Turkish Food Porn...part 1

Oh, hello. What's that? Where have I been? Oh, I just took a little trip to Turkey, one of the most amazing places in the entire world. How was it? Well, quite spectacular, thank you for asking. 

 The library in Ephesus

Seriously, Turkey is a beautiful conflicted modern historical western eastern fantastical place. For those of you who've been lucky enough to go, you know what I'm talking about. For those of you who haven't, consider it.

I went with my good friend Shelley. We were gone for 12 days, but it honestly felt like a lifetime. We packed so much in and experienced so many wonderful people and sights and food and, let's be honest, quite a few crappy bus rides, that it felt like we were gone forever.

We used Istanbul as our jumping off point, flying directly down to Antalya when we first arrived in Turkey.

Antalya is a city on the Mediterranean coast of Southwest Turkey with gorgeous Ottoman houses, cobblestone streets (in Kaleici, or Old Town) and a breathtaking museum with artifacts dating as far back as 9000 BC. Do you know how old that is? I still can't even quite wrap my mind around it.That's pretty much the beginning of time as we know it.

9000 BC is when the Mediterranean was first settled. 1,000 years before dogs were domesticated; before the glaciers melted and the Ice Age happened. People were barely making huts and weapons. This is 9,000 years before Jesus was all, "Hey guys, whassup? My mom's a virgin and I'm a messiah."

Anyway, I was going to have 2 parts to my Turkish food posts--the first half of the trip followed by the second. I think I'll break it down even smaller however. There's a lot to get through! 

This is going to be pretty much straight food photos; for landscape and people and ancient ruins and swimming in the Mediterranean, I've got to figure out Flickr or something. Stay tuned.

Without further ado, my chronological food journey in Turkey:

This was an $11 order of chips and guac from the JFK airport. Silly looking and silly tasting, but it hit the spot.

To offset the fried-ness, we also split a salad:

I had cognac as soon as we arrived at the airport in Istanbul. Shelley and I had already been traveling for about 24 hours, and we had another 6 or so to go... I have no idea why I chose cognac; I blame it on the lack of sleep. I also ordered "Potato Croquettes" for something like 15 lira, which just happened to be about 6 tator tots. Sigh. No picture; I was too hungry and inhaled them all before I could take a picture.

We got into Antalya, and after A LOT of walking around, backpack-loaded, we found a dingy little pansion (like a hostel, but nicer, cuter, and a touch more expensive).

So many of the cafes in Kaleici are set in the garden, with grape leaves above you and cobblestone below you. Shelley and I were exhausted, but stopped in one and tried our first Raki. Similar to Ouzo, Raki is grape brandy infused with anisette. Once you add water (which you have to do, unless you want a wicked hangover) it turns cloudy. Cool.

Ali, the owner, was super sweet and kept bringing us fresh jasmine flowers, basil leaves, and then 2 fresh oranges. The oranges are very small and actually green on the outside. And DELICIOUS on the inside. :)

This is Ali:

Cute, huh?! He loved this picture. :)

We made our way back to our dingy little room and fell fast asleep. In the morning, after a semi-hilarious conversation with a woman who spoke no english, and my turkish even worse, Shelley and I decided to skip the breakfast she was trying to tell us about and just head on. While waiting for the tram, we had our first cup of fresh-squeezed pomegranate juice.

Yep, it was pretty yummers.

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And that's it for part 1! There are better quality photos and yummier-looking things coming up, I promise.

Hope everyone had a super time while I was gone!