Learning

I spent today at Özlems. Özlem is my ‘sister in law’, she is a lovely cook. Today I watched as she cooked courgette with tomato and garlic, then potato with chilli smothered in yoghurt. I figured, if I am going to live here, then I might as well get a few Turkish recipes under my belt. Tonight we had a feast, and there wasn’t one piece of meat in sight. Cold food seems to be the norm, the potato’s were fried, but then left to go cold. Sounds nasty, I know, but they were delicious, along with salad and the afore mentioned courgettes with tomato and bread, lots of bread.

The other reason for being there, was MHTTB had to install the soba for winter. Watching just reinforced my belief that a log burner left all year round was a good decision. The pipes were connected and then taped together with tape, thick silver tape. If I can, I am determined to get her a carbon monoxide detector. I noticed when the old tape was removed it was covered in soot, which just goes to prove, that even though the metal pipes were pushed firmly together, there is some leakage.

Also we took a little walk over to the indoor market, mascarpone and cheddar cheese are not easily available and as I have a cauliflower to cook, I wanted to try and find something similar to make a cheese sauce with. I ended up buying some very nice goats cheese that resembled parmisan and some white cream cheese. I bought some yellow cheese the other day so mixed altogether it should make a nice sauce for the cauliflower as I don’t think plain boiled cauliflower will meet MHTTB’s expectations. I am also researching some cabbage recipes. Most vegetable recipes seem to have garlic tomato and onion base and that includes a recipe I found for the cabbage. 

The next thing I must do, is either carry on with my babbel turkish lessons or find some locally. I
must admit learning the language is my biggest fear, but learn it I must. A phrase is always appreciated by the Turks and the least I can do is learn what is being said when I ask a question!!