10,000 Monkeys and a Camera

Here’s the final installment of my food porn from Turkey. Represented below is a sampling of a whole bunch of meals over the course of our trip — some my food and some for other people. The thing I like best about Turkish cooking, which shares some with Greek, Spanish and other Mediterranean cuisines, is that it is fairly uncorrupted food — minimally processed, with (at least in the western part of the country) an emphasis on olive oil, fish, fruits, vegetables, herbs and seasonings.

One of my favorites things, after hot, dusty days on my feet, was to sit down in a restaurant and immediately be served fresh cucumber sticks with a dill and yogurt dip. It’s such a simple combination, but so cool and refreshing! The practice of doubling up on the starches/carbs (fries AND rice? really?) is something I haven’t ever seen before, but I was happy to go with the flow.

Continue reading ‘Dinner — a grand food finale’

Oy, but I was wishing for that buffet (see yesterday’s post) at breakfast time this morning. I was so disheartened by the options I actually had available in my kitchen that I didn’t bother eating at all and now I’m really, really hungry. This next round of pictures is going to be torture (I’m meeting a friend for lunch, so I won’t get to eat for a while yet).

We found quite a few eateries in Turkey where lunch was treated as an art form — with as much attention paid to presentation as to creating delicious and savory food. While it was hard to stick to small meals (when it’s hot and we’re doing a lot of hiking and climbing, I don’t want a lot of food on my stomach), I was happy to find that it was pretty easy to keep to eating light during the day because of all the fruits and veggies that were served with pretty much every meal. (It was sometimes tough, though, getting pictures of the dishes while they were still untouched…)

Continue reading ‘Lunchtime’