feel good. It's for nostalgia." Fair enough.

Another lovely nostalgic touch: sugar cubes served in old-fashioned brass pedestals.

From Çorum we hit the road for the relatively easy 200-kilometer drive to Sivas, only to be waylaid two hours later by big sloppy snowflakes and icy roads in Tokat. To tell the truth we weren't too terribly disappointed. We took a shine to Tokat in 2000 and our affection for the curious little city deepened when we revisited last October. 

Our unplanned stop afforded the opportunity to revisit a spectacular old tea house on the edge of Tokat's old market district and on the same street as its lovely clock tower.

Yüksek Kahve ("stately" coffee house) is about the same age as Çorum's Tıkı Mehmet but, sadly, is in much worse repair. Its second story, which features a beautiful arched carved wood panel over one window, is all but unuseable. The tea/coffee house is still going though, and in fine weather the verandah makes a excellent perch from which to check out this storied street's comings and goings.

Yüksek's patrons are, on average, younger than Tıkı Mehmet's but no less appreciative of coffee house history. When our host, a former tobacco factory worker in his mid-fifties, grabbed a calendar of decades-old photographs of Tokat off the wall to show me younger guys gathered around. "Look at that," said one, pointing to a photograph taken from Yüksek's verandah, of crowds of shoppers passing by in front on their way to market. "That was this place right here, old Tokat," he sighed with more than a hint of melancholy.

Yüksek's tea cubby and its modern electric çay ocağı are manned by a couple of cool dudes, but neither the new kitchen nor the younger staff take away from the tea house's overall atmosphere.

On the few occasions we've visited the tea shop its tables, okey game-ready with their green cloths, have been well populated and the clink of spoons against tea glasses played in time with a steady hum of conversation. On warm autumn days Yüksek's many windows facilitate welcome breezes. On winter mornings sun warms its two rooms, inviting regulars and visitors to stay for a third or fourth glass.

Blacksmithing for Real in Maraş

If you've ever purchased a fancy skewer or mottled copper kettle in the United States, there's a good chance it came from Kahramanmaraş, aka Maraş [pronounced mah-RAHSH], in southeastern Turkey.

Maraş was an impromptu stop for us, the last two days of 14 on the road in central Anatolia. It's a strange little city, closed and pretty conservative, and a bit off the tourist track (judging by the general lack of good lodging), both domestic and foreign. It's also, at first view, incredibly ugly, with low-rise concrete blocks lining all the roads into town.

But those concrete blocks hide a fantastic, though sadly deteriorating, old city with a genuine blacksmithing neighborhood. What's produced there is not for tourist consumption; it's mostly for export, and it's real, useable goods, not trinkets. Many of the shop are in century-plus arch-doored caverns, part of the old market down the street.

Dave's put together an audio slideshow of images from our time with the blacksmiths of Maraş. The photos are beautiful (yes, I'm biased), but we don't mean to romanticize this work. As one blacksmith, who pounds away with his brother in a workshop opened by their father (you'll see dad's black-and-white portrait, propped on a desk, in the second half of the slideshow) told me: "This is hard, hard work. It's hard on the body, and for not much money. I wouldn't have my son do this."

As if to prove his point he rolled up his shirtsleeve and unwrapped an ace bandage to show me his elbow and forearm, bruised and swollen from hours of hefting a sledgehammer. His brother stepped up, pointed to his chest, and said, "Like a rock." He handed me a hammer and invited me to test his claim. I settled for a punch instead. I was convinced.

See the slideshow here, and be sure to turn on your sound.

In Istanbul, a Slurp to Chase Winter Chills

It's snowing! In Istanbul!

And with big fluffy flakes drifting down outside our window, now seems the perfect time to tell you about boza.

Thought to have been invented in the 10th century or thereabouts by central Asian Turks, boza is a fermented drink made from corn, wheat, or millet. We sampled the beverage at Vefa Bozacisi, an old-timey shop not far from Suleymaniye Mosque. Vefa is certainly not a "find" -- it's in every guide book and probably on every walking tour, but it's not just for visitors; Istanbullu frequent Vefa too. 

The shop has a long history. By the 1600s there were boza shops all over Istanbul selling a thin, sour, rather alcoholic version, until Sultan Mehmend IV closed them down as part of a genearl ban on alcohol. During this period a sweetish, hardly alcholic version is said to have been favored by the Janissaries who guarded Topkapi Palace. Given the Sultan's ban on booze it became popular outside the palace walls as well.

In the late 1800s -- or so the story on the Vefa website goes -- Vefa founder Hadji Sadik Bey immigrated to Istanbul from Albania and "started to make Vefa Boza of a different flavour and taste, with thick consistency and having a less sour taste, just as it is flavoured and enjoyed today."

Boza is a winter beverage meant to be drunk warm. Long ago it was sold by itinerant vendors who pushed their carts up and down Istanbul's slippery wintertime hills shouting "Boooza! Booooza!" Now you can buy the stuff in a bottle, but for pure nostalgia value it's hard to beat the Vefa experience.

The shop is all mirrors, blue-and-white tiles, and timber. Orders of boza are ladled up to order from a big marble tub on the bar that runs along one side of the shop.

We sampled our boza off-season (as you might deduce by the short sleeves in these photos). Such a hearty drink would probably have gone down easier in the dead of winter but even in June boza cast its spell on me.

It's quite viscous -- thick and slurpy. Some may find this repellent, but living in Asia has pretty much inured me to gloppiness in any dish or beverage. I loved the boza's's mildly sweet-tanginess, which is nicely complemented by the generous sprinkle of cinnamon with which the boza server annoints each glass.

Right across the street from Vefa is a leblebici (roasted chickpea seller). This is not a coincidence. Some boza drinkers sprinkle the roasted legumes on top of their boza before each sip/slurp.

On that summer day, as we sat in Vefa sipping/slurping our boza, our friend Evren (he of the healthy obsession with deliciousness and the memorable brunch near Rumeli Castle) explained the custom such: "Imagine buying a bag of just-roasted leblebi from the leblebici, then rushing over to Vefa to eat them while they're still hot, with a warm glass of boza."

That I can imagine, on a wintry day like this.

(Want to try making boza at home? This recipe uses bulgur. Want more winter? Dave shot these images earlier this week in Sivas and Malatya, central Turkey -- and on the open road in between.)

Real Nuts

"Milky" almonds and walnuts for sale on a stretch of highway north of Aksaray, Turkey

    Each time we come to Turkey I'm more and more convinced that most Americans (and probably many folks in the rest of the world too), have never tasted a proper nut or piece of dried fruit. A walnut straight from the shell, not more than a month off the tree, so fresh it almost oozes oil when crushed between the your teeth. An apricot dried whole in the sun, brown because it hasn't been treated with the sulfites that prevent the fruit's orange from leeching out with its moisture. Shriveled purple plums dried with their pits unremoved, so different from the sticky glyceride-plumped "prunes" we Americans buy in zip-top bags and cardboard canisters that it's hard to imagine the two are the same fruit.

    Last autumn at a market in Gerze, on the Black Sea, we bought raisins -- big, almost black, half-shriveled, with their stems still attached. We ate them by the handful, marveling that something we used to eat out of a box, something that required "plumping" in water before adding to bread or cookie dough, could be leathery yet soft and chewy, with a depth of flavor approaching something like burnt sugar. Another surprise: they crunched. Those raisins had been grapes with seeds -- unheard of in the States (elsewhere? I don't know). Those seeds, tiny and no more consequential than a poppy seed after drying, added a wonderful texture.

   Last month in a guest post for Istanbul Eats (read it here) I wrote about one of the pleasures of road-tripping in Turkey: stockpiling a backseat larder of market finds and then stopping between here and there, when the stomach calls, to cobble together a meal.

    This is another: pulling to the side of the road when you spy a stall in front of a cherry orchard selling the fruit at 3 kilos for 5 Turkish lira (on the road to Van, 1 hour west of Bitlis). Or, in today's case, stopping at the stall pictured above on our way from Aksaray, on Cappadocia's northeastern edge to Cankiri, a town about an hour and a half east of Ankara. The vendor on the left and his son, on the right, were selling almonds, walnuts, raisins and dried apricots. The almonds were lightly salted and roasted in their shells, which were cracked just enough to enable easy liberation of the nut; we bought 250 grams. We skipped the walnuts (no nut cracker) but bought 250 grams of raisins and half a kilo of apricots. Total damage: 13 lira (about U$7).

    The vendor's fruit is from his own orchards and vines. He dries them himself, in the bahce (garden). The almonds are indeed "milky", as advertised in his sign, moist in spite of their roasting and touched with the taste of wood smoke because of it, nothing like the packaged roasted almonds I grew up eating nor the expensive blanched almonds my mom hoarded for baking. The raisins are black and delightfully crunchy, not seedless, almost juicy.

    The apricots, dried on their pits, are terra cotta brown and tough. But put one in your mouth, allow it to soften in the heat and moisture of your saliva for less than a minute, and the flesh slips from the pit with barely a nudge of the incisor. And the flavor! Honey and fruit and hot dry August days exploding all at once from nothingness. I wish that everyone could taste a dried apricot like this (or a roasted almond like that).

    Given their imperviousness to casual nibbling I suspect that these particular dried apricots are meant to be cooked with meat in a stew or plumped in a compote. But we'll carry them home to Malaysia to eat out of hand there, a reminder of what real dried fruit (and nuts) tastes like to hold us till our next trip to Turkey.

More images from the road in central Anatolia: the very picture of cold, somewhere on the road between Kayseri and Aksaray, here; followed by the bluest blue-sky morning in Aksaray, here.

In Istanbul, an Exception to the Brunch Rule

Menemen worth suffering a traffic jam for

When it comes to Brunch (organized brunch, eating-out brunch and -- especially -- Brunch as Buffet) we have one rule: we don't. Ever, anywhere. It's a tenet we've hewed to for decades and have no expection of straying from. Except in Istanbul.

Our Brunch turnaround happened on a sunny Sunday morning last November. It was the last weekend of a wonderful month in Turkey. We were in Istanbul, spending the day with a good friend who suggested starting with breakfast -- which ended up not happening till late in the morning, which technically made it Brunch. Uh-oh.

What's more, said Brunch happened in the vicinity of Rumeli Castle, which is surrounded by a slew of tea gardens and Bruncherias with almost too-picturesque Bosphorus views. On fair weekend mornings the promenade teems with Brunchers, Strutters, Yachters, Preeners and Trophy-Dog Walkers.

It's really not our scene.

But our friend Evren, whom Dave was lucky enough to land as an assistant when he worked on an Istanbul ferry boat photo project a couple of years ago, grew up in Istanbul, in a family that loves to eat. He has a healthy obsession with deliciousness. It was Evren who led us to our now-favorite Istanbul kaymak-erie and bakery. He's never let us down. We couldn't say "no" to Brunch with Evren.

True to form, when we stepped off the bus just past Rumeli castle Evren led us past the flashier Bruncheriasto Rumeli Kale Cafe, a skinny three-story structure opposite Iskele restaurant (where, ten years ago, Dave and I endured a meal of passable fish accompanied by the snootiest service imagineable).

We slipped in the back door, climbed a skinny flight of stairs and entered a narrow dining room lined with banquettes and fronted by an un-paned picture window. It was packed, but the crowd was unpretentious, the vibe low-key, the view lovely.

Evren did not order sparingly. The cafe is a favorite Sunday haunt, he told us as he picked and chose from the menu on a first pass, then picked and chose some more 15 minutes into the meal: a full Turkish breakfast (cheese, olives, tomatoes and cucumbers, raisin preserves). Eggs two ways: fried with sucuk (sausage) and semi-scrambled with tomatoes and peppers (menemen). Bal kaymak (heavenly Turkish clotted cream in a pool of honey). Crispy rolled borek oozing kasar cheese. Haloumi fried in butter.

Rumeli Kale Cafe has two upper floors, and each floor has only two window tables; most customers make do with views marred by the heads of fellow diners. Its long narrow dining room offers little See-and-Be-Seen opportunities. People come to Rumeli Kale Cafe to eat.

And we did. "Eat the borek while it's hot," Evren urged, and we obliged.

Then we moved on to the rest of it. We slathered kaymak and honey on sheets of steaming lavash periodically added to our bread basket by the waiter, broke perfectly wobbly egg yolks onto slices of sausage, forked up bits of crusty haloumi and used spoons to devour the ethereally light menemen.

In between bites of everything that was bad for us we drank tea ("It melts fat!" Dave kept insisting) and nibbled on tomatoes and cucumbers and green cayenne peppers. We chatted. We looked out the window. We idled. Over Brunch. Brunch!

And it was good.

Afterwards, we needed to move. So we joined the Preeners and Trophy-Dog Walkers et al on the promenade. Stumbling along in a Brunch-induced fog, we vowed to never again do Brunch. Istanbul being the exception.

Rumeli Kale Cafe and Restaurant just past Rumeli Hisar (coming from Istanbul). There are two Rumeli Kale Cafes -- aim for the three-story structure further along the road (away from Istanbul), across from Iskele Restaurant. While the cafe serves breakfast till late in the day during the week, aim for a Saturday or Sunday (or holiday), when the kitchen is geared up. And arrive by 10 if you want to be sure of a table upstairs, earlier if you hope to sit by the window on the second or third floor. Be forewarned: the flow of traffic back into town will be glacial.

[Note: We revisited Rumeli Kale Cafe last Monday morning. We're now in Anatolia, in the little-touristed city of Kayseri. Dave recently posted some moody black-and-white shots from the last few days, here.]

The Ambar

We began noticing them on the drive from Inebolu to Sinop: single-story timber structures raised from the ground, supported by what look like rough-hewn tables you might see in a cowboy theme-y bar. Storage facilities of some sort, we reasoned, something along the lines of the rice barns that dot the landscape in Thailand and Indonesia.

Turkey's Black Sea coast is corn country (though plenty of wheat is grown there too). In autumn nearly every rural house is festooned with bunches or garlands of drying cobs. These "corn barns", which we later learned are called ambar (a generic term for "storehouse"), is where farmers dried and stored their harvested corn (and other crops) while they waited for their turn at the village mill. In an ambar crops were  safely out of the reach of the wild boar and other hungry animals that roam the region's forested hills. Now most sit empty.

After days dogged by gray skies, confined by unceasing rain to our hotel room or to one or another of Sinop's harborside teahouses, we were bug-eyed. When we woke one morning to tentative sun we dressed and breakfasted hurriedly, jumped in the car and hit the road.

We drove inland, away from the sea we'd been staring at for the better part of a week, and traced a two-lane blacktop deep into a bucolic valley. Here and there were the tinest of villages consisting of a single bufe (always well-stocked with freshly baked bread) and a handful of cottages. Plumes of smoke rising from gardens signalled pekmez in process: mothers and grandmothers cooking kilos and kilos of apples, pears, mulberries, figs and grapes into liters and liters of fruit molasses.

Alongside a river slicing through a middling mountain range trees were just beginning to show autumn colors. We breezed by a mid-sized town and kept on, beyond the point at which the road became a pitted dirt track. Lured by the vista around the next corner, and the next, we negotiated hairpin turn after hairpin turn.

There were ambar, plenty of them; by now we were a bit obsessed with these structures. When the road narrowed to nearly impassable we stopped at the base of a hill crowned by an especially handsome specimen and got out for photos.

While Dave was shooting a window on the facade of what we'd taken to be an abandoned farmhouse opposite the ambar banged open. A red kerchiefed head popped out and we were assaulted with a half-growl, half-shout: "Who's there? What are you doing?"

I shouted back that we were just taking photographs of her ambar; she looked dubious and slammed the window shut. A few moments later she emerged from the front door and toddled over to the gate, arms swinging.

"It's gorgeous! He's a photographer."

I indicated the corn barn, tyring to explain why we'd hiked up a hill and on to her property, as she glared at me from beneath formidable brows. To tell the truth she scared me a little. Then, quite suddently, the clouds parted. Her face didn't soften, exactly, but she invited us in for tea.

Superlatives simply cannot express the beauty of her house, which her husband later told us was built of beechwood, by his father, over 60 years ago. We entered a dark ground floor layed with stone, a storage area for tools and bags of recently harvested walnuts and hazelnuts and, long ago, cattle and sheep and chickens.

Ladder stairs -- the steps, made of 2-inch thick boards, so solid underfoot -- led to an entry area. To the left was a curtained kitchen nook recently updated by her son, with a marble countertop, new sink and taps and handcarved wood bench. Two bedrooms lay straight ahead. One was empty save for a cloth spread over the floor; it was covered with drying corn kernals. Timber walls were draped with old kilim and thick cotton cloth.

Habiba -- after a while I felt bold enough to ask her name -- led us into a sitting room brightened by two windows, one with a fine view down the hill we'd just snaked our way up, and directed us to a low cushioned bench along one wall. Outside it was cold enough to require gloves and heavy wool socks but the room was toasty warm from a wood-fired stove set inside a five foot-high blackened hearth. She left us there to admire the timber walls, gleaming from age and smoke, and returned with a metal canister of water and a container of tea leaves.

We talked about her family -- three sons and a daughter, all grown and living Istanbul. Grandkids too, and they all converge on the village every summer to take in the fresh air and cool temperatures. As she talked Habiba loosened up a bit. She was 64 or 65, she said, she couldn't be sure. She'd grown up in the area, she loved these hills: "You should see it in springtime!" 

We must eat something, she insisted, even though it was past lunchtime. We declined out of politeness, Habiba persisted, and we gave in. While she was in the kitchen her husband Kazim returned home. Upon opening the door to find two yabanci drinking tea in his sitting room he looked shock, but graciously and quickly regained his composure. He offered us more tea.

Kazim and Habiba set up a low folding table in front of us, laid it with a flowered cloth and set it with plates of food. Kazim ate with us (Habiba demurred, saying she'd already eaten): tomatoes, long green mild peppers, cheese and gently pickled romano beans that Habiba warmed in oil over a burner on the wood stove. Tea for him, orange Fanta for Dave and me.

As the three of us ate Habiba pulled hunks of bread from a big loaf she kept in a plastic bag on a shelf near the door. She carefully peeled warm hard-boiled eggs and placed them on our plates.

Kazim told us about growing up in the house, how he was seven years old when his father built it with his own hands. He described a village more populous than it is now, the mosque just minutes from their door packed with the faithful every Friday afternoon (it's now closed). He told us about the mill down by the river where his father and the other farmers took their corn to be ground into grits and flour. How his mother made meals in the hearth that now houses the modern wood-fired stove, and how as a boy he listened to the family's cows and the sheep and chickens moving beneath the floorboards as he drifted off to sleep. Every autumn, he said, the ambar was stacked to its rafters with corn and other fruits of the harvest.

He and Habiba adore each other. It's lovely to see. When she checked his watch and pulled a sack of pills from beneath her sweater -- ''I was in the hospital last month, for few days," she murmured -- Kazim watched her worriedly. When we heard the clank of a jerryrigged oil can bell, hung just outside the house to scare animals away from the garden, Habiba shook her head, smiling sideways at Kazim, and said "That's his work." He shrugged his shoulders and smiled back.

Every year in late autumn the couple slaughter their few chickens, pack them up along with bushels of hazelnuts and walnuts and board an overnight bus to Istanbul, where they spend the winter with their family. And not necessarily willingly -- when they were younger, Kazim told us, they stuck out the cold and the snow in the old house. "No more though. There's no taxi, no bus to go into town. Sometimes no electricity. It's too isolated. We enjoy Istanbul but ...."

After finishing our late lunch we stayed for two glasses of tea. Habiba looked tired and Kazim began clucking after her; it was time to leave. They walked us downstairs, Kazim taking quiet but obvious pride in the fact that Dave stopped to photograph the house's wood beams and planks and its storage area, where the baskets Kazim and Habiba use to collect walnuts and apples hung on hooks jutting from the walls. He understood why we'd been drawn to the ambar. "Yes, it's beautiful," he said.

Neither Kazim nor Habiba wanted their photograph taken. "We're too old and too ugly!" she cried, shooing Dave away but smiling when he tried to convince her otherwise.

"Come back in the spring, in May, after we return from Istanbul," Habiba said us as she urged a bulging bag of black walnuts into my hands."This place in the springtime, oh! You can't imagine how wonderful it is. Like heaven on earth."

Missed Opportunities and Pide

You certainly wouldn't call Saray the friendliest pide salonu in Turkey. When we walked in, hungry after a morning of shopping on empty stomachs for edible souvenirs like rough bulgur pasta and split fava beans, the owner looked up from behind his desk and fixed us with an unsmiling stare, heaved a deep sigh and went back to his newspaper.

But the place smelled good, too good to walk back out of, like yeast and browning meat and cheese melting under a grill. A welcoming warmth (the weather had turned overnight; the previous day's harmless puffy clouds were now charcoal gray and what had been a cool breeze had morphed into a cutting wind hinting at snow) emanated from the wood oven on the back wall. And pide, lots and lots of pide were being made.

So we ignored the owner's diffidence and grabbed a couple of seats. A delivery order of 90-plus pide was being assembled on the table behind us. We took this as an encouraging sign.

It was our last morning in Tokat, a town in the southern reaches of Turkey's mid-Black Sea region that doesn't see a lot of tourists but should. Not necessarily because of its beauty -- Tokat is your average Anatolian town -- or because of its sights, which are relatively few, but because of its welcoming populace. When you first arrive Tokat feels closed and conservative. Give it half a day and the city opens its arms wide.

Regrets brought us back to Tokat, which we first visited eleven years ago. On that trip, in which we'd driven from the Mediterranean city of Antalya to Camlihemsin on the Black Sea, we'd squeezed too much into too little time. We hadn't yet learned to make room for serendipity by scheduling in plenty of slack days or to be willing to jetison a planned destination if a tempting alternative intervened.

That trip we met a smart, funny 16-year-old who walked us around town and invited us to his high school to sort-of teach an English class. The next morning we went and had a blast. All the kids wanted to invite us home for dinner. If we hadn't been so insistent on getting to Amasya before we hit Trabzon before we visited Camlihemsin we'd have enjoyed a dozen home-cooked meals in a dozen Tokat homes over the next few days. Instead we took to the road shortly after the class.

Stupid, stupid. STUPID.

This time around we half hoped we'd bump into our young friend, perhaps married now. Surely he'd recognize us (we yabanci don't all look alike, do we?) even if we probably wouldn't recognize him. That didn't happen of course, but we're nonetheless glad that the memory of meeting him all those years ago lured us back. On that first trip Tokat intrigued us. It still does. We know we'll return soon.

Tokat may not be beautiful in the way that Istanbul is. But it is ruggedly handsome, ringed by rocky crags and real mountains further out; from high up the views are dramatic. Kids climb around on those crags after school, and shepherds tend sheep.

There's a crumbling castle too, and stone-paved streets that wind uphill from the bustling "modern" main street. This is Old Tokat, an area of wood-frame brick houses and mansions. Some bear massive double timber doors with a pattern of two side-by-side "Z"s, one flipped in the reverse. Everyone acknowledges this pattern is a Tokat thing, but no one could tell us how or why it came to be.

Agricultural land laps at Tokat's edges and in autumn strings of drying vegetables and fruit festoon windows and walls and women in the Old City, many of whom belong to families who work their own farms, gather on a raised concrete slab at the upper reaches of the neighborhood, where they turn stalks of wheat into wheat berries and bulgur.

Tokat boasts a wonderful twice-a-week market with a koy section where village women sell pekmez and cheese and huge piles of herbs foraged in the hills. And craftsmen making saddles and harnesses by hand and blacksmiths who still pound shoes for horses and donkeys.

In Tokat everyone has time to talk; Dave and I must have drunk gallons of tea between us during dozens of conversations with Tokat-ans on everything from home cooking to the layout of traditional Tokat houses.

So by Day Three, our last day, we felt a warm friendly glow that enabled us to ignore the non-welcome from Saray's owner. We ordered our pides and a couple of chopped salads and admired Saray's lavender and yellow color scheme while we waited for our food.

Which was exceptional, really. There are pide and then there are pide and these pide bore the imprint of years of experience, good ingredients and a master's control of the wood-fired oven.

One arrived oozing scallion-flecked cheese, another spilling tender lamb minced with onion, tomato and long green chilies. Upper crusts were slicked with butter, bottoms were lightly scorched from the hot stones. Every bite held crispness and chewiness and the flavor of good fresh wheat came through. Indifferent ownership or not, we'll return to Saray.

After lunch we left town with regret, though this time it wasn't the sort of regret that comes from missed opportunities.

In case you missed it, Dave has put together a short multi-media on Istanbul's iconic ferry boats. Hop over here, click "play" and take a 4-minute vacation.