Thursday, October 23 "Explorations Down 36 Cadde and Copa with Kim"


Aeden and I ventured down 36 Cadde ("jah-deh" is street) today toward the local produce market area to look around more. We stopped at Arjantin Kebap for lunch on the way and had our first solo Turkish restaurant meal. We made it through! The waiter brought Aeden a highchair and set the tray with a paper placemat, fork and spoon, and brought him his own salad (on a porcelain plate). Aeden totally loved it, since he's having a good time experimenting with forks, the salad was mostly chopped tomatoes and cucumbers, and I think Aeden would live on tomatoes alone right now if he was allowed to do so.

I had a Doner Pide ("donair peedeh") (point and grunt method with the menu of course), and it was excellent, especially with the tomato salsa-like sauce they served along with it. So this brings me to the doner discussion I've thought about over and over! In Halifax and around Nova Scotia donairs were on signboards right along with sub sandwiches and donuts...that is, they were very popular and we didn't even know what they were. Mom and I went into a donair shop at some point and asked what a donair was. The response? A sandwich with meat and "donair sauce". Essentially a gyro after seeing them making them, and "donair sauce" similar (or the same as) tzatziki sauce. We've yet to spy any tzatziki sauce with the pide and doners here, but I felt so "ahead of the game" already knowing what a doner/donair was! And to think I learned it in Halifax, Nova Scotia first!


After we ate, we ventured on to the market area. I wanted to see if Thursday was a market day, and to see what the other stuff in the area was. I was pleased :-)

There is a Cagdas (Chah-dahsh) store just around the corner from the market (near the intersection of 36 and 37 Cadde...don't think that streets are numbered parallel to each other, or that it means any kind of East/West or North/South orientation...not much of a grid or intuitive naming of streets of any kind...). Without a Turkish keyboard I can't really spell things correctly, but the C and s have "tails" which make them like ch and sh and the g has the little u on top so it is silent. Anyway...

Cagdas had almost the same variety in groceries as Migros, but different things. And they had zipper plastic bags! They're not real ziplocs, but closer than produce bags. And they even have Mickey Mouse on them! Then we ventured across the street and found a Grocery Outlet-style store (Bim), a variety store (Tansas) which had alarm clock radios finally, and another grocery store (Meshur Peynirci). I see service buses for Meshur Peynirci all the time, so it was nice to see where they were coming from. Lots of stores, about the same distance as Migros but a much
calmer walk, plus the produce market and bazar on Sundays. A good find!

As I was getting dinner ready, Kim (a Fulbright Exchange teacher from near Chicago) stopped by and asked if I wanted to go to "Jah-pah" and get some Schlotsky's Deli food for dinner with her. Brian and I looked at each other and said, "I don't know what Jah-pah is or where, but sure." So I handed off dinner preparations to Brian and headed out the door with Kim just a few minutes later. If only I had taken a shower and washed my hair earlier today...

Copa ("Jah-pah") is yet another mall, and is fairly close, a 12-13 YTL cab ride. As we were driving off in the cab from the front of our building I admitted to Kim that this was the first time I was leaving the building without the stroller and Aeden! She was surprised at how I knew the streets in the area, but my walking has started to pay off. We ended up having Mexican food for dinner at the mall, at El Torito Express. Not too bad! I learned that chicken on a menu is tavuklu, but when you buy it at the grocery store it is pilic. One or two words at a time,
right?


And a Happy Mole Day to those who know the mole! (6.02 x 10 to the 23rd is the number of particles in a mole of a substance...so October 23rd, and especially 6:02 AM, is a very special day in chemistry classrooms around the world).