Saturday, October 11 "Produce Market and Cherry's Birthday Party"

Mustafa took us shopping today, and we arranged our excursion to include the birthday party time so Lacey would have a ride to and from the party place. What a day!

First Mustafa came up to our apartment to see it. He said he was glad to see it and that it was much better than other teachers had had in the past. I'm glad there's an entry buzzer and a long elevator ride up to the 11th floor...gives warning to clean up a bit before a visitor can pop in! He brought us a bottle of Turkish wine and apologized that he hadn't been able to welcome us earlier but he had been out of town in Antalya. He is quite the gentleman.

We piled into his car and headed off to a produce market. Honestly, we'd been hearing all about the wonderful, cheap produce in Turkey and only seen overpriced, not-top-quality produce at our grocery store. Well, the market changed our impressions completely. Gigantic mushrooms, cabbages, melons, pomegranates, and things we'd never seen before. Mustafa insisted we taste anything before buying, so Brian and the kids got lots of samples of our choices, which all turned out to be wonderful (except one kind of beautiful Turkish turnip that ended up being so spicy that I had to give Lacey a cracker from my stash to clear her palette). Some photos will help illustrate:






We loaded up the stroller basket as heavy as ever with a couple kilograms of this and a kilo of that. We got broccoli, tomatoes (the best I've ever had), tiny green oranges, Turkish bananas, pomegranates (at 1 YTL per kilo!), a big melon similar to canteloupe (best name I've found so far is "Turkish melon"), and the big discovery of the day: quinces. The kids all loved the samples and wanted more, so we brought home 2 kilograms of them and they've been munching on them since. Brian baked some as well, so I was able to taste them, and they've become the "new thing" to spot at the grocery store. The baked ones were quite tasty with some vanilla ice cream. Yum!

After the produce market we went to D & R Bookstore to find some birthday presents (for Cherry today, and then Maren has a birthday party to go to on the 16th!). We found some books and stopped for tea and a rest with Mustafa. Aeden enjoyed some lemon slices, and for any of you who remember "the lemon photos" of Lacey at Red Robin from long ago, these might just strike a chord:




We dropped Lacey off for the party, and went to Meshur Konyali Kebap for lunch. Mustafa had prepped us that he would choose the meat so it wasn't too fatty, and that we would order by the gram, so 110-175 grams was good for Brian to order. I ordered 100 grams and it was just about right. Again, I was so hungry and glad to be sitting down to a meal someone else had made that it was delicious. But it really was delicious. The meat was prepared in a tandir oven and was very moist and tasty, much like pulled pork without sauce, or pot roast. Later on I learned it was lamb: another "first" to add to my list. This is Mustafa's favorite kebap restaurant and they knew him well...no menus, just lots of food! It was wonderful, and Aeden ate so much he was about ready to pop. Even Maren gave it a try and discovered that the meat was pretty tasty, though not as tasty as the desserts Mustafa ordered for her :-)

---

And of course there was Cherry's birthday party, at YA-PA Oyunevi (http://www.ya-pa-oyunevi.com), a cross between Chuck E. Cheese's and Hands On Children's Museum.

Cherry is the princess with pink eyeshadow in the middle, and to her right is Annie, in the floral print shirt. Looks like the kids all had a good time! Lacey brought home a light blue balloon on a stick, which was fun. It said "welcome baby boy" in Turkish on it. Best to pass those extra ones off on the foreigners :-)