sunday

I keep reading about how all of the minarets of Istanbul help to direct one's gaze towards heaven. As spectacular as I find the architecture higher up, I just can't help myself from looking down. I have never walked on anything like the ground in Istanbul.

saturday

It is so late, I must admit that it is no longer Saturday over here. But I can't go to sleep without just telling you a little bit about today's theme. Come to think of it, I might just need to show you. I'm too bleary for words. And I'm too full.


This is where we began, with one of the best tarts I have had in my life. I'm going to tell you more about this one later.

Then there were artichokes.


And after much adventurous in another country cooking, there was dinner.


Iyi Aksamlar, Bon nuit, and good night, friends.

friday

This morning, Lissa suggested that instead of getting lost all day, perhaps we should choose a new theme for the day.

"Let's look at the beauty of things today. That will be our theme."


It was appropriate, I think. A theme to which I was happy to commit.

We didn't get lost once.

In fact, we just kept finding oureselves in new places.

For the first time today, we saw the sun. And then it rained, and the combination made the sky purple. Even the sky cooperated today.

Everywhere, Istanbul posed for us, happy to be beautiful.

thursday

All day, we have been lost.

It seems that it would be hard to get lost with absolutely every step in a day. I would imagine that a day filled with lost would necessarily be peppered long stretches of absolute confidence in one's path and position.

Not in Istanbul. At least, not for me.

It feels like there is water on all sides of the city. I keep looking at maps and saying, "we just need to walk away from the water, and then we'll be in the right place." Then we walk away from the water, and we arrive at another shore. Then we start over.
Luckily, we take breaks to eat. Dates that taste like maple sugar. Cheese that is some cross between cream cheese and perfect feta. Black olives. Green olives. cucumbers.
I am okay being lost as long as I am not hungry.


In all of the corner stores, there are fresh eggs outside on large flats with sticks and the random feather stuck to them. There are men who shout up and down the streets, and we lower the basket from Molly and Aurel's 8th floor apartment with money. The shouting men take the money, and they send up simits in the basket, which are Turkish bagels covered in perfectly browned sesame seeds.

I am here with my friend Lissa. She's quite a bit wiser than me, and a good one to be stuck in a bind with, but she's just as lost as I am. After we got quite lost on our way to dinner, we gave up on finding the place we were looking for, and we went to a bar. I ordered a draft beer and she ordered beer in a bottle. She said that she never orders draft beer, that she thinks a bottle is more reliable. I laughed, and pointed to the smallest size draft on the menu when the waiter arrived.
She is, as I said, a bit wiser than me.
I guess I was pointing in the wrong language. He brought me a mug which I am pretty sure contained a liter of beer. I had a hard time lifting it.
See what I mean? Lost at every turn.
So my travel lesson of the day?
When traveling, order beer in a bottle. It is indeed more reliable.

Ah well. Till tomorrow then.

wednesday

Here.

A little tired. A tiny bit overwhelmed. Happy.

warmth

It's almost six, and the girls are still playing outside. Rosie's boot is filled with snow, but she doesn't care. Today, our work party friends came over for some planning, and my friend Jen slipped me a bag.
"Look what's growing in the greenhouse. There's dinner."
I have a cold, but I know if I could breathe in, it would smell good. Not just the greens, the air, and the mud, and everything.
And there's something else.

I'm going on a little trip on Tuesday.
Don't worry, I'm taking you with me.
How about...
Istanbul?

We'll be cooking at home tomorrow, but after that, I can't even say what will be on the menu. Well, I can say that Joey and the girls will be having burritos, and grilled cheese, and noodles and sauce. Anyone who wants to come by and cook them some kale is my hero. As for what I'll be eating, I really have no idea. Except I've hear that it might involve baklava, and some sort of fried cheese, and maybe some lamb.
But tonight, it's Jen's greens. A good send off, I think.

pizza dough in your food processor

You see, we have a bit of a pizza issue in our marriage.
I've told you a little about it I think, but it's time we have the whole thing out in the open.
Joey worked at a pizza place in Denver for nine years. He started folding boxes there far before he was of legal working age, and moved on to working in the kitchen and delivering pizzas when he could get behind the wheel.
His father also worked there, and still delivers pizzas once a week. You could say that this place was, well, a family institution. I think that if one took a cell sample from Joey when he was 18, they would find that he was probably about 88% pizza. It is part of his chemical make up, but it is also, in some ways, the food of his soul.

I like pizza- I always have. I like greasy pizza and healthy pizza. I can't really argue with bread and cheese. But when Joey was growing up eating pizza all day long, I had my own limited diet. I was a picky kid, and for years, my mother made me noodles, with broccoli and cheese on the side. My chemical makeup was more like 88% wheat, cheese, and broccoli.
So you can guess what my favorite kind of pizza is.
Once at the pizza place where Joey grew up, he claims that the manager threw someone out of the joint for asking if they could put broccoli on his pizza. Joey cheers as he tells this story. You can imagine the conflict, I'm sure.
But it doesn't end there. As you might have noticed, I like to make food at home. The dining out budget is fairly nonexistent, and most of the time we can have more fun and eat better at home. And what's more, it's my thing! So, every so often, I make pizza at home.
I make the dough, I make the sauce. Hell, I even make the cheese. And when it comes time to shape the dough, I fall apart. There are holes in the bottom- the whole mess has to be catapulted onto the pizza stone. And it is never remotely circular.

Every time I am about to embark on this failing mission, I appeal to Joey.
"You know how to do this. Won't you make this right?"
He puts on his stubborn face. (I have one of these too, I'm sure, but he is an Aries, and so his is much better)
"Pizza is like Chinese Food. It should not be made at home."
He says this as I am mangling the dough, stretching it into something that the girls will refer to as teddy bear head pizza.
Maybe he's right, I don't know. But maybe I'm right! Maybe everything should be made at home!
Part of the issue until recently has been that he has hated my crust. I have hated my crust too, but I have my stubborn moments as well, and I suffered through. By refusing to employ his expertise to shape my dough into lovely little pizzas, he was, I think, trying to get me to stop making pizza at home altogether. That way, he could stop having to eat pizza that was so far below his standard, and as he saw it, just wrong.
But then, something changed.
Last year, Joey walked in the door one day with a new Cuisinart food processor. I had had a line of food processors before it, all found at the dump or handed down from friends who had upgraded. Two months earlier, the most recent food processor had died, and I had cried. This day was not my birthday or mother's day, it was simply the day that Joey chose to express his love with a random and substantial material good, and I'm telling you, I felt very very loved. We made popcorn, sat together on the couch, and we watched the how-to dvd as if it were the latest Oscar nominated sci fi thriller. And as I observed the resident bread expert for Cuisinart make his pizza dough in there, I thought, that's it. That's my crust. It had all the same ingredients as crusts I had tried in the past, but something deeper in me thought, "this appliance has magic in it."

It took me a while to try it out, but when I did, the response was immediate. Joey took a bite of the oddly shaped pie, and, deeply confused, commented on how good the crust was.
Magic.
I made it again, and Joey started to get used to the idea of actually enjoying pizza at home. And the other day, as I pulled dough that I had made earlier out of the fridge, he said,
"Do you want me to make them?"
Success.
He made four perfect little pizzas, one for each of us. I used this sauce, which is fantastic for pizza, and of course this cheese, which I've found melts like a dream. Plain for Rosie. Bacon for Joey. Bacon and spinach for Sadie. And for me? Bacon and, well, you know.

Pizza Dough in Your Food Processor
adapted from the esteemed Cuisinart Instruction and Recipe Booklet

makes 3 medium sized crusts, 4 big personal pizzas, or 6 little ones- in short, feeds four with leftovers for lunch

2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
1 1/4 cups warm water
3 1/3 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
3 teaspoons olive oil

In a liquid measuring cup, combine the water, yeast, and sugar. Let stand for five minutes, and watch for little bubbles. If there is no activity at all, throw away and start with new yeast.
Fit your food processor with the dough blade. In the bowl of the food processor, combine the flour, salt, and 2 teaspoons of the olive oil.
With the machine running on dough speed, add the liquid as fast as the flour will absorb it. Process until the dough forms a ball and clings to the blade, then process for another 30 seconds.
With the remaining teaspoon of oil, oil a medium sized bowl and a piece of plastic wrap. Place the dough in the bowl, cover it with plastic wrap, and leave it in a warm place to rise. Let it rise for an hour, or until it has doubled in bulk. After and hour, punch it down, and use immediately or place in the refrigerator until ready to use.