Cooking Fail

Ok, I tried to make bulgur stuffed mushrooms tonight. Impressive, I know! It was mildly disastrous. It started off well but ended up being a mess.

Abby and I went to MacroCenter today and got tons of groceries. When we got home I set to work. I washed and capped my mushrooms, finely chopped carrots, spinach, and the mushroom stems. Then I preheated the oven. (Well, it's more of a 20 year-old experiment in mixing microwaves and ovens than an actual oven. Also, all the buttons are in German. But it came with the apartment, so whatever.) I converted the recipe to Celsius and preheated the Gewichtsautomatik. Then busted out the bulgur. Saw that it takes 30 minutes to make. Whoops. 

While it was cooking I reviewed my recipe and saw that I had to cover my mushrooms with foil but it turns out that I didn't have any foil. Whoops x2. 

Ok, let's problem solve. The other day I saw Niko making stuffed eggplant in a big pot with a little water boiling (?) around it. So I figured I would do that instead of using the oven. So when the bulgur was finished, I opened the pot and saw that I had made wayyyyy too much. Like, the I Love Lucy episode where Ricky and Fred make a pound of rice per person. It kind of watered-down (bulgured-down) my carrot-spinach-mushroom mix. Sad. 

Oh well, I piled the mixture on the mushroom caps and stuck them in the bottom of the pot with a tiiiiinnnny bit of water. Five minutes later, the tiiiiiiinnny bit of water was boiling and had taken the smallest of my mushrooms out. Now, they were literally watered-down. Whoops.

Pulled the puppies out and let them dry. Voila!

Cute, huh? Actually they don't look too bad. But they tasted terrible. I forgot the spices, and bulgur isn't that flavorful. Good thing I made enough to last until 2012 and good thing I bought a back-up dinner. Who's going to clean the kitchen? 

No but seriously. 

Disconnected events

I made pudding. 

Also, our taxi driver today told us he once peed himself upon seeing a bear. 

Seventy Is The New Bossy

See this old lady in the AmApp hoodie? Yeah, she's awesome. I can't wait until I'm old and I can do crazy things and people will blame it on how old I am.

Today, whilst on the bus home, we stopped and picked up a couple riders. (I promise this isn't a math problem or a joke.) And this old lady got on. This young guy across the row from us hopped up and immediately offered her his seat. That's a typical thing here - everyone is constantly giving up their seat for everyone else. Cool. So anyway, he hops up and she's like, 'No, no, sit.' and he's like, 'No, no, you sit,' then he moves to the middle section of the bus. He's the guy with the guitar.

She doesn't sit either and head to the back of the bus, too. Then she makes this couple get up from their seats in what I call "second section - front row." It's prime bus real estate, really. So this couple gets up and moves, and she settles into her new digs - taking up two seats, if you'll notice. Then she looks at the guy with the guitar and says something along the lines of, 'What are you doing back here? I didn't make YOU move.'*

I can't wait to be able to stake claim to the best bus seats and force everyone to indulge me when I'm old. And, you know, generally do other bossy, selfish things and have people say with a bit of grin, "Oh that Kati, she's so old and crazy."


*This Turkish was translated by my roommate, Abby.

I Hope That's Bougainvillea...Let Me Know If It's Not

A couple weeks ago, my roommate, Niko, and I were trying to find a shortcut, and we ended up stumbling upon a very beautiful church. While he took pictures of the church, I snapped this picture of these beautiful flowers.

At my house in Texas we have bougainvillea like this too. This little side street, with the church and the flowers, reminded me of home. Then I looked in the background of the photo and saw a typical Istanbul sight. A huge hill with houses seemingly built on top of one another. And that's what I like about Istanbul. It's familiar enough to be comfortable but different enough to be exciting. Our shortcut ended up being a longcut, and I'm honestly not sure I could navigate back to this spot. But I can always navigate back to this feeling.

I hope that through this blog those who have never been to Turkey and may be hesitant about a country that seems so different and so far away will begin to get a better idea of the people, of the country, of the land, and most importantly, of my time here.

EDIT: It's a crepe myrtle. The story remains the same otherwise - we have crepe myrtles, not bougainvillea, in our yard. I'm not a botanist, sorry I'm not sorry. 

The Scariest Thing That's Ever Happened To Me In Turkey

In Turkey, around major national holidays, the streets are decorated like this:

That picture was actually from August's Victory Day (Zafer Bayramı). They put them up again for Republic Day (Cumhuriyet Bayramı). Republic Day was Saturday so it was about time for the flags to go. Today, I saw them taking the flags down and snapped this crooked picture. Tilt your head slightly to the right:

As I walked by the men folding the falling flags, I said my pardon's and tried to scootch by. Just as I got next to this old Turkish man folding the flags, he pretended like he was going to drape the flags over me. I was briefly terrified as I saw the material heading for my head, which only made him laugh harder. I think that these old Turkish men live to pull pranks on foreigners. 

America Is Missing Out

Ok today I will share with you the greatest thing in Bebek, my neighborhood in Istanbul. Do you see this line?

It is from Sunday night, around 9pm. It extends all the way to the street. It's for waffles. Yep. You get a waffle for 9 lira ($5). It's a pretty expensive dessert for this part of the world but it's amazing. And so worth it. First, you get a thinner waffle than you would get at IHOP or would make at home. But it's cooked in a waffle iron right before your eyes. Then you pick what spread thing you want. You can pick one for each side or get the same for both sides. Options include milk, dark, and white chocolate, Nutella, strawberry, or hazlenut spread. I like milk chocolate and Nutella. 

Then you pick your toppings. I personally prefer banana, strawberry, and kiwi. But you can also choose cherries, pineapples, chestnuts, pistachios, sprinkles, and powdered sugar. Any and all toppings. Remember you pay a flat price no matter how much you have them put on there. So pile it on. I do.

Then you fold it in half, taco-style, as best you can. And you keep a tight hold on it, burrito-style, lest any yummy (still warm) goodness spill out. Mine exploded on me the first time I had one but I've gotten much better at managing the amazingness. Now you want one don't you? 

The place is Ab'bas on the main road through Bebek but it's a chain so they can be found elsewhere in Istanbul. Their website: http://www.abbaswaffle.com. Check it out!

Does anyone know of a place in America that has waffles like this? Someone needs to get on it. 

Round Two

So I am apparently really bad at blogging. I feel like I have to carefully craft and compose posts, and I feel like they have to be long and funny and the most entertaining thing EVER. Well, I refuse to let myself be overwhelmed by a project that I don't have to do. But I want to do it so I'm making it easier for myself. Instead, I will post the iPhone (read: blurry) pictures of things that I find generally curious/amusing and then ramble about why I find them generally curious/amusing. The first:

So this is a picture of the Marmara Hotel in Taksim Square, the busiest square in all of Istanbul, their Piccadilly Times Circus Square. And this hotel is a nice, expensive hotel that has a huge gym that overlooks the hustle and bustle of the area. The people who stay here are probably business-types. They come to Istanbul for work, and instead of exploring the city (or even Taksim, a small but very important area), they spend their evenings in the gym. They go to work and then go to the gym, just like they would if they were at home. Except they're not at home. They're in Istanbul. And they are spending their time in this super artificial environment. I don't want this to ever be me.

If you're one of these business-types, please let me know. Am I judging too harshly?