New Pictures Added

Hi Everyone,

Just a quick note that I added a link to my most recent album of pictures. They were taken during our recent trips to Istanbul and Cappadocia with my family. Enjoy.

Turkish Meal Mondays: Cacık

Turkish Meal Mondays are a glimpse into the food we enjoy here in Turkey, accompanied by a recipe.  Mondays are one of our favourite days, because they're Market Days. Ever since our first market day a year and a half ago we have only missed two, due to torrential down pour a few weeks ago.  Our trips to the market will continue to focus on selecting fresh and delish produce to use in our weekly Turkish recipes.  Get ready... This blog just became appealing to foodies. 

 One of my absolute FAVOURITE Turkish side dishes is cacık.  I'm not sure whether you would classify this as a soup, or a salad, or what... because its a soupy consistency, but it's cold... but it's not Italian, so I feel like we can't call it Gazpacho... and I can't find it in any of my recipe books, sooo... you decide.

Besides being DELICIOUS, and fresh on a summer day (or any day), it's super easy to make.  I think it took all of 10 minutes from start to finish.  Woohoo!

 Ingredients: 2 cucumbers, Turkish or Greek style plain yogurt, dried mint, red pepper flakes, black pepper, salt, and water.  (Zeynep wanted to be sure that I used cold, clean water. I was going to use dish water... but I guess I'll spring for the fresh stuff.)

 Peel cucumbers so that there are stripes of green left.  Next, grate them with a cheese grater.  Set the grated cucumber in a colander.  Sprinkle with salt to soften.  Set to the side. 

Scoop a cup or two of yogurt into a bowl.  Pour in splash of clean water. Beat until smooth.  Yogurt should be thin enough to drip off the sides of your spoon.

Add a tea spoon of red pepper flakes and a sprinkling of black pepper.

Add a few table spoons of mint flakes.

Mix well.

Add in cucumber, and mix again.

Serve cold.

Today, with your cooking lesson, you get a Turkish lesson!

Senden cacık olmaz.

Pronounced: San Dan Jajuk Ol mas. 

This is an insult meaning something like,"You're less than cacık."  Confusing for someone who thinks cacık is such a delicacy. 

Thank you Zeynep for the recipe, and Kamil for the insult.  

Afiyet Olsun!

Stehli Family Turkey Trip

As promised we have some family photos from our adventures with the family.

The Istanbul Adventurers in Sultanahment Square

Thanks to the Tulip Festival, Istanbul was decorated with everywhere with beautiful flowers.

Celebrating the purchase of our cave house...In Erin's Dreams.

One of the many Kapadokian Evil Eye Trees

From the Balloon

Soon I will load all of the pictures to my Picasa account. I hope this keeps you happy for now.

Kapadokyian Dream

Our second journey to Kapadokya was just as magical as the first.  We did a little less rorschach-test-rock-staring, and a little more "Let's live in a cave," dreaming.  Ok. I did more of the dreaming.  Alan did his husbandly duties, and pretended to listen and looked in the other direction when the eye-rolling-need arose. 

 

While we were touring, I argued with my self over how much I wanted to go on a hot air balloon tour.  I've been wanting to go for a few years now, but can't get over the price.  Being a penny pincher, the 150 Euro per person price is one I can't wrap my head around. So for the past few years I've been saying "Someday when we're rich.  Someday when we have better jobs. Someday when we aren't facing a year of Starbucks."  Unfortunately, "someday" we'll have children, and probably no more money than we have now.  

But sometimes you have to seize the day. Sometimes you have to spend your hard-earned, hard-saved money on the things you really want to experience...

And sometimes you have AMAZING in-laws who want to gift this experience to you.  

Our balloon.

Our basket (it fit 24!)

Our fire.

Our view.

Our shadow.

THANK YOU KITTY AND FRANK FOR SUCH A WONDERFUL AND MEMORABLE FLIGHT.

What the Heck Wednesdays: Hilarious Pictures From our Holiday

This week we ditched school to hang out with Alan's family in Istanbul and Kapadokia. Tomorrow Alan will post some of the most lovely pictures from the trip, but today's edition of WTHW features some of the most ridiculous.  We'll return to stories about children next week. 

We are pretty much the only Americans everywhere we go in Turkey.  With Alan's parents, sister and brother-in-law in town, we tripled our number!  Also, there were these guys...

...I'm pretty sure their American.

And the Marlboro Man was in the crowd. He's American.

Check out that jacket. (Mom, you two would look good standing together.)

Also, this super famous American was in town! James Bond himself was visiting Istanbul to do some chase scenes through the markets.  One of his stunt guys crashed right into the Grand Bazaar, totaling a 350 year old shop.  But I'm pretty sure that's 007 in the Jeep.  

Last night in Kapadokia we ran into this bad boy.  It's a Dolmuş Bike! It fits like 16 people (8 on each side), who pedal to keep the bus moving.  While you bike/bus around town a bar tender walks up and down the middle lane serving drinks.  America NEEDS this contraption.  (I'm looking at you Di, Melinda, Molika, Smelli, Sandra, and Jen. This could be good times.  Nay. Great times.)

Lastly, meet the Swedish guy from our tour group. Please admire the florescent undies, and the patchwork socks.  Unfortunately this photo doesn't do justice to his awesome butterfly shirt, or his red ladies sunglasses. He is a magnificent piece of work I tell you. 

Turkish Meal Mondays: Breakfast

Note: I know it's Wednesday. But we have been SOOOO lucky to spend the last five days vacationing around Turkey with Alan's family.   We have not been so lucky when it comes to internet access.  Oh well. 

Turkish Meal Mondays are a glimpse into the food we enjoy here in Turkey, accompanied by a recipe.  Mondays are one of our favourite days, because they're Market Days. Ever since our first market day a year and a half ago we have only missed two, due to torrential down pour a few weeks ago.  Our trips to the market will continue to focus on selecting fresh and delish produce to use in our weekly Turkish recipes.  Get ready... This blog just became appealing to foodies. 

Turkish breakfast is so different from American breakfast.  While we prefer sweets (pancakes, cinnamon rolls, muffins, cereal, fruit...) they prefer savory (veggies and cheese). 

In fact, we once served cut up veggies and olives to our friends in the afternoon, and they asked us why we were serving breakfast. 

So for the perfect Turkish breakfast collect and chop:  tomatoes and cucumbers, cheeses of all kinds, and maybe some meats.  Hard boiled eggs and bread are a cross cultural breakfast food.  

Yogurt may also be served.  Maybe also honey.  But beware:  if you want to look authentic, and don't want to make a fool of yourself, DEFINITELY don't mix the yogurt with the honey. Or fruit. Or any sort of cereal.  In Turkey yogurt is a savory food, and any Turk would be horrified to see you mixing it with something sweet. Crazy Americans. 

Afiyet Olsun!

What the Heck Wednesdays: I don't like socks

"What the Heck?! Wednesdays" focus on the heart-warming, ridiculous, and sometimes frustrating stories from our school days.  Teaching in Turkey is trying and difficult.  We come home exhausted,  and our days off are nothing short of precious. That being said, we love our students.  Most of the time. They are creative, silly, smart, obnoxious, loud, affectionate and adorable.  And they make for some delightful stories. Enjoy... 

I have this 2nd grade student, Burak.  He is nothing short of hilarious.  He pretty much NEVER speaks to me in English, unless he's getting nowhere with the very-important-life-altering bit of news he's trying to tell me in Turkish.  Sometimes I honestly don't understand.  Usually I'm just messing with him. Scratch that. Usually I'm being an awesome English teacher, and encouraging English communication from a child who needs a push.  Often, by the time he substitutes a few of the words for English, his news is coming out in a growl. 

Lately he has been obsessed with my feet. Particularly the fact that I'm never wearing socks.  

It's spring time people.  It's finally warm enough for me to wear skirts and dresses without tights underneath.  Also, sporty shoes are not allowed at this classy school, so I'm always either wearing heels or some sort of ballet flat.  Socks would not be cute with that outfit. 

Yet every morning Burak greets me with "Çorap varmı?" which means "Have you got socks?"  And every day I say "Nope, no socks." He usually asks two or three more times, believing that I don't understand, and finally substituting  çorap with socks: "Socks varmı?"  When he is satisfied that we have communicated accurately he announces to everyone within shrieking-ear-shot "Çorap yok!  Miss Erin Çorap YOOOOOOKKKK!" (yok=none).  

The other day after shouting at everyone else (none of whom seem to care) he came back to ask me something over and over again in Turkish.  This time I actually didn't understand, and sent him to another child to figure it out.   

Dila comes back to ask, "What does it mean if you haven't got any money?"  
Me: "Poor.  No money is poor."
Dila: "He wants to know if you're poor?"
Me: "Oh. No.  I'm not poor."
Burak: "Ama...  Çorap yok!"
Me:  "I just don't like socks." 
Burak dramatically smacks his face with his palm, as if that's the most ridiculous thing he has ever heard.  

My co workers are discussing starting a sock fund for me... 

Turkish Meal Mondays: Peynir Salata

Turkish Meal Mondays are a glimpse into the food we enjoy here in Turkey, accompanied by a recipe.  Mondays are one of our favourite days, because they're Market Days. Ever since our first market day a year and a half ago we have only missed two, due to torrential down pour a few weeks ago.  Our trips to the market will continue to focus on selecting fresh and delish produce to use in our weekly Turkish recipes.  Get ready... This blog just became appealing to foodies. 

Our school makes lunches for us every day.  They're usually pretty good, and usually pretty Turkish,  (though sometimes we get pizza and bitterballen).  Most of the restaurants in our area cater to tourists, either serving sad versions of food from other countries, or serving the fanciest Turkish foods.  Sometimes I think the school food we eat is the closest we get to home cookin'. 

One of my favourite dishes is this cheese salad.  They use a salty white cheese, like feta, and cut it into cubes.  When I say cheese salad I don't mean cheese in the salad.  I mean CHEESE.  This cheese is the base of the salad.  There are veggies too, but they play the support role. 

This is the cheese we bought.  "Beyaz Peynir" just means white cheese.  Spoiler alert:  This isn't the right cheese.

Along with the cheese, I added cucumber, tomato, sweet red peppers, and a red onion.  I ended up not adding the avacado because it was too soft.  I diced all of the veggies (after peeling the cucumbers in stripes), and tossed them into a bowl.  I also added corn.  (I used frozen corn, because I don't like fresh Turkish corn, but I bet fresh California corn would be AMAZING.)

The salad they serve at work has fresh mint, but ours was older than I thought it was, so I used dry mint. 

I also added some pepper, lemon pepper, lemon juice, and sumac.  And olive oil. Don't add salt, because feta is so salty to start with.

I used the entire container of cheese (because it's the star), and cut it all into cubes. (.5 inch cubes?).   

Here's why this is the wrong cheese.  The cheese in the salad stayed in its cubes.  But this cheese crumbled and smooshed.  It was still delightful, but it didn't have the same look. 

I talked to one of the cheese guys at the farmers market yesterday, and got some new cheese.  I asked for "az sert, küp peynir salata" which translates to "a little hard, cube cheese salad,"  (I know, my Turkish is remarkable).  He seemed to know what I wanted.  So we'll add some more pictures if it turns out.

Afiyet Olsun!

What the Heck Wednesdays: The Hunger Games

"What the Heck?! Wednesdays" focus on the heart-warming, ridiculous, and sometimes frustrating stories from our school days.  Teaching in Turkey is trying and difficult.  We come home exhausted,  and our days off are nothing short of precious. That being said, we love our students.  Most of the time. They are creative, silly, smart, obnoxious, loud, affectionate and adorable.  And they make for some delightful stories. Enjoy...  

I am of the opinion that every teacher has an age group  that is their preferred age group, mine is pre-k and maybe early elementary school. It is absolutely not High School. As teachers in a school with students ranging between age 4 and age 17 we are often come in to contact with children older than we are used to teaching.

Sometimes when sitting in the office we are asked to watch students as they take tests or finish an assignment. That means I am asked to look for cheating or sneaky and suspicious behavior that may not be appropriate for test taking. This means I am forced to be seen as an "authority figure" for children in my least preferred student group, high school (cue scary moment music.)

One day 4 students were in our office taking a German test. I noticed that 2 of the boys were making eyes with each other in the way that boys who are cheating on a test might. I decided to have a little fun and jokingly let them know I saw what they were doing in hopes they woud give up. First attempt foiled...Score one for me.

These boys were obviously struggling with this test as they were in the office for almost 2 hours. They both spent most of that time asking their teacher about specific items on the test in hopes that she would give a small clue to the correct answer. Regardless they still seemed to think that cheating was their only option. This next attempt was a coordinated drop-off maneuver similar those you might see James Bond attempt to foil, when he isn't busy selling out with a bottle of Heineken.

Here's how it wen't down. One student wrote down some answers on a post-it sized paper. He then placed it in the designated location, probably said something like "Atatürk has left the building" and went over to his teacher to ask a question. The second student then retrieved the paper from the pick up point and slid it under the table in hopes that he wasn't caught.

Unfortunately for him, my supervisory abilities were strong that day and I watched the whole thing go down. Keeping with my jovial attitude from before I decided to have a little fun and let him off the hook easily. I leaned over his shoulder and asked if the paper had the right answers on it or if his friend was wrong. Stunned he said "No. Only paper." at which point he held up the back side of the paper. I shouldn't have worn my "I was born yesterday" shirt to work that day.

So I told him "Give it to me, I'll throw the paper away." He proceeded to make a big show of ripping it up into large enough pieces that he could still read the answers.

I reiterated, "I'll just throw it out, give it to me."

Like any good double-agent caught in the middle of a difficult situation, he swallowed the evidence. Thats right, he quickly tossed the papers into his mouth and chewed them up. He wasn't going down like that.

Turkish Meal Mondays: Dolmas

Turkish Meal Mondays are a glimpse into the food we enjoy here in Turkey, accompanied by a recipe.  Mondays are one of our favourite days, because they're Market Days. Ever since our first market day a year and a half ago we have only missed two, due to torrential down pour a few weeks ago.  Our trips to the market will continue to focus on selecting fresh and delish produce to use in our weekly Turkish recipes.  Get ready... This blog just became appealing to foodies.

Turkish people love to stuff things.  So much so, that they have a special term for the large category of stuffed food types: Dolmas.  They stuff peppers, and eggplant, and squash, and zucchini, and zucchini flowers, and grape leaves... I could go on and on. 

So I figured dolmas really deserved their own day. I've made pepper dolmas before, and I thought I would look for something new.  I've found this LOVELY Turkish recipe blog: Almost Turkish. But after looking at her 50 dolma recipes, I couldn't decide.  I wanted to make them all.  So we headed to the market with the plan to buy lots of veggies to stuff. Basically I went dolma-crazy. 

Grape Leaves:  I didn't buy these.

Dried eggplant (patlıcan), and peppers (biber): We also didn't buy these, because we have all the fresh versions, but I am dying to use some.

To be stuffed:  eggplant (the long skinny kind), zucchini (kabak), small green bell pepper (dolma biber), and an onion (soğan).

 

Peppers: cut the tops off, and rinse the seeds out.

Eggplant and zucchini: cut the top and bottom off, cut in half, and use a knife or spoon to scoop the middle out.  Leave a half an inch or so in the bottom.  Your making little dishes. 

Save the tops and bottoms of everything to use later.

 

The onion: (No pictures.  Sorry.) Cut a quarter inch off of the top and bottom. Peel.  Boil for 20 minutes of so.  Rinse.  Squeeze the onion gently until all of the layers pop out and separate.  Don't stress if they break, it will all work out. 

Stuffing ingredients:

Note 1: This made SO MUCH STUFFING! I had enough to make like 10 weird (but good) meat balls.

Note 2: This ended up being a mix of all of her recipes. I left things I don't and added things I do like, but in the end, I didn't want to make 4 different stuffings, so I just made one.  If you want something more traditional, check out Almost Turkish. She has so many options. 

2 tomatoes (domates), 1 onion, garlic (sarımsak), a handful of mint (nane), and a handful of parsley (maydanoz)

Chop and throw in a BIG bowl.

 A few spoons of tomato paste, a spoon or pepper paste, and 2 cups of dry white rice.

Add to bowl.

Herbs: A scoop each of garlic powder, sumac, and cumin.

 Not pictured: Meat. Raw. (It's just not that photogenic).  Any sort of ground meat is fine.  Or no meat.  

Olive Oil: Quarter cup.

Mix everything with your hands. Squish Squash.

Spoon into all of your little veggie cups.

Pretty peppers.

Add the tops on like cute little hats. 

Cut some slices of left overs if you don't have enough tops.

Boil in a few inches of water for around 30 minutes, or until the rice is done.

I made a sauce from Almost Turkish, using olive oil, pepper paste, mint flakes, garlic powder, and lemon juice.

 I poured the sauce on the eggplant and zucchini.

I used yogurt for the bell peppers.

And I used pomegranate sauce for the onions.

Ratings: 

I liked the onion and pepper casings the best, but I loved the sauce on the eggplant and zucchini.  Also, I love yogurt on everything now.  So maybe the sauce and yogurt with the peppers or onions next time.

Afiyet Olsun

My Husband IS Handy

For many years I've dreamt of marrying a handy-man.  Someone who could fix problems around the house, and in the car, and who could make me beautiful furniture with a few tools, some old barn wood, and his bare hands.  I used to watch Ty Pennington when he was on Trading Spaces, and drool over his tooly-ness. I used to say, "I just want to be able to say 'make me a beautiful bed,' and then he'll say 'OK!' and just do it..." 

Then I met Alan.  And all of the wonderful things I love about him over shadowed the minor detail that he wasn't handy.  I decided (wisely) to marry for love, not tools.  And I don't regret it one bit. 

Especially after today.  Because today he made all my dreams come true.  Today my fantasy Handy-Husband came to life.  Sort of. 

He broke the bed. 

Don't worry Moms. It's totally not like it sounds.  I wasn't even there. He leaned back against the headboard while he was on a phone interview with the Peace Corps and it broke right off of the rest of the bed.  What can I say?  He interviews HARD. 

Where the headboard separated from the sides. These were just laying on the floor. 

Anyway... BREAKING THE BED does not equal MAKING A BED.  I know. BUT after two weeks of getting in and out of bed very carefully, and praying that it would last us until our move in two months, Alan woke up this morning and said, "I'm going to fix this bed today."

The original plan was to use hammer and nails, because we have those things, but after checking our "tool drawer," and only finding the hammer and one nail, we headed to the hardware store.  We found the cutest little drill on sale for 19 lira, and were sold on doing this the right way.

Cutest drill ever!

The next step was pulling the mattress off the bed (along with some big pieces of wood) and removing all the shoes that live under there.  I wish I thought to take a picture of that mess.  Stuff like this usually sends me into a tearful panic, but I held it together really well.  Like a rockstar. 

Alan swept the hideous mess out, while I dusted off the shoes.  SICK.

That's JUST from under the bed.  And it's the size of a dog.

Alan's shoes kicked out to the balcony. 

My shoes.  I think they had a much better time.

Then he got to work. 

Penciling...

And drilling...

He even used the built in flashlight.  Just cus it looks cool.

And now we have a bed again! One that isn't threatening to collapse every time we roll over. He practically made it himself.